Falling for Fall Out Boy

It's been almost a year since I saw Fall Out Boy in concert. When I reviewed them, I said there were things I was not going to get into yet, so as I get to them now, I see that my lead time is about a year. That's a little worse than I expected.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/06/fall-out-boy-this-isnt-just-concert.html

The review covered a little bit about how I got into them, but doesn't really explain how powerful it was. My Chemical Romance videos kept leading to suggestions for "Dance, Dance", and I liked it, but it wasn't a big deal. That led to suggestions for "Sugar We're Goin' Down", which was a bigger deal, and I started to realize "I think I love them." The music kept getting better. That's not to say that I love every single track, but I kept wanting to listen to more, and for a few weeks there, every time I woke up my brain would start playing one of their songs. In terms of personal impact, My Chemical Romance has still been bigger, but this was nonetheless very big.

I had different reactions to different videos, which we will spend more time on tomorrow, but one thing I remember very clearly is comments posted on the video for "Sugar We're Going Down" asking what it meant and trying to figure out, and it was so obvious. So that's what I want to write about today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhG-vLZrb-g

I doubt their issue was with understanding why Antler Boy was being picked on, or why it was so wonderful for him to find a girl who accepted him. I'm pretty sure that they understood why even with her acceptance he would still try to cut off the antlers, and be touched by her stopping him. No, what really seems to confuse them is the father's objections and prejudices, when he has had deer feet all along.

I guess it takes a little more time and self-awareness to learn that we can take the things we haven't accepted about ourselves and turn all of that frustration and fear and anger and turn it outward, despising others who are similar. It's worse if it's something you can hide, because successful suppression can hold off the time when you just need to face it about yourself.

Ultimately, it takes the father attempted murder and serious injury to reach the place where he can't deny it anymore: he has deer hooves. It is rock bottom, but then there's no place to go but up, and it's better. He's not just at peace with his daughter's relationship, but he's at peace with himself now. It is demonstrated by his no longer concealing his feet, but the body language and facial expression are more relaxed too; he is so much more relaxed. The burden wasn't having deer hooves, it was trying to hide it, even from himself. His self-acceptance is liberating and beautiful.

As satisfied as I am with that explanation, it does remind me of one other thing that I am going to touch on, which I started to notice as guys I went to school with started having baby girls who started growing up and just getting prettier and more likely to draw attention from boys. Suddenly, they start feeling a protectiveness that I suspect is worse if they were not always the most respectful dates in their own youth.

Until you see the deer hooves, and the acceptance that comes along with the reveal, it could easily look like that's where the video is going. This is especially true after the skirt incident, with maybe a little bit of extra rejection because she's dating a freak (conformity versus non-conformity being a constant struggle).

So we could go that way, except that so far I don't think any of my friends facing up to how much they wanted to touch girls would magically make them suddenly feel good about other boys approaching their daughters - the more they think about it, the worse it gets.

And, I wouldn't expect them to go that way. I don't know about director Nathan Killham at the time, but certainly no one in the band had a daughter until recently, and you wouldn't expect them to think that way, whereas self-acceptance is always important.

However, for new father of a daughter Joe Trohman, and for my friends with little girls, yes, she will grow into someone independent and this will cause some fear. You can't prevent that.

You can...

• make sure she always knows that you love her, and that she deserves that love
• if you help her find things that she's good at and acknowledge her success
• give her opportunities to play sports and hike and learn self-defense, so she sees the strength of her body, not just its appearance
• show her by your actions that you respect women as equals, and people, and that you are not constantly judging them by their looks and weight and clothes
• be a safe place for her when she's sad or scared and needs to talk

You can't stop her from growing up, but you can help her have the confidence and self-respect that will help her do it successfully, and make good choices.

Self-acceptance is a beautiful thing. Don't stand in the way of hers, or anyone's. If that means accepting yourself first, even more beautiful.

Fall Out Boy: That video could make a good comic book

I will probably spend more time on obvious rock/comic connections later, but today I'm starting with an article I read a long time ago. It was about movie adaptations, and that it made more sense to adapt short stories than novels. With a novel you end up having to cut things out, and fans of the book get angry, but with a short story you have room to fill in.

A music video is already a film, but because of its short length, there may indeed be room for expansion. I find this especially true of "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew6x6sHiFaw

I can't rule out that there could have been plans for a sequel. The ending is so up in the air, they might as well have left Joe frozen in carbonite. Even without the lack of closure, there are a lot of questions about what we do see that could be filled out.

Not everything is a question. I did initially think it was odd the way the first attacking vampires are doing their moves instead of actually attacking, and who was that one guy walking around spying on the street vampires, but then I realized the video was probably funded by phone product placement, and it made sense.

(I figured that one out after seeing the video for "I Wanna".)

Still, there are many other things that I do question. For example, with those street vampires, are they living in their cars? In some ways based on their activities it seems like they are, but I can't imagine that would work well in the daytime. Are these vampires vulnerable to sunlight? I've written vampires who weren't, but based on Patrick's words about shadows, I'm kind of assuming that the sun still kills.

The other thing that's surprising is that the foppish vampires seem to have such a strong fighting advantage over the street vampires, who look a lot tougher, however, I think it could be explained by the period clothing indicating that the fops have been vampires longer, and are thus more experienced.

That does lead to other questions about exactly how widespread the vampirism epidemic is. Are there strong rivalries, beyond dress code, among the various vampire factions? Can those rivalries be exploited for the greater good, or are there just too many vampires for it to matter?

