RECORD STORE TALES #933: Great Steaks, Shitty Music

Two things I take really, really seriously:

1. How much I love my wife.
2. Steaks.

We celebrated our latest anniversary at the revered Charcoal Steakhouse.  Last year we didn’t really do anything, this year we said “fuck it” and decided to go out.  Restaurants are not busy right now, which might be bad for business but is good for me.  I’m antisocial on the best of non-pandemic days, so sitting in an empty room suited me just fine.

What did not suit me was the music.  An endless stream of soundalike songs, almost all of which were autotuned.  I identified one that sounded like Maroon 5, and all the rest of the songs were virtually the same.  There was one that went “I’m good, I’m good, I’m good” over and over again.  Another one featured a guy singing “I been messin’ around.”  Great anniversary music!

Jen and I complained about how far modern music has sunk while we waited for our appetisers, some Parisian cheese toast.  Then came the steaks.  She ordered a peppercorn-crusted monstrosity while I went for the wagyu.  The only wagyu I’d tasted before was Japanese A5, the best marbling score in the world.  Charcoal serves an Australian MS7 steak.  Still good, but not A5.  There is simply no comparison between the two.  I like to say that the Australian wagyu was the second best steak I ever had.  It was cooked perfectly medium rare, and was so rich that it really didn’t need that pat of butter on the top!  Everything was rich and I could only eat about half.  The toast was thick with cheese, and my fries were done with parmesan and truffle oil.  Everything was great.  Awesome in fact.  It just wasn’t Japanese A5.

The only thing that wasn’t awesome was that terrible music.  Not one decent song came on the entire time we were there.  I was doing this awkward head-bop dance thing that Jen found hilarious.  The kind of thing I would only do in an empty room!

What I learned tonight was that there is a chunk of modern music out there that absolutely sucks.  Who do I blame?  The Maroon 5 guy?  Why not.  Adam Levine, I have legitimately enjoyed some of your music in the past.  That song you did with Slash was the bomb.  But this shit you’re putting out now sounds exactly like all the other garbage I heard.  Garbage — the same notes, the same voices, no dynamics, no tension, no edge, no nothing!  Just wishy-washy melodies massaged by software to sound exactly like everything else.  It was truly awful.

Thank God the steaks weren’t!