This week we spend time to discuss disco, and this whole disco sucks movement that happened during 80's. Disco is popular during the middle 70s. Disco was used as a reaction by New York City's gays as well as blacks, Latinos and heterosexuals against both the domination of rock music and the demonisation of dance music by the counterculture during this period. Women embraced disco as well, and the music eventually expanded to several other popular groups of the time. Though disco had enjoyed several years of popularity, an anti-disco sentiment manifested itself, particularly in America. Many musicians and fans of a variety of rock music styles expressed strong disapproval of disco throughout the height of its popularity. Among these critics, the slogans "disco sucks" was common by the late 1970s and appeared in written form in places ranging from t-shits to graffiti. Opponents of disco said that the music is manufactured, and the lyrics are mean nothing at all.
July 12, 1979 became known as the day disco died, a promotional event with an anti-dico theme, between games at a white Sox doubleheader for disgruntled rock fans. During this event, which involved exploding disco records, the raucous crowd tore out seats and turf in the field and did lots of damage to the stadium. After this event, disco started to retreat from America. However, we can see after 1990, the disco start to resurgence, Madonna continued doing disco music in her 2008 release, "hard candy", but clearly took the homosexual part out of music.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
May 20 2011
Talking about Riot Grrrl groups, the first thing comes in to my head is their awful music and untalented singer. Personal, as a foreigner, understand the lyrics in English is already hard enough, and with all other noises that in their music, makes its even harder to understand what they're really singing about. However, as a groups of women whose get lots of influence from Punk rock, I think the way there perform is somehow understandable. As lots of young girls stick together, just like today, lots of girls want to be like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga, in Riot Grrrl ages, they wish to be like all those punk stars, but sometimes they may just come across the line to much, just like some criticism about that they are too young that they don't even understand about all the rape, sex abuse, or this whole feminism thing. But the truth is, even they're still young, even they still may not understand the whole picture about the world, even they're females, their voice could still be spread out and been heard by others.
However, the way of their performance may sometime be too far from the main stream, which kind of set some negative impact on the whole feminism movement, audiences think that the feminism is exactly like those Riot Grrrls, which simply just some lame noise come together. And society sometimes may just focus too much on talking about the noises that they sing, but not the goal of these movement, which is to get the feminism moving forward.
I think Riot Grrrls realized this problem and later their musics are somehow closer to the mainstream music, and in the same time, it still express their voice. For example the Spice Girls and their "girl power" message. Now I can finally understand their lyric at least.
However, the way of their performance may sometime be too far from the main stream, which kind of set some negative impact on the whole feminism movement, audiences think that the feminism is exactly like those Riot Grrrls, which simply just some lame noise come together. And society sometimes may just focus too much on talking about the noises that they sing, but not the goal of these movement, which is to get the feminism moving forward.
I think Riot Grrrls realized this problem and later their musics are somehow closer to the mainstream music, and in the same time, it still express their voice. For example the Spice Girls and their "girl power" message. Now I can finally understand their lyric at least.
Friday, May 13, 2011
May 13， 2011
There is always a question, "its the Producing company to make the film which miss lead the customers, or there just are all of these demands exist in the market, the company just go and fulfill their customers' need." Its very clear after watch the Deamworld 3 that the producer of this documentary film believes in the MTV producing companies are the bad guy whose only seen the profit and never care about the business ethic. They are the one whose collapsing the people (mostly, teenagers) in this country by constantly showing them naked women with big breasts and nice butt. By doing that the evil MTV producing companies are shifting the social beautiful judgement to more depends on outer beauty rather than inner beauty.
But lets hold on for a second, and think through the logic in this documentary one more time. I think the biggest mistake that this film made is that they misunderstand the present society, the producer of this film believes that now days, everybody's mind is as pure as saint, and we're eagerly need to understand this world by watching music video. The most important thing that the producer of this documentary needs to learn is that normal people watch all these videos are just for fun, there are very few amount of people will watch these video and changing there behavior to fulfill the story that been told in the music video.
It should be admit that now days people talk more and more about outer beauty is not the only judge for women's success, and we also see more and more women been success without a big breasts or nice butt. But in the same time we still need to see there is a huge gap on women's issue between present day and where we want to go.