That leads to another excellent point; how is vampirism transmitted in this world? Patrick gets several bites at the end, but does not appear to be vampiric - which is good. That was generally how vampires were made in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" but they did have some people get bitten without turning, so it's not impossible that it is usually instantaneous.

If it is something where turning comes from prolonged feedings (like Dracula) or various arcane rituals (like The Lost Boys or The Vampyre), then do normal vampire feeding victims just die and stay dead? It has a big impact on the environment, but it also raises questions for the existing vampires. How did they get the priest? Was he conspiring all along? Was he good and then corrupted? How did they get Pete? Was he imprisoned? How long has the police force been compromised? Because the idea of everyone around you turning into vampires kind of reminds me of Rhinocéros. Je me défendrai contre tout le monde!

There are questions with the girl. You see her at the end, but they don't show fangs. Can she be helpful? Because one thing I have wondered about is that in the earlier scene she looks a little more street-walkery than at the end, but maybe it is really only that she looks more '80s; how much time has passed? How long has Pete been undead?

If he did save her in 1985, and then she still looks the same age in 2006, she's totally a vampire, though she could be a reluctant one, but there are other things that make that timeline unlikely. Did the incident change her? If nothing else, I hope she at least took some self-defense classes and started carrying a stake. Once you learn that there are gangs of vampires on the streets, it's just common sense, and even more it's common courtesy for those who might try and save you.

The reason I don't like the extended timeline is that I think it feels more powerful if Pete became undead after the relationships were established with the other hunters, as opposed to him having been a vampire for a few decades already by the time they become adults. It would better explain some of the tensions that I have possibly only imagined.

Conversely, becoming a vampire and not wanting to be a vampire could give strong motivation to Pete to become a hunter, otherwise, why did any of them? There would be interesting back stories there with their unusual skills. Patrick is clearly the man of science and reason, but how do figure out how to develop a serum to keep a vampire from losing total control even as his anger grows?

Where did Andy learn those moves? Seriously, if we are splitting into groups to go patrol, I want to be on team Hurley. Unless he didn't tell his date why they were going to park on the ridge. That would be seriously uncool.

I think they are making Joe the heavy artillery guy/ heavy hitting guy, and that works, but they didn't show it enough. (I feel that you don't get full Joe power with short hair though; I have similar issues.)

Finally, with Pete, what is the burning hand of death thing and what's with the sparks? Establishing the full range of vampiric powers, and if there are variations, and the most effective means of killing them, are all important things. Sometimes there is more variation than you would think.

Also, okay, this isn't so much a question as a statement, but that puppy better be a calming agent and not a snack. There are lines you simply do not cross.

Basically, there is just a lot to work with here, and I think it could be good in comic book form. And yes, I have spent too much time thinking about this video, and I do over-analyze things. I thank you for not blaming me for being me, and I don't blame you for hating it, though if you do hate it this is totally not the right blog for you.

Regardless, I like my clocks to be set to the exact time, and punctuality is quite important to me.

Band Review: Breakaway

I guess I've been hearing a lot of power chords lately, because something that really stood out to me with Breakaway is their use of simple, higher melodies. The intros to "At The World's End" and "The Bitter Truth" are good examples. It's not all they do, but it was refreshing.

Their overall sound is very earnest, more pleading than angry, so with that they do fit well within pop, but leaning more toward the rock side.

At this point they are still a fairly new band, with five songs available on one EP, One Minute | One Moment, but they are working on their debut album and it sounds like they are gaining some good experience. They're doing all right.

With the EP available as a free download from their web site, and the songs also readily available as a Youtube playlist, there is no reason not to check them out.

http://wearebreakaway.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Breakawayofficial

https://www.youtube.com/user/officialbreakaway

https://twitter.com/Breakawayaus

Band Review: Fox & Cats

Fox & Cats is a rock duo from Houston. Despite only having two people, they nonetheless achieve a full sound, possibly with more emphasis on rhythm.

"Write It Off" was my favorite, with its strong percussion and clean sound. Other tracks remind me more of Jane's Addiction and The Black Crowes, kind of, possibly because singer Josh Willems usually sounds a little more angsty.

Drummer Nicole Wiggington does not stick to hitting just drum heads and cymbals, and sometimes the clicks fill out the sound much better than regular taps and rolls would, I think showing a good instinct for where the music should go.

Their EP This is Your Brain on Love is currently available on Bandcamp, but a full-length release and touring is in the works.

https://www.facebook.com/foxandcats

http://foxandcats.bandcamp.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/FoxandCats

https://twitter.com/foxandcats

Comic Review for MOOC Module 3: Social Inequality

At some point I am going to need to spend some time on how connected everything is. In the futuristic dystopias that are built by environmental abuse social inequality plays a role, social inequality allows much of the environmental abuse to occur, and it is a breeding ground for the issues that make addiction possible. So, at some point I will talk about that, and it won't be so much about comics.

The other thing worth pointing out is that it was actually X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills or The Movement, I suspect because the X-Men one could be hard to find. I did not notice the "or" until after I had read one and ordered the other. I believe I would have read both anyway.

Lazarus, Vol. 1: Family, written by Greg Rucka, art and letters by Michael Lark with Stefano Gaudiano and Brian Level, colors by Santi Arcas, Recommended!

Scalped Vol. 1: Indian Country, written by Jason Aaron, art by R.M. Guéra. Not recommended.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, written by Chris Claremont, art by Brent Anderson, Recommended!

