el fin de los beatles

So we've finally ended our run with the Beatles after listening to Abbey Road last class, and I have to say they went out in style. Their last album was good, and I felt that it was a good summary of everything that the Beatles had done. It covered a wide range of songs in their medley that seemed to range from their early rock to the newer, weird stuff. I'm going to miss the Beatles unit, they really were a great band and did absolutely incredible things with both their music and their cultural impact on the world. My favorite Beatles album was definitely Rubber Soul. It had aspects of their early rock but also felt more indie, and was definitely the album that is most comparable to indie style music of today (and I like indie). I don't think I had a least favorite album, like you said they grew so much as a band in the span of less than 10 years that it's hard to not respect a certain album for what it is.

Doggystyle

Last weekend my basketball team and I took a trip to Corpus for a basketball tournament. It was a great team building experience and I had a lot of fun. But why am I telling you this? During the car ride my teammate, Ja'Lon Spence, had DJ duty since he was riding shotgun and played all the different kinds of rap that he enjoyed, most of which were crap. However, Ja'Lon, I learned, is an album guy just like yourself. He wasn't a fan of making playlists off of singles he liked, he would start an album from the beginning and play it all the way through. While most of the albums he played were, in my opinion, crap, Snoop Dogg's album Doggystyle really caught my attention. In fact I was even claim that it is one of the best albums that I have ever listened to. For one, there isn't a bad song on there, every song on there was enjoyable to listen to. Second, old Snoop Dogg was a great lyricist, his lyrics are funny yet also tell a story. Third, the music is simple; there is one baseline with a few ad-libs and that's it, the rest is just him spitting rhymes.

Led Zeppelin

Okay so I thought the opening song of Zep 1, "Good Times Bad Times," was really good like I was jamming out big time; It was upbeat and a solid rock song. After that song the rest of the album.... wasn't that great. Like I understand that, yeah it was a piece of instrumental art, but I don't really appreciate that aspect of music. I prefer to listen to music based on if it's.... entertaining (for lack of a better word) to listen to. I thought that most of the Led Zeppelin album was pretty boring, and it actually sounded like one big song.

Dubstep and Calculus

I'm going to be perfectly honest and say that I did not listen to very much music this week; that's not to say that I didn't listen to any though. I have this weird thing where I like to listen to dub step while I do my math homework, it's a habit that I've had since freshman year. I don't think they're the two most cohesive actives, listening to dub step and doing calculus, but they seem to have worked together this far. I found a few new songs that are really kicking', my favorite one is "Like a Boss" by eptic. I've never heard of Eptic before bet nevertheless this song jams.

It might get loud

I thought it was a really interesting documentary. Regardless of what Blake says, I think U2 is good. My dad is a huge fan so I've grown up listening to U2 most of my life and The Edge has been pretty close to me. I might be biased but I think that he was the best out of the three, definitely better than the White stripes guy, that guy was weird. It was cool to see how all three, while separated each by a generation of music, are so similar in their musical style. On track all three guitarists sound different but together they were able to mesh together to make something that sounded great. 

Tyler

My friend has always been a big Tyler the Creator fan. I've always kin of liked Tyler but his beats are pretty slow and not something I can really get in to, but he's freaking hilarious. One of the best lyricist that's currently out there and incredibly underrated. Earl sweatshirt is a lot like that too. Great lyricists but I can't really get into them because of their beats. 

Albums Vs. Singles

I've always been a singles guy. I blogged last week about a Muse album that I listened to and I really was impressed by it. It was really good to see the progression of music throughout the album. I would say that when it comes to rock and indie rock I'd prefer to listen to an album, especially the Beatles. Magical Mystery Tour so far is one of my favorite Beatles albums, or at least the part of it we listened to. Beatles are definitely album guys, I would say the Beach Boys are more singles guys for me. 

Pet sounds

I'm going to be honest and say I didn't like Pet Sounds. It was so soft and mellow and just weird. I knew the Beach Boys had a lot softer tones, but I felt like every song sounded the exact same. There was no variation on their lyrics and their vocals remained the exact same.

