the day the music died

one of my favorite ways to kill time at work is to fuel my obsession with matisyahu. i realize it's a little silly that i had to go all the way to the caribbean to discover him, but i swear, he wasn't this famous before i left. when i heard him playing at target yesterday i realized that yet again, my attempts to be edgy had been thwarted.

edgy or not, it turns out that matisyahu is carried by epic records, and the epic records offers high quality, add-free, uninterrupted streaming of the music videos of their artists, allowing me to watch "king without a crown," and "king without a crown (live at stubbs)" over and over and over again. conveniently enough, epic also carries shakira, so i can also watch "hips don't lie" to my heart's content.


when i had finally managed to overdose on matisyahu and shakira i started perusing the other videos that epic promotes, and that's when i stumbled upon teddy geiger, who on first inspection looks like just another garden-variety angsty boy with a guitar. but the longer i watched the video, the more i started to hate him and his heart-on-the-sleeve drivel.

he looks and sounds like a younger, less good john mayer (see pictures), and he has an earnestness that makes me crazy, wailing on about how he's "gonna muster ever ounce of confidence" that he has to get some girl to notice him. but it was seeing the video, and examining the girl in question that put me over the edge.

unless she's his real-life girlfriend, there's just no excuse. the video features our young martyr dejectedly playing his guitar on the street, wistfully watching a very nice, very pretty, very plasticky girl who looks like she stepped right out of an abercrombie & fitch ad, stupid sherpa boots and all (she could also be a contestant on "the bachelor"). she's strolling down the street with her tool-looking boyfriend (who kind of looks like stiffler from "american pie"), giggling, talking on her cell-phone, and just being obnoxious.

it doesn't make any sense. teddy geiger has perfectly mastered the look of the misunderstood hipster: shy, skinny, shaggy-haired, perfectly beat-up jeans and thrift store shirt. he'd be perfect in greenwich village or wicker park and it makes absolutely no sense that he'd be writhing around so miserably for this kind of girl. she's too blond, too perfect. if they'd picked the usually gaunt, dark haired heroin-chic type i'd understand... sort of. but why america's favorite tri-delt?

if this is the best that the post-boy-band pop music era has to offer i think i'll stick with shakira.