Matt Marks Music

My favorite new meme.

I’ve seen some Facebook friends I know from my early days playing classical music around L.A., joining groups like “Protect Marriage – Vote Yes on Prop 8!”. It boggles my mind. You’re a classical musician. You are surrounded by gay people. Do you really want to deny your colleagues and supposed friends a basic human right? And if you are a conservative – which I’m sure most of you are – think of it like this: Voting Yes on Prop 8 increases government intervention into citizens’ lives. It is antithetical to the idea of limited government.

Voting No on Prop 8 doesn’t change anything. It won’t force schools to teach the merits of gay marriage to your kids. It won’t make anyone do anything. Voting Yes, however, does. It will strip rights from thousands of Californians. It will create a second class status for thousands of people, people you know and work with.

The idea of gay marriage offends you? Fine. Then talk to a gay friend about your concerns, write about your thoughts and sent an article to your local newspaper editor or start a blog, work on making your own heterosexual relationship an ideal one. There are any number of positive, societal things you can do that don’t rely on the power of the state to force your beliefs onto other people. Skipping those and going directly to the government for support is lazy and cowardly, as well as futile. Government cannot change how people feel, love, and hate, so don’t ask it to, it will only do more harm than good.

(video embed)

I find this infinitely more inspiring than any patriotic McCain ad or Obama song. Confront intolerance, disable it with logic, and sent the purveyors walking away in shame. Good stuff. If only there were more people like this at these Republican rallies confronting the lunatics.

The chimp on the segway is fascinating, but I’m more in awe at the sound effects. I had this video on as I was making breakfast and it made my life more exciting.

There is no sub-culture I support more wholeheartedly.

This video is mesmerizing. I believe there has to be some sort of subliminal message here. I feel changed after watching this, in some minute, but core, way.

Scrabble geeks will love this.

And this is creepy as shit.

Now, many of you may be familiar with my loathing of uplifting Obama videos. On one hand, I think it’s nice that people are using their creativity for something that they believe in and feel strongly about. On the other, I find them to be condescending, smug, and preachy, while having a heart-warming vintage propaganda tone. Many of them tend to be from the hip hop/R&B world, like the most recent one I’ve seen, by MC Yogi:

If you don’t feel like watching the whole thing, fast-forward to about 3:09 where the sepia-toned MC Yogi gently places his hands together in a pseudo-prayer, as if say, “I’ve said my piece, now impart with the knowledge I have passed onto you and let’s change the world.”

That hand-gesture is why I’ve come to hate uplifting hip hop.

Hip hop is a culture, and like any culture there develops norms of speech and basic communication that people who identify with the culture will adopt. This is why white kids from suburbia will end conversations with, “much love”, or interject a few “true dat”s into a conversation. It’s not that they are “acting black”. It’s that they are adapting to their chosen cultural surroundings. It is no more artificial than a person living in a new area of the country subconsciously adapting their speech and accent to the regional dialect. That said, just because it may be largely inadvertent, doesn’t mean that some of those norms aren’t annoying, or ignorant, or close-minded. It’s a common practice to condemn gangsta rap and its offshoots for their use of bitch, ho’, etc. and their cynical and negative attitude. Well, I think it’s high time to recognize the issue of uplifting, positive hip hop and its naive and condescending attitude.

If Death Row can be seen as the label that broke gangsta rap into the mainstream, then Rawkus is the label that broke uplifting hip hop. It’s early lineup was a congregation of some of the best voices of hip hop, which shunned the superficiality of the mainstream and brought hip hop back to its roots of breaks, samples and well-crafted rhymes. Some of the early Rawkus stuff was edgy, brilliant, and often offensive work from visionaries such as Company Flow and the late Big-L, but their defining tracks and albums were from artists such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Common, whose work contained a measure of social consciousness and spirituality. These sentiments were similar to those of the neo-soul movement of the time, with artists such as Erika Badu, Jill Scott, and India.Aire, free from the tough-guy aesthetic of their hip hop counterparts, espousing these values even further, heralding intellect and inner peace as core values of their lives and work, as opposed to the rank commercialism and greed of contemporary hip hop and R&B.

