#or understand jokes about european pop culture in the 70s & 80s

[cithaerons]

my mom always forgets the rest of the family doesn’t speak dutch

[eddsmediamashup-blog]

This was my original scrip for “Metal then and now”

Metal then and now

<Old School News Footage>

Old School Metal

Heavy metal is a genre that can be easily judged, I mean how hard can it be grab a few scruffy men together and completely mutilate guitars with inaudible vocals over the top? Well here is a little story on how a couple of men from Birmingham managed to create the most dark, beautiful and complex music and a genre of music which I consider home. Black Sabbath were the first band that were considered to be heavy metal with their creepy tones and sound of lyrical content about the devil, wizardry, war and conspiracies. In the late 60’s and early 70’s many holy families considered Ozzy, the leader of Black Sabbath and the rest of the band to be of the devils origin. Black Sabbath started out as a blues rock band but managed to adapt their sound over time to eventually lay down the fundamentals for the future of metal. It wasn't only the music that inspired the next generation of hard rockers which were soon to be metalheads, but the art of the album as well; with its dark colour pallet and creepy undertones it was like nothing that was previously seen in the 60’s and it especially wasn't a cute pop or beach boy album.

Fast forward 8 years from the release of the original Black Sabbath album and you had new faces on the scene, that were growing from the sounds that bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin had already laid down. Those band were still going and they were nowhere near the end of their careers, the only thing that had changed now is that they had competition. The metal market had only just started and it was faster, heavier and more raw than ever before.  

In the mid 70’s to early 80’s, a movement was taking place in Britain under the name of Nwobhm, this made the metal genre get put into a spotlight, with names such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Motorhead, although it would take a little more time for some of these name to grow. This genre grew alongside punk bringing with it a faster sound than your typical hard rock and metal bands of late 60’s and early 70’s. Punk was dying and most fans had decided to jump from their sinking ship and set up home in a scene that was only starting to bloom, many people jumped to Motorhead during this time and would consider Motorhead to be the face of old school metal as there's nothing quite like their sound.

As if it was captured as soon as pen was put to paper, Motorhead’s songs were raw with an unpolished sound but it fit the theme so well; with lyrical content about gambling, drinking, sex and life on the road nothing could stop this genius group from writing songs about life of the fast lane for years to come. It was around this time that metalheads started to find their fashion, with denim and leather jackets covered in patches from the bands that they liked, the scruffy look was a straight up fuck you to pop culture and to the mainstream, alongside that the clothes matched the dirty and raw sounds that Motorhead had set out to create. My essential Nwobhm albums: Ace of Spades by Motorhead, Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden and Wild Cat by Tygers Of Pan Tang.

Thrash Metal

The 80’s were a time of struggle, with the cold war still in full force, the political system was failing to represent the people and the media was telling people what to think, feel and say. There was an outcry for a way for people to vent their true anger and one day a genre came that reflected the brutality of the 80’s. Inspired by hardcore punk, nwobhm and the early years of metal, thrash was the combination of everything that metal stood for, and with it thrash brought new complexity, new speeds and a new attitude to the genre. With a hate towards the political system, thrash was music by the people for the people. And now the music wasn't only limited to one country or continent, a vast amount of Europe and America was affected by this new sound. In Europe bands like Venom started to popularise thrash metal whilst also experimenting to find new genres like black metal but you'll hear more about that later. In the USA a group of young guys were looking to form a new group and a man named Lars Ulrich helped popularise an entire genre with his collection of European metal records, he drew inspiration from bands like Motorhead, Iron Maiden and The Sex Pistols to form Metallica. This is where metal really started to take off and hit the mainstream, over the course of 5 albums Metallica started to mold itself into the thing they didn't want to be, a radio friendly rock band with ballads becoming more common on their albums and their songs getting slower and less complicated, it wasn't too long until this watered down “metal” style started to influence teens and this later gave birth to genres like nu metal and alt metal. My essential Thrash albums: Reign In Blood by Slayer, Master Of Puppets by Metallica and Rust In Peace by Megadeth.

