RED

So, Taylor Swift's new album came out this week. It is titled Red. It was very hyped up by pretty much every fan of her's out there. I am fan, so I was pretty excited. When I downloaded it Monday morning I saw the lineup and was pretty excited. After listening to it, I was a bit let down. I was let down, because the music was sort of all over the place. She did many different types of songs this album and showed more of her vocal range and also her song writing capabilities. Since we were talking about maturing as an artist in class, that was on my mind throughout the whole album. I personally believe that she is on the road to maturing. Nearly all of the songs on her other albums have been about boys and haven't had great lyrics. In this album, a little over half of the songs are about guys and there are a few songs with great lyrics. The last thing that makes me think that she is maturing as an artist, is that her music videos also look different. They look more professional, and less childish. I probably made the album sound bad, but its still quite good. I think everyone just hyped the album up a lot, and if they were a little let down like me, they will realize that the album is still really good. My personal favorites on the album are Treacherous, All Too Well, and Begin Again. Here is the album cover art and the songs.

Treacherous 

All too Well

Begin Again

This is the album cover.

Revolver and Cream

In our last class, we listened to The Beatles album Revolver and a little bit of Cream. Let me start off with Cream. We started of listening to  Cream without lyrics, and it was pretty good, they all played well and sounded good. Then we started listening to them with lyrics. They are god awful song writers. I have no skill in song writing, and I am fairly certain I could write better songs than them. Then we listened to Revolver. I have to say it was a pretty good album, and it is one of my favorite albums that we've listened to. My favorite songs in the album were Eleanor Rigby, For No One, and Got to Get You Into My Life. I liked "Eleanor Rigby" because it was different and I liked the sound of the stringed instruments. I liked "For No One" because I liked the sound of it and the lyrics were great. I liked "Got to Get You Into My Life" because it was upbeat and I enjoyed the lyrics. Overall the band grew, not by a significant amount, but they definitely grew. Here are my favorite songs from the album:

Eleanor Rigby

 For No One

                         Got to Get You Into My Life

Rubber Soul and Pet Sounds

In the past class we finished up listening to Rubber Soul by The Beatles and Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. I thought Rubber Soul was alright. I definitely thought they had put better albums out. I didn't like it as much because they just sounded different, and the songs weren't just that great for me. Then in the last half of class we listened to Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds, to me was maybe the best album we've listened to so far. All of their other albums were about Surfing, California, and Girls. And they changed the vibe of this album completely, and  I liked it a lot. I think they showed a ton of change, and if they hadn't changed the theme of their songs I don't think they'd be nearly as good as they are. The way they changed in one album is absolutely phenomenal, and I believe it caused everyone else to have to step up their game, making music better as a whole. Here is the album cover:

October 16th Talk

In the past class we talked about ACL and bands that have attempted to mature. I personally didn't go to ACL, because I had a Cross Country Meet in Arkansas, but I would have gone. There were a couple of bands that I thought would be good, were good, and vice versa. I wasn't too excited about the line up this year, because I didn't like too many of the bands that were going.We went around asking about "The Best and Worst of the Fest" and our class had some pretty good diversity. There were also a couple of arguments about the performances of bands, but it was good to hear both sides of the arguments. Then we talked about bands who have matured, and how their fans stopped liking them. We talked about why The Beatles could do it so well, but not other bands. There is one modern day artist who I can think of who is either close to maturing or is about to, and that is Taylor Swift. In her past couple of singles, there has been a lot of diversity, and a lot of fans are worried for the upcoming album, RED. She usually sings about boys and breakups, but the past couple of songs have taken a different genre and some different themes. Bands like The Beach Boys and Green Day have not had good reactions to maturing, so it could be interesting to see what happens to Taylor Swift. 

Discussion/ Bob Dylan

We had another good discussion for the majority of class, then in the last 15 minutes we listened to a little bit of Bob Dylan. We started off class by listening to a song by Bob Dylan, which I didn't like. Then we listened to a cover of it, by The Red Hot Chile Peppers. The cover was much different, they sort of made a rockish rap out of it, I can't say that it was good, but it was much better than the original. I liked it more than the original, because it was louder, more understandable, and they made it their own. We then talked about music, and the genres of music. We classified certain bands as different genres, and it led into our Bob Dylan conversation. We talked about how for him, he didn't need to have a great voice to put out music, because he has meaningful lyrics.

Class Conversation (October 8, 2012)

In class, we didn't listen to music, but we talked about current issues and just random things. It transtioned so many times, I barely even remember what we talked about. I do remember us talking about a World War 3, and if there was a mass illness or something that killed 98% of the population. It was interesting to listen to what people had to say about each of the topics. Many people thought it would be between Israel and Iran. The big factor of the war, would be which side China went on. We also had a conversation about if the US and China engaged in a war. Every American would half to kill about 4 Chinese, and how the war would go down. There were a couple different view points about how America would fight the war, but we decided that the US and China would not get in a fight, because China can make endless amounts of money off of us, so it would be worthless for them to kill us off. Lastly, we talked about why Americans think they are the best country in the world. One person said that we are proud, because we're ignorant and that we we were born into thinking that we're the best, and that it will probably always stay that way, until China is far better than us. It was a great talk, and I wish that I could explain it as well as it was in class.

Help! (Movie)

In this movie The Beatles were stars in their own movie, along with many other actors. The movie was a lot like Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There was a lot of random, but funny things throughout the entire movie. After about 1 hour and 15 minutes, I felt like the movie was being dragged on. There were multiple instances where I personally thought that the movie could have ended short. There were also some funny scenes, like when they go to their house for the first time. It completely reminded me of the humor from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.The movie, as a whole, in my opinion was just okay. I thought it was okay, because the movie dragged on for too long. I would recommend this movie if you like English humor.

Help!

This week we listened to Help by The Beatles. The album was produced in the summer of 1965. The album introduced an instrument called the Sitar. They used it in one or two of the songs, and the songs that they were played in were totally different from their other songs. I didn't like the songs with the Sitar, it was just obnoxious and loud. My favorite songs in the album were Help, Ticket to Ride, & Yesterday. I  like Ticket to Ride becasue it has a double meaning and its a good song. Here the songs are:

This is Help!

This is Ticket to Ride.

This is Yesterday.

A cool fact about Yesterday, is that it is the most covered song ever.