#and that’s not even to mention the GENIUS concept and perspective of the whole album

[thwackamabob]

a 3am rant you should probably skip

the thing is: i can never seriously believe that me being trans is an issue when i'm trying to do this whole music thing, or else i will blame everything on that instead of trying to work through it. but it sucks. idk, i've just been thinking that maybe you can find success if you're trans, but only if you're the acceptable kind. if you're transfem you better never let anyone know, you stay in the background, or you cover your voice in so many layers of pitch-shifting and distortion that no one can tell that testosterone touched you. the inverse is also true i think, but you can come out of the other side. you can pass as a cis man when singing after long enough on t. whereas i'm just here forever. and then ethel fucking cain comes along and sounds like *that* despite everything and then i can't blame my transness anymore. but god do i want to be normal. i don't want to have to be a fucking genius with interconnected worlds and concept albums who produces and records fucking everything, and then does the art and the video and is entirely self-sufficient and manages to look like they have an entire label behind them, because that's the only way anyone will take a tranny seriously, but a label won't sign someone they can't promote. i just want to make music from my perspective, about the world i live in without any lore or characters or cinematic fucking universe. not because that's bad, but because it's just not what interests me. most gigs we get are because i'm trans, ran by activists having a go at organisation. i don't want to slag any of them off, but i'd really like to do a gig ran by someone who's ran gigs before. where it isn't a bunch of randomly slapped together queer acts who sound nothing alike. we've done 3 gigs like this now, and out of the 7 acts we played with across the 3 gigs, maybe 1 of them sounded anything like us, even in the same ballpark. it's all sad lesbian singer-songwriters who's audiences go for a smoke the instant they realise what we are. i'm always the only trans woman there. i'm always the only dropped voice heard all night. peak frustration at *all of this* however, was a gig we applied for and didn't get. in feb, we applied for a gig with our uni's lgbt society they were doing for lgbt history month. we hadn't played a gig for 3 months at that point, had none in the pipeline, and were getting antsy. one of my flatmates is playing in one of the other bands so i go down anyway, and one of my favourite bands end up being a last minute replacement, so extra points. i get there, and just: 2 of the 5 artists are MT students who've been playing guitar for about 5 seconds and, to be brutally honest, probably aren't a point where they're good enough to play live yet. out of the other 3, one is "lesbian singer-songwriter" as mentioned earlier. she's extremely good, and for some reason she keeps being the support at gigs i go to, so no complaints there. then, band i both adore and am friends with, who i find out are a last second replacement *after having been rejected.* the person they're replacing is, to again use stereotypes, that kind of "gay boy pop." think troye sivan? the kind that is still pretty marketable to straight girls. the final band tho. oh god the final band. said flatmate is the only queer person on the band. she is on keys and barely visible. the songwriter/vocalist/lyricist/face of the band is extremely straight. across the entire original lineup, there was not a single trans person. 2 of the 5 were quite frankly not ready to perform live, and yet got it over multiple bands i know were rejected. all of whom contained visibly trans members, and were in genres other than "sad slow music." even in events designed to try and slightly tip the balance, we are unpalatable. and that's only when it's "lgbt events." when it's merely "diverse", it's all bands full of cis straight men, with one cis straight woman at the front with a mic. nice. on a course where i am, to reiterate, the only dropped voice/amab person doing vocals as my specialist instrument, it's diverse to have the vocalist be a cishet woman. idk it kinda just seems like it's impossible to get anywhere outside of trans circles if you're visibly trans (which, to reiterate, includes basically all transfem singers). i am the only trans woman fronting a band in this city as far as i am aware. i know of a few solo acts, but from what i've heard they all fit into the "distort and bury all vocals" category from earlier. it just sucks and there's no productive thing here. is posting this a good idea? no. will it piss some people off if they find it? yes. does this feel terribly arrogant? like i'm blaming being trans for my complete failure to actually get anywhere in the first 3/4s of "doing a music degree wherein i barely have to worry about supporting myself?" and completely wasting it? yes, yes it does.

[szethsmom]

SCREAMING BITING CLAWING CLIMBING THE WALLS SOBBING GOING FERAL

[thebirdandhersong]

Fairy tale retellings! because I couldn’t help myself (under the cut because I got carried away and remembered my fairy tale retelling phase from middle school........ oh boy)

Cinderella 

Cinderella (2015 Disney live action): beautiful beautiful BEAUTIFUL (the music! the script!! the Hope! the costumes! the dress! the gentleness at its heart! the overall design and the colours!) (I still believe it’s the best live action re-adaptation they’ve come up with so far) (then again they DID have one of the Rogue One writers and Kenneth Branagh--both of whom understand story AND fairy tales--on the team, and possibly the best combination of actors and costume designers)

Cinderella (Disney animated movie): like a dream. Can’t remember it that well because I haven’t watched it in over ten years, but I remember that I loved it

Cinderella, the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical featuring Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana: Laura’s Cinderella is so lively and hopeful and bright and affectionate and I Love Her!!! The script is also surprisingly funny, and the little changes they made (like the fairy godmother being an old beggar woman in the village, the subplot with her stepsister, the scene at the ball where she suggests that they should all be kind to one another, the fact that the prince is called His Royal Highness Christopher Rupert Windemere Vladimir Karl Alexander Francois Reginald Lancelot Herman (HERMAN!) Gregory James....... iconic) added rather than detracted from the themes they chose to emphasize

