Puny Miscellaneous Links for Mortals: 2010

[Hunter Sopko]

Gogo 2010!

[Lance]

http://www.fupenguin.com/

"Fuck You, Penguin" -- a blog about some guy making fun of animals. Unexpectedly funny (and NSFW, obviously).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

https://www.shakeweight.com/ver4/index.asp

Do you suck at handjobs? The shake weight is here for you.

[Ultradude]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/11/23/091123crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=1

[metroid composite]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

http://humour.200ok.com.au/25cw_songs.html

Wow, Questionable Content wasn't kidding.

[Lance]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyjTDiNWT0k

The Final Fantasy theme with lyrics. Several different varieties of awesome.

[Cotigo]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

Lady Gaga is in the same "music"al tribe as Britney Spears, Miley Sirus, and Christina Agulera:  We'd all be better off if someone slit their throats and every CD they produced was completely destroyed.  Making it A Capella doesn't make it suck and less.

[ThePiggyman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyjTDiNWT0k

The Final Fantasy theme with lyrics. Several different varieties of awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmi_7udjaSE

Final Fantasy + rap = win?
Who would have thought.

[Dhyerwolf]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

Lady Gaga is in the same "music"al tribe as Britney Spears, Miley Sirus, and Christina Agulera:  We'd all be better off if someone slit their throats and every CD they produced was completely destroyed.  Making it A Capella doesn't make it suck and less.

At the very least, most of the the music in this genre is consumable (Which is to say that it's generally bearable), and generally doesn't pretend it's anything more than that. Hunt down horrid rock bands whose music makes you want to rip out your own eardrums first (Looking at you Phoenix and Silver Sun Pickups).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

Lady Gaga is in the same "music"al tribe as Britney Spears, Miley Sirus, and Christina Agulera:  We'd all be better off if someone slit their throats and every CD they produced was completely destroyed.  Making it A Capella doesn't make it suck and less.

In the words of Frank Reynolds, "It's all about image and marketing." If you didn't write your songs, don't play any instruments and you run your singing through more processing than a Big Mac gets, ANYBODY could be you, and the only reason you're famous is that some executive picked you out to be his next pre-fab "musician."

[Cotigo]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

Lady Gaga is in the same "music"al tribe as Britney Spears, Miley Sirus, and Christina Agulera:  We'd all be better off if someone slit their throats and every CD they produced was completely destroyed.  Making it A Capella doesn't make it suck and less.

At the very least, most of the the music in this genre is consumable (Which is to say that it's generally bearable), and generally doesn't pretend it's anything more than that. Hunt down horrid rock bands whose music makes you want to rip out your own eardrums first (Looking at you Phoenix and Silver Sun Pickups).

What? Phoenix is great.  Any music group that takes the bloody time to write their own god damn songs and focus on the music itself instead of stupid ass costumes and marketing gets respect to begin with, but Phoenix manages to compose some fairly complex melodies and still come out with something dancable in the end.  If you're honestly going to tell me that Lady Gaga is listenable and Phoenix isn't, you have your head up your ass and your ass has shitty speakers and only gets music in AM frequencies.

[metroid composite]

http://holykaw.alltop.com/berkeley-a-cappella-group-covers-lady-ga-gas?utm_source=OM&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_term=Alltop&utm_campaign=HolyKawToAlltop2010&utm_content=Alltop
(video) awesome a capella rendition of pokerface.

Lady Gaga is in the same "music"al tribe as Britney Spears, Miley Sirus, and Christina Agulera:  We'd all be better off if someone slit their throats and every CD they produced was completely destroyed.  Making it A Capella doesn't make it suck and less.

At the very least, most of the the music in this genre is consumable (Which is to say that it's generally bearable), and generally doesn't pretend it's anything more than that. Hunt down horrid rock bands whose music makes you want to rip out your own eardrums first (Looking at you Phoenix and Silver Sun Pickups).

What? Phoenix is great.  Any music group that takes the bloody time to write their own god damn songs and focus on the music itself instead of stupid ass costumes and marketing gets respect to begin with

So...since Lady Gaga writes all her own material she gets respect.  Glad we cleared that up.

[Lady Door]

I think she may fail on the second half of that statement.

[metroid composite]

I think she may fail on the second half of that statement.

Actually, she's also a fashion designer and designs her own costumes. (Which is why they're actually creative, unlike Britney Spears costumes >_>)

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if Zenny hated fashion designers....

[Dhyerwolf]

Complex melodies and good, non-ear gratings melodies are definitely not auto-equivalents. My misplaced head and its apparentally crappy speakers can't wait for the day when Phoenix falls back into irrelevance.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

And I reiterate: she's famous because of some marketing executives pointing the finger at her, not because of any inherent musical talent. You know, like everyone else in her entire genre. Fuck pre-fab.

