What's a Meme?

I'm here with an assignment of sorts. Jesse has passed a "musical baton" to me on his blog. He then IMed me just to make sure that I did it, so here I am.

Let me just say that I am taking a very long time on this. I even lost most of my answers once and had to start over again. Please consider that I'm not very good at answering surveys. It takes me a long time because I think so hard about the answers before I give them, but they don't end up so great anyway. So I hope that you aren't expecting too much. But here goes:

Total Volume of music files on my computer:
706 MB in mp3s.

Last CD I Bought:
Technically, the last CD I bought was Scott Mccurry's "Like the Sun" at Target for 25 cents. It's not bad for 25 cents. It's not really the type of music I really enjoy but it's not bad. Actually most people that heard me play it (Brian, Jon, and James) all liked it a lot.

The last CD I count as buying is the Goo Goo Dolls: Live in Buffalo. Ed got me a Best Buy gift certificate for Christmas and told me to buy something to play in the car as I drive down the 405. This CD is perfect for that. It's also great to listen to in general. I heart Goo Goo Dolls! (just to piss Jon off). I think it's all about their melodies. Listening to their songs just make me happy.

(in the week and a half it took me to finish writing this, I also bought Jack Johnson's "In Between Dreams" I'm supposed to go pick it up at the post office this afternoon, so I don't exactly know how good it is yet although I've heard it played some before)

Playing Right now:
Actually, right now I am not playing anything, but what I've been listening to a lot lately has been Switchfoot's "A Beautiful Letdown", which my wonderful boyfriend lent me. :) It's really been speaking to me lately. The lyrics to the songs tell of something greater than this life and the struggle of living in a fallen world.

Five Songs that Mean a lot to me:
I guess this is hard because it's kinda time-dependent. Some songs currently mean a lot to me and some are all-time favorites. I guess I will do my best to accurately represent my tastes in music. It's weird, while I was doing this, I realized that for me in some cases it's a lot about the artists or genres, not so much about the individual songs. Just keep that in mind as you read this.

1) "For the Moments I Feel Faint" by Relient K has helped me in quite a few hard times. I remember just turning it on really loud when I was feeling particularly crappy and repeating it over and over and over and over and just sitting there crying.

2) Musically, I have loved the song "Crush" by Dave Matthews Band ever since I first heard it, not "Crash" mind you, but "Crush". It's so mellow and upbeat at the same time and it makes me happy when I hear it, especially the fiddle solo.

3) It would be sad for me to not put a Matchbox Twenty on this, but it's hard to describe why I like them so much. I've been a Matchbox fan since early high school. I would have to say the song "Push", it is my favorite Matchbox Twenty song but I guess the words aren't the best. I love the way that Rob Thomas can make the words sound like they mean so much. Sad that most of his solo stuff isn't so great.

4) "Angel" by Sarah McClachlan. Since I learned the chords, I've been playing the song on the piano (well, not lately cuz I don't have much access to pianos). It's incredibly therapeutic to play this song especially when I'm feeling sad, and I can sing like I mean it and after feel so much more hopeful, like I know that there's someone taking care of me when I can't take care of myself.

5) hmm, I realize there's nothing "fun" in here, like the kind of music that you bob your head to (Although I probably bob my head to these songs anyway) I guess for this I would choose "American Girls" by Counting Crows. I like Counting Crows in general although they only have one song that isn't depressing. "American Girls" doesn't sound depressing, but if you listen to the lyrics, you'll find that it is. It doesn't change the fact that it sounds great.

How I Discover good music:
Some through friends or family, mostly through listening to the radio or looking on myspace music or launchcast for artists that are similar to other artists. I like certain styles of music and I try to find artists that have that style.

I am realizing that this musical baton doesn't even start to cover my musical tastes, but I don't know what would. I guess for the songs that mean a lot to me, I picked a couple that mean a lot to me and a couple that just represent the kind of music that I like. Maybe sometime I'll write another post about what kind of music I like. I'm sorry Jesse, if I didn't do your musical baton justice.