RANT ABOUT SKREEEEE(aming) A common misconception with metal is that the vocals consist entirely of inaudible screaming and nothing else, which is not the case, as metal has grown through the years it’s not only the instruments that have changed sound, but the vocal instrumentals have changed sound as well. Like any genre of music, not every band is the same and some wish to follow more clean cut singing or loud powerful screaming and growling.

The screams were typically thrown in to express the more extreme messages in bands lyrics, to a first time listener it’s understandable that they could struggle making out what bands were saying during these screams, however, over time metalheads have adapted to this style of vocals and can make out what the singers are saying.

For many bands, this is used for stylistics.

Black Metal

Black metal a controversial topic for some, but personally, for me no genre in metal intrigues me more. Black Metal was formed in the mid 80’s, it started out as a protogenre for thrash but you may recognize the genre because it was well known for murders, church burnings and crimes that took place in the early 90’s. Venom was one of the first bands to experiment with its sound, starting out as a thrash band and slowly beginning to bring in new elements to their music focusing on more melodies and adding in blast beats. 80’s bands like Mayhem, Burzum, and Emperor took inspiration from Venom and made their own new sounds with the distant and melodic guitars from bands like Emperor making this some truly frightening work.

At this time in metal the sound was getting heavier, the lyrical content was getting darker and the songs were getting more complex. Not only were the instruments sounding dark but the singers in bands started to use the screams I previously mentioned, this is because in the early 90’s this style of singing was getting more popular and personally, I could not think of anything more fitting to go with the music.

My essential black metal albums: Nemesis Divina by Satyricon, Hvis Lyset Tar Oss by Burzum and In The Nightside Eclipse by Emperor.

Death Metal

Meanwhile whilst black metal was taking over Norway and the rest of Europe, overseas death metal was growing in the USA with bands like Cannibal Corpse and Death, this genre popularised the death screams and growls with lyrical content ranging from serial killers, torture and gratuitous sex, most of which was inspired from movies, old horror books and comics, because of this it was only an amount of time before word got out this beautifully sickening genre.

During the mid 80’s and early 90’s the music industry was under attack by suburban mums and dads who were worried about what music industry was doing to their children, as you could've guessed metal came under fire by this group of people but it wasn't the only genre under fire, hip-hop was too. With parents worried their children would become gang members and satanists this movement affected the music industry in a big way bringing in the Filthy Fifteen and the Parental Advisory Sticker that was soon put onto every obscene album. The Filthy Fifteen was a list that was composed by the group members to warn other parents of the most disgusting music out at the time but many bands made it a target of theirs to make it onto the list. Many teens of the 80’s and 90’s went out of their way to listen and support the bands on the list and for many it was their gateway into metal and hip-hop and the new generation of satanic gang members were born.

Nu metal filth

>limp bizkit< Nu metal was a genre that skyrocketed towards pop culture in the mid to late 90’s, the genre was metal with all the soul sucked out of it and garnished off with a bit of rap. The genre traded off its guitar solos, blast beats, guttural singing, etc for more generic and sometimes repetitive riffs and rapping. Nu metal was popularised by bands such as Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Korn and the genre was seen as one of the popular fads of the 90’s as well as pogs, boy bands, iced tips and sitcoms. It’s fair to say that Nu metal hasn't exactly aged, with songs such as Evanescence's Bring Me to Life which is now seen as a joke with its cringe-worthy and simplistic lyrics. Albums worth your time instead: Bloodlust by Bodycount (Rap thrash/metal album)

Sludge and Progressive

As the 90’s was coming to a close and the survivors of Y2K mentally scarred forever. Towards the end of the 90’s and the beginning of the 2000’s metal was more diverse than ever, it had even more genres than before, including but not limited to power metal, folk metal, doom and melodeath but more people were wondering how the genre would grow and it didn't stop growing there.

