2 posts tagged “entertainment”
I listen to everything. No really. Everything.
Have you ever met one of those people that says
they listen to everything, and while they have a pretty interesting
music collection and they may very well have various tastes in music,
they still come off as kind of a blow-hard? I'm not one of those.
When I say I listen to everything, I really do listen to everything. I will relax to Miles Davis and then rock out to Deftones. Scream with The Used and dance to VNV Nation. I'll get depressed with Elliott Smith and get psychadelic with Love.
Yes. It exists.
Then of course there's always the genre skip. You might listen to a lot of different things, but you don't listen to every genre. I listen
Rock, dance, new wave, goth, metal, psychadeleia, punk, grunge, synth-pop, rap, country, classical, surf, industrial, soul, funk. You name it.
I may listen to everything, but there is still music that I just can't listen to. I hate it and it forces blood to seep out of my ears. I'm elitist when it comes to music. If I don't like it than it sucks. There's too much music in my life to be concerned with shitty bands and their shitty music.
My biggest problem comes from when I tell someone I hate a band that everyone likes. I tell someone I hate U2 (Especially that pompus dick of a lead singer and their overrated guitar player) or that Pearl Jam can shove it and people look at me like I'm insane. "How could you not like U2!? They're great!". No. They aren't. Don't even get me started on Dave Matthews Band. God forbid I mention that I merely appreciate Pink Floyd (they're not THAT good people).
It's a real shame when the rest of the world listens to almost everything that I think sucks. Nothing that's popular these days is any good. All I hear is crappy bands with nothing interesting going on in their music. Shitty rap with annoyng, repetative beats with uninteresting awful lyrics (that more than likely dumb down society). If you're going to rap about stupid shit and ho's, at least do it over a beat that does something. The only musicians that are really doing anything right these days are the guys that have been around for at least a few years. With a few exceptions mind you. Wolfmother comes to mind, and even then they sound like Zeppelin and the Doors.
I guess that's what happens when corperations and "THEY" try to make money off of art. Corperations only know how things work with business plans and numbers. Art works off of risks and passion, pretty much the complete opposite. They've tried to turn art into business plans and numbers.
Either way. It's only wishful thinking. At least there's still SOME good music being made today, and different people like different things. I just don't think people actually listen to what they listen to. Unlike me.
I'll end here. I hope I've written enough to start some sort of discussions with the outside world. Maybe a heated debate. Until then I'm off to listen to something with depth, I just hope you don't listen to anything that sucks.
Oh. While I'm at it. Let me just recomend the new Deftones album "Saturday Night Wrist". Deftones keep getting better. And Incubus is great. Incubus is one of those bands that you don't actually realize how utterly amazing they are until you actually sit down to listen to them. I've been listening to them recently and I'm digging their shifting styles of music (psychadelic/metal/funk/rap). Really their music is completely insane, but somehow it works. Check it out.
Technology is good... sometimes.
I had the privilege to witness this new-fangled BlueRay DVD at a Best Buy. Unfortunately, I was only able to watch it for a minute or so before my eyes started to hurt. This BlueRay nonsense and the "other new DVD" the HD-DVD are meant to be played on High Definition televisions with the super state-of-the-art sound systems. Most of which are things that the normal person wont have nor will they ever have. At the same time, I must admit, these things look good. REALLY good. Every single detail on the screen is crisp and flawless. The problem is, it looks too good. When I say my eyes began to hurt, I mean just that. Movies and television aren't supposed to look that good. I don't want to see every pore in Johnny Depp's face. I want to see a good fucking movie. Which of course brings us to the state in filmmaking today. Movies aren't about story or acting. It's about High-Def, action-packed, blow-em-up, fun. Sure, I love movies with mindless action and violence, why would I watch so many horror movies? But I just want to see a fucking movie. I don't give a shit if it looks better than real life, I don't want movies to look better and more colorful than real life.
Of course, as new technology is created, the old technology is pushed off the shelf. Technology just moves too fast. In my opinion, the 90's were the peak of entertainment technology. I miss cheap videos that you could just put in to a VCR and enjoy a good movie. The movies were better back then also, no one was worried about how good the movie looked, we just wanted to see a movie that was fun.
It's not just movies either. It's music too. I admit, I still have vinyl records. Yes kiddies, there were other things we used to listen to music on that weren't CDs. They were big, black, and round and you had to flip them over half way through to listen to the rest of the album. Before that there were even things called 8-Tracks that people would listen to in their cars. I admit, I'm too young for the 8-Track, but they're still cooler than all those iPods. Truth be told, I actually really like CD's. I don't want to see them go either. Everyone listens to music digitally, and these days, even bands are starting to make their albums available online with bonus tracks as a bonus for getting your digital music. Tower Records is closing, the whole company. Sure, they could be over-priced at times, but they still had a good selection of music and movies that you probably couldn't find anywhere else. It's a real shame.
The problem I see, is that with technology advancing faster and faster, everyone is forced to adapt when it's not time to adapt. Movies are made quicker and released within a few months on DVD. Bands release music on CD and online, even offering online exclusive to keep themselves viable. The faster technology advances the faster things need to get made. Thus, the films we watch aren't as good as it was 10 years ago. The music we listen to isn't as good as it was when we had to wait for their next CD. Technology has taken the art out of music and film making and made entertainment all about looking good and flashy when really, no one actually cares how good the music will sound on a stereo system they don't have, or how good a movie will look on a TV they'll never own.
I miss the 90's for so many reasons. Our news was better (O.J.!!!) because no one cared about how trashed a celebrity got. The music was better and rocked harder because music was about MUSIC, not about having new music every month online to tell people that you really are still a band. The movies were better because you didn't have to worry about making the movie look good and you had to have a sense of ingenuity to do something new rather than rely on CGI. I miss putting that new CD in my stereo and actually holding the phyisical album artwork in my hand, and reading the lyric sheets as I enjoy the music. I miss the cartoons and TV shows that had story arcs and kept you coming back for more to find out what happens next (a few exceptions to the amazingly random shows on today like Family Guy, Aqua Teen, Futurama, Spongebob). I miss putting a video tape in and falling asleep to a shitty movie. I miss putting $5 of gas in my car and actually being able to go somewhere. I miss being able to go to a movie for $6. It really wasn't that long ago that the cost of living allowed us to earn $7 an hour and actually be able to get to work, and do stuff. When $20 could get you through a day.
I wish more people felt this way. But people just seem to let prices go up for no reason while their wages stay the same. People seem to like paying $20 for a movie and $6 for a bottle of beer. If there are people that feel the way I do, they don't really say anything, they just keep moving on. I for one would rather discover the secrets of time travel than and go back to the way things were than keep going on our current track. Who's with me?
