MP3 Player: Fashion Icon

I believe that MP3 player has now become a dominant accessory among the youth market. It’s like your ‘mini-me’ that you carry wherever you go. To me, I feel really emptied and bored without MP3 alongside with me.

I agree that collecting vinyl and CDs are the original way of record collection and shows one’s great passion for music in more knowledgeable way. But MP3 player, the must-have item among the youth market, helps to characterize and express individual’s idiosyncrasy in distinctive way.

Last few years, with huge development of MP3 technology, there are now variety of MP3 player which we can choose from. That is, with fascinating and creative designs and functions, you can create as your personalized product and express your own characteristic. Not only you can load up hundreds of song in that small thing, the method of wearing MP3 is also becoming very fashionable. It’s like accessory rather than technology.

MP3 player is now more than music; it is fashion and trend.

Youtube's copyright issue

Youtube has already become a part of my life. Every time I open IE, the first idea come out of my brain is to check what’s hot on the Youtube. The attraction of Youtube is that it gives users a participating opportunity to share their original video clips with others. The users are free to upload any video clips they made or received from friends to the website. But lots of clips posted on the website are copyrighted materials. It may infringe someone’s benefit if Youtube posted these clips without authorization. So the copyright of these clips is always a big problem during the development of the website. Recently, Youtube was brought to the copyright battle again. NBC Universal, the US television giant and Viacom launched a legal campaign to force Youtube to remove those copyrighted videos from the website. Under the strong social stress, there are few ways for youtube to go. First, as the big companies wish, youtube remove all the infringing materials from the site. Then, the labels are satisfied. But Youtube will lose lots of users. Secondly, Youtube ignores the objection and continues to lost lots of copyrighted content to make audiences happy. In this situation, Google, the parent company of Youtube, will face lots of lawsuits from the public. But neither of these two methods is good enough to end the copyright battle. Therefore, the third way is probably the best way to go. Without any change, Youtube can still post those copyrighted content on its websites. Meanwhile, it may sign some contracts with copyrighted video creators to protect their benefits. As a fan of youtube, I don’t want to see this popular video-sharing website fall down. Youtube brings lots of fun to the users. But, the rights of those video creators have to be protected. Youtube has to choose a most suitable option to keep all the people happy.

Jxu063

Fetish...?

A quick search on the internet has just given me the rough definition that a 'fetish' is to give an object some kind of power or value. This can be taken to an extreme where that object can gain a form of control over an individual, hence Karl Marx's term 'commodity fetishism'. That, is effectively what we were seeing in the clips shown during last weeks lecture on the 2nd of May.
I have to admit i found it all rather fascinating, having a good friend who embodies many of the characteristics of the steriotypical record collector. Yet, steriotypical is for the most part how the reccord collector is presented, he is the alternate to the porche owner, another 'mid life crisis' steriotype.
Yet why is this the case? Why pick on the muso? Why not the stamp lover, or the train spotter, or the teaspoon or mug collector? Is it because they are things of the past? Is it a jealousy of the music collector, of his taste or his style? Or is it purely a cultural bias to put down anyone who is too obsessive over any one thing? Is the avid collector respected in other cultures or has he been in other times? Is he misunderstood or are there reasons behind his passion, or... is there a large serving of truth in the steriotype, that recorded music attracts this type of person, the middle aged, obsessive and often single man...Oh, and why?

Is CD’s role would took by MP3?

My answer is NOT. Since the internet users are getting massive, MP3 files have became the most popular music form that listened by audience. In additional, when Apple company released their MP3 player IPod in the market, the demand of MP3 files is getting larger and larger. Without any doubts, MP3 player has smaller size and more memory capacity than CD player. And more, it is easier to download a MP3 file from the internet than purchase a CD record from the store. Pirate CD is also another factor affects CD market, in particular, south-east Asia. However, under those pressures, CD will still remain on the market because of two main factors which are incomparable by others. Firstly, CD has the best sound quality, at least on this stage, then other forms of music product. We all know when we are making a convert a music from CD to MP3 file, some data will lost during this compress process. Although it is hard to be noticed the difference by hearing from headphones, but, we can hear the difference from loud speaker. CD has more mellow sounds in both of treble and bass. Secondly, the most important, CD is an actual good with can be collected or giving to someone as a gift. A CD record particularly for fans, has value to be collected. Fans not only get music but also something from the singer, such as photos, letters, bonus music. Moreover, buying a CD record can be seen as supporting the singer. So, CD record can turn music become an actual good and that make fans feel closer to their fetish. In sum, although maybe in one day MP3 file can make the sound as well as CD record, but it is hard to substitute CD as an actual good. People will keep buying CD because it has values to be collected.

Song controversy

I remember from the lecture when the Sex Pistols played their version of ‘God Save the Queen’, and how much of a controversy this then created. So much so that, even though they were number one at the charts, the number one slot was left empty so that they couldn’t gain media exposure. Now enter their present day descendents, the Punk Rock/Pop Punk group ‘Green Day’. We have a similar song, in regards to the denouncement of the national government, called ‘American Idiot’, which was widely acclaimed and became increasingly popular, with no media backlash. I’m trust intrigued as to how we can now get away with the denouncement of the governmental systems these days, when it was such a terrible occurrence before. Have we as a society really become used to this idea that we don’t care that we criticize our power-figures at all? Or do we even celebrate it? I’m interested in what other people thing about this.

simpsons

Recently, i've seen so much joe, tina, jessica and ashlee simpsons....that i think they are too overly exposed.i think if u look purely at jessica and ashlee's singing as singers, they are not very very bad, but i think their public image to ruin their whole package. everyone knows, jessica and ashlee's singing career is like a family business, as dad joe simpson is their manager and mom tina basically just follows them everywhere. i've read somewhere that dad joe actually earns 10-20 % to whatever his girls make. there are so much crticism out there about this family business and accusing dad joe being controlling, and pervert. in a particualr GQ interview, he acutally said“Jessica never tries to be sexy. … She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she’s sexy in both. She’s got double D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!"It is very disturbing to hear some dad talks about his daughter this way and as a manger, he ruins his daughters' career.again, as my last post was about how people are not focus on singing anyway, its about fashion. and the simpsons certainly lost the focus of singing talent but with extending the simpson empire and making more money. therefore, all this, made them look pretty negative as a whole.dad joe is the producer for both the reality tv shows of newlyweds and the ashlee simpson's show, he developed a clothing and make up line for jessica and he is earning a lot from his pop star daughters.This reminds of joe jackson, michael jackson's dad. how he was accusing using his sons jackson 5 to earn money and fame.some people would say how lucky they are to have talented children, but if those accusations are ture, how sorry would people be for the kids?

FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEO:

This is one of my favourite and most memorable music videos, The Chemical Brothers video for ‘star guitar’. Being a drummer and quite a visual person when it comes to music, I enjoyed seeing how the beat was integrated into the visuals of a train ride. I usually notice when I’m listening to music on the bus that I find myself instinctively visually syncing the music with the objects that fly past, footsteps of people and cars, to the music. Personally, in this example the visuals and this particular song, make the music holistically more enjoyable, as one can imagine the video clip, listen to the music, and physically relate to the song. It has been mentioned in the blog that particular video clips take away from the music, and leave a ’bad taste in ones mouth’ depending on the genre. Indeed, visual cues to any genre of music are quite powerful in contributing to the way we remember songs or even advertisements. Techno or electronica, seem to embody these visual forms in its history, and add to the relationship of the music and its audience (in terms of contextualizing the experience of techno music, dance parties and raves).

I particularly favour this video clip, (along with video clips by Daft Punk, Groove armada ‘get down’ and numerous artists of the genre) because the very form of non-verbal music allows for the visuals to express the artists’ intentions. Especially since artists of techno/dance music are not usually shown in their video clips. However, apart from dace and techno, many video clips for different genres allow the music transcend the image of the artists involved or try to embody an experience.

Punk: The Evolution

I guess this is in part a reply to Nikki C

I think it was really wicked that Nabeel used a whole lot of different genres (punk, post punk, hard core) with varying musical and visual aesthetics to illustrate that “punk” is an anarchic spirit or attitude. Because it’s based so much on the artists’ attitude, behaviour and circulates so much around their intent to cause disruption to the status quo, I see the “punk attitude” as one that has existed throughout popular music’s history. As far as I know it first was illustrated by early black Jazz artists. Critics such as Theodore Adorno considered Jazz, especially the commercial Tin Pan Alley Jazz, as ultimately harmful to society. He criticised the means in which it was consumed: as background music or to be danced to, claiming it was not at all advanced or intellectual. Subsequently, a lot of jazz got demonised, and a lot of paranoia surfaced. Jazz artists were often linked to “evil” habits like smoking marijuana and in turn were referred to in derogatory ways, such as “reefers”. Despite this, the artists forged ahead, continuing to develop their style and techniques etc. Obviously, upon reflection we can see how wrong Adorno and his cohorts were in their claim of the absence of intellectual presence within Jazz. In fact Jazz became to be considered a lot more conservative and intellectual as time passed, especially with the advent of other genres such as rhythm and blues, rock ‘n‘ roll.

