Why Does Modern Music Suck?

Well? Why does it? Short answer: I don't know. Long answer: I have a theory

To start with, I don't literally believe all modern music sucks. Actually, there are a lot of "modern" artists that I like: Blink-182, Escape the Fate, Senses Fail, The Killers, etc. However, within the last decade, and especially within the last five years, there's been a major downturn in the music entering the pop world. When the abominations called "That's What I Call Music" came out, I'd often hear a couple of songs on the albums that I'd like; Bowling for Soup's 1985, the occasional Crossfade song, even the Killer's "Somebody Told Me." Now, however, I haven't heard a song from before 2005 on the radio that I can really stand, with the exception of the alternative stations. Now, I understand that Pop music has sucked for a long time, but why the hell is it getting worse?

Before I go on, I'm gonna quote my idol, Alice Cooper, on why HE (and he's been ruling the music world for over years) thinks. "Kids these days, they have all these catchy tunes, but their songs are just the saaaame thing over and over again. They don't feel their music at all. You're angry. I get it. Some girl or boy broke your heart. I get it. You're just putting out tunes, not real music." I think that Alice has it right there, that a lot of bands aren't feeling their music anymore, and the popular ones aren't feeling them period. I've heard Taylor Swift (my sisters listen, I live in a small house. I'm not gay) and Justin Bieber and the Jonas Bros. and all that other pop-music garbage; that's exactly what it is, garbage. Oh, musically, I'll admit the Bros. can play and Taylor Swift has a nice voice, but they sing about the same "feel good" crap in every single song. It's all about love (or a facsimile thereof) and self-esteem. The human touch is starting to evaporate from a lot of pop-music. Listen to your classic rock, or even modern alternative, and you get a sense of connection. There's a difference between Miley Cyrus talking about some guy who broke her heart, when she's never experienced more than the typically awkward and painful teenage relationship crap, and Buddy Nielsen of Senses Fail who really had his life butchered by a broken relationship. It comes out in the music. Now I realize contrasting Pop music with Post Hardcore may be a little unfair, but even if you look at older bands in the same genre, the problem remains. Looking at the old Good Charlotte (a talented band whatever you may think of their music) it was perfectly apparent that the Madden bros. had grown up in a significantly less privilaged environment than Miley had.

True enough, a lot of pop is meant to appeal to teenagers. Even there, modern pop is doing nothing but screwing the proverbial pooch. Blink-182, Bowling for Soup, Good Charlotte, the early Green Day; they all appealed to teenagers in a much more real sense than these Disney-backed disasters do. And why? Once again, the aforementioned bands FELT their music. I can think of no better band than Blink for expressing how teens feel. Life isn't all about self-esteem, sometimes life is shit and "It'll happen once again, You'll turn to a friend, Someone who understands, Sees through the master plan, But everybody's gone, And you've been here for too long, To face this on your own, Well I guess this is growing up." That's teenage life, in my experience anyway, not this highschool musical jonas bros. bullcrap. I'll admit, Blink-182 aren't the most talented bunch (save for Travis Barker. aMAZING drummer), but their relatively simple sound has a broader, more real, and quite versatile appeal. The Jonas Bros. rely on their good looks and self-esteem toting songs, and their time will soon be over. It ain't your skill that matters, it's your heart.

The other problem I have with a lot of modern pop is this; it all sounds the SAME. I know the sounds of Alice Cooper, of Social Distortion, of the Ramones, of the Clash, of the Sex Pistols, of AC/DC, of Aerosmith, of the Killers, of Socratic, of Blink, the list goes on. I turn on the radio, and I have no friggin' idea who's playing. Now, in a sense, I've been spoiled musically, because my dad insisted on my exposure being very broad, from Celtic to New Age to Jazz to Blues to Classic Rock. Hell, my first favorite rockband was Creedence Clearwater Revival. But as I look through all these "old" albums, watch all these "old" interviews, I see a variety of influence. Alice Cooper was influenced by everything from the Beatles to Elvis to Chuck Berry and the Stones, and then he injected his own sound. Aerosmith took influence from bluegrass, blues, and jazz just as much from the Stones. Social Distortion owed just as much to Johnny Cash as it did to the Ramones. Ozzy listened to British folk (often all lumped, quite incorrectly and to my fury, into the category of "celtic") just as much as he listened to the Beatles. Even classical music wormed its influence into the most unlikely corners of music; Randy Rhoades was a classical guitarist. Now, though, the influences are all the same; a bit of the Beatles, and then the power-pop and New Wave of the late 80s to 90s, and hence it ALLLL sounds the same. There is so much good music out there, and if you look at the influences of any good musician or band, and they will be diverse. If I was to list my influences as a musician, there'd be as much Folk as there would be rock, and even the rock would be diverse. Yes, Alice Cooper would be there, Social Distortion, Green Day, but there would be Andy M. Stewart, Tom Waits, Voltaire, Mauro Giuliani (whose method of classical guitar I subscribe to) and Vivaldi. The Jonas Bros. list Switchfoot and Prince, both of which are pop, and mediocre at best (no apologies are coming for that comment, don't even start with me.) Even if they listed Michael Jackson, who I loathe, at least it would be original. Just as eating only candy leads to ill physical health, lack of a varied musical influence will lead to crappy and unoriginal music. I'm not saying your influences can't come mostly from one genre, in fact, they probably should, because sound should be relatively concrete, but it should come OUT in your music. You can tell Aerosmith had a broad influence. Even (and I loathe to say it because I despise them SO VERY MUCH) Nirvana had a broad influence and it showed (they still blow. Just compared to Jonas Bros., they're decent.) Pearl Jam, The Cure, the Cult, Garbage, the Pogues...they all showed their influences and the broad range of music that influenced them, and so they all had a distinct style. Modern pop music....generally sounds the same.

