Welcome to the search

Purpose of this blog:

I love pop music, electronic music (aka techno), some rock, R&B, folk, even classical. Often the way a song sounds is what first catches my interest. I especially like when artists push genre boundaries and mix styles and when they experiment with new beats. Creativity and talent are essential.

Honest and poignant lyrics are what keep me listening to a song that has caught my interest–lyrics that I can relate to, that point to a life theme, or that are just plain fun. I believe that musicians can express themselves without profanity, without offending or embarrassing me.

The problem I frequently run into is that quality music often is not clean, and clean music is often not quality. On the flip side, music labeled “Christian” seems to focus on uplifting lyrics whereas the sound is more or less a copy of a “secular” artist who has sold a lot of records.  As positive as the message may be, the music itself sounds contrived.

I believe music can be both. It can be musically excellent and can have a good message.   I hope there are others out there who are musically hungry for quality and aren’t willing to let their consciences suffer.  Good music is hard to find however. I hope I can find some and let you know about it.

Rating Criteria:
Each review will give two ratings; a Clean rating and a Quality rating. While with any art, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and somewhat subjective, I will try as much as I can to objectively rate on a scale of 1-5 (although I admit it will still be subjective).

Clean
1 = no one should listen to this, not your kids, not Grandma, not even you.
2 = Contains swearing and/or embarrassing and/or offensive material.
3 = Perhaps I’m not sure what the lyrics are even saying. Or perhaps instead of explicit, they contain implicit “adult” themes that not everyone will catch.
4= Not super positive. Neutral or harmless lyrics.
5= The lyrics send a positive or thought provoking message.

Quality
1 = There is something wrong with this song (if you can’t sing in tune then you shouldn’t have a recording contract).
2= Totally generic and unoriginal.
3= Generic but It has redeeming qualities that make it listenable.
4= Creative music that is nice to listen to. Perhaps it doesn’t push musical boundaries but it is solid.
5= Excellent music. It contains original expressive and/or beautiful sounds.

Disclaimers:
Just like everyone, I have certain preferences. I usually don’t like punk or country. I especially like dance and electronic music. I might be overly or under harsh depending on my taste.

I will only review music that I have legally acquired. If I don’t think I’ll like the music I probably won’t buy it so it won’t get reviewed. If you would like to write a review of a quality and clean punk , metal,  or country CD or single , send it to me at Doro5@juno.com.  Make sure in the subject heading you write “music review.” It should be grammatically correct. Please give it two ratings based on the rubrics above.