The Movement, Vol. 1: Class Warfare, written by Gail Simone, art by Freddie E. Williams II, colors by Chris Sotomayor, and letters by Carlos M. Mangual, Okay.

March (Book One), written by John Robert Lewis and Andrew Aydin, art by Nate Powell, Recommended!

Anyway, it was fine to do extra reading here, because I was the most prepared. I had already read the first issue of Lazarus in December, as well as March, and read Scalped in April, ahead of schedule, so it could go with my Native American Heritage reading. Also, it's fair to say that if you have seen the second X-Men movie that God Loves, Man Kills will not be completely unfamiliar.

I kind of hated Scalped. It is foul and violent and sordid. I understand why that would seem appropriate. I also acknowledge that it was feeling less so at the end of the first volume. Some of that may have been getting past the initial shock, but I think Aaron also came on heavier at the beginning to pull you in. Still, especially after seeing that Gina is dead (not because of the name, but because she seemed the most sympathetic) I don't think there is anything to pull me back. (She looked dead anyway. Comics being comics, I could be wrong.)

I have a lot of love for Gail Simone, which made me want to like The Movement more, but it felt kind of unfocused and that was frustrating. That doesn't even mean it was bad, I have just read better.

God Loves, Man Kills was really bold, and effective in its storytelling. There was an artist change due to some contract issues, and that led to an action-filled set-piece with Magneto being scrapped that was gong to be the introduction. As cool as that could have been, I don't think anything could have affected me like the opening they did use, where two black children are hunted down, murdered, and left hanging from a swing set as a warning to other mutants. Yes, there are parallels in the mutant story to stories of other prejudices and oppressions, and there should be, and they work. That's not to say that some of the things that happen with Dr. Xavier's brainwashing don't seem a little over the top, they do, but overall there is real emotion and drama.

Lazarus is great. Again, it's a time when you are dealing with some very venal people, but you can sympathize with Forever, and hope for her even as you wonder how things could possibly turn out.

I know I keep coming back to whether human elements are present or lacking. It's important to me. Just as it can be something easily overlooked in superhero comics, or in speculative fiction, it can be helpful in what we know of real life too. We know John Lewis for his Civil Rights work, and his government work, but March is a chance to see him as a child and a young man, to see the fears and courage of everyone in the movement, and it's valuable.

I am putting links to previous related posts below, but also as all of these were volumes, and not merely issues, every single one has a review on Goodreads.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/04/native-american-heritage-month-2013.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/01/comics-review-comixologys-12-days-of.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/12/comics-review-march-and-montgomery-story.html

Comic Review for MOOC Module 2: Environment

This is where we get to my incomplete reading. The optional readings for the environment included Snow Piercer, Volumes 1 and 2, and I have not read them yet. One thing about this class is that there are more extended sections, where you read a whole volume instead of one or two issues. Many of them are available in trades, and many of them are available through our library. So, when possible, I have been checking these out instead of buying. The class would be prohibitively expensive otherwise. I think I will still end up spending about the same amount of money that I did for the last class, but reading a lot more.

Anyway, it feels like I have been waiting forever for Snow Piercers (and The Harlem Hellfighters, but that's for something different), but they were in the optional, and I can include it when I write about the next two modules, so I guess it works.

I like a lot of these more passionately, though that does not necessarily mean they make a strong environmental point. Several of them have the landscape created by things gone wrong in the environment, but that is the end of it as a theme.

Swamp Thing: Rot World, written by Scott Snyder, art by Yanick Paquette, Pretty good.

The Massive, Vol. 1: Black Pacific, written by Brian Wood, art by Kristian Donaldson and Garry Brown, Pretty good.

Hinterkind Vol. 1: The Waking World, written by Ian Edginton, art by Francesco Trifogli, colors by Cris Peter, Recommended!

Hawkeye #7, written by Matt Fraction, art by Steve Lieber and Jesse Hamm, colored by Matt Hollingsworth, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos. Recommended!

Optional

Swamp Thing, Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing, written by Alan Moore, art by Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben. Recommended!

Climate Changed: A Personal Journey through the Science, by Philippe Squarzoni, Recommended!

As you can see, my most tepid recommendations are "pretty good" - this was a good unit.

The Massive was interesting, but it jumped around a lot. I thought it was hard to follow, but maybe I didn't love it enough to pay the attention it needed. There is some effort required, anyway. There are some interesting things coming in though so that even though I did not love it, I could still totally see myself checking out the next volume.

Rot World was pretty easy to follow, but it was another of those books where everything goes crazily to pot, and then is undone with some time travel, which is not my favorite thing. That is somewhat compensated for by a couple of interesting concepts. One is the interplay of The Green (plant life) with the Red (animal life), as represented by Swamp Thing and Animal Man, and the Rot as also a necessary component and part, but dangerous because it was out of balance due to Anton Arcane's evil. The solution, of going back and replacing Anton with Abby does work, because the cost of that, to her and to Swamp Thing, is a price worthy of that sort of salvation. It was also a neat idea that heroes and villains with some plant or animal parts fared better in standing against the Rot. There was some neat plotting.

Saga of the Swamp Thing was not as clearly environmental as Rot World, but having some familiarity with Swamp Thing and then going back and reading that original reboot was amazing. The relationship between man and nature is probably brought up most in the story arc of the Floronic Man who, despite his awfulness, engendered some pity by the end, but the real strength of the book was the question of identity and trying to find your way. There is some beautiful use of language, and some audacity. I don't know what more I can say, except that I admire Alan Moore more for this than for Watchmen.

