First Date

Posted by Beth Dylan on Jun 23, 2008 in Aggravation, Blog, Contemplation | 2 comments

How many of you have ever been on a first date with someone? A lot of you, right? OK, so let me set this up for you all.

You meet each other in front of a public place. A restaurant, maybe. You greet her with a smile, and she smiles back. You make clumsy small talk before holding the door open for her as the two of you head inside. You both take time to deliberate and eventually place your orders. You lead her over to the quiet booth in the corner and wrack your brain for a topic so you can begin your get-to-know-yous.  Once you start the ball rolling, you realize things are going well– very well, actually. You let her do most of the talking, but that’s fine since you find yourself becoming more and more infatuated as the minutes pass. She’s saying all the right things, she’s letting you know she’s intelligent, and you’re all too bummed to hear her say “Well I’ve had a wonderful time, but I have to get going now.” Since things went so well, you set up a second date right there.

After a few days pass, it’s time to meet again. You grab your orders and head to the same corner booth, but this time you notice something is different. Not soon after she opens her mouth to speak, you wonder how the hell you could have found this woman attractive or interesting. Everything she says annoys the crap out of you, and you eventually make some excuse– first to yourself and then to her– about how you have to leave. You left the iron on. As you grab your things and make for the door, you wonder what could’ve made you believe you and this stranger had anything in common.

Let me tell you about the relationship I had with Natasha Bedingfield.

About 4 years ago, her single “These Words” came out. I found myself to be impressed with both the lyrics and the melody, which was catchy without being stuck in my head all the time. This song had me thinking to myself “Neat! An artist that couples pop sensibility with a semblance of intelligence!” She knew not only what a chord was, but what the progression in her song was. She dropped names like Byron, Shelley, and Keats. She admitted that she had trouble finding that “killer hook” that would make her song a hit. She even correctly used the word “hyperbole”. So I, along with everybody else in America, obligingly listened to “These Words” for about a year or however long it was on the charts.

And then we went on a second date. “Unwritten” wasn’t that bad. I thought “Meh. It kind of wears on me. It’s less smart.” This one seemed to stick around even longer, so I could feel my frustration mount.

This should have been a 2-date deal. I hadn’t asked her to call me and hadn’t told her I’d call her. She just showed up. This time she had with her a “Pocketful of Sunshine”. I was revolted. I was irritated. I resisted the urge to claw the ears of not only myself, but of everyone around me. Her faux hip-hop beats and dancehall tempo only succeeded in enraging me more. I’ve heard this superproduced musical illegitimacy on the radio perhaps twice, but the threat of having to endure approximately 4 minutes of aural torture has caused me to fear the exposure of a pop rock station for any length of time exceeding the commercials. Natasha Bedingfield has quite possibly ruined not only my memory of her once intriguing lyrical ability, but any hope of being impressed with her in the future.

Natasha, if you are reading this, please, for the sake of all who love true, honest music in all its forms, remove yourself from your current profession. Unsign yourself. You got yourself signed and damnit you can get yourself unsigned. Do it for us, the people who would have liked you had you shown any real promise. Do it for the children, without whom we may have no hope of good music in the future, and who are at this point impressionable enough to believe you are an honest to God musician.