Music Opinions

Down Up Dick

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What kinda music do you like:

1. To listen to? 1a. Groups?
2. To play?
3. To sing?
4. To talk about on the forum?

I just thought it would interesting to see what other UUers were doin'. :eek:ld:
 
1. To listen to? 1a. Groups?
2. To play?
3. To sing?
4. To talk about on the forum?

1) For listening, I'm all over the place, everything from Beatles/Kinks/Stones to classical to jazz to vintage J-pop and beyond. It's almost easier to narrow down what I *don't* like to listen to: contemporary pop, heavy metal, rap, contemporary country. To illustrate: this week's on-repeat selections have been The Doors' entire discography, and Duke Ellington's piano solos.

2) Instrumentals, which again are all over the place in terms of genre. Classical, standards, older pop in which the melody is strong on its own without having to hear the lyrics.

3) I'm not much of a singer and my joke is always that I can only sing in the Key of Ringo - I don't have a big range so the songs I'll sing are few and far between. Most songs in so-called "women's keys" go too high for me; most songs in so-called men's or people's keys (I'm looking at you, C major) go too low.

4) Can't say I've ever thought about this before, but I do know that the things people usually go ga-ga over on the forum are not to my taste (ukulele shredding and chunking in all their many varieties).

Fun question - looking forward to reading other peoples' answers!
 
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Ya know, I forgot to put down my own opinions--a senior moment I guess.

janeray1940, I pretty much agree with your #1. But my first pick would be folk music then 30s/40s pop then I'd also like to add Opera.

2. Right now I'm playing instrumentals on my banjos and/or other instruments. I'll get to my baritone and eighter Ukes later.

3. I sing and whistle a lot with or without my Ukes. Some people say constantly. I love music, and I'm into it almost all the time. If other people don't enjoy good music, it's their problem.

4. I agree with janeray1940 on this one too. I wish more UUers would talk about music and playing more and less about equipment. The Ukes and strings and straps don't make the music; the ukist does.

Well, I guess I'm an out of step fogey, but there it is. :eek:ld:
 
Nice idea for a thread :)

1. To listen to: I like lots of different stuff but I guess it all pretty much comes under the 'rock and pop' category. I don't really do jazz (except classic jazz vocal stuff - Billie, Ella, Nina etc.) or classical. I grew up listening to post-punk and alternative rock in the eighties... I was there for grunge man :cool: - stood in the front row about five feet away from Kurt Cobain when Nirvana played their first UK dates. I like a lot of sixties stuff - Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Kinks, Dylan, Velvet Underground etc. I like some country and bluegrass stuff (saw Emmylou Harris live in concert when I was about 10 years old, which was about the closest I've ever come to a religious experience :p) I like punk. I like some hip hop. And I like blues - mostly Chicago blues.

2. I like playing singery-songery-folksy-ballady stuff, and also blues. The last few things I've been noodling about with are Tim Buckley's Song To The Siren, Dylan's Lay Lady Lay and I Can't Help From Cryin' Sometime by The Staple Singers. I think I like the ballady stuff cos I like playing arpeggios.

3. I like singing blues - it definitely is cathartic (for me anyway).

4. I enjoy talking about music - not meaning the technical aspects but more music appreciation. I would like to see more threads like this :)
 
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Yeah, jollyboy, me too.

I forgot to add that I like to whistle and sing low down, heart wrenching blues. I make up my own words. :eek:ld:
 
1) What I listen to depends heavily on my mood. It's really very varied, and I frequently go through phases of vastly differing musical preferences. In general, I'll listen to anything, at least once, and I have plenty of co-workers and players (I work in social gaming) who send me YouTube links of songs and new groups that I have never heard of (makes me feel old). Sometimes it's awful, often it's interesting stuff that I then look into more (other songs by the group, sub-genres).

If I had to name genres I really like, I'd say pop and rock of the 1980s and early 1990s (when I was a teenager and technically-but-not-really a fresh adult), electronic music (techno, trance, house, experimental), classic rock of the 1960-70s, African tribal stuff (drums!), instrumental classical music (no singing). What I generally dislike is heavy metal and rap. Rap agitates me, kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard. Also don't like high pitched singing voices, that also gets on my nerves.