A Cinderella Story: possibly one of my favourite films. I loved the fact that they knew each other before the ‘ball’. Loved the way the fairy tale was ‘translated’ into the 2000s. The friendship was strong with this one. I had the best time watching this movie. (Dress-wise, Hilary Duff’s dress is my least favourite, but that’s a minor quibble, and is also due to the fact that it has Lily and Laura’s gorgeous fluffy ballgowns to contend with, and that’s not fair competition)

Persuasion, by Jane Austen: does it count?? The way I see it, Persuasion is like Cinderella gone wrong (we discussed this in class, and my prof called Lady Russell a fairy godmother who means well but fails her protege before the story even begins. We talked about Anne’s ‘Cinderella’/makeover moment taking place over a longer period of time, about the ‘evil’ stepsisters, etc. etc. I’m not entirely sure I agree with every single comparison he made, but he made some Very interesting points).... at least the first time :)

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer. Oh, the images!!!!! Marissa Meyer is WONDERFUL at them. You wouldn’t think they’d translate well into a futuristic sci-fi (almost steampunk) world, but she did it SO brilliantly (the slipper! the ‘dress’! the whole family situation!)

Rapunzel

Tangled (Disney animated movie): an absolute joy. Rapunzel is an Ariel-like character who has hopes and dreams of her own, and I love how warm and vivacious and endearingly transparent she is. The dance scene is so, so lovely. (I stand by my opinion that very few little went right with Disney’s fairy tale retellings after Tangled.)

Cress, by Marissa Meyer: once again. Images. I can’t believe she managed to pull Rapunzel-in-space off so well. (Plus she’s a hacker, and such a sweetheart!!)

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (Disney animated movie): Amazing. Gorgeous. Brilliant. The buildings and the music and Belle (Belle, my darling!!) and the darker, more Gothic feel to the art and the design...... Yes

Beauty, by Robin McKinley: knocked it right out of the ball park, right through the atmosphere, right into outer space... The language is so lush and atmospheric, and even though I knew roughly what was going to happen, I loved every moment of it. She puts a special emphasis on family and on human connection and I Loved that so much.

Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley: also gorgeous!!!!! Beauty is still my favourite of the two, but this one was also a gem. (Again: the emphasis on family and sisterhood!!!)

Beauty and the Beast (the Broadway musical): Susan Egan’s voice is SO lovely. And Home deserved more than just an instrumental reference in the 2017 version.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George: the Best. The sisters are easier to distinguish, the changes/things she added (the war, the queen’s past, etc.) make the story even more interesting, and Galen is fantastic (courteous, kind, brave, AND likes to knit?? NICE)

The Barbie movie: I loved it when I was a little girl (it is also Muffin-approved!)

The Princess and the Pea

@fictionadventurer​‘s Wodehousian one :) which is an absolute delight. Every once in a while I remember it and then can’t stop smiling

The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale: the Best. And by the Best, I mean the absolute Best. Her writing is so beautiful and her characters are so real and distinctive. The worldbuilding is fascinating. It’s so simple and so beautiful, and is near-perfect as a retelling and as a novel. The rest of the Bayern series is also wonderful!!

The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid (Disney movie): can’t remember it very well, except for the chef who wanted to cook Sebastian and also Ariel’s very cool sisters.... the music and Ariel’s character are lovely :)

The Little Android, by Marissa Meyer: genius. The first time I read it, I cried furiously. What does it mean to be human?? Marissa Meyer loves to talk about this in her other books (through malfunctioning robots, androids, werewolves, etc.). And the conclusion she comes to is always the same (and always done so beautifully): it’s about love and sacrifice (and tbh even though she’s talking about this through robots and werewolves, she’s got a point!!! When you act with love and self-sacrifice, you reflect the character of the Maker and His love and self-sacrifice, which is what makes us in that moment the most human--or at least human in the sense that that’s what we were made to be and to do towards our neighbours and enemies)

Ponyo (Studio Ghibli movie): this counts, doesn’t it?? A film that is an absolute joy through and through. It doesn’t completely stick to the original fairy tale but it also talks about compassion, kindness, and love as a choice

The Princess and the Frog

The Princess and the Frog (Disney animated movie): can’t remember it very well, but Anika Noni Rose has a fantastic voice, and I loved Tiana’s practicality, optimism, and kindness

The Prince of the Pond, by Donna Jo Napoli: can’t remember it either (read it in third grade) but basically it’s about how the prince turns into a frog and starts a family with another frog (the story is told from her perspective). I do remember that the ending made me so sad, though

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty (Disney movie): can’t remember it at all either, except for: 1) Once Upon a Dream (a brilliant song) and 2) forget pink or blue. I liked her grey dress the most

Spindle’s End, by Robin McKinley: the story was told in such an interesting way (the animals! the way she wrote about love and protecting the people you love and self-sacrifice in familial and platonic relationships!) with Robin McKinley’s beautiful style

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

East, by Edith Pattou: I was obsessed with this book in elementary school. Obsessed. I kept rereading it over and over again because I just loved it so much. It’s been a few years since I’ve read it, but I can remember certain scenes (Rose entering the ballroom for the first time, the white bear’s hulking figure in the doorway, the architecture of the hall where she washes the shirt, her fingers running over the wax, the reunion scene) so vividly as if it had been a movie instead of a book, or if I’d actually been there, experiencing what Rose was experiencing

Orpheus and Eurydice (which kind of counts)

Hadestown (the Broadway musical, the original cast, AND Anais Mitchell’s original concept album): I’ve talked about it so much I probably shouldn’t even start slkfjsdl;kfjlk; I just wanted an excuse to mention it again

Tam Lin

Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones: I loved it when I first read it but I was so confused and so fascinated by it.

