Reinventing the wheel? Music review!

A few weeks ago I got a text message from my boyfriend which said simply: "Linkin Park, what have you done?!"

Well, what Linkin Park had done was released their new album, A Thousand Suns. Forget Meteora, forget Minutes To Midnight: you will not recognise this new Linkin Park. Oh don't worry, they still mix heavy guitar with electronics, they still mesh Chester's raw vocals with Mike Shinoda's measured, melodic rapping. But the boys have branched out both musically and lyrically.

The best and most brutal example of the new direction and focus would be embodied by the track The Catalyst. Synthetic, raw and jarring with blunt, with very pointed lyrics. It's a bizzare combination of dance, metal and synth pop.

The only track I actually like so far on the new album is Iridescent, which is reminiscent of the soft, melancholy strains of songs like My December and The Little Things Give You Away from the 'old' LP days.

The track Wisdom, Justice and Love (as you can probably guess by the title) is extremely political, based off a clip from a Martin Luther King Jr. speech. However it is also a ridiculously short track at 1:32. There are a few of these throughout the album, which my boyfriend did not like at all. "They're just filler," were his exact words. By my count there are at least four songs which are under two minutes in length on this new album, and one coming in at two minutes exactly. Now I'm not saying all short songs are crappy, but... well there's not a lot you can say in two minutes, is there!

Fans are divided over this, with some absolutely hating the new sound, others enthuasiastically embracing it.

I for one love the new political/social drive. Lyrics are very important to me. The new LP is brash, unafraid and vehement. I agree with their message that music, being such a powerful tool and a big part of modern life, needs to realise and utilise its capability for change rather than being frivilous, or at worst damaging, all the bloody time. That's a message I can get behind. I'm really tired of mysoginistic rap, materialistic brainless pop and repetitive, empty dance music.

However, I don't like Linkin Park's new sound. Sorry. The kindest way to describe it would be to say that it sounds like an amateur remix of their old stuff.


Rolling Stones article
AOL radio blog post

P.S. Would you guys be interested in some more music posts?

Tortured Artists

I'm in the middle of doing research for my in-class poetry presentation (tomorrow, eek!) and it's got me thinking. Many poets, musicians, actors, filmmakers, heck even fashion designers, have a history of depression, bad upbringings, romantic misfortune and general unhappiness, that leads to a significant portion of brilliant, artistic people choosing to end their lives. Without so much as touching Google I can already name names: Sylvia Plath, Alexander McQueen, and Kurt Cobain.

What is it about the burning drive to create that leaves so many lives deccimated? Even those artists who died natural deaths had miserable lives. From a literary perspective, there's Keats and Eliot. Keats' naturalistic style and gentle disposition attracted abuse and public belittlement through his shortened life. Eliot's first marriage was miserable, causing him to turn to alcohol until his wife died from a vareity of (physical and mental) issues. Emily Dickinson lived life as a near-recluse and nary a word of her work was published until after her death - even then, the first available tome had been heavily edited, removing nearly all of the quirks that characterises her writing.

The gruelling conditions of the professional music and acting world has turned so many to drugs, alcohol and similarly damaging habits. The scrutiny of the paparazzi, difficulties of long-distance romantic and familial relationships and social pressures of 'being famous' are bad enough for those who choose not to partake in the almost-expected substance abuse. Is the 'tortured artist trope' some psychological of physical malady which strikes only 'creative types', or is it a product of the demands and perceptions imposed on them by society? Yes, there are numbers of celebrities and notables from various spheres who lead content and almost ordinary lives. But personally I think the list of those with problems culminating in suicide, social retreat and/or professional retirement are is a little too long to ignore. Generally I don't advocate the use of Wikipedia for research, but it looks like I'm not the only one who has thought along these lines:
Wikipedia page of writers who committed suicide.
Wikipedia page of actors who committed suicide.
Wikipedia page of musicians who committed suicide.

Creating can be awfully lonely and the stress of professional artistry... I can't imagine it. Having been involved in amateur theatre as crew, writer, director and actor (as various times for various projects) and volunteer magazine writing (contributing poetry, prose and articles), I have a vague idea of the pressures, fears and processes involved in making your work public. I don't know what it's like to receive criticism, worry about making money from your work, fear competition or plagiarism, or be under scrutiny. It seems like every creative profession comes 'under fire' at one time or another. As an avid reader of blogs and an online shopper, I witness scandals and shady dealings with alarming frequency. Attacks, secrets and bad business happen often. There's was the Mineral Makeup Mutiny movement (now sadly abandoned), which attempted to warn people against independant sellers who repack wholesale pigments and products, and try to pass them off as something they 'created' through hard work and innovation. This is differnet to mainstream labels purchasing private label cosmetics because the independant companies are actually lying about the products, and often charging a ridiculous amount for something that could very easily be obtained from the wholesaler directly, for a margin of the price.Unfortunatley now there's the in-rank fighting, with companies and individuals attempting to discredit others through underhanded and frankly appalling tactics.

Why do artists get such a hard time? Every time I dream of being published, or wonder if I should start up an Etsy store to sell jewellry, I think of the drama that will eventually accompany it, and I think that I should probably finish my uni degree before I set myself up for more trouble (that doesn't stop me from biting off way more than I should in the theatre club, though)!

Until next we meet,
Jade.

P.S. I promise I'll get to the planned posts after I finish this presentation! I was going to make banana bread today and take photos for the post, but I accidentally over-slept this morning and ran out of time :/

Lost Genuis

Among my collection of CDs (some are pretty old, like late '90s old [Gwen Stefani, anyone?] and some more recent, like The Editors) site something a little different. The cover is black, and features an older man next to a piano. The man's name is Victor Borge, and he was one of the greatest musical comedians of the Western world.

Born in 1909 and emigrated to the U.S of A at age 31, Victor was to be one of the enormous and unforgettable talents of the '50s. The CD that I have is a recording of one of his performances, which I never tire of listening to, though I can recite many of the jokes. Not content to be 'just' a musician, or 'just' a comedian, Borge combined the two and charmed audiences throughout America. His own unique brand of stand-up (and sit-down) was a rich mixture of skilled piano playing, witticisms and familial anecdotes. Borge performed with many other stars, including Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan and renowned Opera singer Marilyn Mulvey.

Borge was an absolute master of music and language – even though English was not his native tongue. He used both in his performance escapades, once using an entire orchestra for a sketch! One of his more famous 'inventions' was called Phonetic Punctuation, in which he assigned punctuation marks noises, so that we could use them in speech to 'understand each other better'! He read a short chapter from a storybook to demonstrate his idea. My CD – a recording of his 1953 performance in Boston has long been my only record of this wonderful man's existence. He died in 2000, so I was unable to see him perform. On a whim, I put his name into a YouTube search. Lo and behold! Seems I'm not the only person with internet access who appreciates Borge's seemingly neglected genius. While I haven't been able to find the clip that corresponds to the performance I have on CD, these are all exceptionally brilliant and funny excerpts.

Watch and enjoy.