30 October 2006

Journey to Boston

I like Journey. I do. I love songs like "Lights," and "Anyway you want it," and "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'," and, of course, "Be Good to Yourself." But then, I also like The Patridge Family, so I know that I am not the last word in music appreciation.

David does not Journey, but he does like Boston. For quite some time, anytime he would mention Boston, I would laugh and he would think that I was laughing at him and deriding his musical taste. And while that is always possible, it wasn't the case. I also like Boston. I was laughing, well, yes, at him, I suppose, but laughing because liking Boston while sneering at Journey is pretty much like liking Happy Gilmore while sneering at The Waterboy. It's not like Journey is Happy Gilmore and Boston is Punch-Drunk Love or anything here. (Although, considering Journey's eminence in the power ballad area, maybe Punch-Drunk Love and The Wedding Singer would be a better comparison. But I digress.) And when I pointed this out to Beej and Stacey, they not only agreed, but Beej was able to add Kansas to the that particular set. (Set as in "an interesting exercise in set theory" not set as in "and we'll play another set after we smoke a lot of cigarettes and down a lot of Scotch.)

So one could have sets of sets, like [Journey, Boston, Kansas]; [The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones]; [Rick Springfield, Shaun Cassidy, Bobby Sherman]; etc. Hmmm. I have stuff recorded by all of these guys.....

Anyway, one of our local classic rock radio stations is doing the lunchtime requests and today's theme is songs that have people's names in them. (Which means that we just got to hear the World's Most Perfect Rock Song - Bruce Springsteen's Rosalita. Ahhhhhhhhh.) So someone just called in and requested (and here I quote) " "Amanda" by Journey or Boston."

Which pretty much shows that liking the one group while making fun of the other is like liking red M&Ms while laughing at the tan ones.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm actually I like Boston a bit better than I like Journey (I'm more in the "power ballad/anthem rock" end of the spectrum).

But I really like the concept of liking one flavor of M&M's while mocking another one. Brava! :D

Rigel

David Gorsline said...

Leta is apparently incapable of discrimination, or at least she claims to be. Consider the set of quirky confessional singer-songwriters {Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple}. Whereas I like Apple, find Amos to be mostly harmless, and consider Bush to be downright annoying, Leta would have it that to like one of them is to like them all. Hmm. I don't think that's what she meant.

tommyspoon said...

Um, David? You are arguing over the merits of Journey v. Boston with your SO. Why don't you both put on some Clash or some Green Day or some Thermals and call me in the morning, 'nkay?

ninjapoodles said...

While I think you're both touched in the head for liking either of these bands, this was just absolutely brilliant, and I agree with you 100%. I do feel that Journey is the epitome of everything that has ever been wrong, bad, dirty and evil with pop music, one of my personally most-hated bands of all-time (and I'm a teen OF the 80's), but I agree with you that, in order to disavow Journey, we must also swear off Air Supply, Boston, REO Speedwagon, and yea, even Foreigner. I might make a special exception for Rush. Maybe.

I have no idea how I tripped across the internet to this site (it's a little like reading the dictionary, where one definition leads you to another entry), but I'm glad I did, and I'll be back!