Lucky 13

So... luck or skill? I think any band who writes their own music, makes a demo, gets it to record company and gets signed, or anything like that, has done it on skill. On the other hand, anyone who is, well, a pop musician who gets stuff written for them, and does nothing but sing the song and reap the benefitis, is just a lucky punk.

The same goes for the "American Idol hopefulls". Anybody can win that stupid competition. It's only who the public wants to see get there. When it all comes down to it, the general populus of America (which consists of only idiots who watch that show to the end of the hour) votes on their future. So who do they want to see? The person that will sell the best of course. Their vocals could be mediocre compared to the others, but if they've got a pretty face, God help us all.

Still, I suppose there is some level of skill involved in any sort of musical artists career, you have to know somewhat what you're doing in order to get anywhere. That said, there is luck involved in this too. There will always be that defining moment, that special gig or record deal that made that artist big. This is really a personal opinion thing and one person may view it one way and the other the opposite - a fiery debate at best. Do you enjoy this artists' skill more than you notice how far they've come? When it comes down to it, it's how you view the artist in your own eyes.

Rant #2

My rant this week is going to be about bands who change their style. Okay, situation: you find this band on purevolume.com or whatever you absolutely love, you listen to them for a couple years, and soon enough they put out a new album - you're pumped, to say the least. It releases and to your dismay it seems they've gone from hard rock to (WTF) art rock. *coughthricecough* It sucks, right? I can't stand when bands do this, I think they lose fans this way, more than gain. One example is Atreyu, they had released three albums that were metalcore, heavy guitar riffs, lots of very unique screaming through the verses, and great guitar solos. Then they release "Lead Sails, Paper Anchor" where they chose to go all hard rock, to cut out most of the screaming, to change their entire sound, basically. The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't the Atreyu I knew and loved.

Exhibit A of course for this style change is Thrice. They started out very punk, with fast, distorted guitar, upbeat tunes, and slowly started maturing into something very unique. They peaked at Artist in the Ambulance, I believe, it has something for everything. Vheissu was good, but it seemed very niche, it was very ambient and slow stuff, but nevertheless good. Then they released The Alchemy Indexes. I can't even listen to this stuff. It's so weird, mostly acoustic, they are trying to portray the four elements; earth, wind, water, and fire, through the sounds and song names. It's just not for me, and it's too bad, but here's hoping for a better next album.

Thoughts On Music Technology #2

Thirteen weeks already, man... I think things are going a lot better in class. We get the office to ourselves more often, so that helps a lot for getting stuff mastered on Cubase. Yeah, I don't really have any complaints about the class, nothing I haven't enjoyed, it's just the fact that I have to get my butt in gear, I'm kinda falling behind in the class. I guess I'm a procrastinator because if it weren't for the deadlines for the blogs, none of them would be done by now. So, the thing that is the most challenging for me would have to be staying focused in class and getting stuff done out of class.

I really enjoy doing the myspace page, I think that's a cool idea, the hard part is getting time to talk to Liplock, with them being in first block. Just one thing though, I'm not sure exactly what you're expecting from the myspace, do you want us to make it just like real bands myspace, or is there some specific outline we should be following? That's the only thing I'm not sure about for the myspace. I still really enjoy doing lights at the shows, next time I'm going to listen to all the tracks the bands are doing so I can plan out the lights better than just making stuff up. I like mastering stuff, but I'm still sort of unsure about exactly what to do, and it's difficult, because only one person can do it at once in class.

All in all, the class is going alot better than the last time I wrote about my thoughts on Music Technology.