Three Days But No Fun?

The big thing about me not posting (specifically these past two days) is I was reading/watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for the first time. I have to say, it's a fantastic anime and manga with a interesting story that revolves around Haruhi Suzumiya.

Now, I know I'm behind on the draw on this cause it's not a specifically new story and most people who are into this kinda stuff have already read it, but I put it off till something pushed a button and told me to read it. Now, if you haven't already read/watch it and you want an honest opinion? It's definitely worth reading the manga, the anime was well done and ended in a more interesting way but the manga is a lot more linear and the story is easier to follow in that format. If you have time, I recommend watching the anime after reading the manga as it adds a new flavour to the whole story.

Bullet In My Brain or Lung Cancer?

Story: Woman's husband is a smoker (most likely starting before the warning labels were put on packs), and he smokes roughly a pack a day of Philip Morris brand cigarettes. Despite an addition of a warning label in 1966, and several revisions to that warning label in 1970 that is approved by the Surgeon General saying that smoking is hazardous, and a later revision in 1985 advising smokers to quit; this man kept on trucking. Despite the majour controversy surrounding cigarettes and their questionable contents he continued on smoking, pushing himself to the point of getting lung cancer and dying in 1996. It is now 13 years after the fact and his wife has currently won a lawsuit against Philip Morris Corp for $6.3 billion in repercussions. This is not only wrong, but hinging on the edge of pushing a company out of business. As you may or may not know, cigarette companies cannot even advertise their products anymore, that's all fine in dandy but on top of not being able to advertise they have to tell people to not use their product, very counter productive if I do say so myself.

Now, on to my next point; if cigarette companies have to pay a widow reprecussions because her husband killed himself using their product, then gun companies should have to pay the families of suicide cases, and anyone who dies of over drinking? The liquor company should toss money at that person's family. Its' just ridiculous what people can get away with sueing over simply cause it's a cigarette company.

Another Hymn to Tell Our Children It's Alright

The majourity of people who say they listen to music, don't really listen to it. They use it as a background noise to supplement their life. They also probably don't call Hip Hop or Techno music, because of the "lacking" musical value. While it's true that the shit to good ratio in those two broad genres of music is very much in favour of the shit, the good is just as good as the good rock music. It may not be the conventional way of creating music, but if you're only into the conventional methods you might as well throw out every rock album you ever bought and go buy orchestraeted opera albums and listen to those for the rest of your life. While it may not be fair to say there is shitty music, it is entirely fair to say that there is music that is a lot worse than other music, as in, bands the likes of Disturbed, In Flames, Panic at the Disco, Cute is What We Aim For, Tool, Soulja Boy, Fifty Cent etc, are far less talented than say...Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Bright Eyes, Joe Satriani, Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Jason Becker, MC Chris, Arts the Beatdoctor etc; this just comes with the nature of art. It's not something that can easily be taught, it's something you have to understand and work with, grow and move with.

Then, there are the types of people who say "You want good lyrics? Why don't you go read some poetry instead!"' who try to defend bands the likes of Dragonforce and Coldplay who lack just as much lyrical talent as they do musical. Lyrics may not be a top priority thing, but if you don't have the musical talent, then you better have the lyrical talent to keep yourself afloat. No one wants to hear songs that are blatantly about things they can look to their everyday life for, they also dont want to hear things that are childish but not sung in innocence. Ala, if your'e gonna write a song about a children's story don't make it sound violent ; or if you're going to write a song about how you pour a glass of milk dont make it sound that dull.

I guess what I'm getting at is, music is music, don't be close minded and listen to something new. Also, if you're going to defend a band make sure they have some redeeming qualities.

Brain to Brain Sharing

Some readers may be wondering why exactly I created this blog. Well, it wasn't some other worldly call I had to write, wasn't some ungodlike dare or bet, it wasn't anything other than the fact that I was bored and wanted to share some knowledge with someone. I'm not looking to change your entire world view, but I am hoping to make you question it.

That's all, no big explanation, no stylish ideology, just another person typing another paragraph on another blog on the internet.

Eliminate the Ones You Hate

There will always be critics, and these critics will always hate what doesn't sell and what doesn't go with the system. These critics are usually not writers themselves, but they believe themselves to have a higher understanding of the language or of music than the actual poets, songwriters and musicians who tear themselves apart making everything perfect. Truth is, they don't, and they never will. Until they can write an entire album and give a story to us that will brighten up our day, even if only for half an hour, they will never understand quite the minute differences between an amazing album that won't sell, and a horrible album that will.

