Stronger in Many Ways

Mr. "I've got a permanent beef with MTV" Kayne West is super hot and winning his album selling contest against 50 Cent because he took the beat from Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and created a monster hit called "Stronger." This song is my current favorite hip-hop tune by very wide margin. If you haven't heard it yet, you are living in a cave.

For instance, it's so popular that 30 Seconds to Mars covered "Stronger" in a really decent way on BBC Radio 1's Jo Whiley show. You have to listen to some other music from the program but its worth it. You can skip ahead - the song is played about 25 minutes into the program.

Aside from the awesome opening of "Let's get lost tonight - You can be my black Kate Moss tonight," the start of the chorus is what I truly love about the song. The lyrics are, "N-now th-th-that that don't kill me - Can only make me stronger" which paraphrases an ultra famous Nietzsche quote - "Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger" - which also happened to be my high school year book quote.

The idea that as long as you are alive, you can rise above and get past whatever life throws at you has been a guiding principal in my life. It has helped me get over and get past a lot of bad shit over the years. Not only are the words powerful on their own, but with the added bumping bass and catchy Kayne lyrics, I see listening to this song as the aural equivalent of slamming down two freshly brewed cups of espresso.