The 2nd Law

I headed your advice and tried listening through an entire album. The album I choose was The 2nd Law by Muse. It was weird. Really weird. But It was also weird in the sense that what you said was true, that albums are very well thought out piece of art. It was obvious that a lot of time and effort was put into the order of the songs. It started out very heavy metal, then it went a lot softer. Like weirdly soft. It got to a point where it didn't even sound like muse. The beginning was very heavy too, a lot of LZ and Aerosmith inspiration. Overall I liked the album a lot, although the bottom part of the album was crappy.

What am I listening to

M.I.A. recently released her new album. I would tell you to go check it out, but i know you'd hate it. I will say that this MIA is a lot more bearable, mainly because it's a techno album. The album is almost all electronic music with her random vocals, or at least not enough vocals to call it an actual song. Anyway if you're feeling adventurous I'd go check it out, it's called matangi or something crazy like that. i thought it was a pretty cool album, most of the songs are solid. I like the techno style and her vocals really add to it.

Mid Era Beatles

As you've probably heard me say: my mom was/is a huge Beatles fan. Practically all of my childhood was spent listening to the Beatles. And, being a child, I really had no idea was I was listening to. I obviously knew it was The Beatles but I couldn't have told you anything more than that. Listening to the mid era Beatles stuff (revolver, Rubber soul) made me realize that most of the stuff I used to listen to was from that. I have to say I like mid era Beatles a lot more than early Beatles too. Early Beatles was so pepy and lovie dovey and just absolute crap. Yeah it was catchy, but a lot of people will say Justin Bieber is catchy. Right?

Back to Indie

So I'm aware that I did say that muse sucked at ACL.... But, I really like their music. I've been listening to them a lot lately. I don't know what really sparked it, I was getting tired of dub step and Eminem's album was dissapointing. But anyway it's been mostly their hits, Madness, panic station, etc. I was wondering your opinion on Muse, I feel like they are great musicians and their lyrics match that.

Help!

So Ringo had some ring.... And these tribal guys needed it for a sacrifice.... and something about him dying... Yeah that was about as much as I got out of the movie. Before you jump to conclusions, yes I did actually watch it. It just didn't make any sense to me, some parts were so flamboyant and unnecessary I couldn't focus on the actual plot. With all that being sad, I thought that movie was pretttyyyy bad. Pretty bad. The music was good, I enjoy the Beatles music always, but the movie was just so stupid in my opinion. It lacked the dry humor that "A Hard Day's Night" really utilized, and their attempt at humor in this film was more immature and silly. I'd have to give it a 3/10 rating.

My Flavor of the Week

Dubstep. Again. I'm sorry, I really am. Yes it's not music, BUT it makes me want to go destroy something when I play some of my favorite songs. Knife Party is my flavor this week, I think I've mentioned them in one of my blogs before. I would actually argue that Knife Party makes what you would consider "music," unlike most dubstep. Yes Knife Party is still two guys, Australian in case you were wondering, who stand behind a desk and press a bunch of buttons that make crowds go insane, but like I said, they make crowds go insane. Just listen to a few of their songs, they show a lot of diversity in their music which is something that 99% of electronic musicians do not. Here's my favorite, it's called "Internet Friends," it takes a while to get going but when it does, it does. If you remotely like that please try out "Bonfire" or "Centipede"

GRADE INFLATION

I get what you're saying, but I have another way to describe it. We were actually talking about this topic in another one of my classes; we were talking about how the "median grade" is set too high. What I mean by that is that a 70 isn't where the bar is set grade wise. It should be that a 70 is the average grade that students should get, and students should get grades within 10 points of that margin. Instead, the accepted grade baseline seems to be around a 90 as if teachers have made everything easier so that students will meet that mark. Where does this come from? like you said, the better students do in the teacher's classroom, the better the teachers look; the better the teachers look, the better the school looks. I'm living proof of this theory, a little background (believe it or not) I'm one of the top students in my class, and have SAT and ACT test scores that rank in the 99th percentile nationwide. I've never spent more than an hour and a half either studying or doing homework in my high school career. The material we are taught seems to be a considerably dumbed down version of the actual concept, and apart from most math classes, all it takes is some simple improvising to get a very good grade. Don't get me wrong though, I've worked really hard in school, but I really didn't need to, and the school system seems to be designed to urge bad habits. Procrastination, doing things at 50%, forgetting assignments, it seems like that's all the system teaches us to do. And the curriculum has become so grade oriented that I feel like it has been dumbed down a bit.