The Snow Queen

Frozen (Disney animated movie): no (insert heart emoji)

And contemporary(?) books that are considered modern classics, if not modern fairy tales (depends on how you look at it, really):

Peter Pan

Peter Pan (Disney animated movie): a childhood favourite!!!

Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry: the whole series is so much fun (and they’re among some of the funniest books I’ve read). This one serves as a sort of prequel to Peter Pan, but it’s safer to say that Dave Barry reimagined the whole story.

Peter and the Starcatcher (Broadway play adaptation of the book, which is a reimagining of the original Peter Pan..... yeah): the source material is incredibly funny, so naturally the play adaptation makes you laugh until your sides feel ready to split (I mean!! You have Christian Borle as Black Stache, Adam Chanler Berat as Peter, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Molly..... they’re all brilliant) The script, the way the cast makes use of the set and props, the perfect comic delivery....... love it

Finding Neverland, a musical adaptation of the movie (the A.R.T. production with Jeremy Jordan as James Barrie): the music is so good, and the way they write about the value of looking at the world through the eyes of a child?? of seeing the beauty in everything?? of hope and imagination and wonder?? If it weren’t for the way it handles adultery (even emotionally cheating!) and divorce :( but Laura Michelle Kelly is absolutely enchanting, and the script is also incredibly funny and heartwarming

Tiger Lily, by Jodi Lynn Anderson: a twisted fairy tale... it was quite disturbing at times, but it was also beautiful and heartbreaking. It’s a darker take on the story, which I tend not to like (at all), but the way it explored Tiger Lily and Peter was quite interestng

The Wizard of Oz

WIcked, the Stephen Schwartz musical--I haven’t read the book: as far as retellings-about-the-villain-of-the-original-story goes this one is my favourite. It is another twisted fairy tale, though, and there’s a constant undercurrent of doom and dread, even in the motifs Stephen Schwartz uses... the ending is not completely happy, but the music is FANTASTIC (Mr. Schwartz also did The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Prince of Egypt!!)

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland (Disney movie): another childhood favourite... I also haven’t seen this one in over ten years, but I can still remember specific scenes very clearly in my head

Alice by Heart: a musical about a girl called Alice Spencer whose coping mechanism (quite literally) is Alice in Wonderland. She knows it by heart (again. Literally) and she dives into the world as a form of escapism (LITERALLY. There’s even a song at the end where the characters acknowledge how unhealthy this is). There’s a lot about growing up, losing a loved one, learning to let go... about self-deception and grief and the control one has over one’s life (unfortunately it IS subtly antagonistic towards Christianity at times)..... i do wish that writers didn’t have to treat sexual maturity as the most prominent/interesting part of coming-of-age stories, though. The characters, the set and lighting and costume design (BRILLIANT, by the way!!!!)... all wonderful. But the strangely sexual references can be a bit uncomfortable. (Really!! You can tell a coming-of-age story WITHOUT that stuff, you know!!!!!)

That Disney Movie directed by Tim Burton: wouldn’t recommend. Alice doesn’t need to be a warrior. (At ALL.)

Would also like to mention: Princess Tutu :)

[billie33n8366-blog]

Rock Music (Yes) Or Pop Music (No)?

Music actually started to separate into completely different categories throughout the Trendy era (1910-2000). That mentioned, everybody these days should be aware of the truth that songs are getting an increasing number of similar-y. Here is a video courtesy of ThinkTank speaking about how science is starting to quantifiably show that pop music is getting worse and that originality is getting increasingly more rare these days in in style music. In a while Rock and Roll style entered the scene and that fashion was additionally included and amalgamated in the pop music. Latin music was additionally adopted after which came the most recent development which is well-liked until date. That type was the novelty song which was based on comedy, humor and straightforward lyrics which will be understood easily by everyone. But I still have issues with it, www.magicaudiotools.com all the identical. Lot's of individuals complain that current pop-music is bad, and I don't think they're wrong. By definition they aren't fallacious, because pop music is meant to have broad in style enchantment and it increasingly fails to do so. There was a flavour of conventional British music corridor in two playful songs from 1975's A Night time At The Opera - Seaside Rendezvous and Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon. But on the next album, A Day At The Races, Freddie turned that influence into a success music. As its title instructed, Good Previous-Customary Lover Boy was Freddie in sweetly romantic temper. And I will say it, the mainstream nation music viewers and important press is partially responsible for this. If they don't seem to be keen to name mainstream country on its bullshit (which this web site does and I try to do as the only country critic on YouTube), then this shit is going to maintain occurring and it's going to keep selling until the pattern dies with my demographic and we all get sick of it. The present bubble isn't sustainable, and it's only a matter of time and larger numbers of individuals clicking in before it implodes. This is a simple one. However if you'd like a study to show it, we've got it When in doubt, don't accept simple listening restaurant background music. It should decrease gross sales of your food and drinks. In case you'd classify a track as elevator music, maintain it off your playlist. Oddly, given PoP's musical preferences, one of many label aspect's first signings was an Iron Maiden-ish hard rock band referred to as It is Alive, fronted by an extended-haired glam-rock singer named Martin White. PoP noticed that White — who, regardless of his metalhead persona, had a secret love of pop music — was a genius at crafting melodies. In his revealed medical report, Goergen famous the existence of a big, lovely, vaulted salon in his sanatorium designed for gatherings, carefully directed conversations, games, and especially for musical and literary shows acceptable for Gemüthskranke (see Goergen, 1820 , p. thirteen). In 1831, Goergen relocated his non-public sanatorium to Upper-Döbling, now in Vienna's 19th district. Nicolaus Lenau, who based on Ludwig August Frankl had the vision of a new music therapeutic system," was one of many sanatorium's most distinguished patients. He died in Goergen's clinic in 1850, then headed by Bruno Goergen's son, Gustav. Enjoying the soundtrack alone is a distinct experience. If the track (words and music) is good you will hear things you did not discover when viewing the video. If the monitor was only a machine to keep your ears busy when you watched then, as a music monitor, it will fall flat. 1. What's timbre? I know this myself (I've studied music concept), however the common Joe has no clue what it means. The example I personally use is that a A#5 on a piano sounds completely different than a A#5 on a flute. Timbre is what compromises the variations. Almost all Pop hits characteristic a strong, regular rhythm groove. That is how songs connect with listeners in a bodily manner. A rhythmic groove also expresses the perspective or vitality of your tune. There are dance grooves, strutting grooves, bluesy grooves, sad grooves, completely satisfied ones. Let the groove information you into your tune by suggesting words that match the mood or attitude. Music is available in many differing types and styles ranging from traditional rock music to world pop, simple listening and bluegrass. Many genres have a rich history or geographical significance, a cult following or music roots that go far beyond the twentieth century.