And now for the ones I really love!

Hinterkind is gorgeous. I love the color palette Cris Peter uses, Trifogli's renderings, and I am attached to the characters. I am sticking with the series past the assignment because I want to know what happens.

I not only bought Hawkeye #7, but since that one sale had gotten me issues 1-5, I also bought 6, even though it had nothing to do with the environment. I mean, why not be complete? Fraction, Hamm, and Lieber are top-notch, and the way the comic took a real event with Hurricane Sandy and showed people dealing with it was touching and inspiring, as well as feeling pretty realistic.

Climate Changed is a very hard book. One of the recurring themes of the interviews, and a lot of other things that you see, is that we are past the point of no return on climate. The book explains what that means better, and what it means is that there are changes that are going to occur over the next 30 years that we cannot stop and that are pretty bad, but then for beyond that we do still have a window of opportunity to prevent even worse catastrophe.

Laying out all of that, including what already is, what additional danger there is, and knowledge that this is being largely ignored, can be overwhelming. I had to pace myself going through, to not take on too much at once. That being said, the information is clear, the art is beautiful, the recurring theme of literary and film references as you think about the concept of ending a book, and what that means, especially for this topic, is effective, and the book truly is really both scientific and personal. Everyone should read this one, because it is not just entertainment, it is our present and future.

Again, that knowledge that people are ignoring it, and that it can be easily ignored but should not be, is disconcerting. There are some things my family does fairly well, but that is one household on the planet, and even making the improvements possible for us feels very small. So, it feels like there should be something more, and I am not sure where that will lead yet. That's okay. The caring shouldn't end just because the next module begins, and it won't.

Comic Review for MOOC Module 1: Addiction

I felt like I had gone too long without writing about comics. The last round of reviews was really only in late March, which was not bad, but I think I have been reading so much that it is building up. Yes, I think there was only two weeks left for music videos, but we may be getting into some overlapping areas, and it feels right to take this week and catch up on comics.

I have been taking a Massive Online Open Course, Social Issues through Comic Books. I have currently done most of the reading for three out of five modules: Addiction, Environment, and Social Inequality. It is not all, because there are a few books I am still trying to get my hands on, but they are also extra, and because there are two modules left, there will clearly be another round left anyway.

One issue that I have when reading comics is that I have such a drive to know the story that I usually don't fully appreciate the art on the first pass, and need to go through it again. With the MOOC there is an added level of complexity, because I need to think about it not just in terms of art and story but also how the social issue is being handled. Not only is that more to think about, but it means that there are some where I am really going to want to discuss spoilers, which I normally avoid in reviews.

So I think the way to handle this is to start with a list of the materials and whether I recommend them or not, and then everything below that may contain spoilers. We read a lot of comics, but there are also academic articles, interviews, and other material, some of which I may bring in as concepts are discussed.

Addiction:

Buzzkill #1-4, written by Donny Cates and Mark Reznicek, Art by Geoff Shaw, Colors by Lauren Affe, Recommended!

Green Lantern V2 #85 and 86, written by Denny O'Neil, pencils by Neal Adams, Inks by Dick Giordano,  Not recommended

Batman: Venom (The Dark Knight #16-20), written by Denny O'Neil, Art by Russ Braun, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Trevor Von Eeden, Not recommended

Sex Criminals #1, written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky, partial recommendation because it is well written but the content is very adult. I am not continuing with it, but I can see that some people would.

Optional:

The Invincible Iron Man, Vol 7: My Monsters, multiple story runs include work from Matt Fraction, Salvador Larroca, Kano, Howard Chaykin, and Carmine Di Giandomenico, Recommended!

Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle, written by David Michelinie, art by John Romita Jr, Bob Layton, and Carmine Infantino, Not horrible, but not recommended.

Red Light Properties #0, art and story by Dan Goldman, less recommended, but not bad.

Also, I think this came up in one of the discussions, but I totally recommend this web comic about the Rat Park experiment by Stuart McMillen:

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/#page-1

Maybe it's easier to start with the ones that I don't recommend. One of the interviews was with Denny O'Neil, and I liked him very much, so I don't want to be giving bad reviews to his writing. There are probably reasons why they didn't work.

With Green Lantern, he was in it, but it was really about Green Arrow and his ward Speedy getting hooked on drugs. Part of why I could not like it was that I could not like Green Arrow at all. I could not believe anyone ever did. And I suspect there was something captured in terms of how a lot of people would view those with drug problems, but it was hard to sympathize. The part that worked best for me was just a throwaway line, when one of the villains talks about the racism his father faces and the release in his weapon collection:

"All day long he answers to Chink...Slant. At night he comes home and grooves on the armament -- pretends he's Genghis Khan or somebody.. pretends he's killing his bosses instead of kissing their feet. Pop's escape trip."

But he's found another escape trip in drugs, and then his black friend one-ups him because he hears much worse names, and the drugs help him get by. There's a lot in there, but it doesn't get unpacked because these are ultimately disposable bad guys.

Part of the problem may be that with most of these, when the writer has addiction experience, it is with alcohol, and that is so different legally and socially that while it is not completely unrelated, it's still not equivalent.

Batman's Venom storyline was an interesting idea, but it needed more thought. Batman's addiction felt so contrived. Yes, he would be upset about not being able to save a kidnapped child from drowning, but the father was so unaffected by the death, and so focused on pushing the pills onto Batman, how could he not tell that something was up? Batman is supposed to be smart!

