I’ve written before about how my taste in music has changed somewhat over the years, and in the last three years in particular, Ben has introduced me to some stuff that’s very different than what I used to listen to, stuff that I like a lot, and although it’s sort of impossible to avoid straight-up pop music, not that I’m trying, I just don’t spend too much money on it anymore. I have had as much melisma from Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston as I can take for one lifetime. Anyhoo, but like many folks, I have been unable to not crank up the car stereo and sing along to SINCE U BEEN GOOONE! by Kelly Clarkson, and so I sheepishly asked Ben if he’d get me the record for my birthday, and he did, cuz that’s the kind of guy he is and truth be told he kinda likes the song too. And it’s everything I hoped it would be, but (not unrelated to a side point Megan makes about Alanis Morrissette on her fantastic rant about people who hate everything), although lyrics like “i’m so movin’ ooon, yeah yeah!” would have spoken to me a dozen years ago, it’s hard now to muster the necessary oomph to sing along in a way that’s – genuine on my part. What I need is for a Kelly Clarkson who sings loud trite rockin pop songs about being madly in love! Because a lot of Ben’s records that I really like, they’re just not sing along records. Or they’re certainly not belt-along records, anyway, and most of them feature dude lead singers. And sometimes I just need to sing along. The point I’m slowly trying to get to is that the feeling I had after listening to the entire record in a row was sort of like the feeling I get after I’ve been to an action movie and eaten a bag of Skittles, a nerds rope, a box of junior mints and washed it down with a slurpee. A little too much at once. I think the remedy might be to take Kelly one song at a time. Because some of the tunes themselves, minus the lyrics? Are AWESOME.