Make Music Better

First, before I launch this new chapter of my online presence, I want to thank everyone who has shown up for me over the past decade and change, reading my ruminations and humoring my ideas. Lucinda–you have been my most steadfast cheerleader over the years, and supported me virtually when no one else has. Thank you!

Now, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get going with the next chapter: Micah1814.com and Make Music Better.

After years of using the somewhat esoteric ememon.com domain, I’m switching over to Micah1814. The idea of “ememon” is that I’m “emem” which is MM, which are my initials. “On” means “writing about.” which means I can talk about cats and it’s “ememon… cats!”

So, yeah, if you have to explain it…

Micah1814 is simply my first name and a cryptic number which isn’t nearly as cryptic if you’re a Janet Jackson fan. Still, it’s a number, and people accept the implicit mystery of numbers if they don’t get the meaning right away.

Make Music Better: I tire of endless online blathering about how music sucks and how the quality of music just happened to be at is zenith during the exact time of the commenter’s youth. Add to that the online fan swarms of Michael Jackson, Beyonce, and well, just about every artist of note, all taking aim at any other artist they see as competition–it all adds up to a lot of negativity.

Instead of scolding artists (and the listeners who make them popular) to make better music, which to me is the implicit message of these online condescensions, I think it’s up to us as listeners to Make Music Better, which is accomplished by meeting the music where it is and keeping in mind what it was created to accomplish.

If popular music doesn’t have a powerhouse vocalist currently topping the charts, that is not because there are not gifted vocalists around. You can take a brief twirl around YouTube or field some online recommendations to quickly correct that notion. It’s because popular music isn’t about powerhouse vocalists right now. Even if we take a worst-case scenario that musical tastes are being force-fed to us by the media, then that too is part of the feedback loop that makes music what it is today.

Make Music Better is the guiding philosophy as I share my views on current music, old music, and middle-aged music. Its underlying appreciation of context and inclusion informs my non-music commentary, to the extent that I venture outside of the realm of popular music.

Instead of using a blog-centered approach, I plan to leverage my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Micah1814) as a primary source of content. With the rise of reaction videos, which I am a huge fan of, I thought that was an ideal format to discuss music the way I wanted to discuss it. Instead of all this verbiage on a page (I bet you’re already nodding off), wouldn’t you rather hear the song itself, punctuated with live commentary? I sure as heck would.

Since I still love typing out novellas, there will still be blog posts supplementing the videos. Come here for the text; go to the Micah1814 channel on YouTube for the live commentary.

Here we go!