But lets hold on for a second, and think through the logic in this documentary one more time. I think the biggest mistake that this film made is that they misunderstand the present society, the producer of this film believes that now days, everybody's mind is as pure as saint, and we're eagerly need to understand this world by watching music video. The most important thing that the producer of this documentary needs to learn is that normal people watch all these videos are just for fun, there are very few amount of people will watch these video and changing there behavior to fulfill the story that been told in the music video.
It should be admit that now days people talk more and more about outer beauty is not the only judge for women's success, and we also see more and more women been success without a big breasts or nice butt. But in the same time we still need to see there is a huge gap on women's issue between present day and where we want to go.
Friday, May 6, 2011
May 6, 2011
For this week, we first looked at Patti Smith and the whole punk movement that she was belonged to in the 70's. Compare with the era before her, which is hippies in the 60s, Patti Smith usually dressed in all black, always perform with no or just a little make up, with her strange hair, probably that is another way to show her masculinity. She was one of the most successful musician in the punk era, and also her performance push the whole punk music moving forward. Her music style was a fusion of rock and poetry, and also been called the "Godmother of Punk".
Talk about Punk, CBGB is frequently mentioned by people, founded by Hilly Fristal in 173, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles (Country, Blue Grass, and Blues), but it became a forum of American punk bank like Patti Smith, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones. And in the later years, it become also know for Hardcore punk. Because CBGB's location (Manhattan), it gains huge amount of listeners, I guess thats another reason that Punk could separate so fast with a huge percentage of female fans. For Punk music itself, most of the punk performance don't even need to know how to sing, as we see all of their performance, and also we can see, while if a women is in the band, women usually need to play some kind of instrument to show that they take this seriously, but its still a huge step forward for the women, when the punk rock took off in 1975, women realized that they didn't need to be beautiful, now they can perform on stage and not afraid.
Talk about Punk, CBGB is frequently mentioned by people, founded by Hilly Fristal in 173, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles (Country, Blue Grass, and Blues), but it became a forum of American punk bank like Patti Smith, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones. And in the later years, it become also know for Hardcore punk. Because CBGB's location (Manhattan), it gains huge amount of listeners, I guess thats another reason that Punk could separate so fast with a huge percentage of female fans. For Punk music itself, most of the punk performance don't even need to know how to sing, as we see all of their performance, and also we can see, while if a women is in the band, women usually need to play some kind of instrument to show that they take this seriously, but its still a huge step forward for the women, when the punk rock took off in 1975, women realized that they didn't need to be beautiful, now they can perform on stage and not afraid.
Friday, April 29, 2011
April 29 2011
The Bowie's interview that we watched in the class is the most amazing interview that i every seen. I can't immagine how a public star which rely on journalists and reporters could just do Bowie's type of answer and may just make journalists angry. I mean in the present, that may causes some serious problem afterwards.
In some point, Bowie's performance of Ziggy's bisexuality was a good deal for his success. The bisexuality it self great whole bunch of different topics that allow people to talk about, both positive and negative. just as the book says that a teenaged female fan reported on the first time she saw Bowie on television:
"My parents were reading newspapers and I was sitting directly in front of the television as I always did then, watching. Suddenly this colorful man or perhaps it was a woman, i really couldn't tell, was in the centre of the TV. I was amazed. I turned to my parents and demanded to know more about this thing. 'Oh... that's David Bowie," replied mother, "He's gay.'"(Qtd. in Vermorel and Vermorel 73)
Even today its still kind of a topic about he really is a homosexual or not, but today we see lots of performer straggling on how to create a topic that let people talk about them. apparently Bowie is the most famous one in his time to let people just simply talk about him.
As Bowie got success and more recognize from the main stream, more and more artists, especially female rocker realize that they do not need to always fill themselves in to a man character, them could also just be themselves, or just whoever they wish to be, and I think this is a fundamental change in the music industry, which in the same time strengthen the women's importance in the industry.
Friday, April 22, 2011
April 22 2011
I found this glam rock is much more easy to read and more reader-friendly than the last Women & popular music book we read.