Within the final decade, East Asian media flows and connections have intensified. Media markets have rapidly expanded and transnational partnerships have been closely formed amongst media companies which pursue advertising and marketing strategies and joint production ventures spanning a number of completely different markets. The circulation of well-liked tradition is now not limited to the nationwide borders but finds a broader transnational acceptance within the region, resulting in the formation of new links amongst folks in East Asia, especially the youth. This trend has proven no signal of letting up. Asian markets have grow to be much more synchronized, East Asian co-projects in movie and music have change into more widespread, and singers and actors from across the area are engaged in activities that transcend national borders.Recognition - the state or situation of being liked, admired, or supported by many individuals. Subsequent, the songs had been sorted into subgenres via tags created by the 50 million users of , a UK-primarily based music discovery web site. (Mauch was working at in 2010 when he started to review the evolution of pop music with biologist Armand Leroi). Moombahton is a funky style that performs off of a fusion between home music and reggaton. It's one of many latest kinds of music that even those who assume they don't like EDM can take pleasure in. It will have you salsa dancing your approach downtown, and DJs like Dillon Francis find it irresistible as a result of it was created fully on accident at a home party one evening a number of years back.Though higher often known as a member of Saint Etienne, Bob Stanley can also be an experienced music journalist, and little doubt has a document collection to die for, which makes him the perfect candidate for the job, and with the perfectly titled ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah' he does not disappoint. It is a massive book that does an important job of describing the very best in pop music. His intention is to tell the whole story (inside sure parameters) and on the similar time to distil pop music into its purest kind, so that we'd come to a better understanding of pop and to give the respect it is due as an artwork kind.

[cristalconnors]

BEST OF 2016: TOP 10 ALBUMS

DISCLAIMER: While I thoroughly enjoy both A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead and We got it from Here…Thank You 4 Your service by A Tribe Called Quest, I’m not quite familiar enough with either of those landmark groups’ seminal discographies to engage with them in a critical way. I look forward to exploring their past works and revisiting these releases with a bit more context.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: (in descending order) The fact that Kendrick Lamar’s untitled unmastered. can be described as his most straightforward and least ambitious work is a testament to his genius. Angel Olsen’s My Woman feels simultaneously old fashioned and thrillingly new, seeing Olsen still struggling with cohesiveness, but excelling at songwriting and thoughtful composition. Even if 22, A Million sometimes feels like a caricature of what a Bon Iver album might sound like in 2016, it’s still gorgeous. Lemonade’s music sometimes struggles to keep up with its stellar visual and lyrical concepts but continues Beyoncé’s tradition of sophisticated experimentation. Xiu Xiu’s Plays the Music of Twin Peaks manages to recontextualize that landmark series, which is no small feat. Porches’ Pool is a sleek, cool collection of pop with folk influences that evokes melancholy masterfully and simply. Jenny Hval’s Blood Bitch is an avant garde, singularly expressive genre piece that asserts her status as one of music’s most thrillingly vital voices. Jessy Lanza deftly experiments with genre on her fabulous Oh No, and Rihanna finally delivers an album worth diving into with Anti, even if it is tremendously flawed. 

10. THE LIFE OF PABLO- KANYE WEST

The Life of Pablo sees Kanye West on the precipice of…something. The ever changing track list and album title, even after its official release, the haphazardness of the composition and sequencing all speak to some kind of change in West. His output in the years since the death of his mother and the public backlash following the Taylor Swift incident has seen him slowly abandon any desire to maintain a “respectable” image, willfully removing himself from reality and elevating himself to a kind of deity. What’s special about The Life of Pablo is that it serves as a continuation of this trend, but also sees him speaking more lucidly about it and his past, reinforcing the idea that an artist’s output can never be a clear reflection of the artist’s life, and that perhaps this disconnect is very intentional. This, combined with the fact that Kanye West is incapable of producing bad music, make for a singular, messy master work. 

9. TEENS OF DENIAL- CAR SEAT HEADREST

Will Toledo crafts a rollicking, ambitious meditation on depression, characterized by its inventive composition, post modern quotation of seminal pop classics, like Dido’s “White Flag” or the infamous use of The Cars’ “Just What I Needed,” and straightforward, subtly evocative lyrics (”Last Friday I took acid and mushrooms. I did not transcend, I felt like a walking piece of shit in a stupid looking jacket”) that speak to the intricacies and specific beats of day-to-day depression. Miraculously, the album remains quite buoyant in the face of such potentially punishing subject matter. Luminous, and promising. 