Reggae mahn

My musical adventure continues. As you could tell from the last couple of musical adventure blogs I've been taking a lot of detours. My newest detour has to do with reggae. Well actually the Marley family, but they're pretty much all reggae is right? Anyway. Yeah reggae. Relaxing stuff. Now I understand why all of the stoner dropouts are obsessed with the stuff. It's relaxing music that can really go with any situation. It's upbeat enough to be pretty happy, but slow enough to be considered "deep" thinking music. I actually stumbled upon it through aimed instep I was listening to. I said in one of my earlier blogs that I prefer di step with reggae infusions, so after two years of listening to dub step I decided to actually listen to some reggae. Mostly Bob Marley, pretty much all of his hits, his non-hits were kind of crappy. Also a lot of Damian Marley, in a lot of respects I like Damian better than Bob, mainly because Damian tends to be a bit more up beat, and his voice sounds more Jamaican-y if you know. But anyway. Reggae. It's pretty chill.

What Is Rock to Me?

I am sad to say that you and I have quite different beliefs as to what we consider to be rock. My beliefs stem from the fact that I have had no musical experience in my life, I have a terrible singing voice, I couldn't manage to learn the piano or the guitar, and I really don't know at all what goes into making a song. Our backgrounds most likely have a lot to do with what we think on the matter. But the odd thing is that your answer to "what is rock" was something that provokes rebellious ideas and impulses. Something that makes you want to punch out a car window. But that seems like something that should be my answer, an answer from a kid who has no musical knowledge, which is weird. See my answer is something more technical, more revolved around the instruments and how they're being played. See I can't classify rock as being something that makes me want to rebel because the music that makes me want to go destroy something is either dubstep or bass heavy rap (A$AP Ferg, Waka Flaka Flame, Jay-Z and Kanye to some extent), and I just can't call that rock. To me rock requires a unique kind of vocals, to stereotype it needs a male with a deep manly voice. I'm just going to forewarn you that my explanation is going to make very little sense, I really have know idea what I'm talking about technically speaking, to me it's usually just a feeling. But anyway, manly voice, if it doesn't have the voice then it needs an up tempo instrumental that USUALLY has a lot of electric guitar and drums. To show you an example, my attached clip is "Black Dog" by LZ, when the instruments first open up, that's what I'm talking about. We can classify Little Richard as rock because of his voice, although it's not entirely "manly," but also because of the up tempo instrumentals. For me rock absolutely has to have drums, that accounts for my omission of rap and dubstep from what I consider rock. If a song has heavy electric guitar elements (Such as metallica) then it's definitely rock. If a song has up tempo instrumentals with a low pitched (man's) voice, then it's definitely rock. Like I said, I really have no earthly way to describe what I think rock to be, if you were to sit me down and have me listen to a song, I could tell exactly if I thought it was rock or not.

How I alleviate stress

They other day, in our class census on how we alleviate stress, I wasn't able to fully elaborate on what I do. Usually if I'm having a crappy day it's because of a self confidence issue or something tragic happened (I.e. Somebody passing away). It really varies on what the scenario is. For the general crappy situation I really like to read. One, it passes time, and two, a lot of times it really gets you thinking. I mentioned that Robert Ludlum was one of my favorite authors, but in depressing scenarios, Ludlum is not my go to. My favorite author for some deeper thinking is Vonnegut. My favorite book of his is Cats Craddle, the way he mocks society in ways that I also mock society makes me feel less alone when I see people like Miley Cyrus and just think "what have we done.l" if you haven't read timequake by Vonnegut, I would suggest against it. That's my usual go to sad book, it makes no sense, it's basically Vonnegut relaying what he was thinking at that moment, he was probably incredibly high when he wrote it. But all of that aside I do really like to read. My favorite books are deep books that are pretty easy to read, usually ones that expose societal follies. If you've got any suggestions let me know!

