Double O idiocy.

Many things annoy me but one that stands out today is this,

Does it ever annoy you that people will love any spoon fed horse dung that is slapped onto their plate by producers, musicians etc?

My recent qualm is the skyfall song, for those of you unfamiliar skyfall is the recent instalment of the James bond series, which once produced amazing family entertainment with a guaranteed cheesy but wonderful song with epic proportions and as a fan that is what I came to expect, however my James bond experience has been heavily raped in recent times in both film and music.

I recently had a heated discussion with recent century morons who think they know their stuff (actually know fuck all) About the recent version from adele, whilst not overly sucking it fails to capture anything besides disappointment, now whilst debating, people not only compared it to diamonds are forever, which is absolutely insulting to say the least, but he also went on to declare the reason it is so “good” is by saying its the most bond like song in years…

Well no fucking shit, the last few servings of songs by apparent musical genius jack white made me want to thrust myself off a nearby cliff for an embarrassing failed piece of music which wasted the awesome ability of Alicia keys by utilising it in typical white stripes fashion (overrated and pretentious bullshit) and of course the “masterpiece” of die another day, who’s song of which only rivalled by the sheer mediocrity of the film itself. To claim a song is great yet by claiming to do so by comparison with epic mediocrity is not the way to do it, and by liking this trash is opening the door for every bond film from now on to simply pick a flavour of the month pop-star and shove a shit track down your throats and force it down like last weeks porridge and tell u how nice it is so you fools decide that what is actually average is the next best thing, hats of to idiocy.

Two examples of a great James bond song.

Now compare the 2 with this bullshit.

Now compare Adeles new track “SkyFall” to the first 2 videos, and you will get a more accurate comparison of how good it measures, rather than comparing with disgracefully poor efforts of the recent times.

Goodnight.

Music = Fashion

Music = Fashion

Ok, a little experiment for you. Look towards the back of your wardrobe for an item of clothing you haven’t worn for a while. Got one? Ok can you remember roughly what year you bought it?

My response, a light blue polo shirt from Topman that I got in 2007 (I think) now lets think to that year, the year was incredibly popular for guitar led indie music and bands that were huge at the time, i.e. The Kooks, The Pigeon Detectives, The Hoosiers, We Are Scientists, etc.

Now how long has it been since you’ve thought about any of those bands??

Music = Fashion

Regardless of whether you like those bands or not can you think of the last time you heard a song by the Kooks? Or how Emergency by The Pigeon Detectives goes? And can you remember what you were wearing in 2007 without looking at an old photograph?

Music = Fashion

Maybe you still follow these bands heavily and keep up to date with them, but the fact that 5 years ago, these guys were everywhere and now? Its barely noted if they have released a new album or are going on tour like it was 5 years ago, and this as a musician trying to be heard, kinda bothers me.

There are obviously gonna be bands and artists that have created legacies that will last forever, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, etc, etc, and loving this band or artist, will never in this context, go out of style.

But fast forward to today, and its a brutal industry, that seems to have no space for artists that aren’t constantly in the spotlight or don’t sell enough, see last years X factor winner Matt Cardle and several others before him, Leon Jackson anyone?

For better or worse, music is evolving all the time, I’m not crazy on the latest music trend (dubstep) but I can see why a lot of people like it and I admire the production on a lot of it. But think forward to another 5 years, is anyone going to remember who Skrillex is?

Its impossible to predict the future of music, only that CD sales will continue to fall, piracy is never going to stop and there will always be a tween popstar or group that the internet unites in its hatred of.

And again, there will be indie bands who will continue to be popular no matter what i.e. the Strokes and the Arctic Monkeys and there will always be big underground followings for other bands that just fall under the radar.

Or in fashion term, a good smart suit will always be in style, there will always be that one t-shirt from a music festival you won’t stop wearing or that one guy who needs to be told he needs to actually wash that one shirt every so often.

I’m Richard, And you’re awesome for reading this.

Gangnam Style. Isn’t It awesome?

Ok for everyone who hasn’t yet seen the video or heard the song go to youtube and check it out.

So your initial reaction to this was probably something along the WTF lines for both the song, the video, the dance, etc, me included. But then it got into the UK charts at number 37 just a few weeks ago, made number 1 in the Itunes chart and is now number 3 in the top 40 as I write this, and that got me thinking, how awesome is that?

For a song you can’t understand 95% of to get a chart position? Something which the winner of talent show The Voice failed to do. I for the record don’t dislike The Voice and liked the concept of putting people on the mic who could actually sing, rather than the usual xfactor method of ‘here’s a mic, knock yourself out’ car crash tv, which I can’t stand.

Still if you follow the chart regularly, which I still do as a musician just to keep up to date with whats out there, its wonderful to see another culture being accepted with such open arms, not to mention a song in a foreign language, I can’t remember the last time we saw a Korean act do this or if a Korean act ever has. The videos popularity appears worldwide, its recently become the most liked video on youtube and racks up about 10 million views a day at the moment.

I think what I love most about it is that its a breath of fresh air the top 40 charts kinda needs for people who still follow it. Playing every single 30 second sample of the top forty its stunning how closed to certain genres it is, and how the chart is mostly UK and american acts. At certain points, I can’t tell the difference between one song or another, I thought I’d just replayed the same sample by accident.

Despite the message of the song, which is actually meant to poke at fun at the fashionable district in in the Korean capital city Seoul, named Gangnam, It also has a feel of cheesy novelty with the dance moves. This makes me think of other songs along the lines of Saturday Night or The Macarena, songs the dancefloor can drunk dance to and not care if you’re looking stupid.

So I say we keep supporting different music acts and who knows what weird dances we’ll be doing in a years time, and if you like Psy, check out G-Dragon, K-pops equivalent of Lady Gaga, and for something a bit heavier, check out the Gazette who I’m really digging right now.

I’m Richard, and you’re awesome for reading this 🙂

P.s. I could never get the hang of The Macarena anyway………..

Welcome to MyooDigital

Welcome to MyooDigital, this is a sister blog to AizenDigital.com

While at Aizen we focus more on film and video, this blog will look into the gears that make sound and music amazing.

You will see regular fun, awesome and interesting posts from the 3 Composers: Marvin Dent, Chris Brett & Richard Batchelor.

Every now and then I may pop in… (Miren Patel host of AizenDigital)

Enjoy!