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Blog Post 2 Melissa Ardila

  “Hold Up” Beyoncé

  Beyoncé’s lyrics “Hold Up” and visual display represent the encouraging push for women to feel empowered, fearless, and comfortable admitting to the overbearing emotions and responsibilities that are intertwined with society’s expected role of a domesticated and obedient woman. In her song, Beyoncé notes the frustration and confusion when dealing with infidelity. In the beginning of the piece, she expresses her denial of her husband's infidelity, as she “tried to change, closed [her] mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less awake…” (Beyoncé). These attempts of coping with pain and remorse are first approached the simplistic solutions, reverting to an old standard of women in which they were expected to behave: without thought and superficially acceptable in their appearance. She references the religious ways of finding clarity and peace as she “...sat alone and bent at the waist for God [and] plugged her mensies from pages of the holy book” (Beyoncé). The idea of regaining her purity is that it brings you closer to God, or in other terms, brings tranquility to your mind (William). The idea of tranquility is the basis for having domestication, as without it, there would not be a manner of establishing a dominant figure. It conveys a hegemonic value of men asserting their dominance in what would be considered typical in a 1950s era housewife.

  The visual display of Beyonce wearing a bright yellow dress and smashing cars near her with a bat pays homage to Pipilotti Rist’s “Ever is Over All (Snell). Pipilotti Rist was born in Switzerland in 1962, where women were not officially allowed to vote until 1971. Though she was too young to vote, seeing the restrictive limitations of women had allowed her to encourage the feminist subculture later on in her music. The two videos display a woman happily, yet violently destroying cars in front of the public eye. Beyonce’s video, along with Pipilotti Rist’s encodes the rarity of women being displayed as having a sophisticated outward appearance yet carrying the extreme violence to carry out an act of madness. It allows the viewing audience to decode the videos as a representation of a form of “feminist anarchy” (Snell). Both videos can be noted for the expression of relief noted in each of the female’s faces as they go on releasing anger as if it were an accepted form of expression for the woman who had been suppressed by silence.

  Beyoncé is considered a sophisticated role model for many women, as she is often displayed as having a loving marriage, success, and a calm demeanor, this video allowed her to express the hidden truths and burdens of maintaining a false appearance. As the video displays her free flowing dancing along with a carefree attitude causing turmoil around her, it sends a message to the female audience to no longer accept the hegemonic values of marriage and to not feel alienated and silenced when going through the first steps of self value.

  Works Cited

  Beyoncé. "Hold Up." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.

  Eden, William. “Becoming Eden”. October 21st, 2013. http://becomingeden.com/religious-fasting-traditions/

Snell, Ted. “Here’s Looking at: Pipilotti Rist, Ever is Over All”. November 13th, 2017. http://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-pipilotti-rist-ever-is-over-all-87077

  The Pill. “Mrs. America: Womens Roles in 1950s” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-mrs-america-womens-roles-1950s/

  “Switzerland's Long Way to Women's Right to Vote”

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/chronology-womens-right-vote-switzerland.html

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POP/STARS is a song wrote for the 2018 League of Legend (LOL] final competition. This international competition is for a game called League of Legend. This game was inspired by the famous World of War and now LOL is keeping updating by Riot Games, which is an American game company, to meet the newest requirement of the modern society. Since Korean team has won the competition from 2013 to 2017, the 2018 LOL final competition was hold in Korea. POP/STARS is a song wrote in both Korean and English. Two Korean singers and two american singers are in the team “K/DA” and sang for this song. This song combined singing with rap, the whole song is very K-pop due to the where the competition was hold, but the english lyric also shows that this song, or this game, is an international thing. “League of Legends developer Riot Games previously told Billboard about their plans to see their company more as a full-fledged music label in the future.”(Benjamin) In this song, the four singers are represented by four characters from the game. The whole music video is animated and full of the sense of future. It matches what the audience, who are mostly young people loving the Internet, search for as something digital. “K/DA Ahri, K/DA Evelynn, K/DA Kai’Sa, and K/DA Akali take the world stage with their debut single.” (The Verge) POP/STARS shows the good economy and digitizing of the modern society. It gives people a new idea of how the music and music video would be like in the future. Reference Benjamin, Jeff, 'League of Legends' Girl Group Earns Madison Beer, (G)I-DLE & Jaira Burns No. 1 on World Digital Song Sales Chart, Billboard, 11/13/2018 The Verge, K/DA - POP/STARS (ft Madison Beer, (G)I-DLE, Jaira Burns) | Official Music Video - League of Legends, 11/05/2018

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Blog Post 2:

Rock of Ages, by Def Leppard, was released on the Pyromania album in January 1983. This means it was released closely following hits such as Thriller, by Michael Jackson, and Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor. Despite these competitors, Rock of Ages spent a significant amount of time at the top of the charts, even managing to become a Diamond-selling album. This was also in spite of the fact that this song was released during “the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression”, where the “11 percent unemployment rate” was the highest recorded post World War 2  (Sablik, 2013). These events were happening in conjunction with violence all over the world, such as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where “hundreds of Palestinian civilians” were killed as the Israeli army moved “right up to and into Beirut” (1982 Lebanon invasion, 2008). Given the state of the world at the time of this song’s release, the violence and poverty all over, it’s no wonder that this song became as popular as it did. The song’s message about living in the moment and tearing down structures of authority must have appealed to many people at the time, and even in years following. These messages of rebellion and reform are even more apparent in the symbolism of the music video released with this song. During the peak of the song, while the lead guitarist plays a guitar solo, a woman tied to a tree sees her chains broken, and the tree to which she was tied bursts into flames. However, the symbolism goes deeper. The guitar the guitarist uses in his solo was shown earlier in the video to have been transformed from a sword pulled from a stone by the lead vocalist. Thus the guitar, and as such the song itself, is also tied to symbols from Arthurian legends like the sword in the stone. The sword in those legends is used as a symbol for a change in power structure, and a return to times of peace and prosperity. Through these symbols, Rock of Ages, and by extension the genre as a whole, is encouraging a sort of rebellion. It encourages its audience to seize control of the world, to return to a more pleasant time. The performing unit that is the acting and theatrics of the band members is crucial in the formation of these themes. By using their music video as a sort of short story or video, they can tell a concise narrative and sell the message of the video much more effectively. If this video was merely the band members performing the song, a whole layer of meaning would be lost from the unit.