Grimes.... Just why

I honestly have no idea what Grimes was doing on stage. Allegedly she's a very famous "artist." I say artist because her "music" was the furthest thing from artistical ingenuousness that I have ever heard/ experienced in my life. Like in all honesty is was horrible, and the fact that she made money off of that garbage makes my blood boil. But anyway, I was on my way to school the other day and decided "hey maybe I'll see if grimes is really that bad in a studio." She was. But it was weird, while I was listening to her I kept repeating to myself "wow this is the worst crap that I've ever heard," and I've heard a lot of crap in my life. I couldn't stop listening to it though, it was one of those things that's like "wow this is really bad, but I have to keep listening to see maybe if there's something people like about her." Nope. It was all crap. I would suggest listening to the song "oblivion" which is her top song. In order to get full effect of her crapiness I suggest listening to it in your "music cave" that you regret to a lot. Also apparently most people take acid before going to see her shows, so not suggesting that, but I guess people who do that really like her music.

ACL Friday Recap

The first band I saw today was Jimmy eats World and they were a lot better than I was expecting. I came in a little late, and happened to walk up as "Middle" started to play. I stopped and watched Fun. for a little while and they were also better than I expected. Their lead singer has a really nice voice although it makes all of his songs sound the same. Next was "Local Natives" and, as I predicted, they were really good. They had great vocals and every member of their band acted as a lead singer at some point. We then wait for about an hour and a half to see kaskade. Definitely not worth it. He's a dub step/ house DJ and he was pretty bad. Then finally came Muse, a big letdown in my opinion. I would consider them one of my too five favorite bands but their performance wasn't very good

My Sleeper Band For The Weekend

So last class, as we were reviewing the schedule for ACL on Friday, a band that really caught my eye was Local Natives. The name is really stupid I know, a bit redundant. But a lot of bands have really stupid names, so I'm over it. All that aside, the reason they caught my eye was that while I was on one of my many alternative/indie rock on Spotify, they came up a few times. The thing I like most about the band, and I really don't say this about most indie groups, is their vocalist. Like he actually has a good voice. And to compliment that voice they have some fantastic instrumentals. While a lot of people wouldn't call them a sleeper, or at least a lot of my friends, I still think that they are an incredibly underrated group, and they are competing against absolutely nobody in the time slot they have Friday. So if you haven't looked into them I would definitely check them out. I''l definitely be there tomorrow and I can tell you how it goes on Monday

Yeah We're Doomed

This is in fact a bit off topic, forewarning it has nothing to do with music. But earlier this week we were talking about society in general and if we were in fact doomed. So going back to that here's a haunting statistic, that far outdoes Miley Cyrus's recording setting YouTube video "Wrecking Ball." In three days, Grand Theft Auto V has reach a gross income of $1 Billion, setting the highest gross income across three days for any product ever sold ever. Yeah ever. So what these numbers tell me is, Grand Theft Auto V is more influential to the consumers of today then the iPod, or the computer, or the cell phone was in the day. A game where the sole objectives are to run a gang, go to strip clubs, steal crap, and kill people. So yeah. We're kind of doomed.

It's been a hard days night

One of the things you say a lot, or at least I seem to notice a lot, is for us to acknowledge the events as they were taking place. So for instance the Beatles in the 60s, like I said in one of my previous blogs, it's incredible to me that 4 guys in their 20s were able to pull off such an amazing movement. The movie that we watched in class was really cool to me because it showed me a bit of historical context that the Beatles lived through. I personally thought the movie was really funny, I like the sarcasm and the small jokes. John Lennon was my favorite, as I thought he was the funniest, although George was quite funny too. George's humor was a bit drier though

Kendrick Lamar

So in class the other day, when we were talking about rap and hip hop, you mentioned that you did not like Kendrick Lamar because you said "Kendrick Lamar doesn't tell a story." I have to strongly disagree with you there. Kendrick Lamar's album "good kid, M.A.A.D. City" tells a story, the story of his childhood in California. Kendrick Lamar is in fact a good lyricist, although two of his most popular songs "MAAD City" and "Swimming Pools" are very repetitive and offer very little insight. A song that I would suggest to you is A.D.H.D by Kendrick, it isn't his most intellectually ingenious song but it his lyrics do offer a fair amount of lyrical creativity. I didn't have an opportunity to tell you that in class but you might want to check it out. Another artist that I've started to like is Chance the Rapper. My favorite song of his is "favorite song," but since you look for wit and creativity in rap music I wouldn't use that song as an indicator of how good an artist he is. I'm just starting out listening to him so I can't name any songs off the too of my head. He has great instrumentals and what a lot of people call a "nice flow." His songs are not only catchy but artistically brilliant, in my opinion.

