After reading break ends, it seems as though school takes the form of a drill Sargent beating you with a non-stop onslaught of work. I’m a bit behind on my blogging assignment, but that because I’m chin deep in a pile of assignments; probably caused by my own procrastination.
Because of all of my recent late-night cluster-fucks of essay writing and studying, it’s provided a great opportunity for listening to hours of music. For me, picking music to study to is as tedious of a task as it was for John Cusack to build the perfect mix tape in ‘High Fidelity.’ You want it to grab your attention (for keeping you alert and attentive to your work), but you don’t want it to keep your attention (you focus needs to remain on whatever your doing). You want it to fill the silence, but it can’t be intruding….
Lately, I’ve found my music of choice in Sam Cooke. It’s perfect really… the music is beautiful, his voice is beautiful, they’re smooth pop songs so you don’t really have to pay attention to what’s going on, they make you happy, and (seeing as how the songs are only about 2 and a half minutes each) there is always circulation; you’re not hearing the same song for long periods of time (I find that it can make me tired). Another favorite has recently been Guided by Voices, ‘Half Smiles of the Decomposed’ in particular. It seems as if the whole album just floats by.
On that note, I’m going to leave you with some videos of the two artists mentioned above and I’m going to get back to school work. Enjoy the shit out of these.
I appologize for the sound on this one…. but you’ll have to turn up your speakers. This is Sam Cooke singing ‘You Send Me’
This is Guided By Voices with ‘Bulldog Skin’. Not off of “Half Smiles of the Decomposed,” but off their 1997 release “Mag Earwhig.”
Is consumerism and commercialism altering perceptions on the art of coffee and music? In my opinion…without a doubt.
What is “indie”, or “indie rock” for that matter? I used to think that I knew. I used to think that indie music was short-form for independent music. The genre of indie rock is now more of a fashion for consumer culture and another way for capitalists to turn music into a commercialized product. They play with the label of indie rock, attributing it to underground culture and counterculture. Just another way to falsely assure the masses that they are “individual”, “unique”, and part of a countermovement to mainstream culture. It is used now to incorrectly describe the bands sound in affiliation with their independent label, or means of production. It’s a blanket term that covers many artists, grouping them into a category that appeals to a society who is constantly looking to rid themselves of characteristics of the collective; conforming to a symbol of individualism, despite the fact they are doing the exact opposite. Indie has been appropriated by commercialism to mean something that was originally not intended; it has new meaning now. It was only a matter of time before someone was smart enough to see that they could market this idea.
I’m not judging anything about the music itself. There are many artists coming out with the label of “indie” that are wonderful to listen to, and by no means should artists be judged by their label. Also, I’m not saying that there are not truly independent bands emerging from various music genres. I just wish that truly independent musicians wouldn’t get tagged under the genre of “indie”. Am I symbolically representing myself through the music I listen to? Most likely… but I would say that their is very few that could get away with saying no. Do I mean to? Not necessarily… I did for a long time, and now realize there are definitely more important things in life than defining yourself by symbolic culture. Althought I’ll never get away from it.
Now what about coffee? How have peoples perception of coffee changed? There are about 13, 000 Starbucks around the world, and in multiple countries; opening Starbucks every 6 minutes… About 44 million people a week go to Starbucks. Starbucks coffee is the most caffeinated coffee on the market. So what am I trying to get at? I want to argue the fact that Starbucks is altering people’s perception of coffee from something that is a taste sensation, to something to feed an addiction. Among other things that I think is horrible about Starbucks, this is what I’m going to try to argue. Usually when I talked to people about coffee, the response is usually something like this: “I really needed a coffee this morning, I had a horrible hangover and needed to get picked up.” Where is the enjoyment in that? Doesn’t it seem as if people are using coffee strictly for the caffeine, as a means for energy? I’m sure that symbolic imagery also has some sort of ties, but my opinion leans more towards coffee as a means of caffeine. It really is a shame that more people don’t take the time to appreciate all things that go into coffee and all aspects that change the qualities of coffee. We need to remember that we are trying to make something consistently that naturally doesn’t want to be consistent. Starbucks and other coffee chains have constrained coffee to something that can be repeated over and over again with very little frequencies of variability. So what Starbucks is doing is dealing caffeine legally and consistently. Of course this is just my opinion, and I would love to hear discussions!!
Communicative Culture Syncopation 