In the chapter two, the book talked about the history of glam rock, how it started, and how it achieve a great success in the United Kingdom in the early 70's, and how it only get a limited influence in the United States, only in a few cities where glam rock get popular. Also, why its only took hold in the UK than in the US. Some people said that British rockers and their audiences had a more developed penchant for theatricality than the Americans, who "have put down outrageous acts as being nonmusical". but in the same time, Glam transvestism was relativly uncontroversial in Britain, perhaps because "cross-dressing has always been a part of British popular entertainment." American glam artists and their supporters, apparently experiencing a measure of homosexual panic, were at pains to insist that any tendency to dress lavishly and use makeup should not be taken as signs of sexual abnormality. After all the writer used some examples to further introduce the glam rock's history.
In the Third Chapter, author begin it with a discussion of Tyrannosaurus Rex, the group with which Bolan became a fixture on London's underground music scene in the late 1960's. Primarily the author focus on the group's musical style and its relationship to psychedelic rock to show that Tyrannosaurus Rex developed a kind of music that responded to the interests of the hippie counterculture. After that, author write about Bolan's musical transaction from psychedelic music to glam rock and from Tyrannosaurus Rex to T. Rex. In the final part, writer talks about Bolan's physical performance style with the two groups and suggest that Bolan established the basic elements of glam rock performance style through the implicit queerness of his persona and the self-conscious, highly theatrical manner in which he presented himself on stage.
In the chapter two, the book talked about the history of glam rock, how it started, and how it achieve a great success in the United Kingdom in the early 70's, and how it only get a limited influence in the United States, only in a few cities where glam rock get popular. Also, why its only took hold in the UK than in the US. Some people said that British rockers and their audiences had a more developed penchant for theatricality than the Americans, who "have put down outrageous acts as being nonmusical". but in the same time, Glam transvestism was relativly uncontroversial in Britain, perhaps because "cross-dressing has always been a part of British popular entertainment." American glam artists and their supporters, apparently experiencing a measure of homosexual panic, were at pains to insist that any tendency to dress lavishly and use makeup should not be taken as signs of sexual abnormality. After all the writer used some examples to further introduce the glam rock's history.
In the Third Chapter, author begin it with a discussion of Tyrannosaurus Rex, the group with which Bolan became a fixture on London's underground music scene in the late 1960's. Primarily the author focus on the group's musical style and its relationship to psychedelic rock to show that Tyrannosaurus Rex developed a kind of music that responded to the interests of the hippie counterculture. After that, author write about Bolan's musical transaction from psychedelic music to glam rock and from Tyrannosaurus Rex to T. Rex. In the final part, writer talks about Bolan's physical performance style with the two groups and suggest that Bolan established the basic elements of glam rock performance style through the implicit queerness of his persona and the self-conscious, highly theatrical manner in which he presented himself on stage.
Friday, April 15, 2011
April 15 2011
With regard to 1960s' rock, both the music and its culture were resolutely fraternalistic and, as Janis Joplin's example so poignantly reveals, women were either excluded from the inner circle or were drawn into being 'one of the boys'. Folk, and more particularly the folk protest movement of the 1960's, however, provided a more viable space , not least for women with sweet voices.
It seems that the early 1970s was a propitious time for women to break into the solo folk singers market, we have Carole King emerged as a performer on her highly successful album "Tapestry", we also have people like Janis Ian and Carly Simon whose also enjoying success as solo artists. Yet, as Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" reveals, being independent, creatively single minded and original continued to raise problems, not least those of grappling with a career while, at the same time, maintaining relationships.
Joni Mitchell's musical career started in Calgary, where she trained as a commercial artist and sang traditional folk songs in local coffee bars. In March 1970 "Clouds" won Joni Mitchell her first Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance, Joni Mitchell started to gain success from mainstream. And in 1971, "Blue" was released and sold over a million copies. Mitchell's distinctive harmonic guitar style, and piano arrangements all grew more complex through the 70s as she was deeply influenced by jazz, melding it with pop, folk and rock on "hejira" which released in 1976.
Mitchell's work is highly respected by musicians, Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever", even Janis Mitchell stopped recording over the last several years, but in 07 she released "Shine", her first album of new songs in nine years.
It seems that the early 1970s was a propitious time for women to break into the solo folk singers market, we have Carole King emerged as a performer on her highly successful album "Tapestry", we also have people like Janis Ian and Carly Simon whose also enjoying success as solo artists. Yet, as Joni Mitchell's album "Blue" reveals, being independent, creatively single minded and original continued to raise problems, not least those of grappling with a career while, at the same time, maintaining relationships.
