Tag Archives: music

too weird to live or just too weird?

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so, the greatly anticipated (well, mostly by me) new Panic! at the Disco album is out. its called “too weird to live, too rare to die” and lets just say that calling it weird is being easy on it. i was excited, i love these guys. yes, it was devastating when they split up due to musical differences and Ryan and john went their separate ways but “Vices and Virtues” (which was the album brendon and spencer made by themselves as the remains of Panic! at the disco) was great, i even preferred it to their previous album, “pretty. odd.”.

and so, i was hopeful for this upcoming album. no, the singles didn’t get me too excited (although i can say that i prefer “this is gospel” to “miss jackson”) but they’ve never done anything i haven’t liked before. Panic! are known for changing their style because each of their three previous albums have sounded completely different to the one before it. and, even when i haven’t liked the music or the lyrics, brendons voice has always saved it. he just has the most incredible vocal abilities and he can make anything sound beautiful. want an example? check out “Northern Downpour” off their second album. or even their original and best known single, “I write sins not tragedies”.

but, no matter how hard i have tried, or how many relistens, i just cannot get behind these songs. maybe it still needs more time. it shouldn’t but maybe it does. yes, i was prepared for a change, but not this. its just too many elements that i don’t like combined without enough stuff that i do like. of course, this is all just my personal opinion and i know there are fans out there who love it. and because it’s Panic! i will continue to listen and will always love them, but i find myself believing  that had i not already been a fan of this band, there is no way i would listen to those singles and it would want to make me check out the album. none of these songs make me want to buy the CD.  For me it’s just too much techno/electric/autotuney i don’t even know how to describe it. but it’s not my style. i like rock/punk bands and this is far from that. it’s all synths and computer music. and the most frustrating part… you can’t even hear his voice!!!! its covered up by all the effects put on top. it’s like they auto tuned him, but he has one of the most incredible voices ever!!!! and you just can’t hear it. and some of the lyrics are supremely average, i’ve never been a fan of one line songs or one line choruses, sometimes there ok but most of the time, just no.

the other hard thing for me is that this album was streamed online almost the same day that the also highly anticipated  extension of All Time Low’s most recent album, the now aptly named “Don’t Panic! its long now”, was streamed online. so i put them both into a playlist on my iPod to listen to them together. and its just so painful moving from the new All time low songs (which also included four beautiful acoustics of songs off the first part of the album) to the Panic at the disco songs because of the drastic difference in the songs. for a perfect review of All time lows “new” album, check out Bec’s blog where she pretty much sums it all up when she says “they’re yet to release a song i don’t like”. and this new extended release is no different and in my opinion has some of their best songs yet. for a comparison, check out the two songs below.

 

all in all, i still love Panic! i’ll still wait eagerly for the next release and next change. i’ll still be standing their singing my lungs out when they eventually release an australian tour date. i’ll still buy their album (although this is the first time i’ve ever even thought about not buying it). and i’ll still probably call them my favourite band (although All time low is very very close to taking that title (and may succeed if i can’t find more redeeming factors about this album over the next week)).

song’s i actually do like off the album (and this is like in a very loose sense of the word because if it wasn’t Panic! i don’t think i’d like any of them) are “this is Gospel”, “nicotine” and “collar full”. yes, 3 out of ten. i feel devastated. maybe it just needs time. hopefully i can come back in a few days (ok, maybe weeks) and tell you i’ve had a sudden change of heart and its the best CD ever. but until then, i’ll be listening avidly to “Don’t Panic! it’s longer now” and trying to push this “too weird too live, too rare to die” out of my head.

oh, and here’s another awesome review of All Time Low’s new album

what’s wrong with the music industry?