Although sludge metal was already on the scene with tons of fans, Mastodon was the one to break the iceberg with sludge metal, with their doom metal and hardcore punk influences, the music was hard, heavy and slow which is best described by the genre's name: sludge. Despite the slower time signatures it didn't stop bands like Mastodon from kicking ass. Over time Mastodon started to adjust their sound to be more progressive, taking influence from early heavy metal and prog rock bands of the 70’s like Rush.

Progressive metal at the time was led by Opeth and Dream Theater, both bands took influence from the prog rock of the 70’s along with death metal and black metal from the 80’s and 90’s, this led to a very technical sound that would boggle and intrigue the minds of musicians for decades to come, it also produced some of the best drummers of this generation.   My essential sludge metal albums: Leviathan by Mastodon, Red Album by Baroness, Dopethrone by Electric Wizard.

And my essential prog metal albums: Blackwater Park by Opeth, Crack The Skye by Mastodon and Scenes From A Memory by Dream Theater.

Metal now.

It’s been about 40 years since metal graced our ears and we’ve barely touched the surface, the genre hasn't stopped growing since it was first formed.

As of 2017 thrash metal has made a large comeback with bands like Havok, Warbringer and Municipal Waste. Along with that, more bands are fusing sounds together like Zeal and Ardor with their blend of black metal and 1920 blues, talking about America's history of slavery and the discrimination of the black community. Some symphonic bands are now also fusing genres to create mindblowing classical music with death metal influences, it makes for one impressive show.   There are many genres that I haven't even covered but as we move more into the future I can't wait to see where this extreme genre will take us and if it can be outdone by something more extreme. Thank you for watching.

[dominicalhambra-blog]

On Doctor Strange and Political Characters

On Doctor Strange

The image of the studio system has not been so tangible since the 40s, where the mass-produced film enjoyed vertical integration between production, distribution and exhibition. The modern popular actor seems to gravitate toward this all-inhaling system, filled with novice-to-intermediate directors, make-up production lines, and overarching plans for franchises over the next decade or so. The film world seems to split in half: a deep chasm forms between the Marvel studio system and the "other".

It is never by chance that a particular actor is chosen to enter the Marvel assembly line, which has been carefully calibrating itself since the release of 2012's Avengers. As an exercise in worldwide-scale nihilism and disinterest, the film's content was fully realized to mean nothing for anyone, but its aesthetic choices (location, make-up, costume) beguiled audiences all over the globe. And most importantly, the actor has become the total soul of a meaningless product. Their voice and personality bring to a stone its rigid, machine-carved face.

The Marvel studio system relies on its presentation -- among other items -- to sell audiences a film that will effectively incapacitate for two to three hours. If the actor is indeed paramount to this presentation, then what needs to be determined is the economic and very popular science utilized for maximal revenue. For almost a century, this has been a traditional notion for broadcast mediums: the Nielsen ratings, determined by audience input or television monitoring devices, have helped to kill unpopular entertainment products or re-invest revenues into rampant successes. Nielsen can also provide the statistics on demographics, from gender, income, age, to race.

Once important for advertisers (and still are), the Nielsen demographics have come to develop a new understanding of American entertainment: marginalized races and classes are entering the middle-class consumer market, and they should be specifically marketed to and not precluded from entertainment products for risk of losing this growing potential consumer-base. As a result, we find that Doctor Strange is filled with ideas, actors and aesthetics that carefully take into account the population subsets to whom they are attempting to sell.

Benedict Cumberbatch

What better symbolic object of European rationalism than the U.K.'s contemporary face of Sherlock Holmes and Hollywood's latest go-to "British person". If the Avengers did not suffice in attracting white, Anglic audiences, perhaps Marvel should dredge up a B-list comic book character that would encapsulate a great actor within the mediocrity of a superhero's "origin story".

But let's not just state opinions here:

Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes television series captured around 10 million(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(TV_series)) viewers in its 2014 return. That's a great number; the U.S. Office series peaked in its first season at 11 million viewers and never hit above 9.7 for years afterward.(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_(U.S._TV_series) This comparison highlights that U.K. audiences are partially untapped, except for the general assumption that Western audiences are inclined to watch other Western films (that globalization bubble popped decades ago).

