Cliché

I’m certainly guilty of a few rock cliché. Sometimes intentionally. Luckily, none in the top twenty.

Well, one maybe.

Yunno those email lists you can’t get off of no matter how many times you unsusbscribe? I’m on a few of ’em. One of ’em is music related. Comes from a guy named Mikel Derby. I think I got on it thanks to my pals in The Nadas (who I dreampt last night crashed my offices, but that’s another story).

Mr. Derby likes to circulate all sorts of articles on the music industry, sometimes as many a four or five a day. Usually, the subject range from the Death of No Depression or The Ubiquity of MTV or The Genius of Pete Yorn. In other words, I rarely count said articles as insightful, presumably because a) I’m surrounded by conversations every day and b) my perspective tends to be that of a semi-jaded, semi-corporate, semi-working musician (that is, I work for a corporation and have been surrounded by the general media’s inability to recognize or reward talent).

This morning, though, I got a fun one. The subject line read, “The 89 Most Redundent, Repetative Cliches In Music (Because 100 Would Be Cliche).” Figuring that three fourths of my lyrics would be indicted, I read on. Here’s the top twenty:

# 20. The Posthumous Album
# 19. Dating Winona Ryder
# 18. Firing the Drummer
# 17. The Mother Theresa Syndrome
# 16. The Spoken-Word Breakdown
# 15. Courtney Love
# 14. The “You’re Ugly, But It’s OK” Song
# 13. The “Girl” Song
# 12. Attacking Photographers and Reporters
# 11. The Onstage Meltdown
# 10. Gangs Members Gone Good
# 9. Dissing Bush
# 8. The Rain Sequence
# 7. Rehab
# 6. Bum Rushing the Show
# 5. Working With Timbaland
# 4. Dating a Stripper/Porn Star
# 3. Lighters
# 2. Beef
# 1. Yelling ‘Freebird’

The bad news is that Goldner yells “Freebird” at nearly every show, no matter how tenaciously I lobby against. The good news is that, excepting the fact that I write plenty of “Girl” songs (“She” songs really, but thelist calls out the concept, not the specific), I think I got off scott free.

Though I have explained to Abbi that, should I die unexpectedly, I’d like my all twelve of my albums, all of my “Morning Mix” recordings, and as many servicable live recordings released in a massive box set. Tupac, however, will not have a cameo.

Editor’s Note: Mr. Derby emailed in his defense: “I do sing the praises of many musicians – particularly Todd Snider (and The Nadas, Josh, Will Kimbrough and yourself…) but not Pete Yorn! He’s a fine musician i’m
sure but not one I listen to much, if at all.” I tucked my tail between my knees, and encouraged him to keep his emails coming.