It appears that each time a new genre evolved, a constant pattern was played out. Initially, the music was considered controversial, only music of a minority and harmful to society. However, as it’s notoriety grew, being embraced by many to become “popular music” it would eventually begin to lose such a controversial nature. This can be recognised in the previously mentioned genres of rhythm and blues, rock ‘n‘ roll, punk (as Nikki C claims) and later rap.
Ok, so where am I going with this:
Firstly, I think music has the ability to constantly change and evolve (stating the obvious I know, but I think it‘s taken for granted).
Secondly, I think the punk attitude is anything that embodies going against the standard. Whether, it’s the musical standard, the social standard -it’s always political because it involves presenting something other than “the norm”.
Thirdly, yes, popular music is a commodity and when ideas are presented by minorities, which are supposed to subvert mainstream ideologies are taken up by the mainstream, this may dull their effectiveness.

But in saying that, I’m going to not be so pessimistic and sell music and the punk attitude short.
If music and the subsequent cultures have been able to evolve; with new genres, which allow the expression of minority opinions/ideas to continue being developed, why can this not continue?
Even if this means that eventually each genre/development is gobbled up through mass appropriation and no longer considered subversive, can’t the cycle of the new continue?
I guess I’m trying to say that punk (attitude at least) is not all about visual aesthetics, which Nikki C seems to categorise it as. I think it’s just an evolution of what Rock ‘n’ Roll aimed to be and before it Rhythm and Blues and before that jazz….
So in this respect, I think the anti-disestablishment punk ethic has the potential to continue/constantly be revised, and is not constrained to the sound or visual aesthetics of the music’s genre.

finding the new punk cinema

In response to our reading for the week, I have to admit that watching a film like Requiem for a Dream doesn’t make me think of punk. In a way, I envision true punk (not the mass proliferation of Ramones, Clash and Sid references in pop culture) as something radical; and punk cinema would then be something more experimental, against convention, even conventional filmmaking techniques. Maybe new punk cinema exists in the more obscure, avant garde and experimental films – the ones we don’t study in class, and ones that even Videon doesn’t have.

NZ Pop Questions

I know you're all busy, but just in case any of you are interested, I'm giving a talk about popular music and cultural nationalism in Aotearoa/New Zealand in the FTVMS department next Thursday 17 May, 3:15-4:15 pm pm in Room 426, Arts 1 next week (plug plug) and wondered if anyone could help me with quick answers on the blog to some (research) questions.

You can include responses on the blog towards your 1,000 words for blog assessment for the course. Or if you don't want the responses included in your assessment you can send me an email at n.zuberi@auckland.ac.nz

If you'd rather chat about this instead, please come and see me in office hours Thursday 1-3 pm, Room 314, Arts 1.

Of the questions below, answer whatever you want to or have time for, don't worry about completing it like a list of questions. It's definitely not a systematic and scientific survey. I've never designed questionnaires. These are open-ended questions. I'd appreciate any response, however short or long, formal or informal.

There will be opportunities on the exam to write about popular music on screen in Aotearoa/New Zealand so any answers might also be useful to just get some thoughts voiced.

Just to be clear for issues of plagiarism: I'm not going to quote anyone for a paper or steal any of their work. I may in the talk refer to a general trend if that emerges from any responses, but will not name any names. This is just a spoken presentation based on a paper that's already been written and is in press for an academic journal Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Music and Popular Culture.

One of the issues I address in the paper is 'where the student body is at' in its thinking and experience with music and how we should respond as teachers, scholars and academics. I've referred to some graduate student research here (cited and referenced as MA and PhD theses in the in-press-soon-to-be-published article).

For the talk next week, I'm curious to just get some anecdotal undergraduate evidence about music from undergraduates since they're missing from that picture of the student body.

Further down the line, I'm interested because I'd like to get a sense of which directions we should go in trying to get more and better music and audio-related material into the university curriculum.

So without further ado:

THE CHARTS & CHART SHOWS?
Just wondered if anyone knows the number one single and number one album in New Zealand right now. Are there any preferred links to any particular websites for that type of information. Are there genre charts e.g. for R&B, pop or whatever in New Zealand. Is there a chart show on TV? When 's it on? Are there other competing 'charts' shows on TV?

FAVOURITE SONG
What's your favourite piece of New Zealand music? I know this sounds like a bit of a Radio New Zealand (newly) National kind of radio question, but I'd be curious what you think?

FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEO
What's your favourite music video ever from anywhere? What's your favourite New Zealand music video? If you have time, please say why?

NZ IDOL
What do you think of NZ Idol? Any other Idol-type TV shows?

GENRE
How important to you is 'genre' of music or a particular style? Do you think 'New Zealand' music is a genre? I've noticed that a lot of shops have NZ music sections and websites post NZ music only. Is Kiwi music the same as NZ music? Does Aotearoa figure in that idea of national music?

RADIO
What's your favourite radio station, show, and/or DJ?

NEW ZEALAND MUSIC MONTH
What do you think about New Zealand Music Month?

GOOD MUSIC/BAD MUSIC
Do you think NZ music is better, as good or worse than music overseas? Or do you think this is a stupid question.

NATIONAL IDENTITY: ANY OTHER THOUGHTS
Do you think music has anything to do with national identity? If so, how important do you think music is to national identity? What's good and/or bad about that? Does it matter?

Thanks

Punk Personality: Contradictions in Stereotyping Identity

The notion of stereotyping identity through popular music is not new. Indeed, the defining of a ‘cultural style’ that individuals identify with is as crucial, if not more crucial, than the actual musical genre itself. A ‘cultural style’ not only includes superficial notions of aesthetics (i.e. ‘the look’ associated with a genre), but also includes the perpetuation of an ideology as it pertains to concepts such as capitalism, consumerism, race and gender. One does not have to look far to see examples of this on the interface of musical representations.[1] However, often in these representations, there are many contradictions presented in relation to the identity espoused. For example, the Punk genre is stereotyped as an anti establishment ideology, which accentuates individualism and rejects middle class values. It is represented as exhibiting disgust in relation to authority or ‘the man’. Yet, despite this perpetuated stereotype, Punk actually presents and promotes itself through the establishment- the very thing it detests. It is often represented by big business (i.e. recording studios, such as EMI[2]), has clothing lines (which actually goes against the notion of being anti consumerism through safety pinning old clothes together) and uses conventional establishments such as MTV[3] to moan about power structures, while enforcing them at the same time. The individualism conveyed is only as individual as the confines of consumerism and commodification allows. Thus, this so called rejection of establishment and integrity based on individualism is merely a representational facade - a fictional stereotype- a hyperreality. Nevertheless, the consumer, specifically young adults seeking meaning and affiliation, are all too eager to embrace yet another form of consumerism and capitalism manipulation.

[1] For example, Rap/Hip Hop music sexually objectifies women, identifies African Americans as playboys and gangsters, and enforces a consumer driven ideology where ‘bling’/material status acts as a buffer for an underlying theme: violence perpetuated by racial oppression.
[2] For example, The Sex Pistols.
[3] MTV is owned by Viacom: one of the ‘big six’ that own most of the media outlets in the world.

Let Them Eat Cake

This week seems an opportune time to look at the use of punk/post-punk music outside its usual context. Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) is a perfect example of how the music of bands such as The Clash and New Order is used in a way that transfers the ideologies of the 1970s musical genre to the film's 18th century setting. Coppola has often been criticised for her unusual stylistic approach to the film, but her choice of songs gives the text an additional layer of meaning that a period-influenced baroque score could not.

The soundtrack’s repackaging of well-known songs does not have the nostalgic effect that Tinknell finds in Forrest Gump or Pulp Fiction. Instead, the jarring tracks tell of a young girl confined to traditional world of royalty, hierarchy and succession. The punk subculture’s desire for freedom and individualism is manifested in Antoinette’s complete disregard for her advisors’ recommendations as to how she should run her country. Her choice to live in opulent luxury while the rest of France slides towards ruin, is foreshadowed in the lyrics of the film’s opening song, Gang of Four’s ‘Natural’s Not In It’: ‘The problem of leisure, What to do for pleasure’.

By way of contrast, a score in the restrained, ‘proper’ baroque style accompanies Antoinette’s moments of propriety. The opposing musical styles and their corresponding connotations work well together to contribute to the audience’s understanding of Marie Antoinette.

Tony Blair sings The Clash

Fetishism - objects are taking over our lives!

Hands up if you feel a bit lost when you get on the bus and realise that you left your ipod at home. Well, this was the case with me this morning - I missed out on nearly an hour of blissful escapism - of total enjoyment of being in my own little world - and I was highly annoyed at the guy next to me with the crappy head phones with the tinny arse sound coming out of them. Then, I looked a little closer and i realised that I was one of the very few people that weren't 'plugged in'... what a bus full of robots! I noticed the way people handled their ipods - touching them with such love and obsession that it kind of made me a little sick...