While these are great values, the issue comes out of the style of delivery. The tradition of allegory and storytelling having largely left hip hop and R&B a decade earlier, the prominent mode of delivery of lyrics had become direct. Artist to audience. By the very nature of standing on a stage physically over your audience you are literally condescending. Thus, the communication of personal ideals and beliefs takes on a preaching tone, you are telling a large group of people how to act. No matter your personal humility or good intentions, the act is condescending, which isn’t in itself a bad thing. However, when the culture itself becomes infused with this practice, then the style gets filtered down into the modes of communication of the listener.

Just as gansta rap audiences began adopting the language of their larger-than-life idols, fans of this type of socially-conscious uplifting hip hop have adopted the practice of preaching to each other, and whomever they can get to listen. Erika Badu isn’t any more qualified to teach you about what is right and good than you are, or I am, or MC Yogi is, but while I once had to endure the new-agey talking points of uplifting hip hop from fans at shows, they’re now making YouTube videos about the guy I’m voting for.

Here’s why it’s dangerous. I was once at a show by an amazing hip hop group called Solilloquists of Sound. Now they would surely consider themselves to be socially conscious, uplifting hip hop. I was there because they are an awesome group: great rhymes, nice beats, a guy playing dual MPCs live. The problem was that in between the tunes they took it upon themselves to “educate” the audience, inform them of the “struggle”. They even went so far as to say that there was ‘one path’, and you were either on it or you were lost. At one point an audience member called out something in respectful disagreement, but was shouted down and dismissed. Now, this makes sense. Performances are in a sense fascistic – the performer is and should be in control – but this can become a bit sticky when politics are involved. It is easy to be told something agreeable and innocuous as “All you need is love”, but when you are being told a controversial viewpoint – and anything courageous should be controversial – then unanimity cannot be expected. If there is apparent unanimity, then either people are silencing their dissent, or you have a complete consensus, which should frighten anyone who values free thought.

The above video could easily be dismissed as a somewhat sweet and naive message of inspiration and hope that Barack Obama will win and usher in a brighter future. I hope he’ll win too. My fear is in the tone, though. These types of messages can serve to alienate those Americans (most) who don’t identify with this doe-eyed youth culture, reinforce the belief that Obama is a vapid idealist, recall the insipid Vote or Die failed pop campaign, and especially repel those wary of the idolatry of many Obama supporters. A counter-argument could be made that they simply do not appeal to cynics, which I’ll admit I am, but people are cynical of nebulous, feel-good sentiments in politics for a reason, and giving in to vague notions of hope and trust seems to be the antithesis of independent thought.

I have a general rule in life: the moment that I find myself in broad agreement with a large group of people is the moment where I force myself to reconsider to what I am agreeing.

Ee-yiiiick. Mafoo no likey inspirational culty bullshit like this.

On the plus-side, them some nice pumpkins.

Despite my absence of posts this weekend I had my highest number of hits in this blog’s short history. Why, pray tell? Is it because of my penetrating insight into Angelina Jolie’s breastfeeding pic? Was it my prophetic posting on Joe the Plumber before it was cool. Perhaps people in general are finally realizing the essential uniqueness of my perspective and are flocking to their new source of knowledge and inspiration…

Nah, it’s porn.

Yeah, I wrote about Sasha Grey about a year ago, around the time of her notorious appearance on Tyra, in a NON-EXPLICIT post about her unconventional career in porn. She made mainstream news this week from her casting in an upcoming Steven Soderbergh film called The Girlfriend Experience where she plays (surprise!) a call girl. Well, that was enough to drive the masses to furiously search (what, Google blogsearch?) for her through the deepest recesses of the internet, into the welcoming arms of MMM. Upon arrival these pioneers spent approximately fifty-three seconds on my blog, just long enough to realize that the post contained no porn and no links to porn, and fled.