  1982 Lebanon invasion. (2008, May 6). Retrieved from BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7381364.stm

Sablik, T. (2013, November 22). Recession of 1981–82. Retrieved from Federal Reserve History: https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/recession_of_1981_82

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By: Michael Yee

10/25/2018

AMS 59 Section 5

Dr. Modell

  Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth Wales, on August 24th, 1975.  According to This Day in Music, the song took over three weeks to record. Throughout the session, the band’s vocalists “sang their parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.”  The song circulated into pop culture when DJ Kenny Everett played it on London’s Capital Radio 14 times over the following weekend, grabbing the attention of big names such Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).  Suddenly, Bohemian Rhapsody became a commercial success, making Queen famous throughout the UK. The song stayed at the top of the UK Single Chart for nine weeks and sold more than a million copies in a couple of months.

Music in the 70’s was particularly affected by various momentous events and drastic cultural shifts. The 60’s brought forth a counterculture movement as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War protests, and induced a booming popularity of new ideologies that “influenced everyday life and redefined many aspects of traditional culture,” (Alexandria Yip)  One such aspect of traditional culture was, of course, music. Though disco was raging at the time, and punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures, many refer to the 70’s as the “golden era of rock ‘n’ roll.” (Alexandria Yip) “Many strands of music were woven together in the 70’s, such as: Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, and John Travolta.” (Anahi Bruno)  These artists greatly impacted fashion, particularly men’s fashion. Men began to wear colorful shirts, tight pants, had well cut hair, and began to wear makeup again. Additionally, name brands became more recognized by the public. Queen’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, greatly personifies this shift in culture, as he has demonstrated all of the fashion trends listed above often wearing extravagant and flamboyant clothing on stage as well as having well groomed hair and makeup.  

Rock is more than just a musical genre; it is its own cultural practice. This is a point hammered down in Anthony DeCurtis’ Present Tense: Rock and Roll Culture, one of UC Davis’ AMS 59 required in course readings.  Rock exceeds just being a mere musical piece, and transcends to a theatrical performance with it’s own living breathing attitude and rebellious personality; a remarkable contrast to the music that preceded it. It is a cultural practice that is represented both internally, such as ideology, and externally through lifestyle and fashion, with Freddie Mercury serving as a testament to this; according to an unnamed source on Shmoop, “Queen was considered somewhat anarchic and wild on and off stage.”  One simply needs to refer to their famous live performance of Bohemian Rhapsody to see the cultural practice that Rock is.

Works Cited

Bruno, Anahi. “The History of Rock 'n' Roll (70's and 80's).” LinkedIn SlideShare, 11 Nov. 2013, www.slideshare.net/AnahiBruno/the-history-of-rock-n-roll-70s-and-80s.

Cossar, Neil. “Bohemian Rhapsody.” On This Day, www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/bohemian_rhapsody.

Cossar, Neil. “Bohemian Rhapsody.” On This Day, www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/bohemian_rhapsody.

Curtis, Anthony De. Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture. Duke Univ. Press, 2006.

Kot, Greg. “Culture - The Strangest Rock Classic Ever?” BBC, BBC, 24 Aug. 2015, www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150824-the-strangest-rock-classic-ever.

Yip, Alexandria. “The '70s: a Golden Era of Rock 'n' Roll.” Adolescent RSS, 14 Aug. 2018, www.adolescent.net/a/the-70s-a-golden-era-of-rock-n-roll.

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Danny Brown’s “Ain’t It Funny” and its accompanying music video discuss and address the historical and current struggle of lack Americans regarding mental health and drug addiction, and furthermore, the glorification of black pain as entertainment. According to the US Census Bureau as of 2014, 16% of black Americans had a diagnosable mental illness2. But some in the black community may be afraid to seek professional treatment for various reasons. As of 2012, 19% of black Americans had no health insurance at all1. Black people also face bias and other unconscious prejudice that may hinder their ability to be accurately diagnosed and treated1. Furthermore, within and outside of the black community, there can be a stigma against admitting to having a mental illness, as it can be seen as a “personal weakness”1. Within the culture of rap, there is pressure for rappers to succeed in “’keeping it real,’ or maintaining ‘authenticity,’”3 and this may include dismissing anything that is seen as a sign of weakness. Those in the black community who don’t want to or are afraid to seek professional medical help may turn to self-medication, or drug use.

  With this in mind, Danny Brown’s lyrics about struggling with drug abuse may not be that uncommon of a story for many in the black community, but the admission of his struggles with mental health and drug use is more uncharacteristic for a high-profile rapper. Danny Brown is sometimes considered a “party rapper” because of the craziness of his live shows3, further juxtaposing his image as a rapper with his performance on “Ain’t It Funny.” Brown is no stranger to discussing mental health in his songs, including as far back as 2011 in his song “XXX,” where he references his “anxiety over having a successful music career after years of trying” and subsequent drug use to cope3. Danny Brown’s “Ain’t It Funny” represents an oppositional code4 to the normalcy of hiding mental illness and addiction behind self-medication and drug use. Danny Brown may not be the only rapper discussing mental health and drug addiction in his songs, but his loud, aggressive delivery and perception as a “party rapper” emphasizes his lyrics regarding these issues, as his surrounding image strongly contrasts with the contents of songs like “Ain’t It Funny.”