It was a nice touch that Batman's turning point was being asked to kill Jim Gordon, but Batman's long fall, and time chasing the wrong villains, and time in improbable rehab don't show you that drugs are bad because it is too unrealistic, even before the shark comes into play.

I think where it lost me was that life was too cheap in this. Both of the main villains sacrifice their children, innocent people die, and ultimately Batman is not heroic enough. What's the point in having superheroes if the villains cause that much damage first. (You may draw your own Man of Steel comparisons.)

Where Buzzkill and My Monsters work are because they feel real, and human. In My Monsters, one of the segments has Tony speaking in an AA meeting. It is humorous because the artwork shows events that are much more dramatic than what he is describing, though everything he says is true, just with higher stakes and more robotics, but ultimately it is a true story of how addiction happened and working with it, warm, funny, and touching.

Buzzkill is much darker, because the character is so sympathetic, and ultimately his demons are too strong. I tried thinking of alternative scenarios, where he could have made it, like if his father had died in the first battle, but that would have done different things to him. Maybe sometimes there is just too much stacked against you. Just the fact that I did look for other resolutions, however, shows the impact it had.

I don't have as much to say about Sex Criminals and Red Light Properties because they were both free introductions, and where I can see how addiction could come up, it's not really there. The main characters in Sex Criminals can stop time when, well, technically I think it's the orgasm that does it. It does appear that they are making some questionable choices, and with that ability, sex addiction certainly seems possible, but it is not necessarily a factor and again, that content is not really for me.

The protagonist in Red Light Properties rids homes of ghosts, but needs substances to accomplish it. Dealing with the ghosts looks like it may have a worse toll than anything he ingests, but this is just a brief introduction. It's an interesting concept, but the art mixes drawings with photos, and I find it a bit disorienting, though you could argue that works for the concept. 

Update: After watching the Matt Fraction interview, he also said that the main characters were not sex addicts, but what I had not thought of until then was that other characters in the book do have substance issues, so it fits in well there. It is still just really adult content.

Band Review: The Relationship

I first got interested in reviewing The Relationship because of Brian Bell, also of Weezer. I enjoyed listening to their album, but I now have doubts that the review was a good idea, because their web site only has a video you can't watch, and most of the features aren't enabled on the Facebook side, which made me wonder if it was worth promoting the band. However, they seem to post on Facebook regularly, and played a gig in Los Angeles recently, and there's never anything wrong with listening to a good album.

Weezer is not the only related band, as The Relationship also features Anthony Burulcich of The Bravery, Nate Shaw of The Huns, and I may not know what other bands Jon LaRue has been in, but I do not doubt that he has past musical experience. They know what they are doing.

The songs have a mellow sound, showing influences from earlier bands like Buddy Holly and The Beatles. "You Rock My Heart" especially demonstrates that - the crooning and juke joint piano invokes guys with slicked up hair in matching white shirts, blue jackets, and black string ties. "Master Plan" with its hints of brass and building chorus, reminds me of Yellow Submarine-era Beatles, but "Thought I Knew" sounds fairly modern.

My favorite, though, is "Please Help Me". The textures and rhythm are interesting, but mainly for me it had the highest emotional impact, pulling me down into it.

At this point I feel like the web site is a weakness - it might be better to toss it and focus on Facebook - and the only purchasing option I could find was a limited number of import CDs on Amazon. (They are on Spotify, which is how I listened.) Those things can be frustrating for fans, and they can hold back the band. They are not reflections on the music, however, which is of course the most important thing.

Check out the music.

http://www.therelationshipband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/TheRelationship

https://twitter.com/RelationshipUs

Band Review: Slim Wray

Slim Wray is an alternative rock band based in Brooklyn.

Initially I was thinking they were English, because there are spots where they felt very British Invasion to me. Maybe it was because they covered "Gloria", but the band also lists the Animals and the Kinks as influences, so it kind of makes sense. There's a pair of pants in their video for "Bear" that certainly looks like they could come from the '60s.

Some of that is the willingness to incorporate other sounds. The intro to "Bear" sounds a little bit Eastern influenced, whereas "I Gotta Girl (With a List of Needs)" is more reminiscent of surf music, but fuzzier. They have some interesting combinations, but always solidly rock.

The benefit from simplicity. Pared down to drums and guitar, the instruments come through strong. Sometimes rhythm and percussion seems to dominate, like on "Cutout", and other times there are more complicated melodies, as on "Long Long Way." Still solidly rock.

Their album, Sack Lunch, is available via Amazon and iTunes.

http://www.slimwray.com/

https://www.facebook.com/slimwrayband

https://www.youtube.com/user/slimwray

https://twitter.com/slimwray

Sexist music videos

With yesterday's post, I had some videos in mind, but I did a Google search to see if I was missing anything, and that's how I find Sky Ferreira. I tried to do the same thing with today's topic, but all the results were for "sexiest music videos" instead. I am now a little impressed that I did not get any hits on "raciest music videos" for the previous search.

Searching on "sexism in music videos" worked a little better, but did not turn up much, so this will pretty much be about "Blurred Lines", "Wrecking Ball", and the unholy union of their performers at the Video Music Awards.

I don't think I can link to anything. I linked to some awful videos yesterday, and one really stupid one Monday, but these are just so ugly and degrading and not even well done.

