Musing & Muted Monologues...

Trying to Make Sense of It All...

Friday, January 30, 2004

Norah versus Fiona

It has become abundantly clear to me that Alternative music is where one goes to find the truly deep and contemplative lyrics. Where R&B and Folky- type of Rock was the forerunner, each genre has fallen by the wayside and lost much of its integrity to vanity, anti-scoially conscious lyrics, poor writing and materialistic pursuits. The problem is, when we say alternative, alternative to what? I mean, that genre classification is just as ambiguous, if not more so than the "pop" genre.
Quite frankly, if it's played a great deal on the airwaves, it's technically pop, even though the content may be anything but. But alternative: Where are we going with this? The umbrella was too small to hold this big group of ever growing artists. I mean, the issue stems from how do you find an artist accessible if they are alternative and you don't listen to "alternative music". For example, Norah Jones swept the grammy’s with 5 for herself, and a total of 8 for the album. True, on the album, her voice is smoky, seductive and sultry…and her delivery is very jazzy. Lyrically, she’s nice as well; but, Fiona Apple kills virtually all her peers when it comes to lyric, and shorty was 16- 17 years old when she did her first album.
Don’t get it twisted, she got a lot of fans and put people in an uproar; but, had she been marketed differently, I’m sure she’d be a lot bigger. Norah probably has Fiona off the piano playing, and the voice is a throw up seeing as though hardly anybody sounds like their “studio voice” these days (Sleepy Brown sounds nowhere near what he does live as he does on wax).
Personally, I feel there’s a lot more originality in alternative music as a whole than there is in R&B. The problem is, there are too many damn people who are “alternative” to effectively stand out in the fray. So here’s a playful example of what I mean: Norah versus Fiona.









Norah Jones
Versus Fiona Apple

Don't Know Why~ By Norah Jones


I waited 'til I saw the sun

I don't know why I didn't come

I left you by the house of fun

I don't know why I didn't come

I don't know why I didn't come

When I saw the break of day

I wished that I could fly away

Instead of kneeling in the sand

Catching teardrops in my hand


My heart is drenched in wine

But you'll be on my mind

Forever

Out across the endless sea

I would die in ecstacy

But I'll be a bag of bones

Driving down the road alone


My heart is drenched in wine

But you'll be on my mind

Forever

Something has to make you run

I don't know why I didn't come

I feel as empty as a drum

I don't know why I didn't come

I don't know why I didn't come

I don't know why I didn't come


Pale September~ By Fiona Apple


Pale September, I wore the time like a dress that year

The autumn days swung soft around me, like cotton on my skin

But as the embers of the summer lost their breath and disappeared

My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within

But then he rose brilliant as the moon in full

And sank in the burrows of my keep


And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet

And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep


He goes along just as a water lily

Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats

Unweighed down by passion or intensity

Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts

And he finds a home in me

For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap


And all my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet

And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep

All my armour falling down, in a pile at my feet

And my winter giving way to warm, as I'm singing him to sleep



Maybe if everybody wasn’t trying to sound like R. Kelly and/or having songs written/produced by R. Kelly, I wouldn’t ponder such things. Anywho, Alternative folks that rock in my book are:
Fiona Apple
Alanis Morrisette
Third Eye Blind
Res
Esthero
Luscious Jackson
Just to name a few…