HOME |
RSS | 
Before you download the next pop hit from iTunes, check whether it is hazardous to your health. A teen panel working with the Boston Public Health Commission has set up a "nutrition facts label" rating (like that seen on food items) for songs:
“Music, like food, can feed our brains and give us energy,” said Casey Corcoran, director of the Commission’s Start Strong Initiative. “But songs can affect our health and the health of our relationships.”
The tool, patterned after common food nutritional labels, invites consumers to become song lyric nutritionists by helping them identify relationship ingredients that make up a song. Using printed song lyrics as a guide, users can tally the number of healthy relationship themes, such as respect, equality, and trust, which are present in the song. And, like fattening calories, unhealthy relationship themes – possession, disrespect, and manipulation – are also counted. The number of times these themes are mentioned also factor into to the song’s total nutritional value. Corcoran recommends consuming lots of ‘healthy relationship’ ingredients for a balanced media diet.
The model was developed by 14 peer leaders in the Commission’s Start Strong Initiative. The teens, who range in age from 15 to 19 years old, attended a seven-week "Healthy Relationship Institute” where they were trained in teen dating violence prevention and healthy relationship promotion. They also learned to look at media critically, breaking it down to better understand the healthy or unhealthy relationship messages it may contain, such as power, control, equality, and gender roles.
“It’s important to have youth involved in this effort because teenagers are the main audience of the music,” said peer leader Shaquilla Terry, age 15 of Boston. “It’s important to actually listen to and think about the lyrics of a song and not just the beat.”
And which songs are (mentally) bad and good for you? Here are the Top 10 lists:
Top 10 Songs with UNHEALTHY Relationship Ingredients (2009)
| Song | Artist | Score 0-50 |
| 1. Break Up (feat. Gucci Mane and Sean Garrett) | Mario | 45 |
| 2. Blame It (feat. T-Pain) | Jamie Foxx | 32 |
| 3. Paparazzi | Lady Gaga | 27 |
| 4. You're a Jerk | New Boyz | 26 |
| 5. Baby By Me | 50 Cent | 25 |
| 6. Best I Ever | Drake | 24 |
| 7. One More Drink (feat. T-Pain) | Ludacris | 23 |
| 8. Be On You (feat. Ne-Yo) | Flo Rida | 22 |
| 9. Hotel Room Service | Pitbull | 21.5 |
| 10. Bad Romance | Lady Gaga | 20 |
Top 10 Songs with HEALTHY Relationship Ingredients (2009)
| Song | Artist | Score 0-50 |
| 1. One Time | Justin Bieber | 40 |
| 2. Miss Independent | Ne-Yo | 30 |
| 3. Replay | Iyaz | 25.5 |
| 4. Say Hay | Michael Franti | 25 |
| 5. Knock You Down | Keri Hilson feat. Kanye West | 21 |
| 6. Only You Can Love Me This Way | Keith Urban | 20 |
| 7. Her Diamonds | Rob Thomas | 19 |
| 8. I'm Yours | Jason Mraz | 18 |
| 9. Fallin For You | Colbie Caillat | 16 |
| 10. Meet Me Halfway | Black Eyed PEas | 15 |
Official press release at the BPHC: Link
It’s no real surprise that Wikipedia has a thorough list of these, but it’s interesting to parse through the many, and find a neat collection of songs and albums that were based on, or influenced by books. Led Zeppelin has a scatological lyric library referencing JRR Tolkien, but let’s see what else is out there.
13. Alan Parson’s Project – The album is called Tales of Mystery and Imagination, and includes interpretations of Edgar Allen Poe’s best, like “The Raven”, “Dr. Tar and Professor Feather”, and “The Cask of Amontillado.” Here’s the awesome “Dream Within A Dream” video. Also by Parsons: “I, Robot” (Isaac Asimov).
12. Rivendell (Rush) – A quiet, thematic representation of the Elf version of a Bed & Breakfast. (Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, of course.)
11. 2112 (Rush) - Side one* is loosely based on Anthem by Ayn Rand.
10. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica) - Based on the classic by Ernest Hemingway.
