Sad YouTube: A Blog Devoted to Heartbreaking Memories and the Songs that Evoke Them

24 Dec 2012 3 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, Recommended Sites Tags:

“Brian Hyland – Sealed with a kiss 1962″

“God this song brings so many memories to me.. This is the last song I heard with my brother the night before he died.. Than like if he was telling this will be our special song, This same song was playing when we were making arrangements for the funeral next day.. This will always be my brothers and my song..”

– thelma1212,

Mark Slutsky’s blog, Sad YouTube, is devoted to highlighting YouTube music and the comments it evokes–specifically the saddest, most poignant and nostalgic comments. Hard times, breakups, unrequited love and even separation brought about by death are all recurrent themes. It’s tearful reading at times, and the feeling of sadness heightened by a song is a familiar one to us all.

http://sadyoutube.com/

 

Is Hip-Hop’s Attitude Toward Homosexuality Changing?

20 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

ASAP Rocky

A$AP Rocky … ‘I used to be homophobic, but as I got older, I realized that wasn’t the way to do things.’ Photograph: C Flanigan/WireImage

From Frank Ocean coming out to Jay-Z backing gay marriage, hip-hop seemed to be shaking off its homophobic mindset this year. But the genre still has a lot of growing up to do.

(Reprinted from The Guardian)

In November, A$AP Rocky gave an interview in which he somehow managed to be both inane and yet completely illuminating on the state of modern rap. “If you do certain things like snug fashion, high-end fashion, other things that’s not really in the criteria of the small state of mind of the urban community, you’re ‘gay.’ Different is ‘gay.’ Weird is ‘gay'”, he told Hip Hop DX. “That shit ain’t gay. That’s just different. I’m a heterosexual man. I never been gay a day of my life. I used to be homophobic, but as I got older, I realized that wasn’t the way to do things. I don’t discriminate against anybody for their sexual preference, for their skin colour … that’s immature.”

The Purple Swag rapper may have been talking in circles, but his comments did at least offer signs that hip-hop was taking a more open-minded approach to sexuality than we’ve seen in the past. At the same time – thanks to his unnecessary need to remind us that he’s definitely not gay (definitely not, all right?) – he spoke to a wide demographic, a generation born in the 90s, who can’t recall a world before hip-hop existed and who regularly bookend their homophobic epithets with LOLs and smiley faces. It seems hip-hop still has a long way to go before we can say it’s relaxed about homosexuality.

Earlier this year a Twitter experiment tracked the use of words such as faggot and dyke over the course of three months, racking up a depressing 2.6m uses of homophobic language. It’s likely that a great deal of those people make no real connection between active homophobia and calling someone “a total gay”. Like Tyler, the Creator, they’ll probably tell you they have gay friends, and they’ll often be telling the truth. Rappers will say they’re just words, there to shock, the language of a character they have created for the mic. For hip-hop, and for the teenagers who who see no problem in having both Justin Bieber and Ludacris on their iPod, the language of homophobia may have stayed the same but the culture has changed.

It was only natural that as hip-hop grew into a multi-billion dollar industry it would need to align with what was happening in the rest of the America if it wanted to continue its ascent. That has meant an attachment to the process of change as a political statement and, over the last two years, huge social and political movements to advance gay rights, namely the It Gets Better project, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the overturning of Proposition 8 in court. When Barack Obama went on record to say he supported gay marriage in May, his comments were backed by the likes of Jay-Z and even 50 Cent. Once more, though, we were light years from enlightened thought: the latter, perhaps unsurprisingly, turned his “support” into an appeal for organizations that stood up for the rights of heterosexual men to be defended from gay men who want to “grab your little buns”.