Aside from the critics, there are the people who will be listening to the music; these people generally will not want to sit down for half an hour to an hour to listen to a full album, that is, unless they're caught off guard and swept off their feet by the songs. Entranced in the romance and dueling instrumentals and the power behind each chord, struck in anger or struck in love. These are the type of people you should aim to change with your writing. Short attention spans will bring the fall of anyone making money off of music, because it starts with only listening to one three minute song, then it goes to only listening to that on the radio when it's on, which crawls slowly to only listening to the radio, into only listening to a top 40 station, into not noticing when that station plays silence. Granted there are still people who will go to shows, who are die hard fans of a band and will pay upwards of 100$ to see them, there will always be those type of people- but they are by and far the minority here. When it gets to the point where radio stations can play static and still make the large amounts of money they are used to making, when it gets to the point where no one in the mainstream audience will want to pay to see a band live when they can just look up that performance later, when it gets to the point where no one cares about the music anymore and it's just about the background noise, when no one will be able to tell the difference between Paramore and Neutral Milk Hotel and The Paper Chase; we will look back and ask how it all went wrong. And I am here to answer how it all went wrong.

With the upheaval of the music industry, when we push ourselves to the limits and raise the price astronomically to only suit the industry and not the bands, when the bands can't have intimate shows and play whatever they feel like, when bands make no money off of the records and barely any money off of touring- this is where we went wrong. The line only further darkens when bands the like of Coldplay and Dragonforce, and artists such as Jason Mraz and James Blunt, become popular and further ruin the public's opinion of what "music" is. When someone can listen to Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" and Joe Satriani's "If I Could Fly" and not see the resemblence, and brush it off as a coincidence, or say that Satriani isn't "popular" for a reason, this is where we went wrong. When someone can call Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails revolutionary for releasing albums for free, this is where we have gone wrong. People are so desentized and jaded towards the idea of music, where we can't even say our favourite independant band without being called a pretentious hipster who only likes it cause it's not cool. When someone can look at me and ask me who I think I am when buying a Nas and Bright Eyes album. This is where we went wrong.

Killing Yourself to Live

Reaching the intended audience has never been the easiest thing to do, and not necessarily always the best thing to do. Many artists prefer to write the songs that will sell and the songs that have some meaning to them, not the songs that they want to write. I have a much more realist view of the world. I don't write what will sell, I write what I want to write; simply because it is what I enjoy doing. Most of my work is more awkward than a song you'll hear on the radio, or even a song you'll hear from any band out there right now, because that's just how I write. I don't write short simple lines to the tune of four chords, nor do I always do a straight forward versechorusverse- that's just not me. The grammar as well is very lax and not something you'd see in any English majour's work. Because I work outside the boundary of language, not within it's small cell. I also write to vent, and for a short period in my life all I would write about is girls I wanted to fuck and how the school was retarded for not letting me graduate. Not to say I don't write about that anymore, but I write about it much less often than I used to.

Another thing I've noticed is a lot of recent albums (hell, even albums from as far back as the 70s) have been lacking a overarching theme or story, this is especially true in Hip Hop (or "Negro") music such the case of Soulja Boy, 50 Cent or other assorted "pop" rappers. This is another thing I tend to address in my writing choices, I don't generally write single after single (which is what many people would prefer), but I write songs and generally try to pick a single out of that group, it generally ends up being the one that would make most sense outside of the set. This is something many modern artists don't do, and in fact skip completely giving the record company complete control over what songs are going to be released; what this tends to do is leads people to only listen to that one song and even go so far as paying 15$ for a CD that they only wanted one song off of and pretty much never touch that CD after another hit song comes out. This is something I've ended up noticing with a lot of the music I like, I can barely listen to the songs outside of the album unless it's a music video or live performance, and even then it's hard to really enjoy the song because it doesn't have the same power without the songs before and after.

But if you know me (which hopefully some of you do) you'll know that writing music isn't my love, but the production is. I don't care so much about the mechanics of why guitars and drums and the sort work, I care more about the sonic art that goes on. The drafting wind of a guitar riff from panning left to right, or the bass heavy kick drum intro booming all the way into the perfectly balanced vocal progression that opens an album up for all to see, the way the instruments are all turned up and down so as to balance out the sound and to get a song where all instruments could hold their own, but meld together to form something so much more powerful, the placement of microphones to strategically record echo to get a more intimate tone so as to draw the listener in; this is my passion.