Hey,
Sorry for the swearing in the title. Well not really sorry for putting it there, more sorry if it offends you, you uptight crap.
But anyways, I was just listening to some music this morning, when it came to me, that musicians, some of them, are geniuses. I mean that they have a gift. A gift in being able to craft beautiful music that poses questions and makes you think. But every once in a while, you come across an album that actually blows your mind.
It makes you forget about the outside world and moves you. And its a commercial and critical bomb. And none of your friends can see the opinion that you hold so dear. No one else seems to appreciate that song or album for all the beauty that you can see in it.
I went to a concert last November for a very big band, who had just released their fourth album. Due to going with uptight bastards, I was seated and not moshing. Now this bands fourth album had been hated by fans stating that they had "forgotten", what they were about. Now that is utter pishtosh. If a band does exacxtly what said fans request, makes alubms identical in form, they get called stagnant and boring, lacking inspiration. The band cannot win. Needless to say, I was devastated when the song I had decided in my head that would be amazing when sung in a massive concert, was underwhelming due to only 20% of the crowd singing along.
Now the point I'm trying to make here is, that bands can't win if they always listen to the fans. Take a look at Papa Roach. They've made like 40 albums of generic crap metal. Their first album is still amazing. Yet they have a core fanbase that insists they are still awesome. Well, whilst most educated people can recite half of Last Resort, I can't even remember the guitar riff from Scars.
In the same sense look at Linkin Park. They did something completely different with A Thousand Suns. It's a concept album, an enigma. It doesn't seem to fit. And it's alienated a huge part of their fanbase. But it's a far better album than Minutes to Midnight. The new direction is something different enough to show that as a band they still have an amzing creativity within them. They still want to make music that questions you. And to every fan who doesn't like the new direction:
Y'all need to stop talking, start trying to catch up Motherfucker!!!!!!
Friday 28 October 2011
Wednesday 26 October 2011
X Factor: Like me or die?
X factor: a matter of talent or likeability?
So let me explain something about my yearly habits. Every year I say I’m not interested in the X Factor, or the soul-less machine of talent destruction. Yet every year I end up watching it like some mindless zombie.
Now I’m not gonna lie, the main reason I’m watching it this year is because Gary Barlow is a sexy beast.
But the thing that I’ve noticed over the last 2 years or so is the prevalence of so called comedy or novelty acts Now as much as we can write off certain acts as definite comedy acts; Jedward, Wagner, Alexandra Burke, it’s another breed of contestant that really irks me.
The kind of contestant that bugs a lot of people. They might have a mildly good voice. Or they might have an individual character. Or they might just be easy on the eye. Whatever it may be, it means that the overlords that control the factor favour them.
The thing is, and this is the controversial bit, these people are pushed further in the competition due to the ratings that they achieve. That is, they have a bit of an unfair advantage since they get through regardless of votes and such. They get pushed through since they have massive egos, that people either love or hate, and invariably, people watch it every week in order to see the thing that pisses them off so much.
In this respect, it’s hard to take the entire ‘talent’, aspect of the show seriously. Whereas the program may have acted as though the best singer would win, it is, sadly a battle of like or even hate-ability. I’m not gonna list any particular contestants here, since we can all tell who they are. They are the ones that irritate and cause you to talk and rave about them on the interwebs, just like I am right now. The reason I feel the need to do so, is because they underly the fact that the X Factor has ceased to be a talent show, and is now just another reality contest. If you want real drama, just like the X Factor, you could switch over to Big Brother. It’s basically the same shit, just on 24hours a day.
Also, Cher Lloyd eats kitten heads, or so I’m told anyways.
Peace Out
So let me explain something about my yearly habits. Every year I say I’m not interested in the X Factor, or the soul-less machine of talent destruction. Yet every year I end up watching it like some mindless zombie.
Now I’m not gonna lie, the main reason I’m watching it this year is because Gary Barlow is a sexy beast.
But the thing that I’ve noticed over the last 2 years or so is the prevalence of so called comedy or novelty acts Now as much as we can write off certain acts as definite comedy acts; Jedward, Wagner, Alexandra Burke, it’s another breed of contestant that really irks me.
The kind of contestant that bugs a lot of people. They might have a mildly good voice. Or they might have an individual character. Or they might just be easy on the eye. Whatever it may be, it means that the overlords that control the factor favour them.
The thing is, and this is the controversial bit, these people are pushed further in the competition due to the ratings that they achieve. That is, they have a bit of an unfair advantage since they get through regardless of votes and such. They get pushed through since they have massive egos, that people either love or hate, and invariably, people watch it every week in order to see the thing that pisses them off so much.
