Group items tagged

This website is called "Stuff white people like" it's a site that sarcastically lists things white people like and kind of plays with that idea. I read this a while back and thought it went well with our lesson on Thursday. This article talks about how a lot of music that is associated with "black" culture, such as jazz and rock have been adopted and owned by "white" people that when you think of those, you don't think of the black culture that started it. They also talk about how this is happening to pop music such as hiphop that is largely listened to a "whiter" audience, but they are actually listening to "commercial hiphop." I thought it was interesting how race plays a lot with music and which race has the ability to freely flow throughout any genre.

Here is an interview that questions whether there is gay artists in the music industry and more specifically the 'rap game' as the interviewed calls it. But can be considered as controversial is that he states that there is a 'gay mafia' and that they are controlling the hip hop scene. For instance he refers to Lady Gaga and how she is running with the gay community and she is winning!

I thought this was an interesting article in relation to pop culture and how authentic things have become, especially with the introduction of new technologies such as auto-tune and music sampling and editing. The article goes deeper into these. Thus those who want to make a imprint on the industry as the article states is going to be increasingly difficult because ''even the most sincere expressions of self will have to be multiple and complicated''.

One of the categories at this year's O Music Awards is "Too Much Ass For TV," which honors the backsides that infiltrated recent music videos from Robin Thicke, Frank Ocean, David Bowie, Sigur Ros and DIIV. Of course, the derrière has been the star of music videos for quite some time, dilating pupils since video killed the radio star.

Over the past few years, Electronic Dance Music a.k.a EDM has slowly crossover to the realm of pop culture. This article shows Lady Gaga music has been influenced by the EDM culture.

This may be relevant to your link. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/07/lady-gaga-artpop-review

Hanson argues that at this point in pop music, artists like Miley have nothing to rebel against to make them artistic -- Miley has to go full circle and just make sex, music, and performance ugly.

Following the recent spate of controversy over the sexualisation of artists in today's pop culture. Singer Annie Lennox has criticized not the artists but how musics ''market forces don't give a toss about the notion of boundaries''. However Lennox agrees with freedom of speech and expression, but it is effectively depressing to see and all the sexualised performances as just a glorified and monetized form of self harm.

Apple recently released a radio program similar to that of Pandora, another online radio service. While Pandora uses mathematical algorithms to choose music for the listener, iTunes Radio will use humans/Apple geniuses to choose music similar to tracks the listener likes. Katy Perry is featured as the guest DJ currently, where she shares an insight to her musical taste and artists that inspire her. She inserts her commentary and shares an anecdote occasionally. I found this interesting because a good portion of the music she chooses to play are rap songs or songs with a darker undertone, not what most people would expect perhaps?

Perez Hilton and gossip websites/columns/shows/etc. are my weakness, as I admitted the first day of class... This article explains the current and on-going feud between Lorde and Selena Gomez regarding feminism in music. Even Cher Lloyd is making herself apart of this. Valid points either way, I believe.

Today, Amanda Palmer, will.i.am, Zoe Keating, Imogen Heap, and Scooter Braun(creator of Justin Bieber) with addition to music platforms Spotify, Vevo, Songkick, will be debating if technology has killed the music industry. 

This can relate to the class discussion on Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' music video and how there is this reversal of the black/white dynamic. This article continues to discuss how Gaga isn't oblivious to her own normativity and how she deliberately plays with her 'whiteness' but in actuality she is then oblivious to to white privilege. Thus the protagonist and in this case Gaga gets the attention while women of colour (beyonce) that are contributing to the redefinition of music and gender performances are marginalised.

Camille Paglia argues that the problem with Cyrus's performance wasn't that it was "disgusting," but rather that it was unsexy ("atrocious"), and that subversion and sexual liberation need limits and can't rely just on shock.

I might add that I think Paglia is largely right, but then again, wrong: Isn't she mis-identifying Cyrus? Cyrus was out for shock, not sexual liberation (in my reading). She's not trying to be the next Madonna. (If you read other Paglia arguments, a recurring theme is: "This new artist isn't Madonna.")

Camille Pagila is at it again! Although our class discussion is currently focused on Lady Gaga, I found this article Pagila wrote about Miley Cyrus interesting. Pagila does mention the focus on sex in the music industry and credits Madonna as the executive of such an image, in the most positive way possible. Pagila described Gaga as the striking end of sex and gender. Here, Pagila claims that pop music/culture itself is on the exponential decline. Don't forget to read the comments, they're quite amusing, actually!

I wholesomely agree with this article and i love the angle that she took with it. I agree that women in the industry are pitted against men and it is a women jobs to look as they state; "Girls are allowed to be sexy, but not too sexy. Pure, but not a prude." In addition women or girls are only portrayed as long as they look 'pretty' or from the industries point of view perfect! That is why this article compares the treatment of men against the mistreatment of women in the industry and why there is a unbalance of expectations.

I thought this music video contributed to our discussion about the theme of the coming of age, "good girl gone bad" story that is of interest in popular culture. It also comments on gender and feminism.

The Rolling Stone's interview with Miley Cyrus in which she attempts to explain her reasoning behind her VMA performance, the Wrecking Ball music video and ratchet culture.  

In an interview this month with HungerTV, Cyrus stressed that she's in control of her image and the choices behind her music videos. She made an important point that she's probably more aware of what youth cultures want than corporate leaders are. But in order to make this point, she had to draw on stereotypes of a Jewish-controlled media, perhaps revealing anti-Semitism: "With magazines, with movies, it's always weird when things are targeted for young people yet they're driven by people that are like 40 years too old. It can't be like this 70 year old Jewish man that doesn't leave his desk all day, telling me what the clubs want to hear."

It is interesting how Emilie uses sex as a form of self embracing in her music video. Also, the very title 'Fight like a Girl' commonly used as an insult in sports, is used in a very inspiring and confident tone. 

A 10-minute video that explores the history of music and dance and how it creates "cool" in film

Here is a youtube clip talking about a scientific study on how similar pop songs are to other pop songs. They talk about the similar beats and chord progressions and songs these days are all from the same cookie cutter outline. They are saying that essentially this is proof that pop music sucks and it lacks authenticity. Let me know what you think!

The article discusses the impact of hyper-sexualisation in music videos and magazines and the negative effect they have on teen girls confidence, education and employment. The article also refers to 'video-vixens' such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna who can be seen as 'toxic role models' according to writer Liz Jones.