2) Anything that actually sounds like a melody. ;) Anything instrumental, really, and preferably classical or even earlier stuff. Music in its more purer form, one could say, from an era before sound was electrified. I always found it odd that I enjoy playing early music on the ukulele, but at the same also really dig endlessly droning, bass-heavy techno stuff. Those are almost exact opposites, and I cherish the contrast.

3) I don't sing.

4) Strangely, I never have much to say about music itself. Playing it, yes. But about the music itself? Not really. I don't talk much about food, either, but could talk about cooking and ingredients. Music is highly individual in my view, and pretty much all opinions and preferences strike me as perfectly and equally as valid, so there is little to debate or even learn, except about groups and songs, but I get fed those on a daily basis already.

I do spend time on forum where people make electronic computer music and post their tracks, and I'll occasionally comment (always with praise only) or look up music created with a particular music software/tracker to see what can be done with it, because I'd like to learn how to do that myself, but it's really like learning an instrument and I currently prefer putting practice time into the stringed instruments instead of spending more time at the computer -- the whole point of learning an acoustic instrument was to get away from computers.
 
As a Singer/Strummer:

1) I listen to older popular music. I prefer 40's, 50's, mostly soloists, but some early rocker groups, same era :)

2) I also like to play the same kind of music that I like to listen to, not too many contemporary tunes. Not that they
are 'bad', I'm simply not familiar with them. Although having 'grown up' in the 60's i'm actually unfamiliar with
the music of that era (Beatles, Dylan, etc - I don't even know the names of the artists or groups).

3) to me Playing and Singing go together as I don't do much picking out of melodies. Again, not that I'm against it,
I just prefer to sing and strum :)

4) I guess I don't get into discussing music, except to work out chord progressions, chord selections (Dm7 vs F, etc).

I use the Forum to check out areas of interest by looking over the newer posts, regardless of category :)

keep uke'in' everybody,
 
My music taste is somewhat eclectic, I don't talk about music generally, & I can't sing either. :)

Blues - Country - Folk - Rock - Skiffle - just to give you some idea. ;)
 
1. To listen to? Mixed bag. It all depends on the performer(s). Folk who are tops in their genre can always get my attention.

1a. Groups? Most singers have a top-notch band with them, and the band makes the difference. Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band is a great example.

2. To play? Gulf & Western, 60s/70s Rock, some country/folk.

3. To sing? I have more respect for my neighbor's than to subject them to my singing.

4. To talk about on the forum? Again, mixed bag. It's all fun
 
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My answer to ALL 4 options is the music in the videos made here on UU by our own fellow UU members (myself included) in the SOTU, a.k.a.

"The Seasons Of The Ukulele"
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/forumdisplay.php?47-Seasons-of-the-Ukulele

I have little time for anything else.

I also have no patience for RAP or other 'urban music' and no tolerance for the Bubble-Gum Pop in the radio these days and quite detest most of the Top-40-Pop music I was forced to play as a mobile DJ for 25 yrs, despite having a deep knowledge about it all. It's too formulaic, predictable, and lacking in innovation for me nowadays.

If I never again hear a Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber song, it will not be long enough!!!

If I do have time to LISTEN, lately I've gone back to Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, or Dvorak's 'Silent Woods' (Waldesruhe) or any one of a dozen Vivaldi recordings.

Your post makes me feel that you're a little down, troubled. If so, I hope your day improves. Do somethin' fun, relax. :eek:ld:
 
I like just about everything, except opera - and I know that I should see that live.

But I do love talking about music. It's a big part of my life. I belong to a meetup group whose purpose is to talk about Bob Dylan. And I have some music friends who I call on occasion to just talk music. Music can just fill me up, and I love to share that.
 
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What kinda music do you like:

1. To listen to? 1a. Groups?

I listen to a little bit of everything depending on my mood. Jazz and it's many permutations, traditional/old school country, American roots, roots R&B, rock and roll, country rock, folk rock, string band, occasional pop, etc. So many of the genres overlap and blend. Groups? I have everything Steely Dan put out and by extension, Donald Fagan too. I have everything the Beatles put out. I have everything The (Jazz) Crusaders put out until the mid-seventies. Nothing else stands out for me right now and much of the rest is individual artists that recorded with ever changing bands.

