Chill On The Hill was a THRILL!

Monday night I asked my wife if she'd be interested in checking out Milwaukee's Decibully Tuesday at Chill On The Hill at Humbolt Park. Since we had nothing else going on, we headed down, but missed opening act Juniper Tar. We were both in awe of how many people where hanging out at Humbolt. There were TONS, probably the entire town of Bay View showed up! It was quite enjoyable relaxing on the large hill watching one of the best bands in town. They opened with what sounded like a new song, then went straight into "Sing Out.." They started playing a few older gems, but got into some of the new stuff off World Travels Fast, and even nailed some b-sides and up-coming material for their next record. It was an interesting crowd. Mostly parents with kids, small dogs...and the few in the front dancing to Decibully. One child yelled out after a song "THAT WAS GOOD!" Everyone around him bursted out laughing. Here's the set list in it's entirety in no particular order

Sing Out Sing Out...
My Lighter and Strings
Meg and Magill
Somewhere in the World
Live By The Lake
Penny Look Down
I'm Gonna Tell You
Broken Glass
Let's Not Fight
Don't Believe The Hype
Let Me In My Lord
Blood We Bleed

I think my favourite tunes of the night where Broken Glass (because it sounds AMAZING live) Blood We Bleed and My Lighter and Strings (because they never play that gem). Overall, amazing night. I'm ready and fired up for my band's show Saturday. Hopefully won't break any sticks or do anything stupid.

Top-40 vs. Pop

My wife and I often discuss music in the car while listening to stuff she enjoys, which is mostly top-40.

I've had a problem with top-40 for most of my life, as it's just throwaway crap which, truthfully, is not meant to have a lasting effect.

To the average listener, top-40 and pop are synonymous. However, upon discussing this with my wife, we determined that they are not.

We defined the two as such:

Pop = a genre of music whose songs have sing-along-able hooks, yet tends to not sound dated years later (which is why there can be such thing as pop-punk).

Top-40 = a genre of music that uses all the latest conventions and technologies that burns out rather quickly. Top-40 songs are used in retrospective VH-1 shows, like "I love the 80s."

Let's illustrate:

This is pop:



This is top-40:



Both songs came out in 1999. Which sounds more dated?

I guarantee you that just a few years from now, we'll be talking about Keisha and Lady Gaga nostalgically just like we do with the Backstreet Boys.... or we'll be talking about their comeback albums.