UIL Theatre Performance

On Wednesday May 23, I went to the UIL Theatre State Championship. We watched a few of the performances, and they ranged from sad to really funny. I really liked Anderson's performance. I thought it was really funny through out the whole act, and I'm very surprised that they didn't place. They did really well, and they represented Anderson really well. We successfully got Mr. Malone and Noah, in one picture.

Love is Everything

On Wednesday, George Straight released an album called "Love is Everything". I'm not a huge fan of George, but I thought this album was alright. The first song in the album named "I Got a Car" was good. I liked the speed of the song and the story it told. The middle songs were alright. They were mostly about love, so I thought it was pretty boring. The last song named "Let the Credits Roll" was also really good. So I thought he opened and closed the album well, but I thought it lacked in the middle. Overall I would give this album a 7.5 out of 10, and I would recommend it.

Massive Attack's Mezzanine

In class we listened to Massive Attack's Mezzanine. I thought it had a lot of different aspects, but to me it was definitely mostly techno. I listened to it with my eyes closed and I liked it a lot. I thought it was good to have as a background type of music. I liked the first 4 songs more than the second 4 songs. I dont know why, but I just liked it more. My favorite of all of the songs was either the first or third song. I hadn't heard of Massive Attack prior to this class, but I will probably check out their other music now.

The Wu Tang Clan

Today we listened to the Wu-Tang Clan's first album. A question came up that was "What is the difference between Wu-Tang Clan and NWA's music?" We talked about it for a little while and the ultimate answer was that the Wu-Tang Clan had more aspects of jazz and they rapped more slowly, while NWA had more aspects of funk in their beats, rapped with an angrier sound, and rapped more quickly. The Wu-Tang Clan was more dangerous than NWA because they said some worse things, and they actually carried out the things that they talked about. One thing that I liked a lot about the Wu-Tang Clan, was that they had a lot of euphemisms. They were really good lyricists and I thought that added a lot to their music if you listened well. I also liked that there were many members of the group, so there were many interesting stories being told and many different voices, so that the listeners wouldn't be bored. I though that was very strategic from the label. Overall, I liked the Wu-Tang Clan because they never made me bored, they had good beats, and they had great lyrics.

Nirvana

In class we listened to a Nirvana album. Prior to this in class, we had watched a movie about them recording a live album for MTV. I have heard many Nirvana songs before, because they 're a pretty well known band, and my dad used to listen to them. I recognized multiple of the songs we listened to or watched the music videos of. I personally liked the album that we listened to. I liked how they could have a loud and pretty fast song, but then the next song be slow. I thought they did that really well. I thought the songs were well written, but I couldn't understand Kurt Cobain, because he sounded like he wasn't fully pronouncing his words. I also thought he sounded angry a lot, but besides that I liked the album and the music a lot.

Movie

In class, we watched a movie about LCD SoundSystem's last performance and the day following that. The movie showed the view of the lead singer's, David Murphy, last day and the day following it. At first, the band never really wanted to play an arena, they always wanted to play for parties or people having a good time. Over time, they began to become big, and then they said they wouldn't tour. Ends up, they toured. They played an interesting style of music that had a lot of electronic aspects, but had a rhythm, and also had a lot of singing. The audience in the pit was going crazy. They were jumping and dancing for all that we saw, and although they were touring, they had a party-like atmosphere that kept true to what they said they would do. I liked some of the songs that were played, and others I didn't like so much. David Murphy, to me, looks like he should be a an opera singer of some sort, not the kind of music that he played. That caught me by surprised, but none the less, I liked it. I thought they sent out a good vibe, and the documentary was interesting. I thought it was extremely unique how they just stopped making music, didn't want to be known as LCD SoundSystem, and then just started living normal lives. There are very few instances where anyone or group in anything just quit, while they were at the top, making a lot of money, just because they wanted to stop making music. I admire that a lot.

The Beastie Boys

In class we listened to The Beastie Boys. They used more developed beats and there was much more going on in the background of they're songs, than in N.W.A's songs. They, along with N.W.A., had pretty good writing. They didn't curse very often either which was cool to hear. They got an edgy topic and edgy style of music by without cursing, which was much different than music by N.W.A. Prior to listening to The Beastie Boys in class, I had only heard "Fight For Your Right" and a few other songs of theirs. I liked their music.