Des

I've been listening to some music that made me question my life choices and now I have deciced that it's best for me to pursue a career as a voodoo shaman in the Caribbean. And also I just realized that the barren, lifeless sound of American redneckkish country anthems is caused by hiding a firearm in the resonance chamber of the guitar which disrupts the flow of the instrument's sound. I've been thinking about this and I believe this logic is flawless. So if ever you hear a country singer with a dead guitar, kindly ask him to take the gun out. Assure him that it's unlikely someone will storm in and shoot up the place. But if they do, the country singer is probably the first to go so his gun is useless either way. ;3

There's only one halfway decent song on the entire new Muse album. What the hell is this. Oh right it's the follow-up to "The 2nd Law", what did I expect, Muse is dead. And donkeys are some of the greatest animals. They have no personalities. Just standing in a field being donkeys all day. Species: donkey. Color: donkey. Personality: donkey. For more info about this donkey call 1234-DONKEY. I love donkeys, they don't seem to mind anything. In fact they barely acknowledge your presence at all.

To Sir, With Love (1967) It's easy to draw comparisons to the 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle where a teacher takes on a job and is confronted by a classroom of unmotivated young folks, unwilling to obey even the simplest of rules and acceptable behaviour, and to a certain extend it's not strange to say that if you've seen either one, you've seen them both. But that's the thing with these routines in many more similar movies: new teacher, hopeless classroom, tries a million things, ready to give up, sudden enlightenment, tries something else, works, finally work pays off, pupils become increasingly happy with him, new difficulties arise, etc etc. All these teacher-pupil movies through the decades show that while the environment changes, human behaviour doesn't change as much. Sidney Poitier, playing a student back in Blackboard Jungle but playing a teacher in this one, is great as always. There's some cheap sentiment and hackneyed scenes and some hastily written confrontations to shape a certain character. However these situations don't dominate the movie and there's still plenty to enjoy. Nice watch if you like the "classroom genre". Hot Fuzz (2007) I'm about to throw this whole Edgar Wright fellow out of the window. 4 movies seen and none of them were any good. His quirky visual style, combining rather ordinary looking images with flashy editing and attempts at humor playing with death, silly characters and sudden revelations, doesn't appeal to me at all. Repetition of jokes like the incomprehensibly mumbling old man don't work at all and the nauseating action scenes in the second half of the movie gave me a headache. Very tiresome stuff. And then there was so much stuff that made no sense even within the context of this nonsensical movie. A sudden change of heart of some of the most stubborn characters, a plot "twist" near the end that made NO sense whatsoever as if the writers believed that the audience was ready to forget all that happened earlier and how a certain character behaved. Throw it out of the window and create a new character with the same face? They were essentially cheating on the audience. With 4 awfully dull movies it seems to me that Wright is one of the worst directors active today and I really don't want to see another one. I'm done.

PIERROT! Permanent revival please, or at least until they're in wheelchairs.

Predicting it's a super 8mm film of the band hanging out at the local skate park in urban fashion with Ruki casually leaning on the railing carrying a boombox on his shoulder and booming their new single on volume 11.

I'm not as confused as you think I am. Reading the descriptions I KNOW that the term "art music" is not meant to distinguish what is art and what isn't, but the term implies it does. That's my problem. If I want to split music in two broad categories as I would split vegetables and fruit, I wouldn't use "art food" and "pop food" with the implication that one is superior over the other. "Art music" is a really silly term. If you throw it out there in a conversation you're bound to create confusion and even after one looks it up there's still confusion about the validity of the term that remains because: The quotation Music which is highly formalized, that is, in which all or most of the musical elements are specified in advance, usually in written notation, as opposed to being improvised or otherwise left up to the performer's discretion. Is still the silliest thing ever, because that's... everything but improv and Merzbow! It's Beyoncé, it's Amadeus, it's Black Sabbath and One Direction. So if you want to distinguish "art music" and "pop music" using all the other means to do so, by ruling out improvisation and commercially oriented music (also questionable, where do you draw a line?) and such, you'd still get this quotation that makes no sense in contrast to those other rules to define "art music". What did she do this time?

"Art music" is a vague and poorly worded term for something that seems to go against the very idea of art. These articles suggest that there are major differences in "art" and "pop" music while it's essentially very much alike. If anything, the "art" music category (according to this Wiki definition) has less to do with art than pop music because the Wiki excludes improvisation from the "art" category and attributes this to the pop category instead. How is improvisation not art? And music in both categories extensively use sets of predefined rules for the compositions. "While often used to refer primarily to Western historical classical music, the term may refer to: - Music which is highly formalized, that is, in which all or most of the musical elements are specified in advance, usually in written notation, as opposed to being improvised or otherwise left up to the performer's discretion." This is not a definition of art.. this is just a silly description. I think the whole "art music" term as described in that Wiki is very poor, starting at the very top when it digs its own grave by suggesting that snobby terms like "serious music" and "legitimate music" are synonyms. There is an implication here that "pop music" is kitsch as opposed to "serious music" but who has the right to decide this? Art has less to do with rules and complexity or whether or not it's improvised than it has to do with emotion and you can't categorize emotion. I'm sensing a very strong mindset similar to "socialism vs. liberalism" here. As in there are people who insist these are opposites when that's really not true at all. Only the simpleminded like to think of them as opposites.

