Dictionary Man

I was at Jason Mraz's website just a few minutes ago. Jason who, you might ask? Yeah, I might have said the same thing to. This is what happens when you surf. You find webpages that you aren't quite sure how you go to, but there you are.

Jason Mraz is a singer who also maintains his own blogs. Most celebrity blogs seem like a chore to the celebrity. Do I have to write? You see sparse entries, and they don't say a whole lot. The most interesting blogs are those that either self-introspect, or at least comment on something aroudn them, and Mraz's blog fits in that category.

I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce this guy's last name, Mraz. Right now, I prounounce it in my head as Muraz. I would imagine that's not too far from right.

Mraz has released an album called Mr. A-Z, which, of course, uses the letters of his name, so I give him points for being clever. Apparently, the songs were written over the span of a year.

In one of his blog entries, Jason was talking about how he had recently started listening to music again after a long time of not listening to it, somewhat ironic for a musician, I suppose, but that he had gotten to the point where he couldn't quite listen to music without thinking of all the details that go into making music. But recently, he had found a few artists that he thought weren't crap and had a new IPod to boot, not the bulky one he used to one with heavy studio headphones, but the light white earbuds, thus making it cool for him to listen to music casually again.

The real problem with listening to music is taste. Music is very personal, and what sounds like the next great thing to one person sounds like crap to another. So it's funny to hear him say that he likes this or that musician because it doesn't sound like crap.

Jason wrote another entry about two deaf people he saw on a plane. These two made him wonder what was being said as they signed to each other, his only clues being their facial reactions. He pondered about what they think when they "hear" music, and so forth. Reasonable thoughts to have, but I have this bias that musicians aren't, well, smart enough to have these thoughts, especially pop musicians. An unfair stereotype, I know. Some of the brightest people I know are musicians or have strong musical background.

After reading a few of Mraz's blog entries and being suitably impressed by his insights, I headed over to Amazon to listen to a few clips. O. M. G. I would like to say it's good, but well...

It reminds me of a recommendation I got from a friend who's quite a bit younger than me. I asked if he could recommend someone good I could listen to, and he said, yes indeed, he did have a recommendation. I should listen to Michael Tolcher. He's really good. (His sister has some relation to Tolcher, but I'm not sure what).

So I bought the CD, even though I heard a few snippets on Amazon and felt, for sure, that this wasn't the kind of music I wanted to listen to. Still, I wanted to give Tolcher a chance.

I found, initially, I really couldn't stand Tolcher. He's very much like listening to some boy band (except it's just him). Such singers write catchy tunes that appeal to teenage girls. Really, it isn't what I normally listen to. Even so, over time, I've grown to grudgingly like the album. Mraz basically sounds like him.

There was a trend, sometime in the 90s or so, for white singers to sound more black, and I don't mean in the rap, Eminem sort of way, but in the Mariah Carey style. White singers like, say, Justin Timberlake (and I'm way out of my league here since I really don't listen to Timberlake), know that there's now a crossover sound that sounds like R&B and appeals to white teens.

Jason Mraz seems to fit that description. He sounds like a dozen other guys trying to do the same thing, fit in the same genre of singing. I know I'm not being at all fair in this. There are other genres of music I listen to that would probably sound all the same to people unaware of the songs. I ought to give Mraz a chance, and yet, it's my own time, my own money, and not like trying to give someone who has a different cultural or socioeconmic background a chance. Still, now that I write this, I may get a CD, just to see.

The reason I'm likely to give Mraz a chance with his album, honestly, is because of his blog, and that's an odd thing to say. After all, just because, say, Joel Spolsky writes entertaining pieces, doesn't mean I want to hear him sing. On the other hand, singing is Mraz's job. And coding is Spolsky's job, so I might give his software more of a chance because of the blog. It makes no sense to correlate two such disparate things, but I do. Right now, alas, I think Mraz's music sounds like crap.

And that's just to make my earlier point. Crap, in music, is relative. There are people who like the new wave sounds of New Order and Pet Shop Boys, but others who find the techno thump-thump-thump repetitive and, well, gay. Now, I happen to like techno stuff, even though I happen to own very little. Which is my other point. Musical taste is personal. People just need to realize that.

In case you're curious, most of my music tastes are in the indie scene. I've just put an order for Jim Guthrie's album. His song and the one by Men of Old are my two favorites on Mews Too, a collection of songs by various singers that know Sufjan Stevens. Jim Guthrie's latest, Now More Than Ever, has been called the "folk Radiohead", which hopefully is better than it sounds. I hope to get it soon, and hope that the songs on the album are worthy of that moniker.

So why am I writing about Jason Mraz? The main reason is that I write far more in my blog than I read. I used to read blogs rather often, at a time where blogs, as a term, wasn't even coined. People have had online diaries as long as there's been a web. I followed one from 1997 or so. What's been recent is blog websites, like Blogger, like myspace, that allow you to write blog entries relatively simply. Before that, you had to roll your own.

As I read other people's blog, I realize that they are under similar constraints that I am. They have to write in a short period of time. I feel, though, that say, a Wil Wheaton, the nerdiest actor of any fame, still sits and edits so his entries don't sound like total gibberish. It is possible that he writes as fast as he thinks, and he thinks far more coherently than I do. I know my attention when it comes to blogging wanders. For example, I'm talking about Wil Wheaton, when this entry is, ostensibly, about Jason Mraz.

But the point is that when I read other people's blogs, they seem far more coherent than what I write. Usually, I fire out entries with barely an edit. I edit as I read the paragraph. I don't even check that my formatting is correct, which is too bad, because on the rare occasion when I do check it out (like yesterday), I see all sorts of problems.

Still, this equivalent of blitz chess in blog writing allows me to write a lot of stuff, and I'm hoping, much like blitz chess, that there's a sense I'm getting better at writing thoughts out. I just need to read more blogs.

As if I don't spend enough time on the Internet as it stands.

[As a note, I did go back to re-edit this, and now I feel I should do that more often. Even a quick second edit makes everything sound that much better. I find the cadence of what I write rather poor, and that you can easily lose the meaning--heck, I lose what I'm trying to say, without a few more sentences. Anyhoo, just letting the gentle reader know that this is one of those entries I've quickly revised]