8. FRONT ROW SEAT TO EARTH- WEYES BLOOD

A crisp and luscious ode to the sounds of late 60′s Los Angeles folk that transcends pastiche. Mering’s droning synth chords lift her material into an otherworldly realm, as if her music was beamed in from another dimension more mystical than our own. Front Row Seat to Earth is an observant, subtly succinct examination of this world, but also of herself. By the time she cooly sings “YOLO,” you’re too entrenched in the transporting orchestration to even register that that’s what she’s saying. Gorgeous, meticulous without feeling like it, and strangely fresh for something so referential. 

7. ATROCITY EXHIBITION- DANNY BROWN

Brown boldly abandons commercial appeal and creates the most formally ambitious, self-reflective rap album of the year. What’s crazy is that this formula leads to some of Brown’s finest, most appealing tracks yet (”Really Doe” and “Pneumonia” among others.) Even when this experimentation with unconventional flow and production doesn’t resonate as much, (not a fan of “Rolling Stone”) Brown’s commitment to blistering self-examination propels the album forward, asserting himself once and for all as one of the genre’s most visionary talents, capable of pushing rap into thrilling, uncharted waters. 

6. HOPELESSNESS- ANOHNI

Anohni reinvents herself and the protest song on Hopelessness, reimagining the pop anthem as pounding, visceral political treatise, elevating the genre in the process. She boldly takes a stand, risking her future as a commercially successful musician, committing herself wholly to biting observation and political action, inciting her listeners to do the same. Utilizing first person perspective to explore both her own thoughts, concerns, and guilt, and the mindset of the ignorant she so harshly criticizes. Astonishing in its directness and its subtle subversion of pop sounds, Hopelessness is a thrilling, wise, and timely expression of fear and rage. 

5. VARMINTS- ANNA MEREDITH

Listening to Varmints, Anna Meredith’s history in classical composition is immediately evident. The playful and meticulous experimentation with meter, the luscious dynamic contrast and the tasteful implementation of concert instruments like trombone all speak to her prowess for composition. What’s remarkable about Varmints is the ways in which Meredith contrasts these ideas with digital distortion, harsh guitar and thin, poppy vocals to create something that sounds just at home in Carnegie Hall as it does on the festival grounds. Meredith asserts herself as a dynamic and flexible talent, capable of exploring a multitude of sonic landscapes and somehow unite them into one cohesive statement. A thrilling debut.

4. FREETOWN SOUND- BLOOD ORANGE

What’s remarkable about Dev Hynes’ music is the ways in which it makes the personal profoundly political. He isn’t interested in making broad statements on big ideas like institutional racism or queer identity as much as he is in conveying personal experiences and ideas that play like journal entries, sometimes obliquely referencing experiences he’s had without bothering to explain or contextualize them for his listener, or referencing and sampling interviews, or documentaries, or performance art pieces, like Paris is Burning or the work of Marlon Riggs, that don’t necessarily relate directly to the song’s central ideas but rather to the general mood and voice of the album as a whole. Beyond this, Hynes’ unparalleled skill at evoking melancholy through dance music remains prominently on display here, creating a jubilant patchwork of music and observations that call for celebration, reflection, and, sometimes, sadness.

3. A SEAT AT THE TABLE- SOLANGE

A Seat at the Table was a shock for a number of reasons. For a while, it seemed like Solange might never get around to releasing this album, which had presumably been cooking since shortly after her 2008 sophomore effort Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams. When it finally did arrive, accompanied by a gorgeous set of visuals, from the packaging to a pair of truly transporting music videos, its content was shocking in another way. For maybe the first time in her career, Solange had released something that felt truly singular. Until now, her work always felt a tad referential, suggesting she was a stronger curator of sonic ideas than songwriter. A Seat at the Table once again showcases her ability to embody different genres perfectly, from neo-soul to afro-futurism, but what’s different is that every meticulously (and perfectly) placed track feels entirely her own. Her delicate and intuitive orchestration is brilliantly complimented by thoughtful and honest lyrics that explore themes of black identity, exhaustion, and melancholy luminously. The tremendous amount of time Solange took between proper LPs is evident on A Seat at the Table, and it’s abundantly evident that the time was well spent, seeing Solange transcend into realm of the most invaluable, necessary voices in music. 

2. BLACKSTAR- DAVID BOWIE

Blackstar is the most blisteringly honest reconciliation with an artist’s own impending death I’ve ever encountered in any art form. The fact that it was released by one of the most iconic, seminal talents in modern music history at the end of a startlingly singular, varied, and influential career is an added bonus. What’s most astonishing about it is that it’s perhaps Bowie’s most ambitious and admirably strange release, both thematically and musically, in a career marked by ambitious, strange releases. The most direct influence Bowie cited in the lead-up to Blackstar’s release was Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, which is kind of amazing and indicative of a master who was constantly learning and evolving, never content to make the same album twice, and willing to spend the last, precious months of his life creating something unexpected and worthwhile. What he ended up with ranks among his finest works.

1. BLONDE- FRANK OCEAN

Listening to Blonde, it’s easy to forget that this was maybe the most anticipated release of our time. Frank Ocean’s ubiquitous popularity seems counter intuitive to the thoughtful, personal work he produces. The fact that Ocean responded to this unprecedented anticipation with an album primarily characterized by its gentleness, delicate, meticulous orchestration, and perhaps most interestingly, its surrealism, is incredibly brave. The prominence of guitar against gorgeous, swooshing distortion and the sparse use of percussion evoke the album’s central theme; nostalgia. Ocean can’t quite seem to part with this notion that, even as he’s been afforded the opportunity that countless people dream of to make a generous living making art, maybe things would have been better if he never got famous. On the album’s showstopping finale, Ocean puts it quite simply; “Shit went 180 on me. Please run that back, though.” I can’t think of another mainstream release that’s felt quite so ambitious, or shown such vulnerability in unexpected ways. Yes, it’s a bit messy in its execution, but is ultimately a transcendent, bold, and strange meditation on the ephemeral nature of life.

