Hey! Listen up! Music is being played over the radio, or on your phone, in your car, or even on your laptop right now while your reading this. Now, think of that song and how many other songs that come on the radio sound similar in some sort of way. Yeah, kinda weird, funny how music sounded so different in the past.
Music is changing people!!!
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
So many bands and artists are going more mainstream just so they can be discovered and “branch out” but, all that is happening is they are slowly loosing their individuality (Vajgrt). I mean think about it, many “artists” don't write their own songs anymore, at least not as many of them. They are paying someone else to write the songs that they just play it and sing. What kind of individuality is that? I say that it defeats the purpose completely.
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
Now, don't get me wrong, I personally love some of the songs that have come out recently, but that does not mean that I’m a fan of someone else writing a great song and no one knows really who that other guy is, the man behind the curtain I shall say. I mean who can be upset when you hear the Ghostbusters theme song?
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
MTV, what is it? People that remember the original MTV would say its nothing like it used to be. It used to be all about music, not if Snookie is more tan than JWOWW (what kind of name is that anyway?). Music is dying in some places and tv just happens to be one of them (Surette). I miss turning on the tv and watching a few shows and then a short little “blast from the past” music would come on. That was really cool for me, even though its nothing compared to what it used to be, now we don't even get that. The age of infomercials with the creepy guy trying to sell you a towel that will magically dry any surface and clean up any mess for the low price of $19.95 plus shipping and handling.
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
Now, ask yourself this, how often do you turn on some radio station and hear the same song over and over again? Or better yet, how often do you hear the “top 10 songs” being played and thats all you hear every time you turn on your radio? If your anything like me then thats a good bit, and its starting to get annoying. Well, what do you do? I’d hope you'd change the channel and find some real music and add some variety to your bandwidth.
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
So what can we do to get the ball rolling on introducing some new bands or songs that haven't hit mainstream yet? Well first of all, promote them yourself, get them to try and get a local radio to play them. Spread the word and at the same time, change the station and listen to something new for a change. Be careful though… you might just like it.
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
So with that in mind… wait why are you still reading this? Close this and go turn on 90.3 WUTK The Rock and listen to whats playing on your college radio!
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| Courtesy of twistedsifter.com |
Work Cited
Surette, Tim. "MTV Finally Gives Up on Music." TV.com. N.p., 10 Feb. 2010. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Vajgrt, Jason. "The Biggest Problems in Music Today." Examiner.com. N.p., 23 Mar. 2009. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
I like the fact that the author is wanting people to acknowledge the situation of "popular" music in today's society. They do an excellent job of fleshing out the cycle of music in the industry today by bringing in insightful and personal examples like the radio repetitiveness and the Shamwow infomercial. I know that personally bugs me and so much so, that I mostly just use music I've put onto my phone to listen to while in the car. The author uses a casual tone as if they were just relaxing and having a general conversation with the audience. This casual tone allows the audience to feel relaxed and to listen to the author with an open mind and allows the author to successfully convey the message they want to send. Overall it was a great piece and enjoyed reading it. My one concern was that I didn't understand all of the GIFs but that may just be because I haven't seen some of the particular one's chosen for the piece.
ReplyDeleteI really like what the author did with this piece. I felt the whole time like I was hearing him almost speak this to me. There seemed to be a lot of passion behind this piece which I think is something that is able to get us readers much more engaged. I also really liked how the author used MTV as an example from both his childhood that we can relate to, and what MTV is now, as we kids have all seen this transition unfold in front of our very eyes. The only thing that I would change about this piece is the amount of images, and video clips used. It's great that there were any of these in the piece in the first place, but I almost feel like there are too many, and it almost takes away from the writing. But overall, I really liked reading this and thought the ending where he included the college's radio station was great.
ReplyDeleteMatt,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you…partly. I completely understand where you’re coming from, and I get that it can be really easy to get caught up in how many artists there are out there who don’t write their music, because it is overwhelming. I think we’re on the same page when I say that money might be the biggest motivator to those people, not the actual music.
However, I think you were a little biased…it felt like you labeled all the music of today as unoriginal, using a hasty generalization strategy, which I disagree with. I think music in the past had a different story to tell than music of now. I don’t think music is dying AT ALL. I think there’s so much more to discover.
Your policy argument in paragraph 6 was definitely awesome. There’s really no going about it any other way. I don’t think all musicians are meant to be completely famous, but I believe a lot of them could. I think if you took a great band, that had a great local support system, trying to change their small-scale fame over to a larger scale is bound to cause controversy, and ultimately, you can’t please everyone.
I think your post was really effective in terms of arguing that music isn’t what it used to be, but I don’t necessarily think that has to be a bad thing. I’m not saying that I support lazy artists who have very little involvement in the creation of their music, but it really makes the good artists have a little more worth to them. Things aren’t what they used to be, so shouldn’t music reflect that?