2. To play?
3. To sing?

This would be the same thing for me. I play to accompany my singing and if I didn't sing, I wouldn't play to be honest. I guess the best way to answer this would be to name the artists who's songs made my song book. Bob Dylan is a biggie, Walk Off The Earth, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Herman's Hermits, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Jimmy Buffett, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, The Derailers, The Kinks, The Everly Brothers, Gram Parsons, Willie Nelson, Groucho Marx, Eddie Cochran, George Jones, Leon Redbone, Counting Crows, etc. You get the idea, a wide variety of stuff

4. To talk about on the forum?

I don't really think about it too much. I definitely don't like to talk about music theory. For me, it's like someone throwing a turd in the punch bowl. I like checking out the seasons thread. Sometimes you'll learn something about a song or artist that you didn't know before and occasionally I'll hear a gem I'd like to sing and put into my songbook.
 
I forgot to add that I like to whistle and sing low down, heart wrenching blues. I make up my own words. :eek:ld:

Nice :) - I'd like to get to the point with my playing where I can just improv twelve bar blues.

Hmmm, it seems kind of a shame that, on a site dedicated to a musical instrument, we can't get more people contributing to a thread about music...

Good to see some Kinks love. Personally, I consider them to be 'top tier' - right up there with The Beatles, Stones Dylan etc. Waterloo Sunset would be one of my desert island discs.

I guess inevitably there was gonna be some discussion of stuff people don't like. I think music can be a bit like politics and religion in that respect - it can stir up strong feelings, both positive and negative. Which is good I think - it's good to make an emotional connection. I guess I tried to avoid it in my original post - tried to focus on the positive. I could, however, rant on for hours about my loathing for progressive rock :p Also, I think it's pretty much a given that anyone who has any real interest in music hasn't much time for commercial manufactured pop. For me, it's like your 'musical palate' becomes more refined the more you explore and experience, and the stuff that drones out of the radio is just way too bland and insipid to hold your attention. It just becomes annoying background noise, like the buzzing of an insect. Having said that, I do believe that there is such a thing as good pop music - admittedly you usually need to go back 50 or so years to find most of it - but occasionally something still surfaces.

Not seeing much love for hip hop ;) Ah well - personally I think there's some good stuff out there. But then, admittedly, there's also a lot of crap - it's a big genre and it's popularity has led to inevitable commercial exploitation (see 'bland and insipid' above). Also the gangster rap thing, with its incorporation of violent and misogynistic lyrics, remains problematic.
 
Nice :) - I'd like to get to the point with my playing where I can just improv twelve bar blues.

Hmmm, it seems kind of a shame that, on a site dedicated to a musical instrument, we can't get more people contributing to a thread about music...

Good to see some Kinks love. Personally, I consider them to be 'top tier' - right up there with The Beatles, Stones Dylan etc. Waterloo Sunset would be one of my desert island discs.

I guess inevitably there was gonna be some discussion of stuff people don't like. I think music can be a bit like politics and religion in that respect - it can stir up strong feelings, both positive and negative. Which is good I think - it's good to make an emotional connection. I guess I tried to avoid it in my original post - tried to focus on the positive. I could, however, rant on for hours about my loathing for progressive rock :p Also, I think it's pretty much a given that anyone who has any real interest in music hasn't much time for commercial manufactured pop. For me, it's like your 'musical palate' becomes more refined the more you explore and experience, and the stuff that drones out of the radio is just way too bland and insipid to hold your attention. It just becomes annoying background noise, like the buzzing of an insect. Having said that, I do believe that there is such a thing as good pop music - admittedly you usually need to go back 50 or so years to find most of it - but occasionally something still surfaces.

Not seeing much love for hip hop ;) Ah well - personally I think there's some good stuff out there. But then, admittedly, there's also a lot of crap - it's a big genre and it's popularity has led to inevitable commercial exploitation (see 'bland and insipid' above). Also the gangster rap thing, with its incorporation of violent and misogynistic lyrics, remains problematic.