Overanalyzing was the wrong choice of words, I meant that pointing towards thoughtful chord progressions to defend a musician's output does not hold any value for someone who simply doesn't like the music. Be sure that they heard those chords, whether or not they can name the chords or put them in historical context doesn't matter much, they still heard them and decided they didn't like it. Anyhow, I don't think we're gonna get anywhere because I already completely disagree with your statement that pop music should be seperated from "art music" as you put it. The two can easily overlap... and it's interesting that you say the two should remain different but you praise The Beatles for taking the "logic" of classical compositions and applying that to their pop music. "even though many share the same kind of harmony, their aesthetic is entirely different." I'm not sure I understand but that seems very contradictory to me! I'll admit I'm just confused now. So we both like some of The Beatles but from different point of views? Or something? I don't even know.

I'm aware of Seo Taiji and his group (and that wasn't bad at all, I remember Internet War and such) but that differs SO MUCH from the current K-Pop output that it's very hard to link the current output with Seo Taiji. Even if was an "organic" movement, there seems to be nothing of it left today. As if a major market hijacking took place. Only big companies are left who play ping-pong with the group's singers and dancers and produce the same music over and over again.

The Beatles become a band of interest to me from about the time Rubber Soul came out, which is about halfway through their career I think. When critizicing some Beatles output it's often thought of as kicking against a holy shrine though so I figured it would be an unpopular opinion. Anyway I think that's a very nitpicky analysis of one song relentless and it does show The Beatles had some great ideas but it can be easily countered by unorthodox examples of classical, experimental and jazz music from way before The Beatles (were even born). And then you might say "but that's not pop" then the question becomes "but is that important". I mean, one could even dig up an ancient Greek song which was probably popular at that time but uses all kinds of notes in a seemingly random order, void of logic to our ears today. Were they thousands of years ahead of their time? Nah I don't think so. I do like the Revolver album but the overanalyzing that some do to defend the band from naysayers holds about as much value as the opinions of the naysayers. EDIT: heh oh shit, by searching for 'Beatles' in this topic I found an old post of mine that said The Beatles took an existing concept and milked it. I guess I still stand by that for their early songs but they did "redeem themselves" with their later records. And I guess the milking was done more so by their manager and the record labels than the members of the band.

That computer meltdown when accidentally clicking on "open all in seperate tabs" when browsing your list of favorited websites... it's real.

May I point out that most musical movements in history were initiated by "the people" as cliche as that may sound. Hiphop, punk, goth, even jazz, and hippies and beatniks and so forth were either dissatisfied with the current state of affairs or simply adventurous in their ways or a combination of the two. The origins for much "artistic" music can be found in society, mostly the young part of society but still society. Eventually all these categories became marketable for the big companies and many so called "posers" or tightly regulated radio-oriented groups popped up but there's still the remains of honest intentions somewhere hidden in there. While this whole K-Pop business seems to be the other way around. It doesn't look like it came from underground to become something bigger, rather it came from office rooms, where the big fish came up with ideas on how to feed and entertain the little fish or so to speak. Much like those Idol shows (American Idol, -country- Got Talent, etc) it was a highly commercial concept from the start and I guess that's also why it's so hard to find any genuine artistic intentions in the K-Pop industry, it feels way too fabricated for that. I think there's an essential difference there that has a huge impact on the general sound (and looks) of K-Pop groups. Just two cents.

It's a plague. There are zero artistic intentions from these laughable look at me I'm so cool and dangerous Korean Kens and insecure slutty Korean girls in tight outfits singing those uninspired melodies on fruity loops level tunes. There have been several movements in music where the performers can be described as mere products rolling out of a factory and this can certainly be called a K-Pop factory and it's among the ugliest factories in history. No appeal, low quality.

Nice. I always thought it was the other way around. That this sketch was mocking the black album. Loving the "can't see the black signature on the black album" sketch too. But no gifs of that.

"I want someone to cuddle" Someone: "cuddle me!" "No, not you" - Life

The music is still fantastic, and I really enjoy Electric Ladyland especially, but I wish the sound was better. There's a remaster out there that makes the guitar tracks a bit clearer with high notes especially sounding better but at the same time it sacrifices something on the low end. So there's always something not quite right. I guess you can't just make it sound better just like how you can never make an 8mm film look as good as a 35mm film no matter what filters you apply or whatever you do with it. But there's a ton of 60's music out there that sounds better than The Jimi Hendrix Experience and yet TJHE was one of the biggest and greatest acts. And Jimi was quite the perfectionist according to other people's reports. Perhaps the original LPs sound better but that's a lot of money.

Black is the most fashionable color anyway.

The sound quality of The Jimi Hendrix Experience albums is lacking and I haven't listened to a rerelease or remaster yet that I was totally fine with. Early The Beatles' career is largely forgettable but they did great things in the last few years before they split. The first two My Chemical Romance albums have actually aged very well. Lana Del Rey has a better voice than 99% of other women in modern pop.

To be honest my main concern with concerts is that there are other people there

Thanks, I tried my best!

It's not really too opinionated... I think it's quite tame. They could've ripped the entire movement to shreds but instead they only hint of "earlier visual kei was more interesting that today's" and "it's a very commercialised scene" was dropped and it's hard to argue against either of those.

Sam Smith is a whiny radiopop idol who sounds like he's having a vasectomy which goes horribly wrong. Imagine Dragons is one of the least imaginative and most sleep inducing groups of recent years. MUSIC was the last girugamesh release that was somewhat listenable.

Face it. Deal with it. End of story. End of discussion. I wish these phrases could be erased from collective memory. Nice pet. Do you feed it? Do you groom it? Is it trained to attack and pursue invaders?

Sink. At the first hint of a threat the panda will sabotage the ship with the motto "if I go, we all go, and you'll never get the rarez". Yoshiki and Bono?