I don't even know what I'm doing anymore

Unlike yourself Mr. A, I prefer to listen to music in my car. So anyway, long trip back from Pearsall, Texas, where my Dad, a few of his friends, and I, were dove hunting. I'm driving as you can imagine, might as well make the 17 year old the designated driver right. But being the all time DD gives me DJ rights to the car, makes thinks more bearable. Bad news is, the auxiliary cord that I use to play music through is in my car and not my dads, leaving us stuck on a 2 hour car ride listening to the radio. My usual go-to stations are BOB FM, solely because they don't beat the you-know-what out of songs, and 101X, because I like alternative rock. More bad news. 101X is only heavy metal after 10 PM, leaving me with BOB FM, and a few other classic rock stations. It turns out i liked about 95% of what I heard on the radio during that car ride, which is sad because I liked the classic rock more than the 50 year olds that I was taxiing around. From the likes of ZZ Top, Boston, Foreigner(especially), Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and a few one hit wonders mixed in (Stix, Kansas), I liked it all. It's also sad because I used to give Blake Allen and incredible amount of crap because he really really likes this stuff. Now I understand. I'm still trying to figure out my taste in music, this discovery was like 19 steps sideways. Attached is my favorite song of the night, an all-time classic

DUBSTEP

Wubbbbbb wub wub wubbbwubbwub. I know dubstep isn't really music. I won't argue that it is because it really isn't. Really, it sounds like Transformers getting it on. But I have to say it sounds kind of cool. In case you haven't realized this yet, I really like bass. And what better way is there of finding music, or whatever you call it, consistently heavy in bass, than dubstep. As an athlete, music does in fact play a special role in my life. But unlike most others, it's mainly motivational. I'll play some music when I go on a run, or before I go play a basketball game, to get me motivated an hyped, get the blood flowing a little bit. That's why so often the things I look most for in music are the instrumentals. A song can be absolute crap, but if has some heavy bass and a nice beat, I can dig that. That fact is solely the reason I like listening to dubstep; it gets me pumped and "in the zone." some of my favorite DJs include Avicii (the new stuff), Knife Party, and Excision. The thing I really like about Knife Party is they infuse a lot of reggae into their music, which adds another dimension to what comes out of the speakers.

What if... The Beatles existed TODAY

I come home from school; after I get something to eat, see if anything's on TV, screw around for 15 more minutes downstairs, I finally drag my feet up the incredibly challenging flight of about 10 stairs. I sit on my comfy bed, open up my Mac, and go to my favorite procrastination station second to Reddit, Youtube. So I go there. First thing that comes up, this absolute crap Miley Cyrus song. After I listen to this crap Miley Cyrus song I research a little bit about this crap Miley Cyrus song. After I scroll through some more crap about how great Miley is, I find this statistic that kind of freaks me out. This crap Miley Cyrus song, "Wrecking Ball," had the most views in a 24 hour span in the history of YouTube. After I let this startling statistic sink in for a while I think to myself , "is this the crap that really, gets our society going, so to speak." And yes. Yes is the very sad answer that I have for you. That brought me to my next thought. Sparked by the documentary we watched in class, and the shear fascination I have for what The Beatles were able to do to the world. It really blows me away how this group of very normal, funny, and of course talented, guys, were able to shake an entire world. And that next thought was, could guys like this really make THAT much of an impact on the world we live in today. I mean of course they're nothing short of incredible musicians, but like I said, they're NORMAL. And with the vast resources that we have today, the vast opinions and fascinations of different cultures with different musical taste, I think it really would be impossible. The Beatles were so effective because of the broad range of people who enjoyed they're music. They were human, as in not everybody loved them. But I can assure you that there were not a lot of people who disliked them. Black people, white people, Asian people, boys girls, children, adults, old people, EVERYBODY, listened to them. It really brought people together, so as music often does. But in this quickly evolving world I don't think there is anything, not even The Beatles, that can bring us together again.