Well, I like most music. I say that I don't like rap type music, but it's the words that I don't like. And loud, loud rock is too much for me. I've enjoyed country for many, many years, but modern country bores me. It's mostly western pop love songs--no honky-tonkin', whiskey drinkin', truck lovin', good ol' boy stuff. I like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, etc.

I even have a few Chinese and Indian CDs, and I love Klezmer music, especially the Klezmatics. In fact, I'm very fond of most minor keyed music. And I have many classical CDs. I especially like the Baroque period. I enjoy listening to Operatic Arias, though I don't know if I'd like to sit through a whole opera.

Ya know, I think it's strange that we all play ukuleles, but, yet, we don't see much about Hawaiian music on the UU. I have Jumpin' Jim's Hawaiian book, but I admit that I don't sing from it much. I'm pretty much a banjo player right now.

I just can't seem to find the time or inclination to play any more than I do now. I've got a bunch of stuff, waiting to be tried and/or worked on. I took out a baritone (horn) mouthpiece 3 or 4 days ago to see if I can regain my embouchure, but I haven't even touched it. I wanted to play some marches which I love to play.

There's just never enough time or energy anymore, but I guess that's what keeps me goin' . . . :eek:ld:
 
I guess inevitably there was gonna be some discussion of stuff people don't like. I think music can be a bit like politics and religion in that respect - it can stir up strong feelings, both positive and negative. Which is good I think - it's good to make an emotional connection. I guess I tried to avoid it in my original post - tried to focus on the positive. I could, however, rant on for hours about my loathing for progressive rock :p Also, I think it's pretty much a given that anyone who has any real interest in music hasn't much time for commercial manufactured pop. For me, it's like your 'musical palate' becomes more refined the more you explore and experience, and the stuff that drones out of the radio is just way too bland and insipid to hold your attention. It just becomes annoying background noise, like the buzzing of an insect. Having said that, I do believe that there is such a thing as good pop music - admittedly you usually need to go back 50 or so years to find most of it - but occasionally something still surfaces.

I'd like to unpick or unpack this paragraph just a little bit. I think you may be right on about the politics and religion point but i think you are a bit off when it comes to what you say about popular music though. So what i say is bound to get up someone or others nose here. Its not actually my intention though its bound to happen.

For a start how many people here who think they have refined musical taste like or dislike opera. How can you dislike opera and think you have refined taste?

Me I like a little bit of opera though i don't walk around the house with pavarotti or La Stupenda blasting out of the walls as a general rule. The more familiar I become with it and or other classical pieces, the more I like it. When its unfamiliar i am not so quick to take to it and I think that's probably what's going on for a lot of people who say they don't like it. Last night I was in an opera. I wish i could have watched it but being in it, i had to sit out the back and listen when I wasn't onstage. Most of it was unfamiliar to me but the songs i'd been learning as part of the chorus I quickly grew to love as much as any other favourite song of mine and its pretty much been the case for nearly every classical song i've had to learn for being part of the choir i've been in for about three years.

I also really like the lady's opera voices. Sometimes also the men. Here's one i really like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roJSYFu3pYk have a listen to see what you think.

On the other hand, i'm not fussed about folk, irish, even to be honest, blues but i have noticed the more i listen to a good blues song the more i like it. Irish and folk to me its just like country pop which has very little appeal but then there's always exceptions.

Pop on the other hand, well for the last 30 years I've not paid a lot of attention to it so i got behind but some little bit i have caught up with in recent times I like. I mean i really like Its all about the Bass for example. And landslide by Stevie Nicks i loved the first time i heard sung by Karise Eden on oz version of the voice. Creep is a gorgeous song. And there are plenty of others that i like just as much. A dollar is all i need or whatever its called. I guess i just like pop. Whether or not its come out of some so-called pop factory i couldn't give a damn. I'm not invested in it and am free to like or dislike any of it. I htink there is good and bad in all genres and I'm really only intersted in the good or at least finding out what is good and i might like other stuff too.

Techno and house music on the other hand doesn't really rock my boat but I think in every style there's good and bad and innovation and boring. But i know there are innovative and interesting songs in this genre too, though they are probably not called songs.