Now, if you are such a lost soul that you are searching blogs for your porn fix – and apparently thousands of you are – then I’ll do you a solid.

Go here. (NSFW)

Type in Sasha Grey.

And you should be good.

Otherwise, can I interest you in some musical theater geekery? No? Ok, then how about some info on the new Miyazaki film? The use of environmental propaganda in “Love is…” cartoons??

Ok, just go look at the porn.

Amy Lee is actually a decent singer, which is why the overuse of Auto-Tune is so pointless here. You can really hear it on the long notes, where they just seem to freeze in mid-air. It becomes very apparent in the chorus when the harmony comes in (0:52). Notice how the lower harmony sounds almost more like a synth than a voice – too clean, too perfect.

Now, I am anything but a purist. I have no qualms about using pitch-shifting when I need it. If a sung note in a long passage is a few cents low, I’ll reach in there and pull it up. I’m a better producer than a singer anyway. Auto-tune however, is a constant effect applied to everything sung – if it’s too high or too low, it pulls it into the center. It is also none too graceful with the portamento, which is why you will hear often hear passing notes jolt into the next, in perfect creepy harmony.

I’m not against Auto-Tune, I think it’s a brilliant piece of software and has it’s uses. I’ve toyed around with it and it’s pretty fun. Actually I recommend anyone who has a slight interest to mess around with the demo. It’s incredibly easy to use and will give you a better ear for hearing it in the wild, so to speak. I’m not against it as a tool, but misuse is incredibly apparent if you know what to listen for. Either use it delicately or go apeshit – like some of the R&B singers for whom it’s really an effect – ham-fisted use will render your music unlistenable in about ten years when the general public learns how to hear it.

Nate Silver at TNR on dial testing during the debates:

It’s not that the squiggly lines aren’t fun to watch. Rather, they’re too much fun to watch. It’s hard to avert your eyes from them. It’s hard to separate your own, independent reaction from theirs. And it’s certainly hard to integrate back into to the non-squiggly universe once you’ve gotten hooked on the squigglys.

Yeah, the squigs (as I’ll dub them) do tend to sway my thoughts a bit, which is why I’ve been watching the debates on PBS. More importantly, I think they are utter bullshit. My brain is not limited to varying degrees of positive and negative thinking. It is near-insulting to suggest that viewers’ minds work like this.

When McCain says:

The catalyst for this housing crisis was the Fannie and Freddie Mae that caused subprime lending situation that now caused the housing market in America to collapse.

I am convinced that, until we reverse this continued decline in home ownership and put a floor under it, and so that people have not only the hope and belief they can stay in their homes and realize the American dream, but that value will come up.

He’s stating information. Should I dial up because it’s true? Should I dial down because it’s boring? Should I hold that dial, and wait for him to say something sexy?

I don’t get it. Our thinking is not restricted to judging things as good or bad. When I am washing the dishes I am not thinking, “Things are going well for me because this bowl is easy to wash. Uh oh, now times are tough because I am scraping out this pan, this is a negative experience.”

My worry is that we’ll start finding these Happy Dials used for TV and film focus groups (I’m sure they are already). Shows like Six Feet Under and The Wire were not always the most pleasant to watch, but they were incredible because they brought out a complex range of thoughts and emotions. And you should feel a similar complexity of thoughts and feelings when listening to two men, one of whom will become president. I have an degree of respect for McCain, but I’m also kinda creeped out by him. I find myself susceptible to Obama’s charisma, but am somewhat annoyed by some of his condescension and politicking. There are too many already thinking in terms of good and evil, we don’t need this to be encouraged.

If you’ve been following this election as geekily as I have, you should get some laughs from these:

McCain Part 1:

I actually laughed quite a bit at these. It’s cathartic really.