Nicki Minaj’s prophecy that there would one day be a gay rapper might have seemed a long way off, but it was only a couple of months later that it (sort of) happened. Frank Ocean is not a rapper, but his affiliation with Odd Future has proved enough to bracket him within a world that had yet to send out an openly gay emissary. And when he did discuss his feelings for another man, it was by writing movingly of what it feels like to experience first love. While people threw themselves at Twitter and Facebook to show their support, the reaction from other rappers has been lukewarm. Despite Snoop Dogg and Russell Simmons offering encouragement, the most common reaction from hip-hop artists has been variations of the “whatever a man does in his own house” or “only God can judge you” line. Once again, Jay-Z was positive about Ocean’s statement without ever going the extra mile to back him with a personal statement. His support came in the form of a (very good) blog that read: “We are all made better by your decision to share publicly,” but the fact that it was written by journalist dream hampton [corr] saved him from having to find his own words about the younger rapper’s sexuality.

Frank Ocean’s letter didn’t quite mark a wave of change in attitude. We probably won’t be seeing a flood of mainstream gay rappers anytime soon, even if the recent swath of psychedelically strange rappers – A$AP Rocky, Lil’ B et al – have perhaps made it easier for “queer” rappers such as Zebra Katz, Mykki Blanco and Le1f to find a bigger audience on the more leftfield fringes.

And whereas it’s great to hear someone as high-profile as A$AP distancing himself from homophobia, rap still has a good deal of growing up to do. A$AP himself proved this by saying, later in that same interview “I’m getting bitches” – yet more shorthand for asserting one’s own masculinity that we could all live without hearing ever again. Still, when Lil Wayne substituted No Homo with the words No Frank Ocean on a crappy remix earlier this year, he suddenly sounded like a lonely man. Slowly, things are changing for the better.

Who Should Be In The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?

19 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

GettyImages_74297698

by David Barnett

(Source: NPR)

Cleveland’s Blue Arrow Records is a refuge for lovers of vintage vinyl. And among the music fans flipping through the bins, you’ll find no lack of opinions about performers missing from the city’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For Lance Kaull, it’s one of the original boy bands. “The Monkees,” he says. “What they did for rock ‘n’ roll — they should absolutely be in there.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s new class of inductees for 2013 will be announced later Tuesday at a news conference in Los Angeles. While the event generally prompts high-fives among fans of the winners, the list also provokes an annual debate over who gets in and why.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation oversees the nomination process. Its head, Joel Peresman, chafes at the frequent suggestion that the inductees are picked by a handful of guys in a smoke-filled room. “That’s just not true,” Peresman says. “It’s truly a committee of people that are smart; it’s truly a committee of people who care. These people know what they’re talking about.”

There are approximately 35 members on the nominating committee, including a mix of music journalists, scholars, performers and business people. But there’s still a problem with that group, according to Neil Walls. He runs the website Future Rock Legends, which is devoted to the minutiae of the nominating process.

“Most of them were born in the late ’40s, mid-’50s, and so they had their adolescence and their teenage years in the ’60s, when rock ‘n’ roll was really exploding,” Walls says. “When you look at the inductees, there have been more inductees that had their first record in the 1960s than all the other decades combined.”

The committee creates a list of about 15 Hall of Fame nominees, who are voted on by a group of about 600 past inductees and others in the music industry. According to published Rock Hall guidelines, inductees are picked based on their influence and the significance of their contributions. Performers are only eligible for the honor 25 years after the release of their first recording. Musician and journalist Greg Tate says there’s even a problem with that.

“It’s still a conversation among fans about music that really transformed their life, but it might be a little too early to talk about how that music made a lasting contribution to American culture,” says Tate. “I think if you’re talking about a 50-year mark, you’re more in an acceptable zone of measuring impact and significance [of music on culture, not the influence of music on a particular generation of consumers].”

But rock is music for the young, and waits for no one. NPR Music critic Ann Powers agrees that the committee was once a bastion of middle-aged white guys, but she says there have been efforts to bring in a younger, more diverse membership, which is reflected in recent hip-hop nominees and, this year, even Chic and the late Donna Summer.

“Disco is really influential among a lot of young artists today — both in urban music and hip-hop, and even in indie rock,” says Powers. “Young artists really like disco music. That was not true of earlier generations.”

Despite the new mix of artists, one of the biggest criticisms of the nominating process is its secrecy. Rock Hall watchdog Walls suggests following the example set by the Baseball Hall of Fame, which publishes the results of its nominating process each year. “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could do itself a big favor, I think, by being a lot more open about its process,” he says. “It’s just a very closed system that would benefit from opening it up a bit.”

