Def Whyte Man's Burden

Guitar Hero III will be hitting stores tomorrow, or at least that's what the fine purveyors of electronic entertainment tell me; I remain rather skeptical, mainly because video games tend to be released on Tuesdays, not unlike DVDs and many CDs. Isn't it amazing what one's youth in customer service will learn' ya? Anyway, what spurs me on to write this post, apart from the simple fact that it's been over a week since my last one, is rather the harsh self-realizations that playing the GH III demo on Xbox Live has made brutally apparent: I have horrible taste in music.

Anyone who knows me even a little soon realizes that my musical tastes cull from the most stagnant and vile corners of the barrel. The most acceptable layers are those that fifteen year old girls swoon over (read: Fall Out Boy) on Total Request Live (or TRL, if you're into abbreviations, and who isn't?), and while I whole-heartedly cling to that tired, cliche answer that their last album before their 'discovery' is my favorite and that I'm less of a fan of the mainstream stuff, I won't go so far as to call anyone a 'sell-out.' I believe that phrase is one among many that I, as a white, middle-class male, am not allowed to use, unless ironically. Same thing goes for any complaints about me being oppressed or not being paid as much as someone else for the same job.

I would be a far happier man if a guilty affection for the "Sugar We're Going Down" guys was all I had in my musical closet. Instead, we're talking the kind of shit that keeps you from getting elected Senator or ever holding a job where you're around kids. For instance, out of the five songs put forth on the GH III demo, the one that really sent shivers up my spine was "Rock You Like a Hurricane." Yes, the one by the Scorpions. First of all, any person should be wary of liking a band with an animal in the name or band logo; if the word "white" is added into the mix as an adjective (Whitesnake, White Lion) or any part of the name is deliberately misspelled, then you might just need to go put a pistol in your mouth and rock yourself like a bullet to the brain pan. The only possible exception to the animal rule is Modest Mouse, and that's because they got the name from a Virginia Woolf quote.

Believe it or not, though, the 80's aren't my true weakness. Sure, I may have a fondness for singing "I Just Died in your Arms Tonight" while playing Halo 3 online, mainly to annoy/amuse my friends, and Patrick Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" may have somehow found a way onto my iPod, but my real kryptonite is 90's music. Oh yes. I'm talking songs so bad that hearing them has a scientifically documented chance, however slight, of inducing coma, as a sort of bodily defense mechanism, not unlike how a computer crashes. Dare I confess my affection for the Gin Blossoms, or even worse, the fact that I have yet to erase Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from my iPod, and because of that delinquency, now refuse to take it off out of sheer stubborn obstinacy? No. This horrid truth would rend the very fabric of the mind, and with what tattered shreds remain, my friends would one by one bid me a hasty adieu.

Of course, they don't seem like they're that bad to me. However, I must confess I am not completely oblivious to how the outside world might see me. Like the portly bachelor in his fifties who has an extensive porcelain doll collection with which he enacts his favorite scenes from Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters' collected works, I realize others would look at me askance, and thus indulge my aberrant whims in the secrecy of long drives home and stolen moments of solitude in my study/lair/Batcave. Still, there is a pull to these songs that I cannot ignore, and if that makes me a pariah, then I suppose the sweet siren song of Eddie Murphy's "My Girl Likes to Party all the Time" will rock me into a fitful sleep, one that, I pray, is without dream.