I have the opposite reaction to "Pieces of Me." It's the one song I always take for granted (and since it was her only big hit in the U.S., it's the only one I don't think of as "ours" but rather as belonging to the world) - and then when I hear it I'm always surprised by how good it is: the slightly jazzy, soft but strongly rhythmic chords in the verse, the slightly jittery singing, and then the full warm flow of the vocals in the verse. In a way it's absolutely crucial to the album, since it's the track where she's marveling at the fact that she can actually be fully completely loved. Is it the music that leaves you wanting more, or the words? It's true that she says she's moody and restless without giving any examples - but the countdown of the days at the beginning - "On a Monday I am waiting, Tuesday I am fading, and by Wednesday I can't sleep" - coupled with the guitar, sets up a mood of restlessness, which the chorus relieves. And then there's the pang of knowing the eventual real-life unhappy ending, that a year later she'll tell us that ultimately the (broken) pieces of her drove Ryan away.
Is it that the song doesn't reveal new surprises with each listen?
I may be underestimating the second album because it has more songs where only one thing seems to be going on. "Catch Me When I Fall" and "Eyes Wide Open" are powerful powerful tracks with strong singing but each song is a single mood. (But then I rarely concentrate and analyze when I listen to music, so maybe there's much more there to hear; maybe if I analyze the music rather than the words everything will come to feel richer. Not that it needs to for them to be good songs.)
As for social classes, the thing is if you define a social class by particular elements ("hourly wage workers" as opposed to "salaried professionals") then of course everyone in the class will have those elements, whereas if you take a group like the freaks, it's sort of analogous to people who show up at a party: not everyone goes for the same reason and not everyone behaves the same way. So you're a freak if you hang around other people who are considered freaks without being compelled to have particular things in common with all of them, though you might, and of course it's still useful to make generalizations about the class. Or, as I said in the Hero Story thread, it's possible for all students in a high school to decide that people aren't in social classes (as if the classes were a social habitation) but rather freaks and preps etc. are types that people cluster more or less near, act as magnets, forces, shape the social landscape without necessarily defining the people who inhabit the landscape.
Re: class is the elephant in the room? (Post Two)
Is it that the song doesn't reveal new surprises with each listen?
I may be underestimating the second album because it has more songs where only one thing seems to be going on. "Catch Me When I Fall" and "Eyes Wide Open" are powerful powerful tracks with strong singing but each song is a single mood. (But then I rarely concentrate and analyze when I listen to music, so maybe there's much more there to hear; maybe if I analyze the music rather than the words everything will come to feel richer. Not that it needs to for them to be good songs.)
As for social classes, the thing is if you define a social class by particular elements ("hourly wage workers" as opposed to "salaried professionals") then of course everyone in the class will have those elements, whereas if you take a group like the freaks, it's sort of analogous to people who show up at a party: not everyone goes for the same reason and not everyone behaves the same way. So you're a freak if you hang around other people who are considered freaks without being compelled to have particular things in common with all of them, though you might, and of course it's still useful to make generalizations about the class. Or, as I said in the Hero Story thread, it's possible for all students in a high school to decide that people aren't in social classes (as if the classes were a social habitation) but rather freaks and preps etc. are types that people cluster more or less near, act as magnets, forces, shape the social landscape without necessarily defining the people who inhabit the landscape.