Joni Mitchell's musical career started in Calgary, where she trained as a commercial artist and sang traditional folk songs in local coffee bars. In March 1970 "Clouds" won Joni Mitchell her first Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance, Joni Mitchell started to gain success from mainstream. And in 1971, "Blue" was released and sold over a million copies. Mitchell's distinctive harmonic guitar style, and piano arrangements all grew more complex through the 70s as she was deeply influenced by jazz, melding it with pop, folk and rock on "hejira" which released in 1976.
Mitchell's work is highly respected by musicians, Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever", even Janis Mitchell stopped recording over the last several years, but in 07 she released "Shine", her first album of new songs in nine years.
Friday, April 8, 2011
April 08 2011
We spend this whole week talk about Janis Joplin and how this girl survive in a industry which largely dominated by men, and been called "the rock queen".
The book mentioned, as a teenager, "Joplin had been stigmatised as different, interested in poetry, music art and reading," and point out, "as a female, peer group acceptance depends largely upon conformity to the accepted norm. Intelligence is tolerated, overt cleverness is perceived as aberrant, but fatness, spottiness, situates the woman as undesirable." Joplin also famous with her outspoken attitude towards sex, just like her favorite quoted "singing as fucking" and "fucking as liberation". In the University of Texas, the campus newspaper ran a profile of her in 1962 headlined "She Dares To be Different."
She left Taxes in 1963 and went to San Francisco to chase her music dream. In this period she's still mainly focus on blue music, and it's also the time when her drug use increased, she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. And, her favorite beverage was Southern Comfort.
In 1964, Joplin's bluesy style get attention from the big brother and the holding company, She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, who had know her in Texas and in the same time was managing Big Brother. In 1966, she joined the band. In the Big Brother and the Holding Company she achieved a big success, TIME magazine called her "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", but in 1968 she left band to formed a new backup group, called "Kozmic Blues Band", but she could not be a leader of the band at that time, so at the end of 1969, the group broke up. In 1970 she tries to put together another band called "Full Tilt Boogie Band" and believe this time it will work. But on October 4th, 1970 at the age of 27, she dead in the Landmark Hotel from an overdose of heroin.
Lots of people blamed her death on herself and drugs, but actually it is the competition in this industry killed her. We can see every time when she quit this industry, her mood turned positive, like when she went to Brazil, and in their she stopped drug and alcohol use, but immediately after she came back to join the band, she starts to use them again. She's not only compete with others as a singer, but also as a woman, in a industry which largely dominated by men, her pressure maybe is just too big to handle with.
The book mentioned, as a teenager, "Joplin had been stigmatised as different, interested in poetry, music art and reading," and point out, "as a female, peer group acceptance depends largely upon conformity to the accepted norm. Intelligence is tolerated, overt cleverness is perceived as aberrant, but fatness, spottiness, situates the woman as undesirable." Joplin also famous with her outspoken attitude towards sex, just like her favorite quoted "singing as fucking" and "fucking as liberation". In the University of Texas, the campus newspaper ran a profile of her in 1962 headlined "She Dares To be Different."
She left Taxes in 1963 and went to San Francisco to chase her music dream. In this period she's still mainly focus on blue music, and it's also the time when her drug use increased, she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. And, her favorite beverage was Southern Comfort.
In 1964, Joplin's bluesy style get attention from the big brother and the holding company, She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, who had know her in Texas and in the same time was managing Big Brother. In 1966, she joined the band. In the Big Brother and the Holding Company she achieved a big success, TIME magazine called her "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement", but in 1968 she left band to formed a new backup group, called "Kozmic Blues Band", but she could not be a leader of the band at that time, so at the end of 1969, the group broke up. In 1970 she tries to put together another band called "Full Tilt Boogie Band" and believe this time it will work. But on October 4th, 1970 at the age of 27, she dead in the Landmark Hotel from an overdose of heroin.