Like with the VMAs, I suppose the point of all the teddy bears was to do that thing where we put symbols of childhood innocence with symbols of sexuality, which many find titillating, but they were such ugly teddy bears! And I get that all of the stuff with the foam finger and the tongue and the humping was about sex, but it was sorely lacking in sexiness. There are valid reasons for not watching erotic things, but this had nothing to do with that. There are so many problems with it, I don't even know how to begin. Fortunately, I do have a chance to compare a bad video with a better video, so that's where I will start.

Cyrus claimed Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U" as part of her inspiration for "Wrecking Ball". She wanted to have something that personal and powerful. Both songs are about grief at the loss of a relationship, so that makes sense.

O'Connor's video consists mainly of a close-up of her face, dressed in black and singing against a black background. This conveys mourning, and there is a starkness to it that is compatible with the expression of emptiness. Cyrus has a similar close-up, though it is not as harshly focused and the background is white, which can also be associated with death, and can convey emptiness. Both have tears at times. So far, that's not really a problem.

O'Connor's other footage is her walking through Parc de Saint-Cloud in Paris. Every shot seems to contrast vegetation (like grass or trees), with stone. There is a hardness to the world, despite its beauty. Everything stays stark.

Cyrus also has footage of a wrecking ball crashing through walls and reducing them to rubble. That imagery works with the song, and the sense of being destroyed by the loss. The footage is not quite as good as the Paris footage, but is reasonably well done.

So far the videos are reasonably equivalent and they make their point, but that's not why people talk about "Wrecking Ball". There is also footage of Miley barely dressed and licking a sledgehammer, and both barely dressed and naked riding the wrecking ball, and looking turned on against the rubble.

Oddly, this undercuts the message. It distracts from the grief, and frankly is a little weird especially licking the sledgehammer part. Technically that should be her own instrument of destruction, so if she wielded it against the wrecking ball, that could be futile attempts to fight it, but instead she tongues it?

I know they say the nudity is to show how vulnerable she is as she comes clean about this breakup, but also it seems to me that the breakup was only official at the time of the release. Maybe the relationship was emotionally over, but if you are able to maintain the public semblance of the relationship until the ideal announcement time from a PR angle, I suspect you may not be completely destroyed. Perhaps I am too cynical.

The way the nudity is shot, the video can still be shown on television, but I could not help but think that director Terry Richardson got to see it all. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the man who executed this concept has a reputation for inappropriate sexual behavior, of leaving his models feeling uncomfortable and dirty, or actually being abused.

There is something else that strikes me about Cyrus, though, as she cuts short and bleaches her gorgeous hair, sticks out her tongue instead of boring smiling, and puts on clothes that are revealing but not pretty, that maybe she is not just rebelling against her former Disney image. Maybe she is rebelling against a world where she is supposed to be ornamental, and sexually available enough to not be icy, but not so much as to be slutty, and where you actually can't win. She just may need some coaching on how to rebel effectively, rather than being filmed by Terry Richardson and grinding on the singer of "Blurred Lines".

"Blurred Lines" is not a particularly well-done video. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to put the choreography with the tune, props are pretty random, and sometimes there is a jittery effect that doesn't seem to serve any purpose. Basically, it is clothed men ogling naked women who enjoy the attention. In that sense, it does serve the song perfectly.

I know people have given different interpretations of the song; I have a friend who thinks it's about someone hitting on a married woman. It is certainly true that there is a double standard in place where there is a stigma on women for having sex that men do not face, and that is unfair. If you don't believe in chastity for anyone, then encouraging women to play around just as much as men sounds reasonable. So I get that, but I can't help but think that a song going along those lines might be more likely to ask "Do you want it?" rather than outright declaring "I know you want it."

Sure, liberating sounds better than domesticating, but both the singer and the previous guy are taking the view that she is an animal; why isn't it that "We're both animals?" That imbalance is reinforced by the clothing in the video, where the men are fully dressed and the women are naked, even though presumably if they were going to have sex, both sides would undress.

It has been rightly pointed out that "I know you want it" is the language of rapists, and putting those together, other red flags pop up. There are hints at violence, and echoes of things Pick Up Artists say. There is a reference to drugs, as a way of loosening resistance. I've got someone else, but she is not as bad as you, so let's do this, and multiple times calling the subject of the song "bitch". And it's never asking a question; why would she get a say?

Another Google search I had done recently was sexualized images in advertising, which I looked up after reading a chapter about advertising, and the descriptions sounded really bad. Looking at actual images, yes, those descriptions were accurate, but I had never thought of it like that because that kind of imagery is so prevalent, and it is all women. The only male images that came up were some salad dressing ads that had made everyone uncomfortable, but when a woman is reduced to her body, or parts of her body, we're used to that.

Again, I will be spending more time on sexism and beauty and objectification later; this blogging segment is about music videos. I maintain that what we watch and what we propagate matters, and maybe it's more timely after last weekend.

https://twitter.com/lizgartley/status/470520341039939585/photo/1

http://gawker.com/why-is-it-so-hard-for-people-to-get-that-elliott-rodger-1582030975

http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/

Racist music videos

This week I am watching and listening to a lot of stuff that I would normally avoid like the plague. I will be glad when it's over. I do it though, because I believe that it matters. The representations we make and popularize matter. The choices are not always made consciously, but they are still choices. If you're new here, I'm pretty much all about consciousness and thinking about what you do.

