I like the idea of listening to a variety of music. As I may have mentioned before, I’ve been called a human jukebox! I listen to almost every type of music. It all depends on my mood. Not a day goes by that I don’t listen to music.

Currently my favorite place to go online and enjoy music is Pandora. I can listen to just about any genre of music and create a mix station if I want to. It’s so much better than listening to the local radio stations that play the same song over….and over…and over.

Enjoying music comes pretty easy for most of us. It can be annoying to listen to music you don’t particularly like, but I think it’s important to keep an open mind sometimes. You may just learn something new and gain other perspectives of life.

So, are you enjoying the music you listen to? Do you have any tips that you would add?

Photo Credit: Scott Robinson

Browsing through the Music Blogs Catalog today, I came across Kim Kinrade’s blog titled “Music Before the Money“.

The title caught my eye because I’m sure many musicians who have become very successful can probably say that they had a love of music before the money came into the picture. Of course you would think Well, it would be nice to make money with my music, but no matter what happens, you still create music. Even if you never get that million-dollar record deal, you still have that love for creating music.

And that’s the beauty of musicians….Rich, poor, young, or old, they continue to create music. It’s rare to come across a musician who gives up playing music just because they don’t make it big.

Thank you to all the musicians out there who share their songs with the world!

Photo Credit: Curran Kelleher

But Kelly Clarkson is the kind that breaks all rules. She perfectly fits the image of a bubblegum pop star while coming off as totally out-of-the-box. She can belt out a ballad in the tradition of Celine Dion but at the same time beat the dickens out of rousing anthems like “Home” and “Hear Me”. In interviews, she’s usually her bubbly self, putting on the aw-shucks face that earned her the distinction of being America’s Sweetheart, but there would be moments when she would transition to someone else, as if in a trance, and say something really insightful about music. For instance, when describing Melissa Etheridge’s voice, she said that it’s the kind of voice that “has really lived.”

Whoever said that Kelly Clarkson is a case study couldn’t have been more precise. Here is someone who stayed strong in the business despite the fickle nature of pop music. How did she manage to weave longevity and a valid career out of her Idol background?

Before she was thrust into the spotlight, Clarkson had experienced just about every woes of a working class family. Her parents divorced when she was six, her family constantly bickered about money issues, and she had to work odd jobs to make ends meet. She tried her in luck in LA in hopes of striking a record deal, only to go home empty-handed after her apartment burned down and her car towed twice all in the course of four days.

Perhaps what makes Kelly Clarkson stick in the business for so long is her street credibility. In an industry where personal tribulations are stretched a bit too far, Clarkson stands out as one of those artists who had real encounters with adversities that ordinary citizens face.

When the likes of Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears croon about their tough luck, you can’t help but be skeptical of the fact that their struggles are nothing more than self-inflicted wounds. But when you listen to Clarkson sing the line, “My life can’t possibly break when it wasn’t even whole to start with,” you know she’s singing about something true and that you’re listening to a human being who had come face to face with the devil. You know that even though her troubles are not as heavy as say, the troubles of someone dying in Africa, you know that her pain is real and that she is doing her best to outlive it.

A hater once said that her music is obnoxious and dark. Maybe that person is right. After all, Clarkson’s strength lies not only in her steely vocals but also in her ability to use this instrument to bring a song into its cathartic conclusion.

Buy Kelly Clarkson’s latest album, “All I Ever Wanted“

When Scott MacIntyre sang Michael Jackson’s “Keep the Faith” during the top 13 round of American Idol, he earned negative remarks from Simon who said he should have chosen a more popular, mainstream tune off of MJ’s catalog. Scott tried to defend his stance, saying that he wanted to be more “artistic” to which Simon blurted out a not-so-subtle condemnation of artistry on the show.

“It’s fine to be artistic,” Simon said, “Just not on this show.” This single, smug statement, however valid, perfectly defines why music in the past 5 years or so has been racing downhill. Kudos to Scott, although his performance is hardly something that would qualify for a more in-depth categorization of the word “artistic,” he managed to elicit a response from Simon that would explain the show’s premise since its inception.