In this respect, it’s hard to take the entire ‘talent’, aspect of the show seriously. Whereas the program may have acted as though the best singer would win, it is, sadly a battle of like or even hate-ability. I’m not gonna list any particular contestants here, since we can all tell who they are. They are the ones that irritate and cause you to talk and rave about them on the interwebs, just like I am right now. The reason I feel the need to do so, is because they underly the fact that the X Factor has ceased to be a talent show, and is now just another reality contest. If you want real drama, just like the X Factor, you could switch over to Big Brother. It’s basically the same shit, just on 24hours a day.
Also, Cher Lloyd eats kitten heads, or so I’m told anyways.
Peace Out
Saturday 22 October 2011
Branding???
Hey again. two posts in as many days, I must be on fire.
Branding, or even brand culture is a pretty major thing. Brand culture, for those of you less informed, is wereby a consumer mindlessly follows a brand based on a kind of undeniable arguement inside their head. So for someone to go out and choose a particular item over another based on no evidence other than there own arguement in their head.
It's thee kind of reasoning that apple or sony zealots have when purchasing their electronics.
"It's sony, so it's the best", or "it's an apple, It'll never go wrong"
So you end up with a subset of people, ignorant to all around them in their opinion of a particular item.
Now this may not seem like a major thing, you know some fly, others die.
It can't all be roses and butteflies, can it?
Well to be honest, if we continue in this way, we will end up destroying the market.
If we look back at the past, in particular the 70's. 1976 to be exact. A small company known as Apple inc was started. It was an alternative to the miocrosoft and IBm monsters at the time.
Now imagine that at that stage, the Apple 1(Apple's first computer), was a critical and commercial failure. Imagine if at no stage did Apple have that massive expansion, contraction and re-expansion that they had. Imagine what we woule be without.
The Ipod, the iPhone, possibly even digital music players. If you look back just 15 years, we could have stuck with removable media, with minidisc, or gone digital. But because of the way that we as conusmers had accepted the company, the iPod was a commercial success on a global scale.
But lets take it back a bit. If we take it back to the apple example. The Apple 1 did it all a bit dfifferently at the time. A mouse was used, with icons and all sorts. It was an option other than the giants of the time.
Let me give you an example from today. WebOs. An operating system that was not only different, but that had clear advantages over the competition. The difference between the two being that one gave us the basis for a global corporation and a true alternative to PC, whereas the other was cut short, deleted by a massive corporation unwilling to see their product out, due to a lack of commercail success.
What I'm trying to say is, as consumers, we're pigeonholed into focus groups and zealots and fanboys and all sorts. What if, in our blind following of brand ideology and the like, we're missing out on the next Apple 1?
Also every time a company dies, God kills a thousand kittens.
Peace out
Branding, or even brand culture is a pretty major thing. Brand culture, for those of you less informed, is wereby a consumer mindlessly follows a brand based on a kind of undeniable arguement inside their head. So for someone to go out and choose a particular item over another based on no evidence other than there own arguement in their head.
It's thee kind of reasoning that apple or sony zealots have when purchasing their electronics.
"It's sony, so it's the best", or "it's an apple, It'll never go wrong"
So you end up with a subset of people, ignorant to all around them in their opinion of a particular item.
Now this may not seem like a major thing, you know some fly, others die.
It can't all be roses and butteflies, can it?
Well to be honest, if we continue in this way, we will end up destroying the market.
If we look back at the past, in particular the 70's. 1976 to be exact. A small company known as Apple inc was started. It was an alternative to the miocrosoft and IBm monsters at the time.
Now imagine that at that stage, the Apple 1(Apple's first computer), was a critical and commercial failure. Imagine if at no stage did Apple have that massive expansion, contraction and re-expansion that they had. Imagine what we woule be without.
The Ipod, the iPhone, possibly even digital music players. If you look back just 15 years, we could have stuck with removable media, with minidisc, or gone digital. But because of the way that we as conusmers had accepted the company, the iPod was a commercial success on a global scale.
But lets take it back a bit. If we take it back to the apple example. The Apple 1 did it all a bit dfifferently at the time. A mouse was used, with icons and all sorts. It was an option other than the giants of the time.
Let me give you an example from today. WebOs. An operating system that was not only different, but that had clear advantages over the competition. The difference between the two being that one gave us the basis for a global corporation and a true alternative to PC, whereas the other was cut short, deleted by a massive corporation unwilling to see their product out, due to a lack of commercail success.
