Muisc

My preference of music has always been rap. As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, California I was trapped into listening to rap music. Outside of the jazz music my father listened to and the gospel music my mother listened to, it was rap music that my ears grew accustomed to. I thought rap music was the only thing out there for children. Every little kid I knew listened to rap music. If you didn’t know the latest Tupac Shakur or Snoop Dogg song you weren’t cool. I was unaware of the message that was actually being delivered in the songs due to the fact that the radios played the edited version of songs. Personally, if the song had a catchy hook and a nice flowing beat, it became one of my favorites. Sadly but truly Adorno is right when he describes popular music as being dominated by standardization and pseudo individualization. Growing up we based our opinions of our favorite music on whom the artist was and how cool or catchy the hook was.

Personally I think artist use the same formula of making music and differentiate it from others by using their own experiences in it. Indeed I do think that it standardized in a sense. People tend to listen to music that they can relate to, and growing up rap music was something the local kids in my neighborhood related to the most. As far as pseudo-individualization, people individuals are attracted to catchy things and the uniqueness of the hook to a song can typically dictate how popular the song is.

For this assignment I listened to music ranging from Kenny G to Rage Against the Machine. There was a little Brittany Spears and Tim McGraw in between. These songs differed so much. Personally I feel as if the artist of these songs new the formula that was necessary in making popular songs in their respective genre. Kenny G’s music dealt with a couple of words here and there but mainly featured instruments. It was kind of a soothing to the soul type song. Rage Against the Machine was completely opposite, it was more of a let’s rock and get the party started type thing. My apologies to those who may have a problem with my choice of wording but I have no other way of explaining the mood in which I was in listening to this music. I felt kind of bad listening to Britt Britt because I’m 22 years old and the song featured Brittney, just wrong in my eyes.

Throughout these songs the message differed. Rage Against the Machine, talked about rebelling against the government and issues going on in the world. Kenny G fount a way to deliver a soothing message by offering a mixture of lyrics and live instruments into his song. Britt was a fox, her song dealt with being seductive, and at this day and age I would agree that no one is turned on by Britt anymore. Tim McGraw had me feeling pretty good in his duet with Nelly. The message that was offered in this songs provided advice for individuals in which face re-occurring acts.

Adorno talks about the challenges of creating serious music and how it typically would make individuals think about what theyre listening to. I think out of the songs I listened to, the collaboration of Nelly and Tim McGraw stood out the most given that they are from two different world and they came together and made a great piece of work.

TV Shows

After the long discussion and the bad reviews this show received amongst my classmates I figured it would be best to experiences the Shot of Love show for myself. The second reality show I watched was Snoop Doggs Fatherhood.

I am not a big fan of reality television. Yes they are entertaining but personally I think there as fake as can be. To have a camera man follow these celebs around every minute of the day is sort of believable, but the way these celebs act is simply unbelievable and often times the acting from the celebs seems scripted.

As explained in class, this Shot of Love show is truly a train wreck. The show is centered on a bi-sexual woman who dates both men and women in efforts of finding true love. The episode I had a chance to view was the beginning of the new season and wasn’t as bad because it was simply meet and greet amongst Tela and the contestants. My disinterest over the show comes from the highlights that were shown of the previous season. To me the first problem with this show is the theme of it. How is an individual who doesn’t know what they want, male or female, going to find love? This is one confused individual, yet people still tune in and are entertained by it. As Fiske writes, individuals find pleasure while others experience embarrassing acts.

This would be a perfect example for Bakhtin to uses for his carnival theory. I honestly can say there was nothing tasteful about this show. I think its offensive to individuals who are bisexual. First, who knows for a fact that Tela is even a bisexual individual in real life? Secondly, how does an individual find love by putting other individuals through competitions, what is true love? Bakhtin talks about this carnival world allowing one to have creative and playful freedom. The show allows Tela to have the creative freedom yet at the same time she is playing with the values and moralities of others by trying to find love in this way. By understanding that love is typically not going to be determined on a competition, this show allows viewers to step inside this carnival world and think what if. What if it was possible to find true love by having both male and females compete over you in ridiculous events?

The second reality show I watched was Fatherhood. This is a show involving famous rapper, Snoop Dogg and his family. The camera men follows Snoop and his family around throughout the day. The purpose of the reality show is simply an illustration of how Snoop balances being a father to his three children and continuing his super stardom.

The show isn’t as bad as the one talked about earlier but it still bugs me a bit. The problem I have with the show is that it’s not reality television. The horrible acting provides reasoning that this show is scripted. The writers or producers of the show place Snoop in his family in situations that are not very serious, yet seems to be important to the family. For example, the show I watched featured snoop and his family going to London for a concert that he was schedule to perform. As the family get over there they are unsatisfied with the food so Snoop decides to calls a friend in need of help. Throughout the show the family is starting to fall apart and become angered towards each other because they can’t have their typical fried chicken. There is no social order in this at all. I don’t think I ever heard of any family becoming upset with each other over chicken, yet people find laughter in this. A family usually represents a strong bond amongst all individuals, and I don’t think getting upset over not having a certain type of chicken classifies as a strong bond.