  The music video for “Ain’t It Funny” addresses a related topic, the glorification of black pain and suffering. Demonstrated by the all-white audience that laughs at “Uncle Danny,” as he’s known in the video, mental illness and drug abuse within the black community may not be taken seriously or adequately diagnosed and treated, only further contributing to issues of mental health and addiction. Alex Blue V even goes on to say that Brown’s Blackness is a neurosis, or mental illness, in that he will not receive assistance from “the white world he inhabits.”3

  -Raiden Sherk

    Sources Cited

1“African American Mental Health.” National Alliance on Mental Illness, https://www.nami.org/Find-Support/Diverse-Communities/African-Americans.

2“Black & African American Communities and Mental Health.” Mental Health America, http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/african-american-mental-health.

3Blue V, Alex. “Ain’t It Funny? Danny Brown, Black Subjectivity, and the Performance of Neurosis.” A Poetry of Neurosis, Transcript Verlag, 2018, pp. 137-157.

4Hall, Stuart. “Encoding, decoding.” The Cultural Studies Reader, edited by Simon During, Routledge, pp. 90-103.

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“One of the few mainstream musicians who actively spoke out against the economic exploitation of black artists while risking her career in the fight for racial equality,” (Tillet pg.121) was used to describe the great Nina Simone. I could not help but see parallels in BTS and it made me realize that mainstream musicians who write music about current social climate can impact people.

Answer: Love Myself was the last song on BTS’ latest album Love Yourself 結 'Answer'. In the album, BTS wrote songs addressing phases of love and personal trials in hopes of creating music that can help people love themselves. In conjunction, they launched the Love Myself Campaign with UNICEF (2017) in order to help the youth who are affected by violence, especially with today’s climate. Reflecting this ideals were an array of beautiful songs that encouraged people, especially youth, to love themselves with lyrics like:

  “Loving myself might be harder than loving someone else

The thick tree rings in your life, it’s part of you, it’s you

Now let’s forgive ourselves...

All the scars from your mistakes make up your constellation

I’ll answer with my breath, my path

The me of yesterday, the me of today, the me of tomorrow

With no exceptions, everything, it’s all me”

-BTS “Answer: Love Myself”

  Disorders, mental illness, glass ceiling, etc. are issues that affect youth globally. This was alarming considering that South Korea has the highest suicide rate among OECD countries. After researching Korean youth with suicidal thoughts, Zong suggested a solution was “[youth needed] a community where they can share their worries and overcome them together.” (Zong 2015). BTS saw how these issues affected their global fans and the Korean society, thus wrote music about it.

Writing music of self-love created a space, a subculture, within Kpop. Kpop is known for pop songs and manufactured pop idols, but BTS brought a sincerity to Kpop and forced this cookie-cutter industry to recognize their sincerity. Their message was able to reach people all over the world which inspired people all over the globe to contribute to the Love Myself movement. A ‘giving and sharing’ culture rose within fans to push a movement of love and compassion.

BTS were able to create this healing subculture within Kpop through songs like Answer: Love Myself. They sold out 41 arena shows for their ‘Love Yourself’ world tour. Men and women of all ages and races attended. Answer: Love Myself was the last song they performed to which millions of people all over the world, who don’t even speak the same language, sung out, “You’ve shown me I have reasons I should love myself. I’m learning how to love myself.” The message encoded was for people to embrace themselves and hopefully, that will help them live a good life. Even though Love Myself: Answer is not their most known, I think that this song is manifestation of their message as musicians. This is the culture BTS created.

-Breanna Xiong

  Tillet, Salamishah. "Strange Sampling: Nina Simone and Her Hip-Hop Children." American Quarterly, vol. 66 no. 1, 2014, pp. 119-137. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/aq.2014.0006

Zong, Sooyoun. “A Study on Adolescent Suicide Ideation in South Korea.” NeuroImage, Academic Press, 29 Mar. 2015, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281500912X.

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Alan Wu 

Blog Post 2

“U” by Kendrick Lamar was released in 2015, a time when Kendrick’s success and fame reached new highs. Despite the success, Kendrick still deals with common problems the rest of society has including depression and alcoholism. The root of his problems stems from his hometown, Compton, California, where violence is all too common.

    The premise of “U” is based on how Kendrick’s success in the rap game has disconnected himself from Compton and the people he cares about. Compton was and still is widely known for its gang related violence, which can be traced back to the mid 1900s. Marcus Hoover in his article “Where All the Madness Began: A Look at Gang History” notes that “African American gangs increased with larger memberships” from “1955 to 1965” in “south central Los Angeles and Compton.” These areas spawned the often rapped about rival Blood and Crip gangs, a rivalry that became “vicious and bloody”. As gang violence is still pertinent in Compton, Kendrick, with his newfound power and wealth, feels he should hegemonize Compton for the better. He raps “Everyone heard it, multiple shots, corners cryin’ out … where was your presence? Where was your support that you pretend?” (“your” referring to himself).  Kendrick feels guilty for the lack of support he gives to his shot friend, regretting how he “...Facetimed instead of a hospital visit…”. Kendrick’s need to positively hegemonize Compton is a result of that city having no real leader/icon to combat gang violence; Kendrick has that opportunity with his fame yet feels that he falls short, rapping “Where was the influence you speak of … you ain’t no leader!”

