Floating Leaf

Still busy downloading. I seem to have fallen head down into a misty ocean labelled "new age".;) You know... Era, Enigma, Deep Forest, Delerium and the like. The thing is, I was only familiar with a bunch of catchy tracks by each of the abovementioned music groups - namely, the ones that had been played to death on the radio back in the 80's/90's/whenever. Predictably, however, those aren't really the best or most interesting tracks - just the ones more likely to apppeal to "mainstream" music tastes (read: watered down to bland pop, more often than not). The real gems are the ones I'd never heard before. And there's a SHITLOAD of them - dozens of albums filled with unexplored treasures. Of course, "new age" can mean almost anything - from Gregorian chants to tribal drums to synthesizers - but that's precisely what constitutes its appeal. It can be a delicious crossover between various music genres and traditions. And combining numerous influences almost always leads to interesting results. My favorite artists/bands tend to be ones that don't fit easily into one particular music label (unless it's "new age"... LOL). But speaking of labels - I am greatly annoyed with iTunes for not recognizing the existence of either "goth rock" or "symphonic metal". I know expecting them to have heard of "art rock" or "progressive rock" would have been too much - but goth rock is pretty mainstream, I dare say. Yes, they have "gothic", but that's too broad and confusing - just like "metal". I mean, come on - there are dozens of different kinds of metal. Some of them I love - others cause unspeakable agony to my eardrums. How can all this endless variety be squeezed into one label?...

Anyway... don't mind me, I'm just a little jittery due to the final stages of PMS, and fussing over irrelevant issues seems to be my favorite pastime at the moment.:P