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Does technology control our lives? do we change the way we work around technology or does technology change as we need it to? technodeterminism is a term that implies that technology controls us. it controls what we do, it controls society and suggest that changes in society only come about because of technology. but how true is this? i believe neither extreme is the correct answer. we change technology to suit us but we also adapt our techniques and ways of thinking when new technology is introduced into our lives. think about it, before the days of the cellphone, people would never even consider being able to speak to someone on the go. same with the age before the portable music player, the only way to hear music was through a cd player and before that a record player. we evolve technology to suit our needs but then we evolve ourselves to work with the technology, its part of our culture. even the word technology is part of our culture, the word itself didn’t even exist a mere few centuries ago and now it’s everywhere we look. it just goes to show how quickly things change in society and how quickly our culture adapts to this change.

this notion of culture changing along with society is similar to a point from a few weeks back that adrian made that context does not survive. everything we have today can only really be analysed within the context of today, because in the past we did not have these technologies and so everything was created with a completely different view and way of thinking, as will be everything in the future.

this leads me (kinda) into my topic of discussion today, what’s wrong with the music industry? this is all stemming from our discussions in class last week. i don’t really remember how we got onto it but it ended with us (well, mainly me) hating pretty heavily on one direction. i’ll try not to do that too much here but i’m warning you now, it might go there. first off for me is the huge difference between “pop” music that we have today and the pop music from 20-30 or so years ago. it just seems to be of a completely different calibre. to see what i mean, check out this picture which compares beyonce’s “run the world” with Queens “bohemian Rhapsody” (which is the best song ever! not to mention best karaoke song). i mean, come on!!! that song has pretty much just one line!!and it took 6 people to write it? what is happening world? but, as i’ve been mentioning, it’s difficult to compare because they were made in completely different times with different cultures and different ways of life. for some more depressing facts about music comparisons (between now and good music/artists), check out this site here. its pretty sad thinking that K$sha’s “tik tok” sold more copies than any beatles’ song but again, different times. back when the beatles were big, the music industry was different (and in my opinion, better). music broadcast wasn’t as widespread, you couldn’t download you music. music players weren’t as easily accessible. there are a whole range of excuses one can come up with. but at the end of the day, has the music changed?

i myself have never been the hugest fan of pop music. i’m more of an alternative/punk/rock kinda listener. my favourite songs off an album are very rarely the singles that are released for radio.and to me that’s because they just have that different quality, an attempt to be more marketable. the single needs to sell or no one will buy the cd.

here are some quick dot points of stuff that our class discussed in regards to the prolifity and repetition of the same crap on the radio today:

Current media songs written in metaphor, they never specify a person, its always “you”.

  • for example: Katy perry: firework or one direction: you don’t know you’re beautiful
    • These songs can be adapted to anyone/anything so that everyone can think it’s about them
    • this makes it more marketable – because its attractive to anyone, everyone will listen and buy it
    • they never makes the subject of the song specific
    • and are structured to have the broadest possible appeal
    • this is to maximise sales
    • they want to find the most efficient way of producing popular music (least amount of cost and effort for most amount of sales)
    • Thats what the music industry is: its an industry.
and this is where shows like Idol (american or australian) or the X factor or the Voice or whatever other singing competition shows are out there come in. they exemplify this, a lack of connection with music. or even a lack of real music being produced. because today, pop stars are not writing music because thats what they want, or because they love music, but because they want to make money. and their songs reveal this, they don’t have meanings, the lyrics don’t truly connect because there is nothing behind them, they have just been written to please the masses and make the sales. the winners of these competitions are given records, they are given music and are given lyrics and simply told to perform, but there is nothing behind it. what’s the different between one direction and the Beatles? well, aside from the time gap, the beatles were a band and one direction is a boy band. the beatles wrote and played their own music (granted, it got kinda razy and drug infused towards the end. and i’m not saying their song’s weren’t ambiguous and lovey) while one direction are just 5 random boys (i won’t deny that they can sing though) who were put together instead of being eliminated and have songs written for them. it just feels as though emphasis is being taken away from working hard and putting yourself into the music and placed on making as much money as you can. and so now every series of X factor is trying to create the next supergroup of random teen boys to keep that money rolling in.
sorry, it got a bit intense there. now you can see why i don’t listen to pop music. i’ll stick with my rock bands, let the world keep pumping out the same commercialised songs one after another. after all, there wouldn’t be the long tail without the part at the front.

 

oh, and back to the “does media control our lives” question. check out this article about a teenager who died from playing 2 days straight of playing video games. very sad.