Ipods are the new record collection - and I bet that some people care about their ipods just as much as Seymour cares about his record collection in ghost world. I wonder if some obsessed ipod lovers will not be able to have relationships because of their ipods? I can see this happening - The obsessed ipod lover would probably want to listen to their ipod than converse with a friend/lover in public...

Music Videos

I always thought that a music video is made to portray the narrative of a song and express the story behind both the song and the music. But then i was told that telling a narrative was not the first priority in a music video and that a music video is more about attracting the consumers or the sound rhyming with the images. I am sort of disappointed really because if i was a singer and if i were to produce an album I would want to add value to my songs by showing what the songs are really about. I mean that is why we have titles for each song and album, it is to just give the consumer a good idea what it is about. on top of that how would a song writer feel if I as the singer produce an album using his or her songs and then make a music video that is not even about what the song is about. I am not sure how it works in the professional music industry but isn't a song writer like a poet who writes based on the stories that he or she has made up in their mind. I mean I would imagine how disappointed a song writer would be if the music video looks nothing like he or she has pictured it to be while writing the song. I may be wrong but i thought i'd just bring that up and see if anyone with more knowledge of music videos or song writing could correct me on that.

Viva La Vinyl

As anybody who makes a regular trek to real groovy will agree, the resurgence of vinyl seems set to continue. This was most evident when the upstairs layout of Real Groovy was changed to give the vinyl bins centre stage, as well as the numerous tables with box upon box of 45s. What is often seen as a foreign and archaic object is now truly back in the limelight. If you haven’t already figured, I’m a vinyl fan, but would openly set myself against true collectors and vinyl junkies. Yes I do flick through the LPs before I even think about looking for any CDs I may want, and yes I do look on trademe occasionally for LPs. But the motivation is definitely not obsessive.

So why spend more on something that you could easily purchase cheaper in CD form or download for even less? Fair to say that I don’t see much point in buying new releases on vinyl, but I do when listening to bands of the vinyl era. To put it simply, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Velvet Underground, The Kinks, all sound better in vinyl. Pops and crackles included. The physical presence of an LP and thrill of finding an out of print record are all part of the appeal as well. In Auckland I would argue that there isn’t a great deal of accessible vinyl record shops with much more to be found online. And where you do find them in shops they are significantly more expensive. For example, Real Groovy stocks a brand new copy of Physical Graffiti in higher quality vinyl for just under $100, whereas a brand new CD would be around the $30 mark. You could even get the digipak issues where the CD case looks like a gatefold record.

In a recent trip to the US I saw new release CDs and vinyl selling for around the same price, this may have contributed to its resurgence overseas yet for many it remains far too expensive and inaccessible in NZ. The underlying fact remains, that if you do consider buying your first record or two, make sure you have some time and money on your hands. Because when the stylus drops, you will be hooked.

Punk: Attitude

Lots of interesting posts about Punk lately so I thought I would chip in with my thoughts on the doco Punk: Attitude. Firstly I liked the idea that the film projected that whilst punk is personified for most people by the British and New York scenes of the 70s, it is rather an attitude and ethos that inspired different artists across many eras and different musical movements, from Chuck Berry to the Sex Pistols to Nirvana.

This worked negatively and positively for the film. On the one hand giving a broader spectrum of the tradition of punk gave the viewer a wider appreciation of the many different artists that have punk rock influences, however in a 90 minute doco such an approach seemed to be a bit too ambitious and in the process many essential bands and even whole movements were left out. The majority of the 80s scene for example, was pretty much not even touched on. It is stated that there was a thriving underground scene and there were simply no commercially successful punk rock bands around this time until Nirvana came along, but dosen't go into much detail about who these bands are. Bands such as the pixies, butthole surfers, dinosaur jr, and big black were essential to building a fanbase that enabled Nirvana to become as big as they did, but are completely ommitted from this doco. Then when the film ends by suggesting that bands like Limp Bizkit, Sum 41, and Blink 182 are the future of punk is downright embarrassing. How about paying attention to modern bands with punk influences that are pushing their music in new directions instead? Groups such as At the Drive-In, Rage Against the Machine, the Strokes or the White Stripes would have been more appropriate to the idea of embracing 'Punk Attitude'. NZ groups such as So-So Modern and The Mint Chicks could be added to this list, so it would be like someone making a doco on NZ Punk and completely omitting these groups in favour of Elemeno-P.

Other scenes which I thought were sorely missing were that of 'Psychobilly' (from 70s - present: the Cramps, Reverend Horton Heat etc) and the mostly 90s 'Riot Grrl' scene (groups like L7, Bikini Kill etc) Also the film neglected to mention negative influences of Punk Rock such as the skinhead neo-nazi groups that the genre spawned. These groups were completely against what most punk-rockers (eg the Dead Kennedy's 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off!') considered themselves to be about but still should be included as an example of how something subversive is always manipulated by some.

I also thought the selection of people interviewed ranged from the insightful and inspiring (Thurston Moore, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra) to ego-tripping wankers who seemed bitter at their lack of success (dude from Agnostic Front.) Also a lot of pivotal musicians did not appear at all, some input from people such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, or John Lydon/Johnny Rotten (even though his egotistical rants get tired very quickly) would have helped validate the doco a bit more but I guess these guys didn't want to take part. Any Sex Pistol but Glen Matlock anyway! Everyone knows the guy is a pansy :)

Even though i'm focussing on the negative I did enjoy the doco, I just think these are some areas which would have improved it. Some other good punk docos I recommend are:

'Hype' (film about the seattle 'grunge' scene of the 80s/90s, director also did the hiphop doco 'Scratch)
'End of the Century' the story of the Ramones.'
'The Filth and the Fury' (Sex Pistols)

Any doco suggestions anyone would like to add would be good.

What is Punk?

Punk is a set of ideas about power and mainstream life. We can look at it through how it rejects normality and laughs at the way the world works today. Punk can be both a way of life, and a music genre, however it wasn't a music genre till the 1960's. Funnily enough, in the 1920's a Punk was an inmate in jail who would have anal intercourse with another inmate. I guess this is the starting point for how we can see a Punk as being someone different, oppositional and alternative. Punk fashion is a major part of a punk’s life. We see lots of black ripped clothing mixed with colours that seem to be so bright and so fake they look plastic, like highlighter pinks, greens etc. There is a lot of metal within their clothes, for example the safety-pin and this was originally known as "The Clash Look". Although the safety pin frenzy started out as being something to literally hold their ripped clothes together and as "making something fresh out of new stock" (The Clash), it has now become a symbol of their rebellion against normality. All these extra accessories make a statement about the way they chose to live their lives, for example, the dog collar, piercing, tattoos etc. Generally Punk as a genre is visual culture, whether its photography, fashion or the way their music sounds and is represented. It is a negation and transformation of everyday life, like they're giving the world a big fat middle finger, showing that the world is f**ked and that they don't care about the norms that they should be conforming to. Although they claim to be authentic through their rebellion, I think there is a lot to question about their authenticity. If it was so authentic, why is their fashion so false and ready made these days?

The Beatles

Fandom today is pretty big, but can we say that there is a fan base for bands of the 2000's that is as extreme and hysteric as there was in the 60's for the Beatles? Today, if you're a fan, you have all the bands songs on your iPod, usually downloaded for free, and if you really think their music is worth buying, you might just go out and actually pay the $29.95 for their CD, but let’s face it, that doesn't happen all too often these days.
The fans of the Beatles were so hysteric that I don't know how my mother and her friends still have a voice. Their constant screaming, crying and the mayhem they cause, was something of a phenomenon that we no longer see today. These fans dedicated their lives to these fans, as did those fans of Elvis. However The Beatles had a fan base of what we now call ‘tweenie’ age group. The huge success of The Beatles can be put down to their down to earth nature and the way they portrayed themselves to still be working class lads of 60s Britain who happened to make it in the music industry. Their cute faces, their immature minds with a tendancy to play games and pranks, all helped achieve their massive fan base of these young girls. These young girls are now around my mothers age, and they still get a grin on their face when they see Paul McCartney or hear a Beatles song.
We today think that we are fans of bands, yet I don’t think we really have a leg to stand on.

Is Emo the New Punk?

From looking at a couple other blogs it seems that there is a belief that punk was confined to its historical context, that it can not exist in the same way now because it became too popular to truly keep up its philosophy, and that anything remotely considered to be punk now is also too 'poppy'. Perhaps this is true, if it is the case that movements like punk are glued to a certain period in history then surely they can also influence similar movements within more modern contexts. Without knowing much about either the punk or the emo phenomenon, I am (some what ignorantly) suggesting that emo could be the new punk, but in this sense of having become a popular style of existence.