What I'm trying to say is, as consumers, we're pigeonholed into focus groups and zealots and fanboys and all sorts. What if, in our blind following of brand ideology and the like, we're missing out on the next Apple 1?
Also every time a company dies, God kills a thousand kittens.
Peace out
Thursday 20 October 2011
Things that have sprung to mind
Hey!
It's been a while hasn't it?
Hows that rash you had?
that bad huh?
Tough cheese hombre. True story, I stopped posting on this because I was convinced no-one was reading it. But recently, like yesterday, I just though to myself, if I'm ever gonna make it as a mega super media guy, I gotta start somewhere, and that means I gotta have an opinion on it all.
Like everything. So today I think I'm gonna talk about music again. I might end up talking about kittens though, so you have been warned.
I recently got 9 by Damien Rice. It's a pretty average albums. Once you get past the inital beauty of the pure composition; Rice has a gift in the way he can put a melody together, you realise its not that great an album. In fact it is largely droll and uninspired.
Now I know thats not very informative, but bear with me. The reason this album is not so hot, is because Rice is defiant in his misery. That is, he largely refuses to be happy at any one point. It opens to the title track, 9, a ballad about a broken relationship and a lack of trust. Once you get past the initial melody and the angel like voice of Lisa Hannigan it just meanders on for 2 and a half minutes. Coconut skins is a mild high point to the album but the remainder of it is just dreary and a bit bleargh.
Which is my core complaint with this kind of alternative pop music.
To illustrate another example, lets take a much more popular example. Adele. Why the flying fudge is she so damn miserable? There is no discernable reason for the woman to be so mind numbingly dreary over 120 minutes of recorded audio. Over her two albums, Adele is only happy, like really happy, at the start of 21. After and before that, she is in abject misery and complaint. She derides herself, cursing her mistakes, wishing she could go back and change the past.
Which brings me to the largere point, why does misery like this sell? Damien Rices may not be huge, but both of Adele's albums were best sellers. Are we, as a nation, so miserable, we want to hear another person sing about being miserable? If music is escapism, i honestly think that we aren't doing it right. All this stuff does is perpetuate a mindless misery which has so saviour. There is no sweet aftertaste to the music.Not that its not moving or brilliant. Rather, it is moving but only in one emotion. Adele's music makes me rememeber my darkest moments. What it doesn't do however, is remind me how I overcame them....
I think Adele needs to go buy some kittens.
Peace out
It's been a while hasn't it?
Hows that rash you had?
that bad huh?
Tough cheese hombre. True story, I stopped posting on this because I was convinced no-one was reading it. But recently, like yesterday, I just though to myself, if I'm ever gonna make it as a mega super media guy, I gotta start somewhere, and that means I gotta have an opinion on it all.
Like everything. So today I think I'm gonna talk about music again. I might end up talking about kittens though, so you have been warned.
I recently got 9 by Damien Rice. It's a pretty average albums. Once you get past the inital beauty of the pure composition; Rice has a gift in the way he can put a melody together, you realise its not that great an album. In fact it is largely droll and uninspired.
Now I know thats not very informative, but bear with me. The reason this album is not so hot, is because Rice is defiant in his misery. That is, he largely refuses to be happy at any one point. It opens to the title track, 9, a ballad about a broken relationship and a lack of trust. Once you get past the initial melody and the angel like voice of Lisa Hannigan it just meanders on for 2 and a half minutes. Coconut skins is a mild high point to the album but the remainder of it is just dreary and a bit bleargh.
Which is my core complaint with this kind of alternative pop music.
To illustrate another example, lets take a much more popular example. Adele. Why the flying fudge is she so damn miserable? There is no discernable reason for the woman to be so mind numbingly dreary over 120 minutes of recorded audio. Over her two albums, Adele is only happy, like really happy, at the start of 21. After and before that, she is in abject misery and complaint. She derides herself, cursing her mistakes, wishing she could go back and change the past.
Which brings me to the largere point, why does misery like this sell? Damien Rices may not be huge, but both of Adele's albums were best sellers. Are we, as a nation, so miserable, we want to hear another person sing about being miserable? If music is escapism, i honestly think that we aren't doing it right. All this stuff does is perpetuate a mindless misery which has so saviour. There is no sweet aftertaste to the music.Not that its not moving or brilliant. Rather, it is moving but only in one emotion. Adele's music makes me rememeber my darkest moments. What it doesn't do however, is remind me how I overcame them....
I think Adele needs to go buy some kittens.
Peace out
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