The videos that were foremost in my mind were "Hard Out Here" by Lily Allen and "Hello Kitty" by Avril Lavigne, which naturally reminded me of Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Girls, although I did not know of a specific video for that; it was more that she made them accessories for her life.

Doing some searching, other things that came up were Sky Ferreira's "I Blame Myself", as well as "Royals" by Lorde and "D.R.U.G.S." by Iggy Azalea, but more for lyrics than video issues.

One thing that both Ferreira and Allen said in their defense was that they just picked the best dancers, and wouldn't it be wrong to pick other people based on race? This is leading us into the same area where people argue that Affirmative Action is wrong because it involves discrimination, and I want to see if I can deconstruct that.

First, remember that thing about the writing staff for "The Colbert Report" being 100% white and almost 100% male. Colbert said it wasn't deliberate, and that he only looks at writing. That's just how it worked out.

That also ignores that in terms of networking and getting doors opened and knowing where to ask, white males are at an advantage. By not casting a broader net, you can miss excellent writers. The other factor, and possibly more relevant one, is that the white males are probably going to be more similar to him in their points of view, and appear more desirable.

That doesn't have to be conscious. It's possible that if you dug deeper you would also notice some similarities in geography or marital status or educational background -- there are many factors that contribute to our worldview -- but when you surround yourself with people who think the same way, you miss out on other relevant thoughts. The humor can get kind of repetitive, and every now and then you get a bit that is appallingly tone-deaf.

So let's look at "I Blame Myself". Ferreira appears to be a drug dealer, working with other dealers. She is white, but the other dealers and their customers are all dark-skinned. The cops are white. She is arrested, and apparently tries to use sex to evade the charges, or at least to profess her self-loathing.

The dancers are fine, as far as that goes, but I suspect there was also a feeling that the final configuration that came with that looked right, and part of that feeling that it looked right was because the drug dealers were black.

Perhaps I am being somewhat influenced by a picture posted of Lebron James recently where it was said that he looked like a Jamaican drug dealer, and no, I think he looks like he is going on vacation. I am not sure what part of the picture says "drug dealer" other than his race. I'm trying to imagine someone white in the same outfit getting the same comment, and I can't. They might get mocked for the shirt, but not for looking like a drug dealer.

http://twicsy.com/i/5N3TBe

The sad thing about this is how far the belief is from reality. White Americans are as or more likely to use drugs as the black population, and they deal too. Most buyers buy from people of the same race and economic status. However, people of color are much more likely to get arrested, and that image does not help.

(You can find some information at http://www.policymic.com/articles/89653/7-actual-facts-that-prove-white-privilege-exists-in-america, but anyone who has not yet read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow should.)

I in no way mean to imply that this was a deliberate choice, but I do think it's a good rule of thumb to step back and take a look at these things. Oh, all of the drug dealers and users are black, that's interesting. Is that really what I want to say? This brings us to Lily Allen.

(I'm not sure I can say anything about Avril Lavigne. Yes, she is using them as props, yes they are dehumanized, but I'm having a hard time getting past how vapid it is. Here's further reading; have at it:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/88221/it-s-almost-impossible-to-choose-the-most-racist-moment-of-avril-lavigne-s-new-video )

So, "Hard Out There", immediately followed by "for a b*tch, which seems like it must be inspired by "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow, which, for what it's worth, I believe was actually more racially balanced than Allen's video. Once again the defense is that these were just the best dancers, and the reason she is more covered up than they are is only because their bodies are better, and she is in no way putting them down when she says that she does not need to shake for you because she has a brain. Just because you hired these women specifically for the purpose of shaking, how could that possibly be construed as any kind of comment on them?

The thing is, there is a spark of something valuable in the beginning. On an operating table, facing rejections without cosmetic surgery, being criticized for letting herself go after having two children by an old guy whom no one expects or needs to be attractive, yes, there is a point there that people can relate to. You then go on and reject the image of the black women, when they were never your competition. They're not getting liposuction; they have padding and that is what they are shaking. Best yet, you are rejecting them after putting them through the same poses and moves and objectification the average video does.

There are different options for making the same point. She could have compared herself to ridiculously thin mannequins and watched them come apart, or fall over and shatter, triumphing in substance over appearance. I don't know if there was some previous image she had, but maybe she could find herself not fitting into that, and then being welcomed by the twerkers, and accepting their warmth and embrace of a larger size while still being vibrant and desirable. She could have walked past display cases of various stereotyped women and freed them all, allowing them to be real humans. Instead, she went with a resolution that while it may have been empowering for her plays into anti-blackness.

And here, I may be unduly influenced by recent comments about Lupita Nyong'o and Rupert Everett's comments about Beyonce.

It is somewhat interesting to me that of the various women mentioned here, only Sky Ferreira is from the United States. New Zealand, Australia, and Canada all have their own experiences with colonialism and aboriginal issues, and oddly, all via England. There may be other differences where when they criticize hip hop culture it is coming from a different place, and so they make the wrong criticisms, but without knowing why.

We will spend more time on racism later, beyond music videos. The point I want to make right now is that we need to think about it. It's common with accusations of racism to either deny it, or to say "Well everybody's racist." Neither of those is really thought out, and both of those are for ending the discussion. That leaves us where we are, which is not good enough.

In other words, while it is obvious that if you are openly promoting racism you suck, you can also suck by upholding an existing bad structure. Don't suck.

