Problem/Solution: Ticket Prices

In my original paper my main target audience were concert promoters, tour managers, potential sponsors, and the bands who are financially involved in touring and controlling ticket prices. I proposed a solution to lowering ticket prices with a new business model for financing tours using corporate sponsors. In my paper I tried to keep a tone appropriate for a business situation like I was meeting with those people to propose my solution. For my new audience I decided to target concert goers. I decided to design a poster promoting a festival that would support my business plan. The idea was to design the new plan in a way that is pleasing to a concert going audience. I decided that a festival should be set up that is completely sponsored and free of charge to attend. Hopefully with the new system in place the concert could be free but all make sense financially. For the poster I decided to use relatively popular bands to draw a crowd. I put the sponsors logos on the poster while at the same time trying not to be distracting from the bands. The name of the festival, “The Real Thing,” has a double meaning that might be appealing. It is not only a catch phrase of the main sponsor, Coca-Cola, but also the title of the headlining band’s, Faith No More, most famous album. The poster is meant to be eye-catching and exciting while still being informative. I feel that the transition from audience to audience went smooth. The most difficult thing about this plan is the concert goers’ reception to the idea of corporate sponsors. I felt that the best way to show that this plan can work is to take an extreme example and promote its viability. If a completely free concert could work for the fans and the financiers that it would be a success.

Hip Hop's Gender Problem

The article I chose, by Mark Anthony Neal, is a little dated but it still holds true today. He points out that, in hip-hop especially, there is a gender problem in music. Hip-hop lyrics are filled with messages of “sexism, misogyny and homophobia” and these lyrics communicate a bad influence to our youth. One obvious solution would to try to get rappers to stop writing overly masculine lyrics . But that whole notion, as pointed out by the author, is rather naïve. It would be impossible to get the rappers to stops writing those kind of lyrics and get them to act nice. These kind of lyrics are part of what sells the records. Neal points out that it is not just black hip-hop culture that buys the records and supports the artists but it’s all of American culture. Plus the whole idea of telling someone to stop writing about a certain subject has 1st Amendment implications as well. A solution to this problem shouldn’t be to ban or eliminate a certain viewpoint but to help and support the opposite. A good solution could be to increase support of a feminist view point in hip-hop. It would be difficult to support this among males which is why women rappers and women consumers of hip-hop music need to stand up for themselves. In the 1990s there was a brief time when the female MC was strong and popular but, with the exception of maybe Missy Elliot, the genre lacks a strong female viewpoint today. Female artists in hip hop now more than ever seem to be embracing the sexist direction their music has taken. More female artists need to stand up and battle against the gender problem in music.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18811/

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

For this blog entry I decided to analyze a review of a bad film. Not only was this film bad but many consider it one of the worst ever. The movie is Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I chose to analyze an article written by Ty Burr from the Boston Globe. In his review he pounds the movie for his awfulness.
In his review Burr is concerned about the laziness and lack of a plot. He point out that as a two and a half hour sequel the film is padded with comic relief, most of which falls flat. He feels the film goes too far and won’t stop with Sam’s roommate and the twin robots, who often draw comparisons to a much more racist version of Jar Jar Binks.
Visually, Burr says, the film is exhausting. The massive amount of CGI and the ridiculous chase and action scenes is overkill. Michael Bay’s style of direction is unable to put a coherent story together. It is just candy for the eyes. If the camera is not swirling around an exploding robot it is leering at Megan Fox’s attributes.
Burr has two main criteria that he aims at for this movie that he matched and evaluated very well. The first is plot. He suggests throughout his review that the film has a very weak or no plot. Seeing that a strong plot is vital to any good film he bashes Transformers. He would suggest that the film avoids plot and goes merely for sensation. The other criteria is the visual aspects of the film. Film being a visual art needs to be pleasing to the eye. Burr feels that the film disorients the viewer and the shots are incoherent making it terrible to watch.

What Makes a Great Singer?

What Makes a Great Singer?
by Jonathan Lethem

This article by Jonathan Lethem tackles the question of what it is that makes a singer great. Not every singer in the history of rock 'n' roll was necessarily able to keep a perfect tune. Many artists like Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin never had to rely on singing in pitch but rather the soulfulness of their approach. The stasis of this article is that you don't necessarily need to be able to sing in pitch all the time in able to be a great singer. But as the Lethem points out, being able to carry a tune is not essential to singing great but it helps a lot. Sometimes a unique tone of voice and strong songwriting is all you need to become a great rock 'n'n roll singer. Some might argue that perhaps that the musicians in a band are the real talented ones opposed to their frontmen counterparts . Lethem would contend that this is a dodgy path to go down because "soon you'll find yourself wondering how the Doors sound sans 'Mr. Mojo Risin.'" He claims that many artists might feel anxiety towards fans and critics who might consider them imposters due to their inability to sing well. But Lethem would point out that it is more about the performance than the song and the power of what the music and lyrics imply. Music is an emotional art and the flaws in many singers' voices lends a humanity to their performance that is both expressive and meaningful.

Link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/24200601/page/2

Blog Assignment #1: Alice In Chains - Rooster

Alice in Chains - New Music - More Music Videos

I chose to write about the video for the song “Rooster” by Alice in Chains because not only is it one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands but it is also an extremely emotional song and video. This is not your typical music video as it is a very personal piece for the writer of the song, Jerry Cantrell, and I believe that the video reflects on this a lot. According to interviews with Cantrell, the song is about his perceptions of the war in Vietnam and the effects it had on his father who served in it.

In this video we are immediately provided with the Ethos to lend this video persuasiveness it needs. Before the song even begins we are bombarded by what appears to be footage and images of the Vietnam War mixed with interview footage of both Cantrell and his father. This footage gives us a sense that the song has credibility in the subject of the war. Cantrell’s father provides details of what it was like to fight in Vietnam which in turn allows us to believe that they are authorities on the subject

The video is strongest in its images of Pathos. The video is filled with footage of soldiers in the jungle. As the video progresses the images become more and more shocking and emotional as we see the soldiers repeatedly come under attack. The footage is as brutal and gory as allowed to try to get us to experience what the war was like.

The main purpose of this video is to show us how scary war is and the images alone give plenty reasons as to why. The video use Logos in a way that gives us every reason to fear war. Images of death, violence, and terror logically fit with this songs message.