Music is totally a drug...

and I've been doing mostly depressants lately.

You've probably heard people say things like this about music, but I'm gonna try to substantiate this for a minute. Also keep in mind that by depressants I do not mean that I'm horribly sad all the time because of my music choices. Setting aside songs that are actually "sad" and make me tear up from their lyrics, depressants mostly don't make you sad but chill you out. Alcohol is a fine example of this (NB: this apparently does not hold for soldiers/cadets).

Specifically my drugs of choice have been tangos (of various styles) and acid jazz.

There's a reason why people at a tango (music not dance) show get really animated when the musicians start playing an uptempo milonga or folklore number in place the tangos that make up most of their repertoire. Tango just isn't happy music. Since it's beginnings its lyrics were preoccupied with content similar to that of blues: jealous lovers, separation, poverty, crime etc. But unlike blues, tango, with a brief spell of happier (at least musically) tunes during the golden age of orchestras, tango seems to have gotten more serious and somber as time went on. Piazzolla's "nuevo tango" which incorporated elements of classical and jazz (the cat spent his youth in NYC he couldn't help himself) got more sophisticated and at times faster tempo musically, but certainly not something you'd go jogging to (or even dance to really). And while the "electrotango" that's become popular in more recent years uses elements of electronic music, those elements come more often from dub, downtempo and chillout than from party genres like techno or house. And its heavy use of samples of old tango singers and orchestras only furthers the nostalgia that's heavy in the music (and the city too but that's another story).

This is generally just fine, I've increasingly become a fan of more relaxed music, and my evenings out have been filled with a lot more sitting at restaurants/bars sipping a glass of wine than dancing/moshing at a rock club. But one serious disadvantage of this trend has been my physical health: I'm not going to the gym nearly as often.

I know what you're thinking, listening to tango is a pretty lame excuse for not going to the gym. And indeed there are definitely some deeper more important reasons for my being lax on physical activity. But any of you have ever been walking down the street listening to your ipod on shuffle and a more upbeat song came up, giving you the idea that maybe you should run to the bus stop rather than walk, well...you get the idea.

This happened when I added ska-punk to the shuffle of podcasts, Us3 and Billie Holiday (god, talk about some sad music! If Billie Holiday doesn't make you tear up sometime you have no soul) that have been residents for a while. But I could use a little variety.

So anyone out there who is a big fan of some energetic music, whether it be hardcore punk, death metal, or drum & bass wanna send me some tunes or artists to look up (so I don't have to), I'd appreciate it. I really need to hit the gym sometime.