Hard Out Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0CazRHB0so

Hello Kitty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiaYDPRedWQ

I Blame Myself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWo7SC-tG4U

http://www.hollywood.com/news/celebrities/56963781/popular-yet-racist-music-videos

You wouldn't recognize the best song ever if it punched you in your stupid face!

And I hope it does!

About two years ago I had a spell of listening to pop music, and I really came away hating One Direction. I also came away realizing that they are important to many people I care about, and that can be okay, so I usually don't say anything.

I still hate them so much. I know it goes past logic. Just being in the mall once I caught the beginning of "Kiss You" and was filled with rage at them pretending they were even capable of riding motorcycles; I did not feel this way about the Go-Go's pretending to water ski in "Vacation".

In July 2013 my Twitter timeline was full of exclamations and gushing about One Direction's new release, "Best Song Ever". Not only were teens gushing in their own tweets, they were re-tweeting the praise of other fans I did not follow, so the volume of the comments was quite high. That was its own level of annoyance, but nothing compared to actually watching it.

I kept silent then, but now I am writing about music videos -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- so this is my time. There could be some hurt feelings, but they don't usually read my blog posts unless I point them to a specific one, so I am going for it.

Here is the link if you wish to see for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_v9MY_FMcw

And it's okay if you don't want to watch it. It sucks, and I am going to describe it for you.

The video opens with an establishing shot of the Hollywood sign and goes into the office of two executives blathering, and praising the band as they come in. This is "funny", because the two executives are played by two of the members of One Direction. The other three play the sexy assistant, the publicist, and the choreographer.

They talk about the movie and how big it is going to be, again praising the band a lot, but the boys object to the costume concepts that other boy bands have worn, and the choreography. "Never in a million years." They then proceed to, while perhaps not being dressed identically still wearing hair and clothing typical of a boy band, dance around wrecking the place. They point their fingers all tough at the executives, throw papers into the air and turn over desks of other employees, and then they spray paint "THIS IS US" over the bottom of a poster of them.

The video has several things wrong with it, but I think what really killed me was the excessive praise. It was Twilight all over again.

One bothersome thing was how derivative it was. The one executive seemed to look an awful lot like Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. Hey, you know who else has done fat executives who act cooler than they actually are? David Lee Roth.

Actually, playing multiple roles in music videos is not that unusual. We could talk about Fall Out Boy playing regular and nerd versions of themselves in "Dance Dance", but we will be spending about two weeks on Fall Out Boy videos later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6MOKXm8x50

"Holiday" by Green Day is sometimes mentioned. There are some funny costume changes. The actual role-playing feels less prominent, but I mention it anyway because it has much better green screen antics than "Kiss You", which in addition to ripping off "Vacation" also rips off Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrWpLS0vM0g

So let's just call the best music video for musicians playing multiple roles "Learn to Fly" from the Foo Fighters. They don't just take on other selves; they take on every featured face in the video other than a cameo from Jack Black and Kyle Gassner. This includes surprisingly nuanced performances by Dave Grohl including, among others, a star struck young girl and a flamboyant steward. Plus, the band saves the day due to their preference for alcohol over coffee, which seems pretty plausible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQ_3sBZEm0

Even the intro, once the music started, was heavily derivative of the Who's "Baba O'Riley", which, incidentally, was the last interesting thing about the song. Normally I hate this type of music because of the focus on beautiful girls who don't know that they're beautiful and are therefore ripe for use and abuse.

This song spends less time on the twisted view of women and instead disrespects music. While I will acknowledge that you might like a song more after it becomes associated with a memory, like dancing with someone you are attracted to, when that does happen it should not be possible that you will then forget how the song goes. Yes, the song they describe is quite vapid, which makes forgetting it more likely, there should just be a higher regard for music, and higher expectations, than evinced in this song.

With all of that, I still believe the worst part is the pretense of rebellion. They say "Never in a million years" to the described dance routine, but in fact it takes less than two minutes for choreographed dancing to occur. Maybe they were specifically saying "no" to the pirouettes, but what does that say? We will do dance numbers, but they shouldn't take any talent or skill. I don't normally like playing up gender bias, but if that's what they're hinting at, then I think it's fair game to say that what they are doing is not terribly masculine.

Yes, they might act a little shirty with executives, but they also make the movie and release the records and completely toe the company line. In fact, when they start getting really "destructive", it is out disrupting the rank and file's workplaces. How typically corporate.

I believe they are trying to summon the image of bad boy rock stars trashing their hotel rooms, but even if that behavior were admirable, merely pretending to emulate it while still being overproduced pawns is the opposite of rock and roll.

Graffiti has a long history with a lot of meaning. We could talk about trying to establish some ownership and some permanence, and how hard authority has fought that, and we could talk about the value of artistic expression. There were girls saying that the "This is us" was One Direction's way of saying that they would not change with success and they were still them. No! It's the name of the movie!  If they wanted to have some meaning they could have painted over their faces - they just turned a regular poster into a movie poster. What an artistic triumph.

Going back to my title and opening, I won't try and define a best song ever, because I think it's more productive to just enjoy the wealth of good songs out there. A lot of those good songs can have an impact where it is like getting punched in the face. Music can release your feelings and change your mind.

I don't understand how anyone can get so excited over this tripe, as shallow, uncreative, and blatantly commercial as it is. I guess it is triumphantly mediocre, and there can be worse things. The next two posts will go from being merely banal to being evil.

For now, it's just, hey, One Direction, irritating me ever since I found out that were a Saturday Night Live guest instead of a skit, like 2Gether. They could have been okay as a skit.