[strangledeggs]

It’s A Short Life: “Nice For What”

In which I fawn embarrassingly over Drake’s best/deeply-flawed/most recent single almost four months after it was released.

With the possible exception of the mythical “dream job” in which one is actually paid to do something they enjoy, it has been my experience that most work is about diminishing and dulling the senses in order to minimize the pain of the task at hand. Thus one becomes something like a machine for accomplishing a specific task, quashing the instinct to point out your boss’s lack of clarity in their emails at an office job, or maybe the instinct to cry out in pain when you cut your hand doing dishes at a fast-food job. This mechanizing force appears to resemble not only the Freudian death drive, but also Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of “automatization”, in which a repetitive process happens so frequently as to become repressed, as if it never really happened; the agent begins to carry out the action automatically, without even registering the details of the process. Whole portions of one’s life can be lost in this way, glossed over as “work” without memorable experience to make it worthy of attention.

A brief disclaimer: I don’t like Drake. I find his style bland, drone-y and misogynistic (despite inexplicably being credited as one of the most women-friendly rappers in the modern era - but I could write a whole other essay on that). I also generally dislike pop radio and never listen to it willingly. So it came as a shock when I heard Drake’s most recent single, “Nice For What”, on the radio several months after its release and...it was good? Somehow, the song transcended its repellent context and defamiliarized everything for me, if only for a moment. It felt like I was suddenly hearing Drake as his fans had always described him to me. Needless to say, I decided a bit of investigative analysis was in order.

To begin with what I didn’t know when I first heard it: I’ve come to recognize “Nice For What” as a clever fusion of past and future. The production nods to both Lauryn Hill through a slightly obscure sample that forms the basis of the beat (it’s from the bridge of her song “Ex Factor”) and to Big Freedia through the more raw live sample in the song’s middle section. This turns out to tie in well with the song’s video and lyrical themes, both of which celebrate women living their lives independently; what better way to complement this than to make a musical claim that women are simultaneously hip-hop’s past and future?

About those lyrics: for years I’ve struggled to understand why Drake was seen as somehow less misogynistic than his peers when his M.O. seemed to be centred around emotionally manipulating and guilt-tripping women. Yet here, he seems to have pulled a sudden 180, praising a woman for the very things he guilted his ex about in “Hotline Bling” - while “wearing less and going out more” was a line delivered with a frown on that track, Drake admits here that it’s “all right” to “show off”, whether it be in selfies or at the club. Has he finally learned?

Probably not, or at least not as much as we’d hope. I haven’t listened to his bloated “Scorpion” myself, but reports suggest there’s just as much misogyny scattered throughout it as on his other albums, meaning “Nice For What” is really just something of an act. Truthfully, it’s a bit of a mess, too, though a brilliant one. And so I’m ready to embrace this beautiful mess precisely because it breaks the spell of the “pop genius” in a visceral manner, reminding us that pop music is only ever a temporary act. Not only that, it manages to do so musically as well as lyrically. Consider the bridge with the Big Freedia sample; it’s jarring, isn’t it? It’s not unlike the brief Jay-Z sample in Pusha T’s “Numbers On The Board” that I called a “gasp for air”. Only here, it’s not so much a gasp for air as a moment of breathlessness - the lush harmonies of Lauryn Hill’s voice are snatched from the listener and replaced by a moment of harsh live intensity. The timing, too, is expertly handled, with the tempo threatening to tear free from the song’s rhythmic confines until “Watch the breakdown!” drags it back into the measure in the nick of time.

Much of the production is built on this kind of deliberate deprivation, the removal of pieces the listener expects to be present. In a “When Doves Cry” decision, the production team has opted to amp up the treble on the samples and cut the bass almost entirely, giving the drums a tinny, hollow sound and making the 1998 Hill song sound about 20 years older than it actually is. Even during the hook, a low kick seems to promise a hint of bass tone to give the song some kind of chordal structure, but the listener’s expectations are quickly disrupted as a second bass note fails to follow and the rest of the chorus remains empty.

And then there’s Drake. Misogyny aside, I’ve never found him much of a rapper, as he seemed to have something of a stunted flow and a taste for deathly corny punchlines. Here, however, he not only pulls off a great verse, he manages to tie it in to the song’s disruptive formal structure. The first verse exhibits an admittedly repetitive flow that feels like it lags in relation to the rhythmic momentum of the beat, Drake makes up for it by shifting effortlessly between his brash rapping and his gentler melodic delivery - a strength he’s always had that I’ve probably undervalued. Only here it’s employed better than ever as he uses it to deliver winning lyrics that balance the tension between a kind of carefree-living and the stress of hard work that (supposedly) gives one the right to call themself their own. At the very least, that tension offers an interesting existential take on Nietzschean debt: the woman in this song is positioned as one who doesn’t “owe” anyone anything, as the chorus reminds us. This premise of somehow working yourself up out of your debt to society is so common in hip-hop it’s hardly worth mentioning, except for the fact that it’s so overtly masculine in so much of the genre (as it is with broader western culture in general). For Drake to suggest women might achieve a similar goal shows potential for attempts at understanding other gendered perspectives from his own, even if the understanding is a little shallow [1].

