Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Nas vs. Jim Jones

Rap has been a part of my life ever since the days of MC Hammer and Tag Team (of the "Whoop There it Is" fame).

But I really began my immersion into hip-hop in 1996 and 1997, with two albums; 2pac's All Eyez on Me, and Nas' I am...

Both had their own styles that captured my attention. 2pac was pure emotion, raw and brutally honest. Nas was similarly honest, but more observant and lyrically superior.

Consequently, for the past 11 years or so, I have been a Nas fan, listening to his music, seeing his concerts, following his evolution and maturity as an artist.

On his 2004 release, God's Son, Nas reflects,

It's becoming unbearable, making hits is easy

Because he is so established, Nas has strayed away from the game of producing singles simply for the purpose of selling records like so many of his peers. On his latest album, his first and so far only single, "Hero", has the driving, infectious beat of Polo Da Don, one of the most sought after producers right now, as well as a hook sung by Keri Hilson, another certified hitmaker.

But rather than fulfilling the cliches we are used to seeing from rappers, Nas uses this space to articulate the importance of voice in his work, likening himself to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Billy Joel.

Compare that to the hypocrisy that is Rick Ross.

But Nas doesn't stop there. The track "Sly Fox" is about Fox News, America's favorite propaganda machine.He was involved involved in a protest on fox news as well outside of their headquarters a couple of weeks ago as well.

And this is where things get downright sad.

Later on in that week, Jim Jones, of "Ballin" fame, and really, not much else, attacked Nas, saying that his protest was simply promoting his album.

Really Jim?

Nas is one of the most respected guys in the rap game. With six number one albums, including one of the most classic rap records of all time under his belt, Nas has spawned a legion of fans, imitators, and haters due to his prowess behind the microphone. Do you really think bashing Fox News is going to help him sell records? Do you think middle aged white parents will be more or less inclined to buy a rap artist cd for their kids if he is radical or friendly? And you really don't think Fox News is a problem whatsoever, even in light of the recent news about the White House instructing what the pundits say on this network?

C'mon Jim. Your a one hit wonder trying to keep your fame by messing with a legend. And you showed your utter ignorance in doing so.

Sly Fox Music Video

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Pandora: Music to your ears


The past decade really has been an extremely mixed bag for music listeners. With mp3 players, p2p networks, and more recently jump parties, it is easier to get access (legally or not) to music everywhere.

But where do you discover new music?
Sure, there are blogs dedicated to reporting new musical trends in various genres. iTunes or Amazon gives you recommendations about artists that are similar to yours. And I guess you can listen to terrestrial radio. If you want to hear 'Crank Dat' by Soulja Boy, or 'Big Girls Don't Cry' by Fergie. Again. and Again. and again and again.

But I don't have to tell you how obnoxious terrestrial radio is. Because chances are, you already knew that. And you probably stopped listening a few years ago, unless some aspect of your car stereo isn't working.

But this phenomen has happened not because broadcasting music you have never heard before is an outdated model, just that the groups in control have stagnated to a point where they are almost beyond saving. (check out the link above if you are interested at all in the demise of terrestrial radio).

Enter Pandora.com.

Pandora is an online radio provider that brilliantly delivers personalized radio stations based on your musical preferences. When you open the website for the first time, a display box asks you for the name of a song or artist you enjoy. Upon entering this name, Pandora accesses 'The Music Genome Project," described on their website as,
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Using this Genome, Pandora will play songs with similar genes to those of the one you originally selected. Everytime a song is played, a small box appears on the player on the webpage, allowing the listener to give the song a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Whether the listener likes this song adds to the musical preference of this particular station, thus fine tuning the musical tastes of the user even further.

But really, the genius beyond this is that it allows users to listen to music that is outside of what they may normally listen to. When you meet someone new, you may find yourself asking them, "What kind of music do you like?" with responses generally originating into genres that have been constructed from a business perspective of selling more music. Good for the record companies, but in reality, listener tastes are much more complex than that. Pandora recognizes this, and in my own experience, delivers with flying colors. Over this weekend, whenever I have been on my computer, I have been listening to Pandora. I have reconnected with old music (First of Da Month- Bone Thugs and Harmony), and I have been introduced to new artists, (The Black Pack) and songs by artists I enjoy but hadn't been previously exposed to (Incubus, Daft Punk).

Of course, there are some problems with Pandora that need to be addressed. Besides almost being shut down about a year ago, Pandora also is vulnerable to failure because it relies soley on the genes of a certain song to recommend new music, which can be problematic because the program can not always pick up quickly why a listener likes a certain song. For instance, I put Forever by Chris Brown into the program to see what appeared, and the first five songs I didn't really like, most of them missing the dance vibe and soulful playfullness of Chris Brown's voice.