    The second half of “U” has Kendrick rapping in a drunken voice as he takes sips from a bottle to suppress his guilt. Kendrick’s transparency about his alcoholism is ground-breaking in that it highlights how alcoholism can affect people of all wealth. Professor D. J. Hanson in his article “Drinking Alcohol and Income, Education, and Social Class or Status” notes how people in higher social classes are “...more likely to drink alcoholic beverages.”, debunking the presumption that alcohol only affects the impoverished. Therefore, listeners regardless of economic class and dealing with alcohol abuse will decode Kendrick’s grief the same. While the problems the listener and Kendrick deal with may differ, they may find a common ground in how they turn to alcohol to cope. Kendrick’s openness about his alcohol abuse speaks to many, as alcohol is the most abused substance in the United States. His acknowledgement of the roots of his abuse may cause listeners to also introspect and identify underlying issues causing their own substance abuse.

Works Cited

Hanson, David J. “Drinking Alcohol and Income, Education, and Social Class or Status.” Alcohol Problems & Solutions, 19 Feb. 2014, www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/Controversies/Drinking-Alcohol-and-Income-Education-and-Social-Class-or-Status.html.

HOPES Huntington's Disease Information, HOPES Huntington's Disease Information, web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/gangcolor/madness.htm.                     

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Bianca Vielmas

IDOL was written and recorded in Korea in 2018 by BTS, a group who’s been gaining more recognition through their amazing music. However, there have been setbacks in their success in regards to race and culture.

In this era, it is not that common to see Asians represented in movies, music, or any platform in Hollywood. For years people have urged film and television industries to give more representation to racial/ethnic minorities. If Asians do appear, they are stereotyped. “Asian and Asian American actors were racialized in roles as martial arts gurus [or] superhuman characters” (Erigha 80). Vocally racial accents are used the most in order to “poke fun” at Asian vernacular. The “‘funny accent’ is [used as a] part of the comic appeal of Asian American and Indian American characters” (Davé, Shilpa). People are mocking Asian minorities by giving them a comedic association. We can also see this with those who mock BTS speaking Korean. 

There is a sense of xenophobia created with all of this. Recent political events has made it even worse. “Racial tensions, xenophobia and the hostility between liberals and conservatives have become much more pronounced during the course of [Obama’s] presidency.” (Thompson, C.). Conservative bigots did not like Obama because they were seeing a black man who could accomplish many things. Therefore, racial spews are now being said more frequently. Now that Trump is president, racism and xenophobia have grown even more. It’s an enormous problem, especially when xenophobia finds its way into every part of American society, including the music industry. 

The radio industry has been impacted by xenophobia, a definite downside for BTS. Radios help artists stand out from other artists. “Recent research still points to radio as the #1 source for the discovery of new music in the U.S.; more than blogs, word of mouth, social media, streaming sites” (Young, Jordan). Even though BTS has amazing chart feats, radios refuse to play them due to their xenophobic ideals. They do not want other languages in music to become the norm. 

Perhaps there is an emergence of a subculture, containing a group of people who listen to Kpop or other non-English music. Hebdige explains that subcultures are a challenge to hegemony. In a way, BTS has created this subculture by bringing to light the problems with radio stations, causing people to fight against this present xenophobia. There’s the creation of a subculture who is creating “movements towards a speech which offends the ‘silent majority,’ which challenges the principle of unity and cohesion” (Hebdige 367). ARMY, BTS fans, are fighting against the racism, even learning all they could about radio stations to gain radio play for BTS. When IDOL came out, it was the most viewed video in 24 hours, so it had popularity. Even though IDOL was sent out to impact radios and was known, DJs refused to play it. Due to their racial background, BTS has faced xenophobia in the music industry.

[I chose the same song]

Davé, Shilpa. "Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies." Cinema Journal, vol. 56 no. 3, 2017, pp. 142-147. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cj.2017.0030

Erigha M. (2015), Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media's Potential for Change, Sociology Compass, 9, 78–89, doi: 10.1111/soc4.12237

Thompson, C. (2016, Feb). How obama divided america. South Florida Times Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1773546398?accountid=14505

Wadhwa, V. (2016, Oct 21). The demons trump has unleashed on america. India Abroad Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1831205924?accountid=14505

Young, Jordan. “4 Major Reasons You Want Your Music To Be On The Radio.” High Season Co., 22 June 2016, highseasonco.com/blog/2016/6/2/4-big-reasons-you-want-your-music-to-be-on-the-radio.

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Nickolas Sison 912602884

I’ll be continuing with the song Maneater by Daryl Hall and John Oates. Released on Halloween 1982, it rose to the US’s Billboard Top 100 number one spot by December that same year as well as the top ten songs in eleven other countries. By then the duo were already a success, having four other number one hits under their belts. The hidden meaning in the song can be directly linked to this prior success, as despite the fact the country was still in a short recession the two were still  “living it up” so to speak. As I explained in the previous post, the encoded and decoded meanings are at odds. According to John Oates himself in an interview with American Songwriters, while the metaphor used is that of the “maneater” woman, the song is actually about the high life in New York City at the time. The way living like that can “chew you up” and spit you out if your luck runs out.

That said, it’s a little difficult to talk about the song relative to the type of music that was popular at the time because Hall and Oates were the popular music of the time. Following the disco trend of the 70’s audible in songs like I Will Survive, early to mid 80’s popular music like theirs had a funky feel to it. The syncopated beat in this and several of their other songs attests to that. However, their performing unit included a new aspect that became popular in the 80’s and has continued into the modern day: music videos. The music video for Maneater in particular has a feel similar to a seductive scene in something like a crime drama. It’s important to note, though, that in this and in fact every one of their music videos the two are shown singing and/or playing their instruments. It seems that the image of the two together was just as important as the music. This is also evident in the fact that a majority of their album covers feature the two alone, in various styles of art and photography.