And no, I don't care how you dress. You are a musician, you exist as a disembodied voice.

[Cotigo]

I really fail to see what qualifies as ear-grating in any of their songs (granted, I only have the latest album) that wouldn't place Lady Gaga way further down on the shitlist.  Maybe Love Like a Sunset, because droning electro is fucking terrible, but seriously now. 

I guess there's no accounting for shit taste.

EDIT:  Fashion designers are shallow whores who place too much emphasis on looking silly and then looking down at people who don't look silly in the same way that they do.  Gaga isn't winning any points for that, related to her music career or not. 

Gaga may also write her own music, but it's fucking awful.  Obnoxiously loud (learn some dynamics, cunt) major chords repeated for five minutes while she tries to sound so god damn chic while she's stuttering about a pokerface?  That's not music.

[metroid composite]

Gaga may also write her own music, but it's fucking awful.  Obnoxiously loud (learn some dynamics, cunt) major chords repeated for five minutes while she tries to sound so god damn chic while she's stuttering about a pokerface?  That's not music.

Ehh...off the top of my head, Bad Romance makes heavy use of dynamics, and IIRC Paparazzi is extremely heavy on minor chords.


That said, your objections seem to be targeted more specifically at Pokerface, a song that I don't know all that well outside of parodies.  Let's see...

http://newsheetmusic.blogspot.com/2009/03/lady-gaga-poker-face.html

You know, your complaint about major chords has me scratching my head.  Pokerface doesn't have chords.  Even the note sequences are just as often octave jumps or minor second/major second.  I will grant you that it is in the key of B major, though.

(And a quick one minute listen shows at least some dynamics--the G3# G3# G2# G2# D3# D3# G2# G2# starts out quiet, then becomes louder.  In the voice, the verses seem to be effectively percussion, and quieter voice than the chorus/pre-chorus/bridge.  Though sure, volume is held unusually constant within sections).

EDIT: B major, not C# major.  Whoops, wrong half-note direction >_>

[Yoshiken]

As it goes, Poker Face also has nothing to do with a poker face. It's about how she imagined she was screwing a woman when she was having sex with her boyfriend.
And, while it's the topic of conversation, Poker Face is an awful song, but Bad Romance is one of those songs that grows on you. Paparazzi is... yeah, pretty good. It's just Poker Face that kinda sucks, and that's more to do with the use of effects than the actual music.

Anyways! Not sure who here is part of Atlus Faithful, but a competition (only open to those in US & Canada, sadface) has been running there for a couple of days and is open 'til the 15th. Basically requires signing up to their mailing list until the 22nd (since winners will be notified by e-mail). After that, can remove self and continue as normal.
http://www.atlus.com/12daysofatlus.php - Decent amount of stuff on offer and, if nothing else, would make for great prizes at the next DLCon. >.>

[Shale]

I've never heard anything by Lady Gaga, and I'm okay with that.

[metroid composite]

I've never heard anything by Lady Gaga, and I'm okay with that.

As you should be.

Actually...the more music I listen to, the less I feel like there really are any must-listen artists.  I mean, The Beatles?  Michael Jackson?  While I enjoy their music, thinking on it I'm pretty sure I don't have a single song of theirs in my iTunes (despite having much more obscure artists from the same eras).  I used to subsist musically entirely on Beethoven, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff, but now I barely listen to them, so I'd be a hypocrite if I called them essential.  Weird Al?  Yeah, I could see arguing that certain people MUST be introduced to Weird Al...but I ALSO know people who would get nothing out of Weird Al (for instance, my sister's French Canadian Ex-Boyfriend; it's hard to translate humor. To say nothing of other reasons why people might not care about Weird Al).

So...yeah, I don't think anyone should feel bad if they've never heard [insert artist].  Music existed before [insert artist], and people still loved the stuff!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'd say before jazz developed, it didn't exist in a form that we would really recognize. Their big thing was this crazy shit called "improvisation" that nobody else did.

[metroid composite]

I'd say before jazz developed, it didn't exist in a form that we would really recognize. Their big thing was this crazy shit called "improvisation" that nobody else did.

Genres =/= artists

Yes, in the past 100 years we've seen the invention of Jazz, invention of Rock and Roll, and so on....  Perhaps even more core in some ways, however, is new instruments like turntables, samplers, scat, electric guitars, synthesizers.

Point is, "I've never heard artist X" is not the same as "I've never heard a song with an electric drum track."  In the latter case, you're missing a huge fraction of music.  In the former case, you're missing like...0.01% of music, because no one artist has made all that much stuff.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Allow me to rephrase: music existed before the first great jazz musicians emerged, but not in a recognizable form, even though they loved that stuff. One artist is not essential, no, but sometimes small groups of them are.