Of course, it is not a hidden truth that American Idol is mainly conceived to serve as a platform for pop stars who would become the driving force of contemporary music and serve as cash cows for the world’s top record companies. But does Simon really have to say such words out loud in public? For all it’s worth, Simon’s words say something more about his lack of artistic taste and greed for moolah. After all, this is from the same guy who said that he sells more records than Bruce Springsteen and who finds Bob Dylan boring.

There is a reason why American Idol has continuously been snubbed by critics of popular music. It is the same age-old case Commerce versus Art argument, only that it has taken a different form and stage. In American Idol, if you dig down and get really deep into your music, showing weird facial expressions and vocal nuances, Simon will call you out of it by saying you’re being “self-indulgent.”

He first used this term when Chris Daughtry covered “Broken”, a serious, sweeping song by Seether and Amy Lee. In Simon’s world, there is no way you can sell records, let alone earn a respectable audience if you sing sublime poetry.

Perhaps Simon is being pragmatic here and what better way to create a win-win situation than to cater to the music of teeny-boppers and soccer moms who comprise a huge chunk of Middle America. After all, it is Middle America who spends money and keeps the music business in top shape.

But somewhere along the way, a lot of that gets lost in the shuffle of exploring the deepest corners of music. Music is a highly volatile medium of human expression that needs to be constantly discovered and should never be confined to the walls of mediocrity and shallow tastes.

From the get-go, American Idol has always been a mere TV show bent on delivering commercial music to the buying public. However, it is the biggest stage there is, it should step up to the plate and consider taking the responsibility of subtly introducing the likes of Brandi Carlisle and Brett Drennen to its core audience. Their music makes our world go round and creates a prism that allows us to see ourselves in a way that we’ve never done before.

This begs the question….Should famous young singers be good role models?

Our better judgment would say that yes, young and famous singers should be good role models for their fans. However, if you really think about it, these young people are human…and humans do make mistakes. Furthermore, as an artist, they are free to be who they are and express themselves how they want to. Sure, it would be nice if every young singer would stay innocent and be good role models for our children, but ultimately it should be up to the parents to be good role models.

I appreciate DJs who add twist and turns to their mixes. It’s boring to hear the same songs every hour day after day…and there are many radio stations that do this!

In this video, the one and only Diddy shares his thoughts on DJs and offers some advice to them…

Let this be a challenge to all DJs out there – or to any other artist out there…Stretch the limits and be more creative with your work. What can you do differently?

There is something about music that touches the deepest corner of our souls and stirs up all kinds of emotions within us. One thing that music does for me is that it ignites this certain energy within me. I love painting while listening to music because I am able to just be in the moment. The paint brush becomes a catalyst for this creative energy and takes on a life of its own. Sometimes I don’t know what the final product will look like. The painting becomes another expression of the creative energy…but it all started with the music.

I like Vincent Tan’s theory on music and creativity:

Genius and creative imagination are of high frequencies of vibration (“The mystery of sex transmutation” in Think and Grow Rich). You can think of listening to music to increase your thought frequency, bringing you ever higher to the place where creativity runs freely.

I took a painting class during college and my teacher would always play music as we painted. That was probably the most fun I’ve ever had out of all the classes I took in college. Of course there are certain classes that music playing wouldn’t be appropriate, but I wonder if music would make a difference in students’ productivity.

What does listening to music do for your creativity?

Art leaders in Philadelphia have already started the process of getting arts and music back into schools, but it’s certainly going to take more than 120 people to make this a nationwide thing.

I just discovered the San Diego Music Foundation which has the Taylor Guitars for Schools program.  That’s definitely a great start.  However, I’d love to see marching bands with kids playing a wide range of musical instruments.  For me, marching band parades were big when I was in middle school and high school.  Living here in San Diego, I don’t see much of that. 

I find great inspiration in watching young kids playing music.  Here’s a video of an 8-year-old playing the saxophone…