Similarly, the song is detached from historical events because it was written and released in a bit of a lull in national excitement. The Vietnam War had long since ended by then, and the duo’s prior financial success made them all but immune to the recession.

  Weissmann, Jordan. “60 Years of American Economic History, Told in 1 Graph.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 6 Sept. 2012, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/60-years-of-american-economic-history-told-in-1-graph/261503/.

  Sharp, Ken. “HALL AND OATES: Soul Survivors « American Songwriter.” American Songwriter, 8 Feb. 2013, americansongwriter.com/2009/01/hall-and-oates-soul-survivors/.

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The Doors were an American rock and roll band formed in the summer of 1965 during a very trying time in American history. They emerged as a the antethis of the happy, innocent culture of the 60’s. In the late 1960’s, The world, and America in particular, experienced the death of JFK, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. This time period was also met with a sort of revolution among the youth that aims to rebel against the “joyous” and “virtuous values of the 60’s.

“Released in 1967, The Doors is an album that could have only been a product of such a time and place, with a band of young, disillusioned American kids making a record, implicitly or not, about their country’s move from the optimism of the 60’s to the cynicism of the ’70s. The Doors embodies that transition, both musically and culturally,”

The Doors’ music reflected the violence of the time as well as the change in perspectives the new generation. The documentary, The Doors: When You’re Strange, notes, “The establishment resists, but a genuine counter-culture is growing.”

Rock and Roll was rebellion against society. The performing unit, everything that comes with a particular artist or song including ideology, costumes, clothing, stage presence and performance, culture, etc, all reflected this. Kyle Fowie writes in his article for AV Music, “Musicians are transformed into so much more than just men and women putting words to music; they’re deified, especially when they die young as Morrison did.” The fans are part of this performing unit, and idolized Morrison’s image of defiance. Additionally, The Doors had very strong ideologies. The dark history of the band revolves around their strange, somewhat crude stage performances and drug use. According to The Doors: When You’re Strange, “To Jim [Morrison], obedience is suicide.” The band also believed in a more simple ideology: to just listen to the music and have fun. This is reflected in their 1970 single, Roadhouse Blues. This song still reflects the counter cultural push back of the youth movement in the 70’s, yet was a return to the band’s more blues inspired roots. The Doors can be seen as counter hegemonic, as resisting  the ingrained popular ideas and cultural norms of the time, with the simple goal to “have fun”, typical of the rock and roll genre.

Because of the band’s polarizing opinions and image, it is safe to say that the production, circulation, use, and reproduction of the music is all relatively decoded as the artists have encoded it, at least by those who give the music a chance. This means that The Doors’ message is not lost in production or commercial and dominant power structures because they were so controversial in their time that anyone and anything associated with them was dubbed immoral or depraved. The 2010 documentary notes that to this day, a Doors song has never been used in a commercial.

Fowle, Kyle. “The Doors Perfectly Captures Cultural and Personal Disillusionment.” Music, Music, 23 Aug. 2017, music.avclub.com/the-doors-perfectly-captures-cultural-and-personal-disi-1798286369?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=avclub_copy&utm_campaign=bottom. “When You're Strange: the Doors.” Universal Pictures, 2011.

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Jared Sasaki

For this blog post, I chose to change songs to “Where is the Love?” by The Black Eyed Peas. The song itself was released in June of 2003 but was being written, recorded and produced from December 2001 to March 2003.

The writing of this song started after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 occurred and the 2001 recession worsened. President Bush called for war, where we battled for years in the Middle East. During the early 2000s, there were increasing amounts of violence against African Americans and racism was evident. In this time, the most popular music genres were pop and hip-hop, which is what “Where is the Love?” is composed of. Being that hip-hop was popular, the rap verses within the song enable the artists to deliver their message.

In “Where is the Love?”, The Black Eyed Peas talk about different kinds of violence and problems in the world and hope that society can turn things around instead (Frey). Within the lyrics, they rap “Nations droppin’ bombs” and “if you only have love for your own race Then you only leave space to discriminate.” This group raps about problems like war, racism and violence at the time. One of the verses ends with “Let your soul gravitate to the love, y’all.” This leads to the chorus, which asks “Where is the love?.” It is a call to action for the audience to spread peace and love instead of discriminating against other races and promoting violence. It also focusses on the acts of 9/11 and responding to the terror that happened with questions and hopes of peace (Vincent). The Black Eyed Peas formed an ideology that there’s no need for all the problems and death in the world, when we can all just love and get along. This term, ideology, helped me understand the song better because it condensed the song’s entire lyrics and meanings into one theme. It helped me understand the cultural context because the ideology of the music group focusses on the cultural context of society at the time and the hopes to overcome these problems.

There are some possible encoded messages from the artist group meant for the listener to decode. One possible encoded message is in the chorus when they sing, “Father, father, father help us Send some guidance from above.” Decoding this message, this is a prayer and “father” is used as a symbol to represent a superior figure, asking to help humans find love within themselves to stop all those problems from continuing. The last encoded message is during a rap verse which asks, “New days are strange, is the world insane?” A decoded meaning to this song is that society today is hypocritical because everyone seeks good morals and values in their life, but no one seems to show them with all the discrimination and violence. This makes “the world insane” because people want one thing but do the opposite in order to try and achieve that.

Word Count 498

Vincent, Alice. “Will.i.am on the Making of Where Is the Love: 'We Weren't Trying to Make a Hit'.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 4 May 2018, www.telegraph.co.uk/music/interviews/william-making-love-werent-trying-make-hit/.

