"Good" music

When the newspaper kids come to my house to learn how to use Photoshop and InDesign, they also if I have music on my computer. I open up iTunes, and they tell me that I don't have any "good" music.

Now, the newspaper kids and I have different understandings of what makes music good. My preferred music probably wouldn't be well-received at a discotec, whereas that's pretty much all the youth want.

After the "you don't have any good music" bit played out a few times, I asked them to make me a list of music that they would like to listen to when they are at my house so I could get what they want. I now have over 150 bachata songs, 175 reggaeton songs, 74 baladas de amor, and a good variety of other genres they enjoy (cumbia, vallenato, salsa, pop, etc).

By now, pretty much every kid who uses the computer is satisfied with the music selection. My iTunes collection is constantly changing. If the kids want to listen to a song, I want to make them happy so they continue learning how to use the programs.

Two days ago one of the kids came by with a few suggestions on how I could improve my iTunes library.

One of the songs he suggested was "El Dengue" by DJ Loko.

I had never heard of this song before, but having overcome El Dengue, I wanted to know what DJ Loko felt dengue sounded like.



The song does a nice job of expressing the ups and downs of the dengue. Its intermittent use of horns to show the intense headaches followed a brief lull to express how the disease hits use in waves.

If I were to critique the song, I would say that it doesn't really do an accurate job of representing the "everything tastes like chalk" aspect of the sickness or the "I feel as if I was just run over by a tractor" side of things.

While I don't know how that would be done musically, I know that DJ Loko's production is not it. But then again, if you were to accurately portray that in music, I don't think anybody would want to listen.