But, the Rock Hall’s Peresman argues that it’s disrespectful to start parsing the relative popularity of the nominees. “The ones that get in — they’re in,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether they came in first or sixth. They’re into the Hall of Fame, and we never felt it was necessary to say, ‘Oh, this one was the most popular than the other one.’ ”

For the time being, journalist Greg Tate doesn’t see any end to the back and forth between the Hall of Fame and its critics. “It’s not like it’s going to be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction,” Tate says.

But back at Blue Arrow Records, clerk Tom DeChristofaro proves that you don’t even have to be a fan to join the party: “I don’t like Kiss at all — I hate that band — but, it’s, like, ridiculous that they’re not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They’re, like, one of the biggest bands of all time.” But that’s just one man’s opinion.

Landfillharmonic: Creating Music From Trash

18 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

Cateura, Paraguay is a town essentially built on top of a landfill. Garbage collectors browse the trash for sellable goods, and children are often at risk of getting involved with drugs and gangs. When orchestra director Szaran and music teacher Fabio set up a music program for the kids of Cateura, they soon had more students than they have instruments.

That changed when Szaran and Fabio were brought something they had never seen before: a violin made out of garbage. Today, there’s an entire orchestra of assembled instruments, now called The Recycled Orchestra. An upcoming film will show how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it will bring witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Astronomers tip Queen’s Brian May as BBC replacement for Sir Patrick Moore

18 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

Astronomers tip Queen's Brian May as BBC replacement for Sir Patrick Moore

Guitarist is praised for his ‘gift for communication’

(Reprinted from NME)

Leading academics have called for Queen guitarist Brian May to replace the late Sir Patrick Moore as presenter of the BBC show The Sky At Night.

Sir Patrick, who fronted the monthly astronomy show since its launch in 1957, passed away on December 9 aged 89. Now, a number of astronomers are calling for Moore’s job on the long-running programme to be given to May, who picked up a PhD in astrophysics from London’s Imperial College in 2007.

“Both of them have a terrific gift for communication… Brian is an enthusiast for astronomy,” Professor David Southwood, president of the Royal Astronomical Society and a senior research investigator at Imperial College told The Daily Telegraph. “You’ve got to have a pretty strong personality to replace someone who had such a strong identity, like Patrick.”Moore

Another astronomer, Dr Richard Miles, former president of the British Astronomical Association, said May would “grow into the job if he was given a free hand”. The BBC have yet to name a replacement for Moore.

May was a regular guest on The Sky At Night and collaborated with Moore on the book BANG!. On learning of Moore’s passing, May commented: “It’s no exaggeration to say that Patrick, in his tireless and ebullient communication of the magic of astronomy, inspired every British astronomer, amateur and professional, for half a century. Patrick will be mourned by the many to whom he was a caring uncle, and by all who loved the delightful wit and clarity of his writings, or enjoyed his fearlessly eccentric persona in public life. Patrick is irreplaceable. There will never be another Patrick Moore. But we were lucky enough to get one.”

Top Artists Adjust to New World of YouTube Bootlegs

18 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

metallica woodstock 1999

(Reprinted from Rolling Stone)

By Steve Knopper

Plug “Metallica” and “full concert” into YouTube and dozens of incredible  clips come up: a full, two-hour concert from earlier this year; a two-and-a-half  hour 1989 show from Seattle; the band’s complete set from the 1999 Woodstock  festival, including a version of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”; and the band’s  entire 40-minute “S&M” collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony in  1999. The same goes for almost any pop star, from Bruce Springsteen and Neil  Young to Beyonce and Justin Bieber. Where artists once fought to stamp out  illegal live bootlegs, now they encourage them or look the other way when they  pop up on YouTube.

“I don’t think any artist generally likes having representations of their art  and their performance out there that’s beyond their control,” says agent David  T. Viecelli, who reps top acts including Arcade Fire. “But everybody’s accepted  the new paradigm.”