Frey, Meagan. “Review: Black Eyed Peas: Where Is The Love?” Culture and Youth Studies, 26 Mar. 2014, cultureandyouth.org/music/articles-music/black-eyed-peas-where-is-the-love/.

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Pedro Ramos

  For this blog post, I will analyze the song “XXX” by Kendrick Lamar and the historical context that existed when the song was initially released. “XXX” was released on April 14, 2017 as part of the album “Damn” (“DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar.”).

  April 2017 was a time in which the US was a time of political turmoil. Donald Trump had just been inaugurated as president of the United States and was bringing about lots of changes to the nation. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2017, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement, increased the military presence in Afghanistan, increased the use of drones, and caused many of America’s allies to fear that the age of US global leadership is ending (Lindsay). This is reflected in “XXX” when Lamar states “Donald Trump’s in office / We lost Barack and promised to never doubt him again.” Lamar uses this to make a statement about just how differently events were turning out for the US now that Trump had taken office and to bring to light how people were only now realizing that they shouldn’t have doubted Obama’s presidency.

  The US was also experiencing a massive amount of mass shootings. According to AOL, 2017 was the deadliest year for mass shootings in all of modern US history (Manella). According to this article, 345 mass shooting occurred in 2017 alone. This is reflected in “XXX” through the song’s lyrics. Lamar states “Alright, kids, we’re gonna talk about gun control / Pray for me, damn.” Lamar illustrates how incredibly difficult it is to discuss gun control, despite the fact that such a conversation is necessary as evidenced by all of the shootings that occurred in not only 2017 but also the ones that have occurred in years prior.

  “XXX” also perfectly illustrates the use of encoded and decoded messages. “XXX” encodes its feelings of doubt and frustration through its lyrics, through the sudden changes in tempo, and through the melodies used throughout. These feelings are encoded into the lyrics when Lamar directly asks “But is America honest, or do we bask in sin?” (Lamar). The feelings of frustration are encoded into the tempo when it suddenly changes from slow and mellow to fast paced and aggressive and are encoded in the way its melody constantly switches from a mellow piano to a sampled police siren. When listeners hear “XXX” they are able to decode these feelings of chaos and uncertainty and understand what Lamar is feeling.

  “XXX” was released during a time when the US was going through a period of political uncertainty and was experiencing an enormous amount of mass shootings. “XXX” reflected on this constant uncertainty through the messages it encoded in its constant change in tempo and melody and through its lyrics. I think that, overall, the composition of “XXX” in conjunction with the way that it addressed these societal conditions are the reason that this song resonated so well with Kendrick Lamar’s audience and with the societal context at the time of its release.

Works Cited

  “DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar.” Genius, Genius Media Group Inc., genius.com/albums/Kendrick-lamar/Damn.

  Lindsay, James M. “Ten Most Significant World Events in 2017.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 15 Dec. 2017, www.cfr.org/blog/ten-most-significant-world-events-2017.

  Manella, Morgan. “2017 Deemed America's Deadliest Year for Mass Shootings.” AOL.com, AOL, 11 Dec. 2017, www.aol.com/article/news/2017/12/11/2017-deemed-deadliest-year-for-mass-shootings-in-modern-us-histo/23298797/.

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Skip to 1:30 for the song. The song I chose is One Day, by Tate McRae. The song was not commercially made, rather it is a made-at-home YouTube video (published on 10/20/2017) by Tate, a talented 15 years old singer/ songwriter/ dancer from Canada. This folk song with a touch of pop culture, sung with a raw voice together with a simple melody became virally popular. This can be explained due to the grand popularity of pop music at the time, as well as the trendy topic of romance, specifically sad romance. As Tate talked about her song, it seems that her intentions was purely writing a one sided love song, may be encouraging people to be more confident in expressing their feelings, or simply sympathizing with others going through the same experience, and these are probably the most common ways people would decode the song. I however, as mentioned, I believe this song is much more than the surface. At the time of the release, national political wise, the most major event was due to Trump’s election, many people illegally crossed the US - Canadian border and seeks for help in Canada. However, I don’t believe this song has much relation to the topic. Rather, I believe it is born from the ancient old problem between men and women: the eternally unequal balance of power - this topic has existed for years, but has only became widely aware of in recent years. In other words, THis song has a strong reflection of hegemony of masculinity. According to a journal written by Francesco Maria Morettini, hegemonic masculinity can be understand as “an idealised, dominant, heterosexual masculinity, constructed in relation to women and to subordinated masculinities, and closely connected to the institution of marriage.” In the song One Day, these lines: “May be he knows who I am, actually probably not… She walks down the halls with her head down low, scared to meet his eyes” (McRae) shows the subordination a woman typically has, allowing men to dominate over them. This hegemony is creating a way of life where men are taught to take initiative and women to be a subordinate to men, always keeping their heads low and are afraid to step up for herself (Oxford U. Press). Thanks for reading. Thao Uyen Nguyen Morettini, Francesco Maria. “Climate Change and Human Rights.” Global Policy Journal, 27 Oct. 2016, www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/27/10/2016/hegemonic-masculinity-how-dominant-man-subjugates-other-men-women-and-society. “Hegemonic Masculinity.” Dominant Social Paradigm - Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 16 June 2017, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095928286. MacLeod, Meredith. “20 Times Canada Captured Worldwide Headlines in 2017.” CTVNews, CTV News, 22 Dec. 2017, www.ctvnews.ca/canada/20-times-canada-captured-worldwide-headlines-in-2017-1.3721447. “Tate McRae.” Tate McRae, https://tatemcrae.com/bio.