Lots of people blamed her death on herself and drugs, but actually it is the competition in this industry killed her. We can see every time when she quit this industry, her mood turned positive, like when she went to Brazil, and in their she stopped drug and alcohol use, but immediately after she came back to join the band, she starts to use them again. She's not only compete with others as a singer, but also as a woman, in a industry which largely dominated by men, her pressure maybe is just too big to handle with.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Every time I listen "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", it gives me a feeling that I'm getting drunk. The reason for that is probably because the bartender that I always visit back in Beijing love to play this song when he mixes drinks. But... this is the first time that i know this song is actually called "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and its played by The Beatles.
This song is written by John Lennon, for Sgt Pepper's album. As the book mentioned, "Musically, the gentle beat works towards a slowing down of the listener's own pulse rate, while the gradual shifting harmonies in the chromatic descent in the bass line suggest a relaxation in the a comfortable and languorous dream state".
The Sixties is an incredible age, while the British Invasion from Beatles mixed with Martin Luther King Jr's speech, Vietnam finally turned Cold War hot, and the Hippie movement followed by that against the war. The world is changing so fast and so many things are coming together, people in that situation sometimes just need a break, in such a intense world maybe just need a break. I think that's part of the reason why this song is so successful and changed the world so much.
The book also talks about the women's roll in the sixties where many of them emerging from universities, education, self-education and political intervention, and how they drag attention from the public world to express their voice, but also how it is evident that the principal trajectory between the counter culture and the women's movement lay in the debates surrounding freedom and repression. This reminds me that in the sixties seems the whole world is in the movement mode, where in capitalist we have the feminism, the women's and the black rights movement, and in communist world we have this great leap forward and culture revolution, as we can see here the the feminism is a part of the big civil rights movement.
This song is written by John Lennon, for Sgt Pepper's album. As the book mentioned, "Musically, the gentle beat works towards a slowing down of the listener's own pulse rate, while the gradual shifting harmonies in the chromatic descent in the bass line suggest a relaxation in the a comfortable and languorous dream state".
The Sixties is an incredible age, while the British Invasion from Beatles mixed with Martin Luther King Jr's speech, Vietnam finally turned Cold War hot, and the Hippie movement followed by that against the war. The world is changing so fast and so many things are coming together, people in that situation sometimes just need a break, in such a intense world maybe just need a break. I think that's part of the reason why this song is so successful and changed the world so much.
The book also talks about the women's roll in the sixties where many of them emerging from universities, education, self-education and political intervention, and how they drag attention from the public world to express their voice, but also how it is evident that the principal trajectory between the counter culture and the women's movement lay in the debates surrounding freedom and repression. This reminds me that in the sixties seems the whole world is in the movement mode, where in capitalist we have the feminism, the women's and the black rights movement, and in communist world we have this great leap forward and culture revolution, as we can see here the the feminism is a part of the big civil rights movement.
Friday, March 25, 2011
MAR 25 2011
Once there is a friend told me, if u want to learn a different culture, go check their music. I guess thats a part of reason why i choose a class which dont have any relation to any of my area. well, another part of reason is there really not that much of ASEM class that i can choose.
Feminism, which in my opinion is a significant sign for a social stages. And I think that is directly related to a lag of place where men could show their strength. In another word, when a society stay in peace time for sometime, feminism will appear automatically.
Because of all of our scientific invention, now women could basically do whatever men can do, the only thing that still cause the unfair treatment between men and women is the tradition social order, throughout the music industry we can see this clearly, even now lots of successful performers are female, but most of the people in the record industry, the people who own these successful performers are still male, even now days women who have a same education background, who can do as much as man do, the company will still, in some level prefer the male to lead the company.
However in the same time we could see that situation is changing, at least in the music industry in Europe and North America.
As a foreigner i'm pretty interested to see where this social trend will go, because what happening in here today, someday in the future must will be happen in my hometown. Actually China is already start to have this sign for feminism in the music industry. Male performers start to give up their male look, and transfer themselves to a more middle position. That leads the whole youth group to follow. Sometime i even think, it is the super star to lead to social trend, or those stars just to change themselves to full fill what their fans what. Well, maybe they all get involve in some level. Those changes right now in mainland China are still just focus on a performer's performance persona, their real person still be a male, but in the near future I expect to see more performers change their real person to more middle position.
Well, anyway, that is first blog about music in my whole life, personally i love writing, and i love to write in Chinese. But, this maybe could bring me some new fun experience.
btw, love the music video showed in the class, very nice comparison between the ages.
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