Emos seem to take influence from the punk and goth movements and have created something unique to the 21st century. If asked, an emo might say that they choose their style because they want to be an individual, they want to defy the 'norm' and escape the status quo. Maybe they even achieved this in the early days, but today, its not hard to spot an emo, in fact you would usually see a huge group of emos together. The style has become so widespread that it seems to me it is totally contradictory now to assume that 'emo' is original and individualistic. The codes and signs of emo (similar to those of punk and goth anyway, with black clothes, piercing, mismatched items, offensive slogans, and of course chucks) are such huge commodities now.

Although I have to give credit to the whole Chuck Taylors thing, in the beginning anyway; taking a successful brand and turning it into a sign of your alternative, anti society style.

I'm not sure than many emos even do know why they are emos or what it means, and the point is, does this matter anymore? Hasn't it followed in the footsteps of punk; become popularised so that the wannabes think its the coolest thing around and the pure emos find it has lost its appeal.

On the music side, while there may be specific types of niche emo music, the corporate music industry has also capitalised on the emo trend, bands that can be classed as emo for their mood and lyrics of music and the way they appear visually play on MTV which is the epitomy of popular, normative culture.

Does anyone else see the similarities with the way punk played out as a cultural shock then phenomenon then trend?

PS: this is not intended to offend anyone, as I said it is a fairly ignorant opinion :)

The Future is unwritten

Here's the official website for another soon-to-be released punk documentary about the singer with The Clash, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. It's directed by Julien Temple who made The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury, both about the Sex Pistols. An interview with Temple about making the film is here. Tony Blair sings The Clash here.

political negation of punk

Nabeel asked ‘Is the political negation of punk gone or was that perspective flawed in the first place?’

Although I don’t know much about modern punk rock, I would still say the political negation of ‘punk’ as an oppositional and anarchic to the norm is very much reliant on the space in which it is created. The perspective wasn’t flawed because Robert Garnett, 1999 seems to be able to justify the negation of good punk (ie. The Sex Pistols) in his article ‘Too low to be low’. But I do believe present punk rock is too pop to be considered ‘punk’ in the way it meant to people in the past. I would say it existed for a brief period in history, but the moment it became a movement where many other bands attempted to join the rebel movement, it lost it’s true political negation.

Garnett says punk was created in a space ‘that only existed for a brief moment in time’ that was neither art nor pop, but in between. It was new, innovative, did not follow anything that had come before it, it used artwork and music to comment on society and history and mass culture, but not in a commercial institutionalised space, nor following any kind of the laws and rules that guided the art and pop worlds. Therefore the reason it exists only for a brief moment is that the ones that follow it, copy the example set by the great punk rockers like the Pistols. Against something that was once a rebellious act and a comment on the rigidness and emptiness of everyday life, punk can now be categorised as a movement that is ‘self-consciously about the low, the base, and the profane’ (Garnett, 1999). As the movement grows it works within it’s own particular style. I believe the moment society is able to characterise something in terms of its sound and aesthetic, and outsiders begin to absorb it as part of their own ‘individualism’, it loses the original ambience that was punk, and becomes a pop or ‘popular’ version of it.

I realise this theory may be unfair to some of the other great punk rockers of the time, and maybe they did come up with their own ways to express themselves as they focussed on different issues and made up their own versions of visual style. But that’s just it, they are still ‘versions’ of the same thing. It all comes from the same ideas that arose with the first punk rockers. It’s just like mass culture, but on a smaller scale and on the margins of the dominant culture. It’s a subculture that has a commercial industry, followers, competition, and a particular set of codes.

Today’s punk rockers are played on popular radio stations, popular music channels and sold in every major music outlet (I’m thinking punk rockers like My Chemical Romance, Panic of the Disco, Blink 182 etc). I do confess I don’t know if there are ‘less poppy’ punk rock bands out there, I’m sure they are, yet the argument will still be the same. A formula for punk has been created. There are norms, signs, symbols and rules associated with bands trying to follow the punk movement. Greil Marcus, as quoted in Garnett (1999) makes the connection between Adorno and punk, describing punk as a ‘new version of the old Frankfurt School critique of mass culture’. However it turned into it’s very critique, not at the will of anyone, it just happens like that, with millions of people in the world, these punk ideas were bound to strike a chord in someone’s mind.

!PunK!

Often when people think of punk music they might think of the seventies and eighties, “down with government, beat the hell out of your neighbour, get wasted” stereotype. Well that’s I think anyway. It goes without saying that punk music has produce its status for being high impact, intense energetic and loud. Punk has its very own only one of its kind style. Although punk sports hard edges, leather jackets, shaved heads, bright colours, Mohawks, and army boots, you can't really tell if a person is a punk by the way they dress nor doing their hair. Punk fans have strong political themes and rough instrumentals so characteristic of punk rock did not appeal to the masses. Instead, a subculture was formed following the emergence of punk music. This subculture quickly became associated with disillusioned, rebellious youth and an anti-government mentality. With this subculture punk music enjoyed a fair amount of fame in the United Kingdom during the late 1970's with the ‘Sex Pistols’ where the genre did not enjoy much popularity elsewhere. Because Punk bands typically rejected mainstream culture, it not until the turn of the century, I believe, that punk became popular because of the emerging alternative rock genre that is found within the sub cultures of punk.

one quick question

oh just one little thing, I may have missed this in a lecture but what is the handing in process of these blogs?

does the little guy ever want to become the big guy?

As I was listening to todays lecture (oh and taking notes of course) I couldn't help but think about the fact that all these punk rock acts who yell and scream about what is wrong about society, they never become the mainstream of music.

take the sex pistols who sang 'God save the Queen'. As they protested about how England still has the Monarchs and our connection to them pulls England down because they are the most important part of the class system that developed and how it is still the case that your life is dictated by your birth right. Yet here we are 30 years later the Queen and all those economic problems are still here while all those like the Sex Pistols have vanished and are now just mere parts of social/music history. Most of the bands that should of taken up where they left off once they were discovered were assimilated into the main stream that most of punk was oppose. One of the guys in the documentary was calling 'Limp Bisket' punk and would be his favourite band if he was 17, but at the hight of their fame they were mainstream, even so far as to do a David Bowie cover about being such famous people.

So that leads me to my point, if the punk rockers had a problem and wanted social change did they want to go into higher society and have a more peaceful world, which would stop them from living such lives because their voices were heard, or do they want the rest of us to be like them which would cause even more chaos and the dreamed utopia would even be harder to achieve as the world would be more like them. Either way if they achieved the goal of changing the world either the world would be utter chaos like them or they would be mere shells of themselves as they become similar to that of a mainstream band

cheers for the read and/or ponder
SimonL

Why did the Punk lifestyle arise, what was its function and will another similar rebellious attitude rise again in the future?

Blog entry 4: Why did the Punk lifestyle arise, what was its function and will another similar rebellious attitude rise again in the future?

The Punk lifestyle was about saying ‘NO’ to everything and anything that was to do with ordinariness. People involved with Punk were really just confused/misunderstood individuals, unsure of how to effectively express themselves. So an alternative, rebellious lifestyle such as Punk would have appealed to all the noncompliant and unruly people of society. The Punk attitude identified with the oppressed and/or stigmatized social outcasts; it embraced societal deviants. Punk functioned to complicate and blur the normative boundaries of society. I think the aim of the Punk attitude was to make ‘normal’ people question their own personal beliefs of what really was ‘normal’. Since all normal behaviour originally seems abnormal and unusual, it only becomes ‘normal’ when it has been familiarized into everyday life.

The ‘do it yourself’/individualistic attitude of Punk was what drew people to it. Punk exposed the differences and similarities of normal and chaotic behaviour, by contradicting what was normal through corresponding it with what was thought to be abnormal. For example: through the juxtaposition of objects which people are not accustomed to seeing together, like the picture in the lecture of the pornstar licking the Twin Towers just before the plane crashed into it. Personally I thought this was a disturbing image, and I found it hard to comprehend, but that is probably just because abstract images such as that are unfamiliar to me. Perhaps if I viewed many similar images, I would adapt to them and they would eventually seem normal to me.

I think that the repetitive, controlling role that the government sometimes seems to play in society tempts some people to break away from social norms. I believe this is what triggered the rise of the ‘Punk’ way of life. Punk developed as a type of rebellion, a lifestyle without regulations/laws; however it eventually developed strict rules which members were expected to adhere to. Conforming to rules went against everything that the Punk attitude stood for, and hence Punk existence slowly vanished. Punk began as a way for people to express their individuality, through the non compliance of societal standards, but ended up inhibiting the individualities of its own followers. In other words, members of the Punk regime eventually came to be expected to conform to the norms of the Punk lifestyle itself. I think that in the not too near future a similar anti-norm lifestyle will arise to meet the needs of the more distinct individuals of society.

By Adam May.

Anger is an energy

So yelped Johnny Rotten on a PiL song, which is also the title of a book by Neil Nehring about a feature of punk that I stupidly forgot to explicitly mention today: ANGER. As some bloggers have said earlier, there's a predominant punk view that society is in conflict. I believe that assertion to be as true as anything can be. But what you then do with that truth depends on two things (1) how do you understand the power relations in that conflict and (2) what is your response to conflict.