That's just the tip of the iceberg; in China, the YouTube-alternative site Youku found another 10 million(http://www.businessinsider.com/the-unreal-popularity-of-sherlock-in-china-2014-1) viewers of the television series. There are other reports that the 2014 season was witnessed by 69 million viewers(http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/benedict-cumberbatchs-sherlock-holmes-huge-china-despite-being-banned-1449044) in total. Due to some type of U.K. obsession or simply U.K. television enjoyment, there may be more Chinese fans of Benedict Cumberbatch than the U.S. and U.K. put together.

China is still a potential market that is gradually being saturated by Hollywood cinema. The United States continues to be the domineering portion of income for Marvel studio films, and as such Cumberbatch -- despite his "Britishness" and the total lack of necessity to remove such "Britishness" -- donned a questionable American accent -- nowadays seemingly the global neutral English accent. The choice behind Cumberbatch and the choices around Cumberbatch are guided by the dull thump of the Nielsen hammer.

Tilda Swinton

Is there any other way to further legitimize the Marvel brand than to continue inhaling great-but-still-not-globally-popular actors that may include the likes of Julianne Moore, Jason Schwartzman, or Tilda Swinton. Only the latter has dutifully signed up so far, but the Pokémon-collection game that Marvel is playing will assuredly catch 'em all.

Might I propose the cynical but very possible reason that Swinton has taken over for the comic series' racial-stereotype-otherwise-known-as-the-Ancient-One assteeped in half-baked feminism and avoidance of the Ancient One's embarrassing "Chinese grandmaster" Orientalist upbringing that so easily filled Stan Lee and co's mind in the 70s when attempting to categorize foreign populations into arbitrary images that self-replicate as Chinese actors were set into the mold through the 80s and 90s Hollywood cinema assembly line, morphed into its own self-hatred, and passed through the third-wave feminist revival of "hear me roar" and transmuted into the echoing hallways of mass media gossip, amounting to a "free" product for fans and detractors of the Marvel franchise to mull over in mundane proclivities for "side-taking", that the Doctor Strange "Ancient One" doll sold in early February (in time for Q2 2017) was not built for a child's hands but for the coffee table?

Swinton did exactly well in the film; but the half-nakedness of the actor's existence in Doctor Strange comes from the more cynical approach to conversation-setting that necessitates itself in discussions on Twitter, Facebook or Reddit. Whereas Tilda Swinton could have been part of the roster for the sake of her pedigree, she is subject to the symbolism of feminism or anti-feminism, a concept that is hypocritically discussed by myself at this very moment.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

For Marvel, it seems that the best way to integrate a high-pedigree actor such as Ejiofor is to put him into a reluctant sidekick imbued with a failed character arc and timid writing. Judging from the lacking demographics of the main cast, one can understand why Ejiofor is squandered in this digital cash cow (just as Jeremy Renner has been deemed the perpetual "everyday (white) man").

Benedict Wong

Benedict Wong has existed in some of my favorite sci-fi films, but now he is the punchline of a very tired joke. The script's non-joke of using the name Wong -- combined with the "serious masculine character who unexpectedly laughs at the end" is a dance around racial stereotyping that is comprised of mundanity and the deepest of yawns.

Conclusion

There is a blossoming of "Oriental" aesthetics in current and future franchise films, all dedicated to the tantalization Chinese and other East Asian audiences. There is nothing "good" or "bad" about this situation, but it deserves the thought process because it is important to track how global media is leading the attempt to globalize culture. The question of why "Hollywood movies feel so generic nowadays" is that American audiences have become a subset of demographics rather than the historical superset. Statistical data provided by Nielsen-like organizations have finally caught up with the technological foot-dragging of Hollywood's middle-management -- the data has revealed to them that the data lies in the lowest common denominator. How fortunate that the title "Doctor Strange" can be so easily translated into Mandarin.