Music that people have no idea I listen to

Recently in class, there was this particular incident which revealed that people think I only listen to classical music. To which I replied, 'Believe it or not, I don't have anything classical in my ipod. None at all.' So I'm here to share with you two CDs which i play frequently while on the move or when trying to make some sense of numbers. Though they will, in no way, help us in pulling up our mep grades, (unless you're an alien like chunbok who picks out anything in a pop song that repeats thrice and yells, TIHAI! or who embellishes simple harmless melodies with VISTARS, much to the alarm of startled innocent passerbys) I personally think that they make life so much easier to endure, at times.

Promiscuous clothing and suggestive posing aside, this runner-up of American Idol Season 5 has much to offer. Blessed with a versatile voice, she is able to pull off several different styles convincingly; from pop, dance, R&B and especially her signature ballads which even swayed notorious judge Simon Cowell.

If there's one thing that I dislike in this album, it would be the blatantly feministic and sometimes cringe-worthy lyrics: In 'Dangerous', for instance, it reads, 'Dangerous. He’ll steal your heart away, then run and play. He’s dangerous. Protect your heart, he’ll tear it apart.' As admirable as her quest is to warn all females of the dangers of men, perhaps a little subtlety would do some good? Very very frighteningly, one track in the album sounds as if Britney Spears burst into Katharine's recording studio demanding to record a song to save her rapidly fading career. (The song in question is 'Do what you do', so be warned. Here's some evidence in case you're in the mood for GP: cause all the boys in the club wantin me/and all the girls in there tryin be like me) But thankfully, she redeems herself in several other stellar tracks including 'Over it', a solid pop number, 'Home' and 'Ordinary World', both of which are powerful ballads which showcase her voice very effectively. (the latter was destroyed by the above mentioned alien who decided it suited its voice effectively too)

Natasha Bedingfield's latest offering is no doubt an interesting mix, with well crafted lyrics which sometimes requires reading between the lines. Unlike Katharine McPhee, whose voice is rather conventional but beautiful all the same, Natasha Bedingfield's pipes are subjective. To quote one classmate of mine, whom i was trying to get to widen his musical horizon beyond Jay Chou, 'She sounds pissed off.' To me, it's one of the things which sets her apart from the myriad of new female vocalists springing up on the music scene.

The tracks in the album are very cleverly linked with a common thread running through them, the theme of relationships. It begins with a rousing number titled, 'How do you do?' in which she boldly declares, 'If it's weird for girls to give guys flowers/ Then maybe that's a reason to/ You're not climbing up my ivory tower/ So I'm comin' down for you' (this is the said song in which the alien picked out tihais) Following this is the highly amusing single, 'I wanna have your babies' which caused my sister to rant about the inaccurate portrayal of females as desperate beings. There is also very interesting imagery in 'Pirate Bones': 'It's not worth having/ If it's too much to hold/ You can dig so deep/ That's you're left with a hole/ Thirsty in the desert with a bag full of gold/ Don't wanna end up like pirate bones' and one track titled 'Still here' which rips your heart right out and at the same time, displays her competent vocal technique. Interestingly, we can draw comparisons with British pop (Natasha Bedingfield) and American pop (Katharine McPhee).

So there, all you people out there who harbour the misconception that MEP students are all about classical music!