Hopefully that 'anger' or 'disaffection' can be channelled creatively by having a good argument. That way you win a position of more power to yourself and others while being cognizant of other competing rights. That's what democracy is supposed to be about. That includes negotiation with others you can't stand. We could use more of that in these warlike times.

But one drawback of punk is a certain prescriptive aspect that is so fixated on anger as a tool of empowerment that it fails to concede that anger can be a form of violence. Punk also fails to register the usefulness of other ways of communicating to/with each other that might not be so 'in yer face' and aggressive.

While there is an anti-authoritarian and liberating aspect to punk (like many other types of music)--throw out the categories and all the rules!--there is also an incredible desire to fix people in boxes, put them down if they stray from the party line. That can mean anything from jibes about 'selling out to the man' to yearning for the exclusivity of a secret club or privileged elite with subcultural capital.

Punk seems to suggest that we must be disciplined in order 'to take on the machine' of the system. The irony is that it can become stuck in the same machinic logic, ordering every one about like the (thought) police.

In the end, negation is also not enough, unless it creates some new social forces for a better world. The politics of negation can also result in fascism, something that says a big fat 'fuck-you' to the diversity of humanity and the sanctity of life. That's another dark side of punk.

Like other cultural movements and expressive forms, punk is a mess of contradictions. But much of it looks and sounds good, all the same. You can like aspects of the stuff without buying the whole package. That's so Not Punk, but it's still true. However, there's still a place for the radical questioning of punk if not the wholesale negation. There are always going to be people who are pissed off and we need to have that voiced in our popular culture. So I'm glad the punk virus is still around.

…& then there are My Chemical Romance fans

In the wake of today’s lecture about punk, I decided to see what My Chemical Romance was all about. They have been described as alternative rock, emo, pop punk, post-hardcore and more relevantly punk revival (wikipedia). I read that following the release of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the band’s fanbase grew considerably. But due to this increased amount of new fans, some of the band’s old fans felt that the band had sold out, and the new MCR fans were poseurs.

The "Three Cheers for Revenge" Album Cover




The "Welcome to the Black Parade" Album Cover

Now this to me ironic. In true punk fashion, MCR is an antiestablish-mentarianist (a word so long that it seems as entertaining as a debate about global warming) band. Their appearance (on their second album) consists of them wearing B&W suits (a rebellious pursuit against individuality), & their logo carries with it elements linking it to that of the Sex Pistols. Therefore, with these visual aesthetics & signs, it can be endured that this band is this era’s answer to punk. Now, I ask you, what right do old MCR fans have over new MCR fans (by ‘fans’ I mean ardent fans; fans who dress the same way as the band & purchase all the band’s paraphernalia)? Punk is not about a hierarchy, it is about making a statement; its about freedom; its about expressing one’s rebellious side…..albeit in a conformist sort of way. So since MCR only began attracting fans in mid 2003, the band is in retrospect, not at all old. Furthermore, the average age of their concert goer’s are aged between 14 & 25-so with the younger people, one could argue that they are simply looking for acceptance, as such an age group is plagued by social insecurities. This would harmonise with a teenager’s natural tendency to become withdrawn & rebel against certain elements of their surrounding environments. Alternatively, these youngsters become fans as it simply seems like the thing to do at the time, without understanding what it really is all about…..Or finally, because they just like their music. Whatever the case may be, its so hypocritical of these so called people who have been fans to disrepute newer fans, as the reason they joined was identical to why the newbies joined. I’m getting myself confused, but I guess that’s what happens when one tries to place a structure around something like punk mentality, which is so rebellious & aggressive that people who follow it are in constant conflict with one another.

-Ryan

Punk's not dead

Apologies for the low energy lecture. Like a situationist, I was trying to simulate the boredom of everyday life since that was a concern of punk. Just kidding. A case of mild asthma was making me lose my voice. It's also hard to sometimes state the meaning of punk without speaking in punk vernacular. Dressing it up in academese can be a little awkward. At the same time, one has to restrain the punk discourse for the protocols of the classroom. I probably failed on both counts and was therefore in the awkward inbetween today. Anyhow, I hope the images got you thinking about some of the visual aesthetics of a quite varied phenomenon. Just saw that there is a new documentary on the topic. Also didn't have time to talk about punk dancing: the pogo and moshing, nor OutPunk/Queer Punk, Riot Grrrl and the pop punk-related stuff that dominates the airwaves: Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Emo etc. Punk fashion seems to have made a comeback in designer circles. Is the political negation of punk gone or was that perspective flawed in the first place? Is the notion of art rupturing the surface of the way we are told things are supposed to be to reveal something else too much to ask of art?

Blog entry 3: Has the era of the collection of musical artefacts come to an end? Do gendered boundaries still remain in music today?

Blog entry 3: Has the era of the collection of musical artefacts come to an end? Do gendered boundaries still remain in music today?

I believe that in modern society the restrictions between how males and females should interact with music have been distorted. Thirty or forty years ago, it was common for men to bond homo socially over their extensive record collections. Contrastingly today, although some people still collect records, we aren’t seeing many male teenagers gathering compact discs: the modern day equivalent of the record. Why are male teenagers not accumulating compact discs in the same way they were collecting records thirty or forty years ago? In theory the ‘CD’ should play a similar role in the lives of young males as the record did. This is clearly not the case, I think this is due to the weakening of the boundaries of how men and women connect with music. All of my friends music collections either on their Ipod’s, Mp3’s or CD’s function only for listening purposes: regardless of there gender. I don’t know anybody who hunts around for rare or large quantities of music (whether it be on CD or Mp3) or studies their music collection so they can boast about their accumulated knowledge to their mates. Today the record has been replaced by the Compact disc and Mp3, the demise of the record has ended the masculine facet of music collection. Now both sexes listen to music primarily to enjoy it’s sound, its look as if the way women used to listen to records (by emotionally engaging and enjoying the sound of the music) has become the norm for musical interaction for both genders. It appears to me that the popularity of the collection of tactile musical artifacts has dwindled. It has been replaced by the Ipod/Mp3 player which holds superior numbers of songs in an intangible format: thus defeating the purpose of the masculine accumulation of music (why collect music if you cannot display it in corporeal form). I believe that the focus of music has shifted from the concrete and touchable object which men used to show off to their envious mates (the record), and been replaced by the intangible sound of the music. Today the music is what matters, its material manifestation is secondary.

Adam May. (i was supposed to post this blog last week, but accidentally posted it somehwere else, so here it is now)

A note on record collecting

I found the motives behind record collecting discussed last week interesting in terms of my flatmate, who has a large record collection. A few days after the lecture, she launched into a long and tedious story about her search for hard to find Rolling Stones albums. As she rambled on, I noticed she displayed the classic symptoms of a record collector that Nabeel spoke about. These included the thrill of the hunt, displaying wealth and knowledge and the pleasure taken from the ritual of cleaning and cataloguing the records.

I assumed she had a great passion for music to rigorously keep up such an expensive hobby. I also assumed that we did not regularly hear her record player blasting because she was worried about damaging her prized possessions. However, when I asked her what her favourite Rolling Stones song was, she stared at me blankly and slowly replied, “Well I don’t know… they’re all kinda good”. After a long silence it was obvious that my flatmate couldn’t name one song, let alone her favourite. It seems as though while she no doubt has an impressive knowledge about records, she actually has no interest in the music at all. Since then Nikki has often tried to casually drop in interesting music related facts to redeem herself. I just find it fascinating how one can be so consumed with such a hobby and yet have little interest in the music to begin with. It seems that it’s definitely not always all about the music.

Letting The Radio Play

In relation to previous comments made about how naturalized the constant presence of music is in everyday life, I would like to suggest that in terms of gendered habitual practices of listening to music, I found by asking around that my male friends are far more expressive about their music collections than my female peers. I discovered that most of my male friends were reluctant to listen to the radio, yet overtly asserted the right to display their music collection weather it be cd’s or MP3 format. Something composed by them, for themselves. Selectivity (or lack of it) was the main issue I identified whilst talking to my fellow peers about their listening habits in relation to Radio V.S MP3.

The notion of the radio denies the listener the option of specific choice and control over the tracks that are played. Upon further interrogation I learned that it is this lack of choice and control over personalization’s such as volume leveling, track order and selection of genre compositions that most put male listeners off selecting the radio as a main medium for listening to music. Another common complaint was the amount of conversation engaged with the radio dj’s that merely “occupied empty space” where music was suppose to be. Surprisingly, this seemed to bother male listeners more than radio commercials! Now I am perfectly aware that all radio stations are not formatted in the same way (or created equal in my opinion) and there will be variation between which stations what gender tunes in to. For this purpose I selected the most commonly identifiable radio stations in this peer group, aged 20-25, out of my male and female friends, namely ZM and The Rock. The majority of these male peers who did tune in regularly (weekly) did only for one Sunday night heavy metal radio segment. Selectivity of genre. Female peers tended to turn on the radio in the morning, or whist getting ready to go out somewhere as it meant that they could engage in distracted listening practices yet enjoy the atmospheric pleasure the presence of music brought. They also tended to listen to the radio predominantly while driving, instead of MP3’s. Music can be thought of as a hobby or recreation, or both simultaneously, but listening practices so far as selectivity and collectivity surrounding the choice of MP3 over radio reveal the presence of differentiating listening practices between the genders.