I'm currently working through a book called 1000 songs you should hear before you die and i'm starting from the back and from the frontat the same time. The songs are arranged in chronological order. Some of the ones towards the end ie more recent are: Fortyfiveseconds by rhianna, Hunger of the Pine, Video Games, My Siliver Lining, Eyes to the Wind, Lazeretto, Digital Witness, Shake it off, Two weeks, Drunk in Love, Happy, Where are we now, - those are the ones listed since 2013.

I won't say i like them all but they are interesting. The book has a blurb about them and why they are significant. They are generally innovative in one way or another or highly influential or something like that.

Two listed from 2012 are by Bruce Springsteen - who does absolutely nothing for me. "Yuck!" i would go so far to say. And one by the Rolling Stones who is equally yuck for me - Doom and Gloom its called. I am bored shitless by the rolling stones I'll admit. I don't think their music holds up well over time.

When i'm looking at a song, i find the lyrics and read through them too. I've recorded each and put it on my ipod becuase I'm trying to see what the big idea is. And i have to admit that most of them are pretty interesting sounding songs even if i don't take to them straight away or even if the lyrics don't resonate with me. At least they are noticeably interesting and not the tried and true. One of the various reasons for doing this is that down the track i might want to try my hand at song writing and i think it would pay to be educated about what is a good song.

I think the reason people here seem to say often they don't like pop is that they are just old. It's not that they have especially refined musical taste although it appears that this is what people like to tell themselves.

And if i could prevail on you to listen to one more opera piece, try this. It's quite funny and you don't need to know what they are singing about. This is my favourite part of the opera we just did but obviously this is not from our show. I just love singing it but its really hard to run around on stage and singing this stuff at the same time, especially when you are not singing the melody line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Usi5bA84bYI beg if you start to listen to it, continue to the end because it gets better the more you go into it.
 
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I'd like to unpick or unpack this paragraph just a little bit. I think you may be right on about the politics and religion point but i think you are a bit off when it comes to what you say about popular music though. So what i say is bound to get up someone or others nose here. Its not actually my intention though its bound to happen.

Blimey... some lively debate! :p *shakes off the cobwebs*

Personally I have nothing against opera. I've seen live opera a few times. I don't often choose to listen to classical music but I don't dislike it. It's just sort of a blind spot. I wasn't trying to suggest any sort of musical snobbery, although I guess my comment about refined musical taste could easily be interpreted that way. But I do agree with Booli's sentiment that the output of Bieber, Cyrus et al is, frankly, utter rubbish. I just find it simplistic and bland, and lyrically trite. It's something like why I, as an adult, wouldn't choose to watch Telly Tubbies (or whatever). Or why I wouldn't want to subsist on a daily diet of cold mashed potatoes.

I don't feel that it's an age thing - I always listen to new things with an open mind. Honestly, I find the whole age thing kinda boring - on both sides of the coin - every time I see this little fella... :eek:ld: I wonder why people feel the need to make a point of it. A lot of the music I listen to was around before me - it's not like it's the music I grew up listening to and I just got 'stuck'. I went out and found it. I think that the reason that you can find a lot more decent pop music in say the sixties than you can today has to do with real-world factors and changes in the music industry - such as shifting target audience demographics. It's not just cos I'm an old fuddy-duddy :p

FYI: I would absolutely include All About That Bass under the heading good pop music. Although I haven't liked anything else she's done ;)
 
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AndieZ, you seem awfully young. Perhaps that's why some of us seem so old to you. Music is and should be an emotional art. Perhaps what moves us oldies isn't what moves you youngsters. I find the words of many recent songs to be insipid and off putting, and they're sung by nasty, no class brats. Showing a lot of skin and some amusing crotch grabbing seems to be a high point of their tunes. But then, they seem to be very popular, so I guess I'm just oughta step.

Much of the old music has many enjoyable, comfortable, amusing memories for us musicians who actually play music.
We aren't gonna start playing tomorrow. We'll probably play some today.

Some of us UUers have different kinds of music that we like, and we enjoy talking to like minded others or even debating about it a bit.