It’s hard to trace exactly how each of these live treasures, which hardcore  fans have cherished and fantasized about for years, landed on YouTube. Some are  stripped from official DVDs; others are fully legal recordings from TV  broadcasts or festival webcasts; a few are leaked by the artists themselves as  promotional tools; and many, usually shorter clips, are posted by fans with  cell-phone cameras. Some artists are notable exceptions to the new rules – the  live YouTube footage from Prince, Joni Mitchell and Eminem, for instance, is  sparse and low-quality compared to Metallica or Young – but their reps declined  to explain why.

Full-length concert videos on YouTube became possible in 2010, when the site  eliminated a 15-minute cap on the length of clips. (Reps for the Google-owned  company weren’t available for comment.) As a result, artists and their managers  and attorneys – not to mention record labels and other content companies who own  the rights to certain DVD releases – have had to decide how to respond.  Artists, labels and publishers can work with YouTube to pull down videos, or  allow the company to “monetize” the clips by festooning them with  advertisements.

“Most of the artists have kind of conceded to it,” says Josh Grier, attorney  for Ryan Adams, Wilco and Fountains of Wayne, all of whom have live shows on  YouTube. “Metallica might be inclined to take a stand, but it would be a serious  legal expense, and just manpower. I expect that everybody, slowly but surely, is  going to accept it – as a recording group, your live material is going to be up  there. Or join the club and just see if you can get advertising attached to all  of it and get revenue-share for everything.”

Until recently, many major artists fiercely opposed the spread of any type of  concert footage or audio. Springsteen famously criticized bootleggers throughout  the Seventies and Eighties. Performers were historically concerned about losing  creative control or having to live with gaffes or other spontaneous happenings –  like when Paul McCartney fell on his face during a recent performance of “The  End” in St. Louis, and footage appeared on YouTube within a week. They also were  worried about bootleggers unfairly making money off their work.

But attitudes have changed, in part because the DVD market for live concerts  has become less lucrative, with the exception of top-tier stars like Adele. “We  tried to put out a Fountains of Wayne special edition recently – they made a lot  of videos through the years that didn’t get much play,” Grier says. “Adam  [Schlesinger, the band’s co-songwriter] just said, ‘They’re all on YouTube.’ And  I looked, and yeah, they were.”

As for shaky fan-camera footage, Grier says it’s more of a curiosity than a  threat to a band’s revenue stream when people want to check out, say, Lou Reed  performing the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” with Pete Townshend at a  pub in 2007. Still, some acts, including Springsteen, ask ushers to police the  audience to ensure nobody brings in cameras or even shoots cell-phone video.  It’s almost an impossible task. “The idea that someone is shooting with cameras  at festivals – that’s very, very hard to control,” says John Peets, manager of  the Black Keys. “It’s a new world out there. Our concern is more, if we put this  out, we need to make sure it’s of a certain level. That’s the line we’re trying  to control, more than slapping down people at a show.”

The concert industry’s general philosophy in recent years has evolved into  “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Bonnaroo has been live-streaming the sets  of top performers since roughly 2003, when its partner was AOL, and while the  occasional headliner asks not to participate, most do. “You just can’t stop it  when everyone has a mobile device,” says Jonathan Mayers, co-founder of Superfly  Presents, the Manchester, Tennessee, festival’s promoter. “If you can’t control  it, use it as a marketing device – go with it.”

Many younger artists, who are themselves avid users of YouTube and Twitter,  take this post-all-content philosophy to an extreme. Earlier this year, after  Justin Bieber ran through a new “Boyfriend” dance step for a live television  performance, he immediately sent out a short Viddy clip of it via Twitter. “His  choreographer called me, all freaked out, and said, ‘It’s going to be our  surprise!'” recalls Scooter Braun, who manages Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen and Psy.  “I said, ‘I think you’re looking at this the wrong way.’ Let’s say you’re  sitting down to watch this TV show, you’ve watched this [online clip] 100 times,  you jump up and do the dance, your entire family goes, ‘How the hell did you  know how to do that dance?’ You know what that does for a fan? It draws fans  closer.”

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