Letting The Radio Play

In relation to previous comments made about how naturalized the constant presence of music is in everyday life, I would like to suggest that in terms of gendered habitual practices of listening to music, I found by asking around that my male friends are far more expressive about their music collections than my female peers. I discovered that most of my male friends were reluctant to listen to the radio, yet overtly asserted the right to display their music collection weather it be cd’s or MP3 format. Something composed by them, for themselves. Selectivity (or lack of it) was the main issue I identified whilst talking to my fellow peers about their listening habits in relation to Radio V.S MP3.

The notion of the radio denies the listener the option of specific choice and control over the tracks that are played. Upon further interrogation I learned that it is this lack of choice and control over personalization’s such as volume leveling, track order and selection of genre compositions that most put male listeners off selecting the radio as a main medium for listening to music. Another common complaint was the amount of conversation engaged with the radio dj’s that merely “occupied empty space” where music was suppose to be. Surprisingly, this seemed to bother male listeners more than radio commercials! Now I am perfectly aware that all radio stations are not formatted in the same way (or created equal in my opinion) and there will be variation between which stations what gender tunes in to. For this purpose I selected the most commonly identifiable radio stations in this peer group, aged 20-25, out of my male and female friends, namely ZM and The Rock. The majority of these male peers who did tune in regularly (weekly) did only for one Sunday night heavy metal radio segment. Selectivity of genre. Female peers tended to turn on the radio in the morning, or whist getting ready to go out somewhere as it meant that they could engage in distracted listening practices yet enjoy the atmospheric pleasure the presence of music brought. They also tended to listen to the radio predominantly while driving, instead of MP3’s. Music can be thought of as a hobby or recreation, or both simultaneously, but listening practices so far as selectivity and collectivity surrounding the choice of MP3 over radio reveal the presence of differentiating listening practices between the genders.

Post-Research Essay – Keep On Blogging!

• Hi Everyone,
  
  Keep on blogging after the Research Essay!
  
  The topic of my Research Assignment was –‘Popular Music and Television Commercials’.
  
  In my last blog I referred to the new Television One Network ‘Channel Promo’ which uses the song called ‘Light Surrounding You’ by the pop group ‘Evermore’.
  
  The TV-One prom is called ‘We are One’.
  
  And to view a great mock-up version of the of TVNZ’s ‘We Are One’ media promotion see:
  
  http://www.throng.co.nz/tvnz/hilarious-updated-tvnz-promo-we-are-one.
  
  The mock-up version is titled ‘We Are On E’, and the music track by ‘Evermore’ has been replaced by the ‘Whistle Song’.
  
  I included this resource in my Research Essay, but just thought you’d like to access it as well!! ;->
  
  
  Bests,
  
  Andrea Francesca
  Student – FTVMS 323

Media Recycling

In the contemporary era of endless technology, the possibility of learning about, appreciating, and reliving the past is easily possible. This cultural recycling is clearly demonstrated in Ghost World. Enid’s nonconformist attitude and cynicism is just her unwillingness to adapt to the reality of her world. Instead, she searches the garbage pin of the cultural past for new identities in order to put off her need to grow up.
Just as Enid collects past styles like 1970s punk and all retro clothes, Seymore collects blues records as a way to protect himself from actually creating his own life with another person. Enid prefers records instead of cassettes or CDs, and constantly criticizes contemporary popular music, illustrating her insistence on living in an era that existed before she was born. This nostalgia is not confined to the collective cultural past, but also her own past. For instance, she runs away from home while packing up her room and listening to a small children’s record, which she found in her closet. This record illustrates her own discomfort with the present, and her taking comfort in old music as a coping mechanism. Unlike Rebecca who works at a coffee shop and actually rents an apartment, Enid is afraid of starting a new life, and looks to the past as a way to avoid it.
This fear is also illustrated by Enid’s inability to develop her artistic talent. Just like Seymore who collects the past to avoid life with another person, Enid is afraid to create art that reflects her identity. Her art’s inspiration is of old media icons like Elvis and Don Knotts illustrate the recycling of the past into the present. Although the art’s inspiration lies in the past, it is something completely new and shows how influences from the past are always recycled into the present. Media is constantly being recycled and adapted, and can transform into something completely new.

Music in Your Everyday Life

Last week I had an unfortunate accident which involved my Iriver (mp3 player) and a floor (very hard) which resulted in me having to make the commute home from university without the usual library of music at my fingertips. At the time I was initially reasonably annoyed at myself (for my own clumsiness) but as the commute began things went from bad to worse.

First the walk from uni to the train station seemed to take twice as long without my music shutting out the sounds of the evening traffic. I realised i've become so accustomed to having music playing whilst walking around town that the distances between places aren't as noticeable, as the music seems to distract me from my surroundings.

Next came the train ride. It was horrible. 50 minutes of torture. The piercing squeal of the trains breaks, the inane chatter of the office ladies, the loud rubbish someone was playing on their mobile phone (this must have annoyed people other than me) were all things which really started to bug me. Usually having my own music with me has allowed me to escape the noise of the public, and even the train when I turn it up loud enough. I spent the train ride frowning at my own reflection in the window.

Then there was the 20 minute drive from the train station to home. I had to listen to the radio. It was rubbish. I never listen to the radio in the car. I didn't know the majority of the songs, but instantly loathed them, which is perhaps a bit unfair due to my prior irritations. I couldn't sing along like I usually do to my music during the drive home, so I passed the time by glaring at speeding drivers passing me.

I'm told I was visibly not in a good mood when I arrived home.

Looking back at last week its clear my music has become an important part of my every day life:
It speeds up chores.
It allows me an escape from my surroundings.
It even keeps me calm.

I simply found it interesting that we can become so accustomed to music, and that it can have that much of an effect on ones every day life, to the point where its abesence has such noticeable effects on ones moods and behaviours.

Has anyone experiened anything similar?

YouTube phenomenon

Since the rising of YouTube, which has bring up a YouTube phenomenon that many internet users are now enthusiastic about filming and sharing their clips on internet and stimulated the advance of the internet website.

According to America recent survey, 42% of the American internet users indicates they like to watch the internet clips, and for those who like to view the YouTube website, one third even indicate, due to the clip viewing, they decrease the time on watching television, therefore there are more and more traditional media viewers such as newspapers, television and magazine started to flow to the internet, I think because the rise of the YouTube, which had blurred many boundaries between the medias, such as the boundary between the ordinary citizen and news media, in the past democratic society, public gives the mission of monitoring the government to the news media and sees them as the watcher of the government. But after YouTube being established, internet users can start to upload anything that they think is unjustified onto internet and started a public monitoring phenomenon. YouTube has also blur the boundary between the advert and consumer, on YouTube website, many people use this platform to “sell” themselves and commodities, therefore promoting does not require the traditional media and advertisement anymore.

I think after the rising of YouTube, the users within this universal village are more close together, which increase the speed of globalization, people around the world can view the clip from different countries and allow them to understand different culture and different thoughts, by doing this it increased their universal view, and also because many people starts to post different homemade clips, therefore there are often many creative ideas about certain events or commodities has been generated, it also had stimulated the creativity of the people world wide, therefore creating is not the privilege of the designer anymore.

gender and technology

The topic of last weeks lecture I found particularly interesting as I have often contemplated the gender dynamics towards technology but did not realize there had been academic writing done in this area. In a women’s studies paper I learnt that a research found that when class technology goes wrong for a male lecturer the students believe the technology was not working correctly, however when female lecturers have the same technological problems the students believe the (female) lecturer did not know how to use the technology correctly. These results reveal that the gender stereotyping of male competence with technology and female incompetence with technology extends beyond music equipment and in to day-to-day technology. I believe this gender stereotyping extends into film technology as well. The films I have worked on as an actress have all had heavily male dominated crews and the, now dated, terminology such as cameraman is most likely a result of this. As a student I was given the opportunity to work behind camera, something I was eager to do, but as I was the only female in the group it was presumed I would act while the boys had directorial control. This is what led me to choose to work solo on the following project; it was a way of insuring that I would get to experience working behind camera. But how is this gender stereotyping constructed? Perhaps it is the gender-coded interests we are infiltrated with as children. Boys are given toy cars, trucks, tools etc; all of these involve the construction and workings of man-made equipment and thus they are closely tied to technology. Are computers and stereos the grown up versions of transformers? After all technology does have a strong presence at exposes like ‘Big Boys Toys’. So perhaps men have a socially constructed cultural advantage; the cultural capital that comes from being raised a boy in modern society. What I have observed in women’s interaction with technology, myself included, is that is treated more as a means to an ends. So on my laptop I know how to write essays, use the Internet and email and play DVDs. That’s about it because that’s all I use it for. However when my boyfriend got his laptop he spent several days familiarizing himself with it and discovering virtually everything it was capable of. Whatever the cause men on the whole appear to have a genuine interest in technology, which I think that women, for whatever reason, just don’t have to the same extent. This of coarse is a hugely generalized statement, something difficult to avoid when discussing gender.

