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Bing Image Mad Libz: Mike Trout will drop trou for Mrs. Carter when her World Tour stops in California, and the two will get it on to the song "Spider Webs" by No Doubt, as played by a fan version made with the Korg DS-10 synthesizer.

Korg DS-10 is not a game, it is synthesizer software on a cartridge that you can manipulate with the DS stylus. I have a few crappy sounds I made on my copy, and may upload better ones if I ever learn what the hell I'm doing well enough to make any. I got it for my birthday a while back I think, cause I saw James Mielke gush over it in a 1up preiview, and thought what they had made on the game sounded good. That's all I really have to say about it, and since it's Friday, I don't really feel like elaborating, hence today's entry.

But hey, let's celebrate music by posting a bunch of songs from each decade from the 50s until now. Because seven is a lucky number and that's how many videos there'll be. I don't feel like thinking hard for my blog today, so this is what you get. Hell, if I was thinking about it, you'd be getting some 20s jazz and 40s crooners, probably, not to mention all the amazing classical pieces from before this century, but I felt like having seven videos for luck on my Friday. 

My mom never really liked Elvis, and she was a young girl at the height of his popularity (she did love The Beatles and Ringo, though). I've caught my dad singng "In the Ghetto" a couple times, and I'm pretty sure he was a fan (though he's more into Bob Dylan). For my tastes, his music is hit or miss. But if I'm going to post something from the 50s, it may as well be a rock n' roll song by him. Probably my favorite of his.

Now this is what I call music. I know a lot less about blues and Albert King than I do about rock in the 50s, and my knowledge of either isn't masterful, but this blues tune from '67 is a lot of what I love about blues in one package. Catchy, soulful, smooth, relaxing, all while decrying bad luck in life, so bad mood or good, there's something there for me to enjoy. And of course, I love the guitar work, as the blues genre pretty much influenced every guitar-driven song I love today.

People love disco, people hate disco. I for one think it's catchy, and makes me want to dance; I still think it's amusing that Gene Siskel's favorite film was Saturday Night Fever.

The 80s, with its cocaine, giant phones, hair bands, heavy metal, new wave, synth pop, big hair, and fast cars, didn't so much ask, but told everyone to stop being subtle. What better way to celebrate that with this ridiculous, over the top, and supremely catchy W.A.S.P. song about fucking? I can think of none.

As all 20-somethings that were in middle school when the internet really stared to take off, and AOL's pterodactyl screech was a necessary evil if you wanted to look up that website PBS just showed you while you watched Arthur after school, I have an affinity for the 90s.

I love everything from the most depressing Alice in Chains song, to the most bubble-gum pop sounding acts of the time like Mariah Carey, and my favorite music of the decade was probably the pop-punk acts that sorta-kinda mixed rock and pop, and were mostly just goofy excuses to have catchy music.

Of course, it was also nice to have that alternative tune that wasn't poppy per se, wasn't really heavy or dark like some of the grunge available, but managed to bring certain emotions out while still being catchy, and somehow being both sobering and triumphant. Semisonic's "Closing Time" is one such song.

The 2000s did have some great rock acts like Three Days Grace, The Strokes, Interpol, etc., but if you were a rock fan at the time, much of what was on the radio felt like a re-hash of what was being done in the 90s, only for some terrible reason most of it was re-hashing Creed more than Pearl Jam (I'm aware of the Celebrity Death Match clip where they point out both singers sound the same, I still prefer Pearl Jam). I like "One Last Breath" and "Higher" as much as the next guy, but it seemed like the rock on the radio got more and more diluted as time went on, eventually leading to such incredibly boring things as Hoobastank's "The Reason," which was particularly saddening to me after "Crawling in the Dark" had shown such promise.

This is the decade I really started to seek out older and less popular music, because the radio just started sounding really generic. However, this also led to me being more accepting of pop music at the time, because at least that sounded new; it didn't hurt that Beyonce was in those videos, either...

And now we come to today; 2012 was a great year for music in my mind. 3 Inches of Blood released Long Live Heavy Metal, Of Monsters & Men came on the scene with "Little Talks," adding more good modern folk to the mix, Gotye and fun. revitalized alternative music in popular culture, and amazing songs by new bands like M83, Passion Pit, and Grouplove rose to popularity; it was a great year for my personal taste in music at least, let's put it that way.

This year, the new artist I'm most excited about is Macklemore, whose album The Heist technically came out at the end of last year, but who's song "Thrift Shop" I've only just been hearing lately on the radio, and I can't get enough of "Can't Hold Us," which is in some phone commercials currently, and was performed along with "Thrift Shop" on SNL.

It's refreshing to hear a more positive message come from hip hop, not to mention incorporate a lot of horns, and have catchy and energetic, or soothing hooks.

I'm especially impressed by the fact they did all this with no major label backing; I love the whole CD and have asked for it for my birthday on the 23rd of this month.

Where "Thrift Shop" is tongue-in-cheek, and "Can't Stop" is energetic, the song I've posted is one of the slower ones of his, an appeal for marriage equality and acceptance in the hip hop community.

I'm glad to see the trend of new, popular artists I actually like getting airplay continue after 2012.

TGIF, everyone!