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Blog Post 2

Nam, Dong Joon 

"Born This Way" by Lady Gaga

People around the world always fight and stand up for what they believe in. While discussing this issue, one of the easiest way to spark an idea is thought art. Art is a powerful force that can move, join, and allow people to unite to influence the world. This idea of using art as a force to deliver ideas is clearly shown through Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”.

“Born This Way” was one of the biggest hits of 2011, along with others such as “Fireworks” and “Grenade”. According to National Public Radio, 2011 was an “extraordinary one for many things -- especially gay rights”. It is also when the “ ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy of military has ended”, which allowed any LGBTQIA to serve in the military freely. With gay rights and individual freedom becoming an emphasis, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” not only brought Gay rights issue to the main table, but also sparked more light for gay rights and the LGBTQIA community.

Looking at the musical trends in 2011, lots of music referred to embracement of self and addressed the flaws of society. According to Tamar Anitai from MTV, songs were “real-talk, real-problems”. Lot of artists looked into their personal views about the world as a connecting point with the listeners. As songs became more personal and reflective, it became more introspective.

“Born This Way” is a not only a perfect representation of the political climate of 2011 regarding gay rights, but also a example of how people with great influence and power can influence the world. With music and society under straight and anti-gay hegemony, it could be said that the gay subculture is still in battle for their equal rights. In From Culture to Hegemony, Dick Hebdige states that “the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production” (Pg. 365). Lady gaga used her fame and influence, proposed a dominant idea/belief regarding the gay rights through “Born This Way”.

In “Born This way”, Gaga encodes her message of unity and freedom not only in her lyrics, but through her production, music video, and fashion. Gaga’s lyrics seems pretty straight forward;however, while performing this song, she utilizes avant-garde styles and physique -- a special-made shoulder, cheek, hip bone structures that makes her look like a monster, a see-through latex dress, and an alien-space setting -- to strengthen her argument. With her grotesque, strange, and original style, she simply presents a masterpiece that shows the audience that although we might look like monsters, “[we are] on the right track cuz baby [we were] born this way”.

Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” is not only an empowering gay rights anthem and an historical statement that represents the issues of gay rights and activism of 2011, but also a signal for others to stand up for what they believe in and make changes.  

Works Cited

Anitai, Tamar. “The Biggest Pop Music Trends Of 2011!” MTV News, 22 Nov. 2011, www.mtv.com/news/2299633/pop-music-biggest-trends-2011/.

Appleton, Michael. “2011: An Extraordinary Year For Gay Rights.” NPR, NPR, 31 Dec. 2011, www.npr.org/2011/12/31/144520538/2011-an-extraordinary-year-for-gay-rights.

Gaga, Lady. “Lady Gaga - Born This Way.” YouTube, LadyGagaVevo, 27 Feb. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw.

Hebdige, Dick. “The Cultural Studies Reader.” The Cultural Studies Reader, by Simon During, Routledge, 2010, pp. 357–367. From Culture to Hegemony.

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Joseph Myers 915053359

  The song I have chosen to examine is “We are the World” by USA for Africa. I chose this song because it features many iconic artists and had a great impact on the world.

  The song was released on March 7, 1985 in wake of the extreme famine occurring in Africa at the time. The song was inspired by the release of Band Aid’s “Do They Know Its Christmas”, which was written and sung by artists of the United Kingdom. Band Aid’s song initially helped raise awareness and money for the Ethiopians during their famine. Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie cowrote the song together a few weeks after the release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. Many iconic artists of the United States joined together for the record including Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, and Diana Ross. This song served as America’s response to Band Aid and showed the world that the famine in Africa was a global concern. The purpose of the song was to bring attention to the suffering of the African people and a call to action for people to reach out to help. The song raised over $60 million for humanitarian help in Africa and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. In the years since the songs release, USA for Africa has helped raised more than $100 million to help the impoverished in Africa and also domestically in the US. In the 1980s, Rock was the dominating genre, while Pop music was steadily becoming more popular. This song belongs in the Pop genre and contributed to the genre’s growing audience. This song was redone in 2010 when the Haitian people were devastated by a massive earthquake. 

  A key term that fits this song is ideology. This song helps create a sentiment that the people of more privileged countries need to donate money and resources to help the suffering African people. This song helped get the ball rolling in raising awareness for this grave issue and then established a sense of urgency to help the needy people in Africa. Since the song’s creation, millions of dollars have been raised for aid from all over the world. This song has made a significant impact in helping create the idea that the people of the world must help those struggling in Africa.

  The writers of this song encoded a clear message into this song. This song contains a strong call to action for the people of the world to make the situation in Africa better. The clear message is that the people of the world need to realize that we as people are all connected and when people are suffering, there needs to be an outpouring of support. The way this song is decoded aligns with the same it was encoded. The message is straightforward and clear that the starving people of Africa need the help of the world.

  “Home”. USA for Africa, usaforafrica.org/

  “We Are The World: The Story Behind The Song.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 28 Jan. 1985, www.imdb.com/title/tt0268756/.

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Scott Mather

914860352

I chose "Breadcrumb Trail" from Slint's 1991 album Spiderland for its intricate contrast between spoken word and noisy guitar production during the beginning of post-rock in the early 90s. In terms of the political landscape in America, where the song was recorded, the Gulf War was ending, the Cold War was coming to an end as the USSR was dissolved, and the World Wide Web became public. None of these events directly affected Slint's music at the time aside from perhaps the debut of the internet, as with its rise it became easier for their more underground music to be shared. What was important, however, was the state of music at the time: the end of traditional rock and roll and the popularization of other sub-genres. Most notably, grunge became a viral sensation within America with the upsurge of Nirvana with their 1991 hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Grunge, but more substantially punk music heavily influenced Slint, as its members' prior band experience was in Squirrel Bait, a Louisville-based punk band with most of the Slint band members performing in it at a young age. Louisville at the time had a large punk subculture, with all the band members of Slint taking part in it to assume the counter-culture identity of outcasts at the time. This subculture heavily influenced Spiderland, as a majority of the lyrics reflect a sense of alienation from the public eye with a carpe diem mentality.