Roll Call and Admin.

Hello everybody.

The vast majority of the people I had no names for have sorted themselves out through contacting me (thank you) or through me getting access to a more up-to-date class list.

Those still outstanding are:

Meil
Madison
Isyana
Josh

If these folks could send me an email with their details, that'd be great. I have some information to suggest that these may be people who are reading the blog but not actually taking the course. This is all fine, but if that could be confirmed in a response, that'd be brilliant.

For general admin, it's great to see so many people turning up in the last weeks. As I mentioned last week, if you made your first post on or before Sunday the 6th of May, then you're still eligible for full marks on the blog. You just need to make 1 post per week until the blog is handed in.

Since the blog is due on on Thursday the 31st of May this means that the last week for submission runs from the 28th of May to the 31st inclusive. It is thus shorter than the others, so don't forget.

Some people have contacted me about technical problems which prevented them from posting by midnight last night: that has been taken into account, don't worry.

Good luck for everything, and if people have questions, ask away.

- Kevin.

Forever Vinyl

This is a bit late but thought I'd mention a neat video on 45s and girls who collect records, Cornershop's 'Brimful of Asha'.




I remember it from those weekend chart programmes and MTV's blink-and-you'll-miss-it first appearance here in 1996 or 97. The video is totally retro, with the girl and her stacks of 45s straight out of the 60s and 70s. I think it was part of the 90s fixation on the grooviness of that era, especially with the girl's hyper listening style. I think the band featuring within the 45s sleeves (probably some hi-tech term) is a kind of remediation, with the picture sleeves referencing the original records and their iconographic significance. Being a record collector myself, I agree with the idea of the record as a gendered technology and hobby. I often get weird looks from older guys when I'm going through the record shelves and they see me carrying a stack of LPs from the 'oldies' section. Maybe I was too young to invade their territory. That's where I think it's an age and gender combo. Vinyl consumption is either archaic or ironic, but with a lot of collectors I think it's just because some material is unlikely to be transferred on to CD and MP3.

I also remember TV3 featuring an item on a 'Vinyl Comeback' late last year. They featured clips of teenagers in Real Groovy skimming through the imports and discounted 45s. I think there was an even spread of girls and guys. Ultimately, it's just about going after the music you enjoy and not worrying about falling into a certain stereotype by being too retro. I agree with the earlier posts on records and MP3s and identity construction. Where the record is tangible and offers a visual connection through the grooves and noise (both kinds with reissues), MP3s are all liquid and more convenient and offer a different kind of physical closeness, like a McLuhanesque extension to go back to 203. 45s are pretty handy though, they're just like a CD single, it's just a matter of lifting the needle, and there are also those snazzy automatic players.

I know a lot of collectors lament the digitisation of record catalogues, but I think it's a nice marriage of retro and modern. One LP I searched over a year for I found on a record store's website for their in-store stock overseas. They even gave me free postage for being a Kiwi!

Another interesting example of girls and their records is Dogfight (1991). The protagonist, Rose, is a folksy sixties girl and Vietnam pacifist. She has posters of folk singer Joan Baez on her wall and cries while listening to her phonograph, much like Robertson-Wojcik's shot of Holly, after discovering she was a 'dogfight' contestant (male chauvinist soldiers gather so-called 'ugly-ducklings' and the winner receives $50).

To tie back to the ideas of commodity fetishism and gender, I think part of the allure of record collecting lies in its authenticity. Record users inscribe multiple layers of meaning on to the record covers and the vinyl itself, and its 'relic' status kind of sees the listener give animate qualities to the record. But I think girls who buy records today are often dismissed as the descendents of those crazed teen idol fans of the 1950s, when just about every male film star churned out a hit 45. Record collecting can also be more communal than MP3 consumption, which seems to envelop the listener in their digital world of 'personalised' content. A few collectors' books I've read seem to privilege the male collector and their experience, even ones published over the last four years, but I think that's more a product of genre trends, rather than deliberate exclusion.
Stella

Ipod v Record - who will win?

As we enter the age of the digital, we at the same time enter the age of the depersonalised, the material, the object. Digital 'objects' such as ipods, computers, mp3 players and cellphones have somehow taken precedence over the cd, the casette, and more importantly, the live performance and quality of the music itself. It seems that having a huge collection of songs on your computer which you can compellingly scroll through (regardless of whether you have listened to the entire collection or not) has become more important than knowing the songs, and knowing the performer. What usedto be described as fandom for the performer or song, has been replaced by the fetishised need to display Mp3's, ipods, and downloaded caller tunes in order to fit into this materialistic society. Whereas once it was natural to know obsessive amount of facts on an artist, how they made their songs, how they became a musician etc. (for example, 'Beatlemania'), it has now become naturalized to compete for who has the largest number of songs/downloads in their collection. How can we bring back the nostalgia for the cd, the cassette, even the record when we are constantly competing with these giant electronic empires?!?! HELP!

Are we living in a Ghost World?

If anyone is interested in punk culture, or at least the scene that exists within Auckland, I’m sure you’ll also be aware of how fickle it has become in trying to determine the “true” meaning of punk. From what I’ve seen over the years, bands and fans who are united through the history of punk rock, are divided by the definition of what it means by today’s standards. Those who share a stage and those who pay to watch them, have all erupted into a pathetic two-faced internet squabble over who’s punk and who’s not - as was always seen on the forums of www.punkas.com; a New Zealand site dedicated to the genre. I myself have not read the forums for years, because it just became too frustrating to try and understand how close-minded people could be within a scene that professes the very opposite.

Through viewing Ghost World and witnessing Enid’s experimentation with music, a whole new level has been added to my frustration of the “rules” of the scene and those stupid few who determine themselves the gatekeepers of it. Enid has varied musical tastes, as is reflected in her personal style - she is obviously influenced by historical notions of music scenes, as is evident in her transformation into “an original 1977 punk” rocker. Through her observation of the punk scene having origins, she is obviously aware of its development and metamorphosis since 1977; into something that is quite different from what it was spawned from. Progression however seems to be a concept that is lost on the self-professed rule makers of today’s scene; who instead choose to argue about the politics of a culture which will never again be as straightforward as it was when it originally emerged.

Hip Hop Flop: Age of the Lollipop Rappers

“Talkin bout how much money they got, all y’all records sound the same.I’m sick of that fake thug, r & b, rap scenario all day on the radio.Same scenes in the video, monotonous material” – Hip-Hop by Dead Prez

From the days of Run DMC and Public Enemy, hip-hop was a new breed of music mixing the minds of lyrical genius, beat and rhyme into a genre that remains today. Gangster rap, a sub-genre of hip hop developed during the late 1980s with the popularity of artists such as Dr. Dre and his album The Chronic. However, the representation of hip hop, particularly gangster rap, has changed.

In the naissance of gangster rap where one was divided by the East or West, Crip or Blood, no collaboration between the two existed. Nowadays, the magnitude of image can be shown with someone like The Game, member of the Piru Bloods, collaborating with Snoop Dogg, a declared Crip. The way in which rap was seen as a socio-political platform does not resemble that of today’s music. Gangster rap of the past described the rapper as being a casualty of urban squalor. However with the way gangster rappers portray themselves in music video today is definitely hedonistic with them showing off expensive jewellery, cars, clothes, and women.

Self-proclamation of the image has taken the genre downhill in the ways of mimicking the past and materialising the future. The genre of gangster rap has always been accused of homophobia, misogyny, racism, materialism and promiscuity. However, those were not the only factors that contributed to the field. Gangster rap voiced opinion as well as fast vocal, clever lyrics and black American history.

The juxtaposition of song in Charlie's Angels and the vagueness of time as marketing ploy?

I was watching the Charlie’s Angels film (released in 2000) over the weekend and couldn’t decide whether the film was set in the 1970’s or in 2000. Through the juxtaposition of song in particular, Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give It Up and Destiny’s Child’s Independent Women for example, the accompanying compilation soundtrack served both as a reminder of the films roots in 1970’s popular culture and as a vehicle to situate the film as contemporary cinema, to create a fusion of past and present. The film’s sits between a homage and a reworking of the original television series, situated in an “Angel World” (to borrow a term from J. Michael Riva; the films production designer), an alternative reality where a mythologised and stereotyped representation of the 1970’s has been adapted into a filmic ‘style’ which separates its cultural references to the 1970’s from the actuality in which they occurred. Of particular interest is the inclusion of Deee-lite’s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ (released in 1990) in the soundtrack and its distinctive 1970’s funk and soul flavour which contributes to the film’s retro style and comments on the vagueness of the films time. This is perhaps representative of obvious commercial incentives that open the film’s appeals to original fans of the television series and to a new wave of fans from Spice Girls-‘girl-power’ and post-feminist descent. It also follows the trend set by films like Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Boogie Nights which established the retro cinema of the 1990’s.