Last.fm, another online radio station, has no algorithim for predicting what music a user will like, but instead uses a vast social network to determine what kind of music a Chris Brown listener would like based on people in the network with similar tastes. Steve Krause, VP of Analytic Products at CNET, writes in his post, Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders, that,

Last.fm simply describes what goes together according to its audience and then makes relatively simple inferences from that. So if there are hidden factors that Pandora isn't explicitly capturing, Last.fm is at least capturing them indirectly.
This social factor on Last.fm also recommends like minded listeners to users, making it more interactive than Pandora.

All told, I really enjoy Pandora, even if it does not play songs I love everytime. It is able to play songs that sometimes come out of left field, but that I find myself adoring, something I could rarely say about terrestrial radio in my life. While it does not have the social networking capabilities of a last.fm, I have still been using the program and enjoying it non-stop since I got it. And thats what really matters. Well maybe not to you, but to me.

And finally, this video is courtesy of Pandora reminding me of my favorite music video from 3rd grade...

Thursday, July 17, 2008

house of cards...



So I have always liked Radiohead. A girl I was in love with turned me on to them a couple of years ago, and while they were not really typical of anything else in my collection, I embraced their minimalist sound. When I saw this video on youtube yesterday, it reminded me of all of the songs that I had previously downloaded of theirs on limewire. After going back and listening to them a little bit, do you konw what I did? I went to the iTunes store and downloaded two of their albums. Now I'm not trying to make a holier than thou statement, because I don't really bash on people who use p2p exclusively, because I used to as well. But I still went out and bought the album. And who knows; if i didn't surround myself with hip hop heads, I might even go see them live. Maybe I can check youtube to see if that would be interesting too.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Shouldn't my home page be, well, MINE?

im not slave to clocks. Night is dark, day is light, and if you live in southern cali, there are only two seasons; kinda warm, kinda not as warm.

but i have become a slave to other things in my life, starting with He-Man, the master of my universe at age five.



My most recent addiction? The internet. Especially web 2.0y stuff.
(note: took a break from writing this to watch 30 minutes of 90's cartoon openings, a link form the He-Man video above.first moment I have ever felt like I no longer represent the youth of America. but i digress.)

I used to have an i google account, but like so many other things in the web 2.0 universe, for the life of me, I don't know what the password is anymore.

I do remember that it used to have Garfield comics on it, but I was never a big fan of the orange cat anyways. If there were random Calvin and Hobbes comics offered, I probably would have never left.

Because that is what these websites, igoogle, pageflakes and the like, are all about. Consolidating things in a way that is easy to navigate, but also, perhaps just as importantly, consistently entertaining me.

So the best place to start is probably my "Just Fer Fun" section, tucked off on the far right hand side of the page, but probably the reason I continue to open my pageflake somewhat consistently. Email, weather, pictures of my hometown, all at the same time. Not to mention interesting articles not necessarily directly related to anything about my life.

But that little draw gets me to the more important stuff. Like my RSS feeds.

Because like all the random crap, the RSS feeds are generally interesting as well. They are just not necessarily party conversation. But no matter my mood, there is so much information available and accessible that I can always find something that interests me. Whether I'm in the mood to read about urban culture/fashion at Hypebeast, one of Time magazine's 50 best websites of in 2008, or the dry objective reporting of the RIAA suing 13 year olds on Recording Industry vs. The People, I have at a moments glance the two most important views of the music industry; fan perspective, and industry perspective.

I also get exposed to new music I would never hear on the radio, while simultaneously reading about a new generation of artists from a respected voice in the industry like Bob Lefsetz. The fact that I can navigate through the two so seamlessly allows me to really consider the validity of his argument. Is he the messiah, as so many people seem to believe? Or has his status rendered him out of touch and essentially useless? I can make my own opinion in a flash, open up my blog and start musing.

But the information does not end there. One of the problems I have found with reading blogs in the past is that by nature, authors have a certain scope, which prevents them from adopting new perspectives and ideas, or even considering new things to be valid. Therefore, while I am a dutiful reader of many blogs, I can glean even more information from the internet with my universal news and blog search. The universal news search today provided me with information I have been expecting for awhile, about the decline of traditional tv/movie viewing habits, akin to that of the music industry. Hopefully, for their sake, they are a little bit more prepared for the precipitous decline of their traditional distribution methods.

Finally, all of this rather general information at least flashes through my mind, and I normally pick out a nugget or two that are related and pique my interest. From both the blogs I subscribe to and my universal news feed, I have read many different opinions about Digital Rights Management, and chose to survey the academic realm to find something a bit more tangible than simple theories with little factual evidence. Through either sheer luck or the sheer genius of google book search (I would be a genius/happy employee if i ate this for lunch every day), I came across Stanford professor William Fisher's book "Promises to Keep" an early and inspiring look at the changing texture of digital rights management for the entire entertainment industry. This book (or, what I read of it), really changed my perspective on the best way to encourage creation of the arts that so many people hold dearly.

So I guess Im glad I got back into my pageflake. It definitely brings up a lot of interesting material, and I can truly say it has helped generate some interesting content for me. And it updates me when stuffwhitepeoplelike.com updates. Which is what truly matters.