Whats Popular to Dray, Isnt Popular to Grampa Dray and Poppa Dray

For this assignment I thought it would be best to interview my father and my grandfather. I figured it would be best to interview my mother’s father because interviewing my father and his father may provide some similarities given that the two lived in the same household for plenty of years and shared similar likes and beliefs.

My grandfather was a little hesitant to sit down and talk about things that were popular back in the good old days. He felt as if I wouldn’t understand or appreciate what was popular to him when he was my age. After explaining my reasoning for the sit down conversation he was more willingly to open up. The first thing we talked about was sports. I figured he’d open up and talk about sports for the simple fact that it was a common ground that we shared. He had always been a big fan of baseball. My grandfather explained that the game has changed over the years. In his day it was a game that the local kids would play in the streets just to past time and nowadays people actually try to make a living out of it. The next subject we touched on was music. Often times my grandfather is a very understanding man but for some odd reason he just couldn’t understand the music in which I listen to. He talked about how back in his day; music had a story behind it that everyone could relate to. The popular artist was Frank Sentara and everyone loved Frank, according to Gramps. As far as clothing, he explained there really wasn’t any difference in the way people dressed, well except for church days. The common dress was simply a pair of jeans and a v-neck t-shirt. Everything seemed good and peaceful back than.

My father on the other hand was excited to talk about popular things in his day and age. I think the excitement steamed from his how easy living was in his day compared to how living is today. The way Pops explains thing about the late 50th early 60th you would think it was heaven back than. Pops has always had an eye for fashion so it would make sense that clothing was the first thing in which he wanted to talk about. According to Pops, actors in films dictated what was in and what was out. Everyone wanted to dress like their favorite actors. It was big to wear the suits that James Bond sported. As far as music, Pops felt that there wasn’t any better music than the music of this decade. Personally I agree with him given that majority of the music that is made today is sampled from the music of the past era. We talked about cars and he explained that everyone had to have a Chevy. Chevys were the muscle cars back than and it showed ones power by driving one.

As time goes by we establish our own form of popular culture. After talking with my grandfather and father I think its safe for me to say, what is popular to me, defiantly won’t be popular to my son once he becomes my age. In the book they talk about how we determine pop-culture and where does it come from. Personally I think it’s a common ground between both people in power and people below. Some may not agree, but I think things become popular when kids of are generation, rich or poor, have an interests in the same thing.

Money Spent

For the past week or so I have been keeping a daily tab on the thing that I have purchased. This assignment has helped me realized two things, I spend way too much money and I spend money on some weird and often unnecessary things.

The items in which I spent my hard earned money on range from an over priced three dollar notebook that was needed for an online class, to a $9.95 bottle of Seagram’s Gin. I used these two products as example for the simple fact one item, the overpriced notebook, is a need because it was required for the class, on the flipside the bottle of gin was a want because I could have certainly went on with out it. Another reason for using these two product as example outside of the needs and wants category that they fall under, was the fact that the two products were extremely opposite of one another in a sense one was school related and the other was adult entertainment related. It seemed like everything else such as, food, clothing, flowers, etc... fell in between the two products previously mentioned.

The “Needs” category had your typical everyday items. These items were bottles of water, body wash, my over priced notebook, books for my classes and a couple pair of underwear, boxers if anyone wants to know. I don’t know if it counts but I spent a lot of money on bills. A few bills that I would include in my “Needs” category would be rent, power/gas bill, some may argue against me on this one, but I would consider it a need for me and that’s my cell phone bill.

My “Wants” category may be very unique to several others for the fact I’m simply a weird individual. This section featured items such as, a Sony Playstation 2, a couple pair of jeans, a nice Los Angeles Dodger fitted baseball cap, lots of eating out at different restaurants, a bottle of gin, and last but not least some chewing gum. A few might wonder why I chose to put eating at a restaurant in this section and I admit it was a little confusion on my part on whether this would be a need or a want. I came to conclusion that because I chose to go out and eat rather than eat the food at home that was already purchase, this would be consider a want instead of a need.

As previous stated this assignment help me understand my weird and unique spending habits. I think I spend way too much money on unnecessary things. For example I ate out three times last week and the total amount for all three meals came out to $132.33. I spent this amount, when I had groceries at home and it would have been a lot cheaper to simply shift into Dray-boyar-d and throw something together in the kitchen. But this say something about me as an individual, I would rather spend money and have somebody else put something together for me rather than me actually making something. I think my preference of going out to eat also has to do with a mixture of being a college student and pop culture. I’m easily influence to go out to a restaurant and eat with a group of friends and have a good time. Being a college student, I attend classes all day long and it’s much easier for me to simply go out to eat and swipe my card when I’m done.