A music video film?

It is quite funny that we always say this music is from that film, but we never or at least not often say the film is famous because of its music. Even for musicals, such as Singing in the rain, Chicago, at most of time we rather to watch the film than listen to the soundtrack. I am always curious that how come no singer wants to use their music videos to make a film? Or, use three to five music videos to make a short one. Probably there is not market for that kind of production or companies would not receive enough revenue to cover the cost. But, undoubtedly, a theme song can make the film much better. I guess that is because music can touch audience more directly, and music can make audience to remember certain scene in their life. And for those theme songs, they normally would use slow melody and simple lyrics, so that, they would reinforce senses like sadness or romance. Also, film and music has cross-promote relationship, it is hard to tell which one can bring more benefits from the other. Anyway, I think record companies can use their music videos to make short films and put them on internet. In compare of film music, that definitely will cost less and probably more viewers would consume this type of music production.

Music vs. No Music

I just went to see the film Bobby (Directed by Emilio Estevez). What struck me was not the music that was in the film but rather the lack of music. Set in 1968 what music there was did have a nostalgic aspect to it, reflecting the time that is was set in. Demi Moore’s character, Virginia Fallon, was a singer which allowed for diagetic music from the band rehearsing and performing at times throughout the film. As I was watching the film it seemed to me that there was not much non diagetic music until the end when Senator Bobby Kennedy was shot. For me the effect of suddenly hearing the music was unsettling. As the film is based on fact, the ending is known from the start of the film. For me the effect of this music created a sense of uncertainty similar to the uncertainty that the characters would be feeling after Senator Kennedy was shot. I thought that by not using a lot of music or sound until the end worked in this film. Part of the effect that music has on the audience watching is to pull them into the narrative but here the lack of music had that same effect if not more so. There must be more films that are similar to Bobby that don’t fit the blockbuster style of film.

Almost Too Famous

This past week's lecture, readings and film, had an obvious theme of females associating with the listening and appreciating aspect of phonographs/music and males listening, but also collecting. While there were many examples of films and texts that tried to break or broke female stereotypes, it didn't seem like there were as many for male stereotypes. Looking back at some films people have brought up in the past on the blog, I'm resurrecting "Almost Famous." Based on Cameron Crowe's life, there is definitely a theme in the film of music appreciation as opposed to fetishism and collection. Penny Lane and her "band-aids" distinguish themselves from the groupies, because they're really there for the music (or so they claim) their affairs with the rockstars are "completely separate." More importantly though, we see the male music fans in the film as Lester Bangs and William Miller. While they do have their own record collections, it at least seems like their collections contain albums that they love to listen to, not just albums that they love to own. Does their appreciation "feminize" them or does it just attempt to break the gender stereotype? Maybe this case is completely different considering Lester and William are both music journalists, so maybe they listen to the music in a different way than the typical male. Think about though, the first time William really listens to rock music. His sister has just left home and all he has left to remember her is her music collection. It seems like it would be a form of connection, but instead it turns out to be more of a form of education. William sees the note she left "Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you'll see your entire future," and he follows these directions trying to learn from his sister how he should listen to music and appreciate it. It turns out though, that he learns this on his own through his analysis of music and through his writing. He cares more about putting his appreciation down in words than in seeing it collecting dust on a shelf. Lester on the other hand is a snobby rock critic that, as a mentor to William, helps him recognize his inner music nerd. When he goes on a radio show, he criticizes the DJ's choice in music and puts on what he thinks people should be listening to. Both characters seem to break the gender stereotype because for each of them it's a way for them to embrace their inner "losers" as Lester says. It's an emotional connection to the music that both of them have, not a physical or analytical connection. Their collections are merely just collections of music they continually listen to, not collections of dust.

Will vinyl revive? : Back to the analogue from digital

After Nabeel's lecture on Wednesday, I've researched about vinyl record and its availability. Surprisingly, and unexpectedly hundrends of results came up on the screen, and I became to realise that there are so many vinyl record shops online, in this period of 'digital media'. Personally, when I hear the words like 'LP' or 'vinyl record', the first thing that comes up on my mind is dusty, clumsy figure of records that are all piled up in one corner of our garage which seems like waiting to be thrown away. The thing is I've never experienced vinyl records what the audiophiles call the 'art of sound', so they actually mean nothing to me. But for my parents, they're more than just records. My parents never throw them away even though they don't listen to them anymore.
Now the mp3s are everywhere, not to mention the CDs, and some people even say that the CDs would disappear in the next few years. It is quite doubtful that the vinyl records are ever going to be reappear in the contemporary music market in this world of low-cost portable CD players and iPod. It is hard to believe, but nowadays teenagers are interested in the purchasing vinyl records, especially in England. Five years ago the sales volume of the records were only about 180,000 but now it is gone up to more than a million.
So what makes it attractive to the teens to actually purchase it out of their little money? Well, the most apparent reason seems to be the quality of the sound, the true sound of music that it brings. Some are drawn in by its actual handling of the music & the special atmosphere that it creates while playing it on the phonograph.
The question is, until when will this trend continue? Well, no one can gurantee, only the time will tell. But some people argue that people will prefer whichever they find to be the most convenient. If they are not festishizing the singer/band or their music, they will choose to listen mp3s even if they actually feel the lower quality of the music. But because of its special and prehistoric characteristics there will always be vinyl proponents & the records would never go out of style.

vinly collecting

From the beginning, record and CD collector shows have been anything but mainstream events, even if their appeal can easily be described as mainstream. The serious music collector generally will always seek out the event, while those who find music just a casual interest sporadically attend. The casually interested who do show up are almost always impressed and excited by the atmosphere and what they find there. Just as impressive to them seems to be the idea that someone would actually travel from city to city collecting and selling nothing but records and CDs. The story goes a lot deeper than that, the layers of it revealing more a way of life than a pastime.

If average people arrange their lives around their families, their 9-to-5 jobs and their weekends, then record and CD dealers are far from average. Their lives, by contrast, are centered around finding records and CDs, no matter where that leads them. They are constantly searching for not only more records and CDs, but also knowledge. Knowledge of the tens of thousands of bands and artists whose recorded output may be dozens or hundreds of songs, down to those with just one single released years ago.

Serious music collectors are also deeply involved in this obsession. It is not uncommon to find them traveling many miles to the record and CD shows and stores. Even with the advent of the Internet, to them there still is nothing quite like the thrill of the chase. Finding that rare, out-of-print record or CD, or finding something by their favorite band or artist that they never knew existed, it's all part of the draw to collect music. It isn't so much being a "treasure hunter," although that does happen frequently, as it is just finding music that they enjoy hearing.

Casual music listeners happily become more involved in music collecting once they've attended a record and CD show. Music collecting, in general, also is encouraged by the younger generation seeing vinyl collecting as "cool." Probably the most misinformed rumor has to be that "vinyl is dead." With a much warmer sound than a CD, vinyl is still sought after by many music collectors. With the sound and feel of the larger LP jacket in your hands — with photos and text that are actually readable — it isn't difficult to see why vinyl is still popular. It can even be taken to the point that you imagine it's a cold day in January 1968, and a young British group goes into a small studio in England to record their first album, one that turns out to be a cult status, legendary psychedelic masterpiece 30 years later. Think about that whole aspect. You're hearing that.

There's a wide cross section of people who collect music, all the way from the older crowd collecting what they grew up with, to the teenagers discovering vinyl for the first time, to the seasoned thirty- and forty-somethings looking to expand their horizons, to everyone in between. As long as folks enjoy listening to music, there will always be those who collect it.

Youtube's Music Problems

With the click of a mouse every video on Youtube that features a copyrighted piece of music could rapidly be removed.

As Viacom sues Youtube for one billion dollars for hosting film and television clips there is also the music companies who want a piece of the action. Since Viacoms claim, Youtube has been removing thousands upon thousands of copyrighted clips. A large proportion of all videos hosted on the site contain copyrighted musical works and youtube is in a weak position and having to make deals with the music companies.

In September of last year Youtube signed a deal with Warner music to pay royalties on the use of Warner music in hosted videos however some companies are not so keen to make a deal just yet. Industry giant Universal for instance has claimed Youtube owes it millions. They could potentially cripple Youtube should they serve takedown notices and a vast percentage of all the videos go offline. Customer confidence would plummet as their collections were decimated. Youtube has stated it has technology to find copyrighted music in the hosted videos so this could happen should talks break down. The copyright holders are in a strong position to haggle.

Popular music is very much an achilles heel of Youtube and it will be interesting to see how these deals turn out and how they change the way the site operates in the form of increased advertising or a decrease in video choice.

Google to learn more :-)