The Beatles

To continue on what I was saying about my mom and the Beatles this morning... So when I told my mom about your fascination for the Beatles she was e ratio for me to tell you the story about her and the Beatles. So she was in third grade when they toured Australia, I have no idea what year it was, but anyway. So she started it off by saying that the day the Beatles came it was like a national holiday. Nobody went to school. Absolutely nobody. The Beatles were due to arrive to Sydney at 1 PM that day and they were to perform at 7 PM. Somehow, an act of God maybe, my grandmother got tickets for the show. 7 rolls around and my mom goes to the concert. From her story she couldn't hear a thing, which is similar to what you said about why the Beatles stopped touring. But fortunately she was one of the 2/3 that don't Pee their pants

My Spotify Journey Continues

So I think I've got this Spotify thing down now. Well probably not actually. I still haven't quite figured out WHAT I want to listen to. I know what kind of music I'm feeling up for at that moment, like maybe it's dubstep, rap, oldies, indie; but I still don't particularly know who I listen to and more importantly what song to listen to. But anyway, Spotify offers this really awesome thing, radio, helps me out a lot. So I type in what I what to listen to, we'll use the other day as an example, I wanted to listen to some indie. I type in "indie" into the little thing that says "create new radio station" and bam, amazing. The first song to come up was "Down River" by The Temper Trap. I really enjoyed the song so I took the next logical step, I made a "The Temper Trap" radio station. The bands, the songs, the similar genres that I have discovered on that radio station since then have been amazing, I even heard some Portugal, The Man on there. Although my musical involvement is still quite broad, I'm getting there.

How IS America doing?

Bad. America is doing very bad. I'm not sure if that's proper grammar but that is exactly how it is. The world is becoming more and more lazy, I, for one, am guilty of being incredibly lazy. Humans now how the ability to control the world from their finger tips, and requires them to not even leave the couch. When I read books from the 50s and 60s or even books that seem prehistoric, there's just something about them, something brilliant, that i find impossible to be replicated in the modern era. Music. We went from bands of sheer brilliance, ACDC, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Rush, you name it, to people like Juicy J, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne? I'm almost certain that the chair I'm sitting on right now has a higher IQ than all of them combined. The world, the world's culture, is crumbling, and most of the time I feel like I'm the only one noticing it.

I can't believe I'm saying this... but Juicy J

Yes. I am modest enough to admit that I enjoy listening to Juicy J. That being said he is an awful rapper, some of his lyrics make him sound as if he didn't even graduate from elementary school. The thing that I like most about his music are his base heavy, and what I would call "turnt beats." What I mean by that is when I play a song of his it get's me energetic and really gets me going. Being an athlete music is something that I use on a daily basis as added motivation, that feeling that you get when you get really into a song seems to radiate the feeling you get when you hit a home run or make a game winning shot, things that get me really fired up. Before games and even practices I like to turn on my spotify account and listen to music similar to that of Juicy J, 2 Chainz, Rick Ross, artists that have very up -tempo and base heavy beats. The same thing goes with dubstep too. Now if I were in the car or if i had my headphones on for an extended amount of time this would not be the case. There is only so much cruddy music a man can take. But maybe playing one or two songs gets me fired up, and ready to go. This song that I attached may seem ridiculous, but it gives you an idea of the kind of beats Juicy J features. WARNING THIS SONG IS VERY EXPLICIT!!!!

1st Day Assignment:My Music

It's quite funny that such an assignment like this, asking me to express my musical likes and dislikes, was asked just days after I finally began to create my own musical identity. Just a few days ago I finally got the hook up with a Spotify account. I had always like music, Pandora and 8-tracks were always my go to apps when I was on the road, but I had never pursued the discovery of music. I never bought songs on iTunes because I never knew which songs to buy, I would listen to music on the radio but never caught who it was by and what it was called. I liked songs from an incredibly vast spectrum of genres, from country to dub step, from indie to heavy metal, I listened to it all. And it wasn't until I got my Spotify account that I was actually able to take on my own identity. What I've learned about myself, which I would have never guessed before I got Spotify, is that I absolutely love soft/indie rock. Mumford and Sons, The Black Keys, The Temper Trap, I love them all. While I still enjoy listening to the likes of Nero, Skrillex, and even Juicy J and Drake, Indie rock is something that has really attached itself to me. I'm still hopeless when it comes to naming new songs or albums by my favorite bands, I'm working on it.