Well, I guess debating our tastes in music is a lot more interesting than posting endlessly about equipment. :eek:ld:
 
Ya know, I think it's strange that we all play ukuleles, but, yet, we don't see much about Hawaiian music on the UU. I have Jumpin' Jim's Hawaiian book, but I admit that I don't sing from it much.

And if I recall correctly most of what is in that book is really Hapa-Haole music and not true Hawaiian music.

I like Hawaiian music when I'm in Hawaii, but as a musician it's just not something I play much here in California. I'm sure I've said elsewhere that I think of the uke as an "instrument," end of story, rather than a specifically "Hawaiian" instrument.

There are some really beautiful Hawaiian songs but to me, most of the beauty is in the lyrics rather than the melody or chord progression, and as a non-singer, frankly, that's pretty boring. I really tried to dig up a truly Hawaiian (not hapa-haole) song that my all-instrumental ensemble could play, and came up totally blank - but I'm open to suggestions if anybody wants to send them my way.
 
Well maybe you and i jolly like a lot of the same sort of things since you like the megan trainor song. I wasn't actually suggesting that you didn't like opera but i was combining something you said with something someone before you said to make the point. Because actually i've come across this a fair but in my town where i meet a blues or rock or someething kinda guy in their 40 50s or 60s and they can sing so i say come and join the choir we need guys like you. And they say, no I don't like classical/opera and there's an air of snobbery about it. So i'm a bit annoyed with them and that attitude because I really think they don't even know what it is that they don't like but just have this idea based on not knowing the music.

So dick you think i seem awfully young. Do you mean i sound immature, dumb or like a girl in my 20s? I'm actually 52 going on 53 and I've done a fair bit with my life but nothing to make the headlines. It's an effort to be restrained and or to sound mature in my posts. It takes time and I can't be bothered. But when people say that the good music is from the 50s and earlier and so on as if today was all bad music and the past was allo good, I think, well they are just forgetting that there was a lot of rubbish around as well back then and they seem to conveniently overlook what's good out now. As to justin beiber, I don't even go there but I don't find it necessary to even talk about it. Hey let me go fish some up of the rubbish from the past for you. I'll leave it like this because its a lot of work to make up my own list.

http://popdose.com/jesus-of-cool-the-worst-1-hits-of-the-’50s/.
 
AndieZ, you seem awfully young. Perhaps that's why some of us seem so old to you. Music is and should be an emotional art. Perhaps what moves us oldies isn't what moves you youngsters. I find the words of many recent songs to be insipid and off putting, and they're sung by nasty, no class brats. Showing a lot of skin and some amusing crotch grabbing seems to be a high point of their tunes. But then, they seem to be very popular, so I guess I'm just oughta step.

Much of the old music has many enjoyable, comfortable, amusing memories for us musicians who actually play music.
We aren't gonna start playing tomorrow. We'll probably play some today.

Some of us UUers have different kinds of music that we like, and we enjoy talking to like minded others or even debating about it a bit.

Well, I guess debating our tastes in music is a lot more interesting than posting endlessly about equipment. :eek:ld:

I'm in complete agreement with you on the instrument discussion. There's so much of it on this site too and hardly anything about the music. That's why i was glad to see your thread. But i waited a little while before jumping in. Yes i did actually wait a few days after first reading it.

I've never really liked watching music videos so i just don't and have saved myself most of the tits and arse stuff that you also dislike.

But lets take Jessie J. I think she's a clever artist with a great voice. I love what she does. Her very catchy song price tag, well it has a point to it. I don't think its insipid at all. She's always saying something. But she's also got a great body and doesn't mind flashing her legs about in the way i suppose you'd say that Liza Minelli did in cabaret. Really what's changed.

I also love Will I AM but i don't listen to the music of these people that much. I just like them and i enjoy seeing all forms of their talent in action. I first discovered will i am via the his mash up of Mas que nada which is a song i love - i read the lyrics of that one once i think they are pretty insipid but i just love the tune. I love all those brazilian songs and i love how Will I Am updated it.

So I think i've taken you all off topic. You probably prefer to talk about this or that folk/blues/jazz or something song so i encourage discussion back in that direction and will shutup about the pop stuff now.
 
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