9. The Thing That Should Not Be and The Call of Cthulu (Metallica) - These guys really let good classic fiction influence their songwriting. We get not one, but two songs in honor of H.P. Lovecraft’s best character. Also by Metallica: “One”, based on the book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
8. The Small Print (Muse) - “clearly alluding to Goethe’s Faust, being sung from the point of view of the Devil to someone selling their soul to him in exchange for, presumably, musical prowess and fame…” source
7. Anthrax Loves Stephen King - As do a lot of bands like Pennywise (It). But Anthrax named one of their best albums Among the Living after King’s character Randall Flagg in The Stand. They also penned a song called “Skeleton in the Closet” based on King’s “Apt Pupil”.
6. Tom Sawyer (Rush) - Wow, Rush. Even “Red Barchetta” is based on a vague book called A Nice Morning Drive by Richard S. Foster. At least Tom Sawyer is pretty well known both as a song and a book. Who can resist the urge to sing along when Geddy Lee croons, “The River!”
5. Tales of Brave Ulysses (Cream) - Psychedelically sums up all you need to know about all the ins and outs of Homer’s The Odyssey. And I quote, “Tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers…” (This was actually a lyric inspired by lyricist Martin Sharp’s travels in Ibiza.) But the Sirens are there, so that’s cool.
4. The Ghost of Tom Joad (Bruce Springsteen) - Based on The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Henry Fonda and Bruce Springsteen would have had some cool conversations, I bet.
3. White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) -Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Here’s a nice rendition of that song.
2. Animals (Pink Floyd) - It never actually occurred to me before, but an argument can be made that the Animals album, with it’s corrupt pigs (be they on the wing, or three different ones), dogs and sheep, political overtones… Yeah, it’s definitely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
1. Iron Maiden (Pretty much every song of theirs, ever) - At least a heavy handful. These Brit bad boys of metal must have had some scratched up library cards. Their adaptations include:
On second thought, an honorable mention should be made for Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore”, as it pretty much describes the Battle of Pellennor Fields in The Return of the King.
(Iron Maiden illustration by Ado Cedric & Tio Julio.)
*For help with determining what this means, ask a grownup.
Sam Hart wrote a love song for his cat entitled “Kitty Song.” Then he sang it to his cat while stacking 61 objects on top of him. Most of them are just playing cards, but others are quite large. You can find the lyrics to the song at the YouTube link.
The song is called Prisencolinensinainciusol, written by Italian artist Adriano Celentano in 1972. Recorded by Celentano and Claudia Mori in an American accent, it sounds like it should be English, but the lyrics are pure gibberish. Link -via Metafilter
A group of amateur musicians formed a club in London in the mid-1700s called the Anacreontic Society. They had day jobs as the pillars of society, but at night they would get together and present concerts. Member John Stafford Smith wrote a song that became known as the Anacreontic Song with six stanzas that became the official anthem of the group.
In all probability some drinking did occur at Society meetings, but the primary purpose of the Society (and its song) was to promote an interest in music. [The song] was commonly used as a sobriety test: If you could sing a stanza of the notoriously difficult melody and stay on key, you were sober enough for another round.
You can listen to a version of the Anacreontic Song on YouTube and hear why why this song is so remarkable. Learn more at Scribal terror. Link
Tool use in apes is not unheard of, but this gibbon has taken it to a whole new level by enhancing her singing with the sound of an enclosure door slamming:
Each time her song reached its natural climax, the gibbon slammed shut the door of her enclosure, using the loud noise it made to accentuate her call.
The gibbon used the door to create a single beat rather than a rhythm.
But her behaviour is yet another example of how smaller ape species are also capable of novel tool use, says the primatologist who witnessed it.
Link – via monkeydaynews
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by MonkeyDay.
It’s 15 days to Christmas, so here’s a Christmas song, "sung" by animals from the BBC’s Breathing Places. It’s kind of creepy and cute – crute?- at the same time.
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Andy!
Cat lovers will love this song and video. Those who don’t like it, beware…Sparta will bite you! Enjoy! LINK
Nick Patera sings “Part of Your World” with an awesome woman’s voice! I am sure anyone who listens to his singing with their eyes closed would have think that the singer was a female.
Link: YouTube
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Mustache Bottle Opener |
 |
My Cryptozoological Family - Family Car Stickers |
 |
Zombie Hand Bottle Opener |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
