One of the more difficult aspects of working at my former place of employment was having to — well, not so much feign interest for — but hold my forked, venom-drenched tongue when it came to most of the musical artists that were routinely featured on the website (and its accompanying television show). Even if you’ve only given my blog a cursory glance-over, it’s fairly evident that I take music probably more seriously than I should. Not only am I passionate about the music that I love, but I am equally vitriolic about the music that I don’t. In my less diplomatic moments, I’m prone to make sweeping indictments like “Life is too short to tolerate bad music,” and then cite my target of the day. It’s a stubborn holdover from a petulant adolescence.
In any case, one of the artists whose merits I was pointedly averse to supporting was one Sara Bareilles. I should preface the rest of this by saying that I never met the woman. I’m sure she’s absolutely lovely and preternaturally talented and just a genuinely admirable human being. That all said, there came a point where I would have rather hacked off my own ears with a rusty hatchet and slowly bled to death than ever subject myself to another airing of her breakout single, “Brave.”
I have no problem with the song’s sentiments of empowerment. That’s all fine, but it’s really the shrill way Miss B. hits the high notes on the chorus and the fact that the song was NIGH ON INESCAPABLE for much longer than it should have been (in my opinion, mind you). I’m sure there are songs that have this same affect on you. You’re probably just more mature about dealing with it than I am.
Anyway, I don’t work at that place any more, so I’m free to say disparaging things about Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Sara Bareilles,….not that anyone really cared then or cares now. But this is my blog, so here’s where it counts.
In recently trawling around the `net, however, I came across this other clip by Sara Bareilles that hits a bit closer to home (literally). That song is called — WAIT FOR IT — “Manhattan.”
Essentially a weepy breakup song, Bareilles’ “Manhattan” (not to be confused with Cat Power’s “Manhattan,” which I think is ace) is a veritable Big Gulp-cup of treacly melancholy, but it’s not entirely offensive. In the video, Miss B. wanders around a sun-kissed, black n’ white West Village (spending an inordinate amount of time staring across the Hudson at Jersey City, which is a bit odd, considering it's a song about Manhattan). While I find the music a bit schmaltzy and the sentiment a bit hackneyed, the video is not without its merits.
See what you think…
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