I'll Be Satisfied

I'll Be Satisfied by Ryan Shaw



You can find the full version here.

One of the things that appears to have been forgotten in the 21st century is that simplicity is usually the best. This is especially true in music—for some reason the pop song is frowned upon by 'serious' music fans. Anything that is obvious, all of a sudden can't be good (which goes back to our Coldplay and U2 argument, why U2 is acceptable and Coldplay is frowned upon).

Take this song. Ryan Shaw's cover of the Jackie Wilson classic from last year is fantastic. He nails the notes and brings some new life to the song without really changing it. The song is catchy, it's fun, it's everything you want in a pop song.

But no one paid any attention to it. And I blame the simplicity of the song. We live in an era were music fans suddenly think that Radiohead is a second coming of Camus (though they've probably never read Camus) and that music must provide some insight into intellectual thought; we have move away from the true point of music—pop music specifically—which Rob Gordon put best, "What came first, the music or the misery?" This is the point of pop music: joy and misery. There is no in between. Sure at times it can be used as a form of protest or to tell a story. But for the most part, pop music is about joy and misery.

But music fans—indie fans—no longer want this. They want music to be a form of intellectual thought, but all I see is pesado-intellectualism and crappy noise. I'd much rather have the Strokes sing "trying to catch her eye" or Mason Jennings ask, "Do you think about me?" than some cryptic wannabe Jeff Tweedy make bad metaphors. Because for me most of the time all I need is "Just a kiss, just a smile, hold my hand baby, just once in a while" in a pop song.