Just when you think he’s about to get stuck in generic-Drake-flow mode, the song’s second verse hits harder with a whole new intensity. The rug is pulled out from under the listener once again as Drake actually varies his phrasing(!) while adding details to the portrait of the woman he sketched in the first verse. The ending of this verse is damn near perfect - just as the brief Lauryn Hill sample contains a tonal loop which seems to never resolve while always implying its next shift, the last line delivers a simile in parallel: “Gotta hit the club like you hit them mothafuckin’ angles”.

All this inevitably leads us back to the hook, which is rousing in its own right. “That’s a real one in the reflection, / Without a follow, without a mention” Drake stresses, urging the woman he’s rapping to not to fall into the trap of trying to evaluate her self-worth through her social media presence. It’s a nice touch, if a little cliched: If you really want to see yourself, stop gazing into the abyss of the “black mirror” and look at the mirror on your wall to appreciate who you really are. Only the threads are showing here, and if you pull on one, the whole thing might just unravel like the patchwork it is. If Drake thinks women shouldn’t be so concerned with their social media “reflection”, why did he plaster his face all over Spotify’s front page on his album’s launch date? What’s more, he’s built this whole hook on a fallacy: as much as the reflection in the mirror might help you better grasp the concept of yourself as “you”, it can never be the “real you” as such a thing is always inaccessible, at least in its totality. Come on, Drake, this is basic Lacanian psychoanalysis! The self is a ramshackle construction, a performance, a facade, one that, much like this song, threatens to collapse if prodded even a little. But such reminders are not always unwelcome, and I’ll take shelter in the ramshackle constructions if they help to defamiliarize a dull life for a few minutes. That’s how life is lived in a non-automatized manner, and if something as shoddily-constructed as this gem of a song can help lengthen it, maybe it doesn’t have to be such a short life after all.

[1] Though one might be tempted to ask: if Drake is willing to expand his view of women to include them as potential equals through their hard work that entitles them to their own lives, why not feature a woman on the song outside the samples? A sample is notably different from a feature, being a sort of static entity with no will of its own, selected by the producer as a sort of “gamepiece” (or even “ornament”) to employ as they see fit. A featured woman would bring her own will into it...perhaps, however, this would be too threatening to Drake’s male ego.

[spnnmp-blog]

Audio and Art

Here I want to look at a few examples of ways in which audio visual elements have been merged together to create compelling media-art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh85lplBqdU

My first example - and possibly the most commercial of the three - is the visual accompaniment to electronic music producer Amon Tobin’s 2015 album and tour - ISAM. Producers and DJ’s have forever been finding new ways to create a more immersive experience for their live shows. The concept of simply stood in a room, staring at a person pressing buttons and dials for 2 hours sounds a little strange, even boring. So, since it’s popularity in the 1990′s, dance and electronic music have often incorporated more and more visual elements to enhance the experience for the viewers. This started by taking the usual elements of lights and theatrics similar to Pink Floyd’s infamous concerts and ramping it up a notch. Like the music itself, the lights mirror the very synthetic and digital form of electronic music. This has developed over the years and with increasingly more available and cost effective technology, has become the norm. Even the small town club nights will now feature a full lighting rig and often a projector incorporating graphics and cult film/ T.V. clips are projected alongside.

Amon Tobin took this idea to the next level in 2014 when starting to tour his latest album ISAM. Tobin falls in the very progressive side of electronic music and has a very industrial sound to his music, often created from foley - most notably, Foley Room, 2007. foley is the art of creating sounds from every day objects and it’s becuase of this inclusion of natural elements why I think it translates this realistic and mechanical sound well.

For the tour, Tobin commissioned a huge 3D live set to be built. This set comprised of lots of cubes of different sizes which would act as a projection screen, one of the cubes (the largest and darkest in the picture above) also contained Tobin and all of his equipment sit whilst preforming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYYuItogriE

In this video above, Tobin discusses the reasoning behind wanting to venture out and create a more immersive project. Saying that he could have just toured his album as is but wasn’t content in doing just that. I learnt that he also collaborated with artist Tessa Farmer who created a project based upon the album which were exhibited along side each other. Tobin describes this (and the whole collaborative process) for him as a very daunting idea. He is reluctant to give complete freedom to other creatives when collaborating because, in essence, if it wasn’t something he agreed with, he wouldn’t be happy with associating with it all to much. This come across when he talks about Farmer’s interpritation of his work. Because she’s done it in her style, using her methods, it’s possibly not a direct translation of the ideas he had about the album. Farmer’s work centres around these tiny insects and skeletal figures she creates by hand.

Her interpretation of the album comes about in different ways, the piece above, comes from the track ‘Kitty Cat’ and depicts a cat’s skeleton being used as some kind of ‘architecture’ by the insects. We also see some of the more intense tracks manifesting themselves as battle scenes between the insects and the fairy skeletons. However, Tobin later goes on to elude to the fact that the album seems to be written about a journey through space. Both artist however do comment on the fact it’s “otherworldly” and this is just different interpretations of that idea.

It is the almost groundbreaking use of 3D mapping and projection that most intrigues me about this collaboration though. The visuals have a narrative to them that accompany the music. No one takes over the other, they just compliment each other. It would have been easy with music less intricate and avant garde for the visuals to take the spotlight but because both are as expressive as each other, they sit perfectly together. watching the set (full live recording in the link at the top of this post) a similar experience is found to watching a film. There’s an abstract narrative that swaps between the journey that the ‘spaceship’ is taking (the spaceship can also be attributed to the set itself) and then switching back to a more abstract representation of the music and the journey. 

