A SNOWLESS YET GLARINGLY WHITE “HOWDY”, BUDGUYPAL’S!

THROWBACK:

It’s 1990 and you’ve just got a LIT 6-piece nuggie meal from the McDick’s, with the appropriate “orange pop” drank on the side. Dad extinguishes his cigarette that he smoked with the window barely cracked while your mother’s pre-“The Rachelle” haircut gently brushes against the roof of your diesel-chugging, “What’s a safety inspection?”, probably oil change needing, FORD F150.

(Truck Yeah, Brother)

You pull the McNugget Buddie from his hermetically sealed toy bag and have your first overloading thought,

“Wait. . . A Nugget that’s a fireman? Does that mean that he would save the Nuggets who fall in the oil, or does he only prevent overcooking so that he can pass off his unsuspecting kin into a vat of popping and spitting oil, leaving himself raw and unedible? Is there a potato hierarchy? IS THERE A POTATO KING? HOW MANY EYES DOES HE HA-”

Your dad loudly begins pulling the tape deck from underneath the passenger seat to put it back in the center console, breaking your train of thought entirely. With a hefty palm strike, he manages to get the player’s hooks to re-clip into its dock, and with a small flick now has the radio on. Over the lo-fi speakers came that first BANGER and you may not have even known it at the time. Maybe it was just something that sat subliminally in your memory until called upon for that golden karaoke moment.

Either way, I personally believe that there is a somewhat genetic preference that underlies many of the choices both we as listeners, and they as artists either gravitate towards or construct with hopes of achieving that same effect. Be it clean hooks, big ballads, or flashy leather pants, as a white individual I just so happen to love all that hoopla. I’ll even go as far as to say that with the uprising in popularity of vinyl, the INSANE surplus of really shitty acts (I’m looking at you, Soundcloud rappers who put out a song a year), and decline of popularity for things like talent competitions (____ Idol, ____’s Got Talent, The Voice) we are seeing the oncoming of an age where GOOD music may actually become a Veblen Good. For those uneducated, a Veblen Good is an item which increases in demand as it increases in value. Anything from the British Guiana One-Cent Magenta Stamp (which is just shy of a 10 million dollar value last it was auctioned) to the card Black Lotus from Magic: The Gathering (Alpha Edition and good condition could easily bag you over $100,000), hard copies of GOOD music are going to become FAR more rapidly scarce. Many first albums from big bands had incredulously small print runs, sometimes less than 100 pressings. Be that as it may, vinyl is not a very long lasting material, and it damages quite easily, which will only make it RARER. You might walk by a pawn shop someday soon and see an early run Bob Marley collection with print numbers going for what I could only estimate to in the six to seven figure ballpark,and that really isn’t just playful speculation, as a single live recording tape of his from before the reggae artist era surfaced not too long ago, was verified, and then sold ON IT’S OWN for over $38,000 CDN.

SO! As millennials get into their late 50’s, we should expect hipsters to RE-purchase albums that were not released during their lifetimes, and for them to pay ten times the price for all of it, happily. That being said, here is a playlist of songs white people LOSE THEIR SHIT OVER. Purchase any album with these on it and hold on for a big payday when you’re wrinkly n’ junk.