With the guitars fluctuating between clean and noisy in "Breadcrumb Trail" along with its sharp transitions between spoken word and harsh singing, the song didn't exactly fit in any genre back in 1991. The Guardian writes that "although it sold fewer than 5,000 copies at the time, Spiderland did become a landmark, one that invented an entire genre – post-rock." Although Spiderland wasn't very popular at the time of its release, it was certainly influential. The unique, heavy yet soft production as shown in "Breadcrumb Trail" reflect an attitude of rock that no other musician had done yet, going on to influence the likes of Mogwai and Sigur Ros in the coming generations.

As far as meaning of the song goes, the lyrics tell the story of the main character at a carnival, finding a fortune teller whom he spontaneously asks to go on a rollercoaster with, and the two enjoying their youth in the fun they have there. The lyrics are encoded in a way that the spoken word parts are reflective of a more pedestrian attitude to explain the story, while the more intense lyric delivery is joined by more intense guitar riffs to express more gravity within the parts that are more meaningful. Encoded within the last non-spoken lyric, "We stuck out our hands and met the wind" is the culmination of the meaning of the song: carpe diem and living life in the moment.

A review by Drowned in Sound states: "Over the course of forty minutes of eerie, at times crushingly elegiac storytelling, Spiderland imparts a strikingly singular temper. Syncing David Pajo’s glacial, introverted guitar mastery with the now ubiquitous “start-stop” dynamics and the brittle, largely spoken-word vocals of the band’s frontman Brian McMahan, Spiderland betrays a madly cohesive sense of sparseness and spaciousness reminiscent of bleakest Joy Division and the aforementioned Talk Talk yet on a more hopelessly existential level altogether." Slint's lyrics and guitars brought together an "existential" and "introverted" atmosphere that no other bands did at the time. Not even Nirvana's grunge could compare to the dim yet noisy post-rock elements found in Spiderland, as the album gave rise to the genre from a background crafted in the punk subculture.

Works Cited:

Coney, Brian. “The Friday Fangasm: Spiderland by Slint.” DrownedInSound, 13 Jan. 2017, drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4150707-the-friday-fangasm--spiderland-by-slint.

Simpson, Dave. “Spiderland by Slint: the Album That Reinvented Rock.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 1 May 2014, www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/01/spiderland-slint-album-reinvented-rock.

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Kanye West’s song “Crack music” from Late Registration is a commentary on the place that hip-hop has in American society and culture. Hip-hop and rap are “crack music”. West exposes and almost parodies the hegemonic relationship that the hip-hop subculture has in American society. “Crack” refers to crack cocaine, which is more commonly found in predominantly black communities compared to powder cocaine which is more commonly found in predominantly white communities. Although both are cocaine, crack cocaine had harsher legal punishments for distribution and possession, exacerbating the hegemony that oppresses African Americans in America. With lines like “Back in the hood it's a different type of chemical. Arm and Hammer baking soda. Raised they own quota,” West calls out police officers and departments will often claim that white powdered substances like baking soda are actually crack cocaine to unfairly persecute African Americans. West dissects the subculture cycle that hip-hop has gone through. One line from the song, “Now the former slaves trade hooks for Grammys. This dark diction has become America's addiction those who ain't even black use it,” (West) is even a direct statement of the path hip-hop has taken to make its way into mainstream American culture.

“Crack Music” was released in August of 2005. Kanye West’s frustration toward the American government is in full view in the song and a year after the album’s release, Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans and Kanye West participated in a telethon fundraiser, where he expressed his thoughts, saying “I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a Black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’ And, you know, it’s been five days [awaiting federal aid] because most of the people are Black.” (Ciccariello-Maher) At the time and now, even over a decade after the release of Late Registration, Hip-hop’s attraction abroad remains attached to its roots as a voice for oppressed groups. Tropological overlaps of trauma and prejudices about bodies of color—that is, police brutality and poverty—speak to a broader audience than African Americans.” (Bradley).

The song itself is in a minor key, making it sound inherently mysterious, dark, and brooding. It uses an Roland 808 drum machine, a staple of hip-hop music, laying down a complex drum pattern. The breakbeat drum pattern makes the song feel jagged and dangerous, while the creepy gospel samples and short trumpet toots give a moody, sketchy feel to the entire song. It invokes the feeling of walking around a bad neighborhood, which is exactly what West meant to make it sound like when he produced the song. In one of his lines, West raps “And this is the soundtrack. This the type of music you make when you round that.” (West). “That” refers to the previous line, “Shorty come and see if mama straight overdosing,” (West) which depicts one of the horrific scenarios that are commonplace in black communities as a result of the hegemony that other classes have over them.

Henry Lee

Ciccariello-Maher, George. “A Critique of Du Boisian Reason: Kanye West and the Fruitfulness of Double-Consciousness.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, Jan. 2009, pp. 371–401, doi:10.1177/0021934706297569.

Bradley, Regina N. “Kanye West’s Sonic [Hip-hop] Cosmopolitanism.” Cultural Impact of Kanye West, by J. Bailey, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 97–109.

West, Kanye. "Crack music." Late registration. Roc-a-Fella Records (2005).