The top two (on the left) graphics show a more literal graphical representation of the journey, showing landscapes and even architecture. The second image down is similar to the famous scene in Star Wars Episode V where Luke is traveling down the canals of the Death Star before shooting his rockets into the exhaust ducts, it is very possible a direct homage to this cult favourite. We can also see the more abstract variations of the graphics, focusing more on the idea of the variation within this hypothetical world. Due to the nature of the project and music, we can afford this more expressive form and less realistic depiction of space. 

Another interesting concept that was brought in for this project was the further experimentation with 3D mapping technology in the form of the more commercially available Xbox 360 kinnect technology. This camera uses infrared light bounced off of surfaces to visualise 3D space in a digital environment. In Tobin’s case, it was used inside of his booth as a n interactive way to preform and interact with the large scale visuals in real time. 

In the image above, we can see the faint fire of Tobin in white on the right hand side of the set, we then see a waveform like patter that is being created in real time by the movement of Tobin’s hands. This adds a more classical performative aspect to the set and brings the human element back to the audience. 

Although not directly applicable to my own work, I think the ISAM 2.0 project was a work of genius and showcases the extent to which art, music and digital art can come together to create a live spectacle. We are continually seeing this move to a more experimental digital music performance (where the performative element from the producer is traditionally very limited) to engage the crowds and move away from the effortless stereotype. Four Tet, Deadmau5 and Aphex Twin are other examples of electronic music mixing more with art and contemporary methods of performance. As i’ve mentioned earlier, this project is about experimenting and keeping my ear to the ground so to speak on new technologies and opportunities that I can draw upon in a more professional sphere. 

Ryoji Ikeda 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3J4d4RbeWc

Ryoji Ikeda is a conceptual artist and musician who’s work explores the boundaries of both music and visualisation. His digitally produced music uses the whole range of frequencies within the spectrum, not just those available to the human ear. The human ear has a cut off of frequencies roughly bellow 20hz and above 20khz. however, frequencies above and below these cut offs still have a more physical effect on the audience. The sounds that Ikeda uses in his work are very reminiscent of retro computer sounds, using mathematical equations and sin waves to produce some of the rhythms and melodies. This results in the sounds being similar to peoples experiences of breaking electronics and freezing computers. For this reason, the music has a very non-human sound which is quite different from most music historically and contemporarily. 

The visuals are similar in concept, working off of mathematical representations of the music, algorithms are fed into a program that transcribes the beats and sounds into digital projections. These projections mirror the digital foundations of the music and represent the visuals like binary. 1 or 0 being one or off, or in this case, black and white. This creates fascinating and, at times, quite straining visuals. Each black and white pattern appears and disappears within an instant in time with the music as well as being a representation of the more melodic parts. As we can see above, this is a screen shot from Ikeda’s live performance of Data.Matrix in 2010. I can only guess that he uses a program that visualises the sounds in live time to produce a ‘live’ performance. Similar to Amon Tobin, this creates a very energetic and engaging visual accompaniment to the music. Ikeda also exhibits these works in the more traditional gallery setting too, with the sound track playing over the visuals projected onto walls and floors often reaching up too 100m square. 

What I think is is most interesting about his work is the context it falls. In the age of the internet and digitalisation of everything, people (especially in relation to art and creative endeavours) are looking for reason in work. Theres a tendency for people to become inflamed by art because they can’t immediately make sense of it and at the same time refuse to be content with taking away whatever they felt from that art. There’s a tendency to want a definite answer and reason to everything where I don’t think this Ikeda’s work provides one. Using digital forms to combat the digital age. Again, not necessarily relevant to my own work but it’s an exciting use of the digital medium. 

Pipilotti Rist 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56RPZ_cbdc

Ever is Over All is a moving image based project by Pipilotti Rist from 1997. The project came about in a very important time for females in a rapidly evolving feminist culture. Since the 70′s feminism had picked up a lot of speed and with the modernisation of a lot of industries, the 90′s were a difficult and important time to keep fighting for equality. This project encompasses this for me. The piece itself is two film projections seamlessly blended across two adjacent walls. One showing a field of flowers which blends in with a shot of a woman walking down a street. This juxtaposition of setting is harmonised by the slow motion grace of each of the shots. Both highlighting the natural beauty of the main subjects. This harmony and peacefulness is broken when the woman - with her long stemmed flower in hand - smashes the window of one of the many cars lining the street. She continues to skip down the pavement with grace periodically smashing another window until a policeman confronts her. However, the policeman simple smiles in gentle appreciation and walks on. 

This project can be taken a couple of ways, it’s very much anti-establishment and anti commercialisation but it’s also presenting the female form in a much more contemporary and empowered way. Beautiful, fearless and powerful. The soundtrack mirrors the harmony between the two visuals with soft chorus of song birds which again, is broken by the jarring sound of smashing glass. 

I think this is a very creative presentation of the medium which is something I want to draw on. Not only does the way in which the two projections blend together help mirror the harmony between the two, it also poses new questions of it’s own is as far as it forces the viewer to really think about the relationship between the two images. This could have been accomplished by having the images projected separately next to each other but it’s heightened by the fact they are as one. For my own project, I don’t want the videos to overlap at all, in doing that, it would appear that these points of view are happening simultaneously, which is not the experience of depression that I’ve had. I want to get across this idea that depression can take over your outlook and state of mind at any given time. I think it would be more appropriate for me to project these videos without being able to see the next. So the audience can get into this state of mind that this is the same person but from different points of view. Having to physically re locate themselves to see the other perspective will help convey this idea. This again, is the reasoning in the use of directional speakers in which the audience have to move and change their perspective to get the next perspective of the character.