Fuck me, I’ve been neglecting the blog and I have broken my promise to all of you delicious boys and girls.
So for this one I will talk a bit about the evolution of music, particularly around the vocation and the cultural appropriation of accents when creating music.
I will also answer a few of your questions.
The challenge with writing these is that I try to keep it to about a 5 minute read, which is about 1200 words. So I will gloss over shit so I can get it to the length of the average poo. Which is around 6 minutes.
But first, let me explain my tardiness a bit,
Since losing my job due to the strange and uncertain times of the Goblin, I have had very little interaction with people. This worked wonders for my book, as it means that I have more time and less interactions and distractions.
However, the blog is different. I’m a bit of a talker and I draw inspiration for the blog from conversations I have with people. So getting proper real world content has been a bit of a cunt.
To compensate, I now find myself deep down in the anus of Wikipedia without a clue of where I’m going.
I’ve been forced to do housework and cook these days. Not forced by anyone in particular, but I feel pressured by my own self to stop being a lazy wanker. My wife is like a superhero and she’ll have the house back up to scratch within minutes, but not me. I get distracted all the time. Simply seeing my guitar in the corner would have me ignore making the bed. Getting into some Facebook banter would fuck my whole day in many cases.
So what I started doing to remain focussed is listen to music that I haven’t listened to before. Mostly Pop Music, because it doesn’t require as much cognitive awareness as something like Tom Waits or early Kanye would.
Remember, I don’t know who these singers are and because I have such a vivid imagination, I always try to think of what the singers may look like in my head. Luckily for me, Spotify has the name of the artist whenever the song is playing and I wrote them down.
Some of names I noted were:
Jesse Jay
Iggy Azalea
Ariana Grande
Logic
Selena Gomez
To be fair, I do know who some of these people are, but I don’t really listen to their music, but I was astounded by what I realised.
At first listen, these people sounded like black singers to me. I found this really interesting and I jumped straight onto Youtube and Wikipedia.
I found out that this sound was first popularised by the legend who is Elvis Presley. Elvis grew up among black people in the south of America. This is a fact.
The southern blacks were musical people and the invention of Blues music took place down there as well.
Elvis was a white male, and for him to copy the popular sound and take it mainstream was almost inevitable. I’m not doubting the man’s talent and I’m not saying that he stole anything. Musical style is something that evolves and Elvis was a big link to it’s evolution.
Even today, singers still sing with African American Accents, but it wasn’t always like this.
Music became mainstream in the early twentieth century. It wasn’t always accessible to everyone before recording became a thing. It was mostly played in posh lounges or by rich people who were able to afford instruments.
Surprisingly, the first appropriation of a language on a recording was by an American cowboy who happened to be Jewish. He hadn’t seen Ireland, but somehow sang in a very strong Hiberno accent. Almost all popular songs until the onset of Elvis were sung this way.
Today in the West, we are witnessing the rise of the British sound.
I know what you are thinking. The Brits have already had their rise in music popularity, but take a listen to the Beatles or the Kinks, even Queen. They all sing like African Americans.
I’ve seen a few popular American rappers copy the British sound and accent with some success, but there is a bigger rise somewhere else in the world.
Gangnam Style by the South Korean outfit Psy, is the most viewed video on Youtube. What is surprising about that is that it is not only not an English song, but it is also a comedic song. Since the onset of Elvis, humour in music has always been seen as a bit of a novelty. In the old days, comedy was accepted however.
Music is the only art form that if it makes you laugh, it is not popular. There is a pompous sense of entitlement that only the music industry has, where they often discredit facetiousness. But facetiousness has as much credence as solemnity in art. It has been proven in other forms of art for centuries. Literature, film, theatre, all of these hold comedy in extremely high regard.
Some musical artists have had some success with humour, Eminem and Mackemore springs to mind, but humour has killed many artists.
When Billy Idol tried being funny on his early nineties album called Cyberpunk, it effectively ended his career. I haven’t heard of Billy Idol since his cameo in Adam Sandler’s, The Wedding Singer.
The music coming out of South Korea is different.
There is an air of newness to it, and it is refreshing. It definitely has a global following as well. My young daughter and her mates love a band called BTS. They even buy their merchandise, well we buy them.
I can’t get used to it though, I’m an old soul and I like a song with a story. These songs are sung in Korean I believe.
Another reason I think that music from Asia will become the next BIG THING is because Asian nations are collectivistic. Western Nations are individualistic. This has all to do with the types of crops grow in your country, I spoke about this on a previous blog. Not sure which one, read all of them you bastard.
Being collectivistic in the music industry has two benefits.
The first is that a band like BTS won’t easily split up. They have a sense of collective success, you can see this if you compare the videos of BTS and someone like Destiny’s Child. Nobody wants to outshine the next one in BTS, even though it is pretty obvious that at least one of them could make it on their own. I’m talking to you Beyonce. Have a look at how Fifth Harmony faded into obscurity, they were pretty class.
Another reason is album sales.
We fucked over the artists as consumers. We do have Spotify now, but back in the day, I used Napster to download all my music. The only time I spent money on music was when I bought a Greenday album. It was called Dookie. Brilliant album, you should check it out.
Asian governments have heavy limitations on what you can download, and music is very high on that list.
I’m pretty happy with the way it’s going, the youth seem to like it, and the music does seem a lot more wholesome than the tripe coming out of the States at the moment.
I don’t get ads anymore.
The greedy cunts say that I fucking swear too much. Maybe I should swear less and instead start uploading porn and beheading videos.
Support the Patreon, it is my only source of income at the moment. I’m also posting my book on there.
https://www.patreon.com/Blacksheepwriting?fan_landing=true
Ok, now I’m going to answer some questions posed to me by you gaggle of greasy pricks.
Anonymous asks:
I play guitar and perform on stage, I notice that you enjoy playing too and you seem good at writing lyrics. Is that something you plan on doing?
The answer to that one is NO.
I know myself too well. If I decided to go that route, I will go fully immersed. Songwriting is tough, and I don’t know enough about music to embark on such a journey. I just write some random shit and play it for my kids for a laugh.
Besides, I can’t perform, and I know I’m a self centered prick. Even when I’m writing, I’m writing for myself, which means I’m the star of my own performance.
Also, there is no money in music. I’m friends with seemingly successful musicians and even they have to supplement their music careers with promotional stuff and merchandise.
I did start entertaining the notion of writing screenplays though, but I will first finish current projects.
Anonymous asks:
What the fuck happened to your Podcast?
The Podcast is gone. I managed to get all the gear I needed and I actually recorded one. I added a backtrack that I made myself and even did the editing.
To be honest, I didn’t like what it sounded like. The content was good, but it lacked the Podcast Hug that other Podcasters have. I’m not sure if it was my voice or just the audio fidelity. I don’t think I have the gift for it.
A big part of the creative process as well as creative ambition, is to accept that failure is a big part of the game.
I didn’t enjoy doing it as well, it was far too stressful and time consuming. The writing is easy, I enjoy it as opposed to being stressful and I also find it very cathartic. I’ve taken about 35 minutes to do this one. That is dickall compared to a Podcast.
In life I tend to enjoy doing the things I’m good at. I think it’s human nature and although I do consciously challenge myself to do new things, I don’t think Podcasting is something I will pursue.
That’s all for this week you cunts, I’m well over the quick read notification.
I’ll answer more questions next week.
Mind yourself.
