To start the week off right, Chris Bopst’s weekly radio/podcast hour does the trick. With an economic crisis flapping in the breeze, this week’s episode is on-the-money, so to speak.

Everything that I feel about the world is based on my love of music. While other people look to religion for spiritual or moral guidance, I turn to my record collection. And it’s there that I always find the face of God.

I have no doubt that this might sound a little silly to some people. Music is merely an entertainment option to them, a means to enable a good time and nothing else. To me, that thinking belittles the redemptive power of sound. While I certainly enjoy musical a compliment in the shallow end of the pool, I seek out music the most for guidance in the deep end of life’s headier realms. And it works both ways. Sometimes AC/DC is the perfect antidote to cure existential angst; sometimes it’s Stravinsky or maybe Lee Perry. I’ve found that cranking MDC’s, “Millions of Dead Cops” cures a Sarah Palin-induced rage and that Nina Simone’s cover of the Ike & Tina Turner classic, “Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter” is the perfect theme song for John McCain. If I’m feeling down in the dumps, the soothing sounds of Perrey & Kingsley or the Beau Hunks always brings me back to the good life. Of all the creative expressions, music is the most malleable and immediate in its ability to affect either the individual or a group’s mood. It has the ability to convey true emotional impact though the arrangement of notes.

And at it’s best, music can affect social and political change.

Now I’m going to hear to what Bopst has to offer this week. Click here to listen.