This week, instead of trying to distill themes from an entire day’s worth of #musicmonday tweets, I’ll go hour by hour and look for some microthemes. Because I am an alchemist, I will find them. And because I am a windbag, I will stick to the morning hours and leave the afternoon and evening for later columns.3–4 am (Eastern Time): This hour is pretty much dominated by @MMHero, who was tweetin’ some pretty solid garage rock. I’m a sucker for fuzzy guitars and scratchy vocals, so @MMHero makes me happy. In between that and the usual crush of people selling tickets to shows via the #musicmonday tag, there are a few Norah Jones suggestions and Silverchair. I’ve been writing this column for a few months now, and have concluded that many Twitter users think it’s still the ‘90s despite overwhelming evidence that we are actually living in the future.4–5 am: More @MMHero, plus a ton of tweets in Indonesian. I think. #Indonesia65 is hashtagged, and August 17 is the 65th anniversary of Indonesian independence. Other than that, I can’t tell you what the Indonesian tweets are talking about, or what they have to do with music. I don’t speak Indonesian. In fact, I just had to look up whether “Indonesian” was in fact a language. I’m actually quite bright, I promise, but once I accidentally said “Puerto Rican” when I meant “Portuguese” because it had been a long day and I was tired and they both start with P and have some Us and Rs in there but even though I knew when I said it that it wasn’t a language I still get nervous sometimes that things I think are languages are not actually.
5–6 am: Nothing happened in this hour. What the heck, Twitter?
6–7 am: Now everything is in Spanish. This is cool; it’s like world travel. Fewer hostels though. There is one dude, @Quinaitor, tweeting a lot of Thor, Thunderer, and In the Realm of Asgard. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that these are metal bands.
7–8 am: Holy smokes there are a lot of #musicmonday tweets in this hour! Godsmack Guns N Roses Chris Cornell Madonna (it’s her birthday) Elvis (it’s his… erm…deathday?) Muse Imogen Heap The Goo Goo Dolls (confession: I tell people my first real concert was the Beastie Boys but it was actually The Goo Goo Dolls and I still have the tee-shirt) The Pixies Weird Al (who I have also seen live but sort of against my will) Justin Timberlake (who I would TOTALLY see live don’t hate) EIFFEL 65 (ughhhhhhh) The Foo Fighters Sugarloaf My Chemical Romance Drake The Flaming Lips Alicia Keys The Replacements (endorsed) Arcade Fire (surprised it took them this long to show up) Panda Bear (hey hipster) Sleigh Bells (same hipster) Beach House (yup) Don Henley (hipster: gone) Slipknot (hee)…I’m only about halfway through this hour. People on Twitter have very varied taste.
8–9 am: Things are really picking up. Scanning for trends, I’m still seeing a ton of ‘90s music, with some Katy Perry, Drake, and Taylor Swift mixed in. @MMHero is still going strong, and has been joined by @maggie_price, who is also tweeting the heck out of some reliably solid rock music. There’s a little hiccup around 8:25, as far as I’m concerned, where @MMHero is listening to Bob Marley and @maggie_price is listening to Robert Plant. I have left perfectly good coffeeshops to avoid having to listen to those artists, but everyone else in the universe loves them, so I suppose I should forgive these tweeters’ simultaneous lapses (simulapses?) as they can’t possibly know how much I hate reggae and Robert Plant’s voice.
9–10 am: I will give someone a dollar if they can explain to me why there is so much ‘90s alt-rock on #musicmonday.
10–11 am: LOTS of Linkin Park happening here. I really can’t think of anything snarky to say about Linkin Park that I didn’t already say in high school.
I’m spent. Next week (or maybe not…) I’ll delve into the afternoon hours. In the meantime:
My #musicmonday pick: Yeah yeah Scott Pilgrim soundtrack whatever this song is great. Sleazy Bed Track by The Bluetones: http://tinysong.com/hJHQ.
Role #mmodel: @vicbee says “#musicmonday – I’m waiting for my Dad (to the tune of ‘waiting for the man’)” So…@vicbee’s dad is dealing junk?