Now, there is hope yet for music. Bands like The Killers, Matchbox Twenty, Socratic, and Fountains of Wayne are all "pop" bands that I enjoy and that are highly original. Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne are still shaking things up too. Even Tom Waits will be putting out new stuff shortly. However, these guys are all gaining in years. Even the more modern bands like Blink-182 are pushing 40. Green Day's pretty much gone, their last album sucking like you wouldn't believe, and Good Charlotte having to redeem themselves from their last album, which I'll admit didn't COMPLETELY suck, but it was right up there. However, until the Popular Music world stops catering to teeny boppers, I think the musical depression we're in is gonna be lasting for a while. At least we still have classic rock and alternative stations, and that wonder of the modern world, that saviour of civilization...iTunes.

Album Review-Peace and Love

Well, I haven't listened to any "new" albums in a while, not since Alice Cooper's "Along Came a Spider" that I've liked. However, I always am on the look out for albums I haven't heard before, because new is in the ear of the listener. So I was on iTunes the other day, wanting to waste some money, when whimsy clubbed me over the head and said "You haven't listened to the Pogues in a while. Get a new album." So I looked around, and I was struck by the picture on the front of Peace and Love. I don't know if you've noticed yet, but the boxer on the cover has six fingers on his right hand. Maybe he's the cousin of Count Rogan from Princess Bride, I dunno. So I bought the albums, seeing that it did have an equal amount of Spider Stacy and Shane McGowan singing. While some of my favorite Pogues songs are absent from the album, as an album itself, I think it's my favorite.

To start with, the Pogues, if you don't know, are not just Irish folk. While they're all either Irish or of Irish descent, they play just as many non-Irish songs as Irish ones, especially on Peace and Love. The first song on the album, "Gridlock," seems to be drawn more from Benny Goodman than from the Dubliners. One of my favorite songs on the album, "Blue Heaven," sounds more like reggae than Irish folk. IMAO it's also one of the best songs to partner dance to, but I digress. The album isn't devoid of Irish influence, having the anti-English and pro-Irish song "Young Ned of the Hill," as well as love ballad "Lorelei," which also stands as one of my favorite Pogues songs.
I was somewhat disappointed by the last four tracks of the album, but as is standard for the Pogues, their experimentation with sounds can lead to less than shining results. The songs aren't bad in the slightest, they just didn't strike me, and I don't think it gave the album as strong a finish as I would have liked. However, due to the strength of the songs I liked, I would give this album **** out of ******

Best songs off the album: "Young Ned of the Hill," "Blue Heaven," "Lorelei"

Valkyrie

I saw Valkyrie when it first came out, but not that I've seen it again on DVD, I can contrast first impressions with lasting ones.

To start, Valkyrie stands as one of my favorite WWII movies ever. I normally hate Tom Cruise, because I don't think he can act anything but angry young men, but in Valkyrie, he plays Von Stauffenberg in a way that I don't think anyone else could have. The intensity and passion he brings to the role is astonishing. Terrence Stamp, William Nye, Tom Wilkinson, Sir Kenneth Brannagh, and a host of other great British actors fill the other roles to bring the acting to a caliber not often seen in hollywood war movies. There have been some criticisms of the "Nazis" not having German accents, but I have no problem with that, as I can clearly understand everybody and what they're saying, something not true when actors use fake accents and mix the odd Russian or German phrase into what they're saying.

The action and suspense are also brilliantly executed. Even though we all know that Valkyrie failed, I found myself on the edge of myself as they were executing it, from the moment the explosive is placed to the point when Hitler reveals himself to be alive. The movie's pace serves to highlight the tension it creates, though the pace is slightly too fast to give the sense of the passage of time that happened in reality.

The true strength of Valkyrie, and what makes it such a phenomenal movie, are the characters. At the beginning of the movie, General Tresckow (Kenneth Brannagh) says "If we do nothing, this will always be Hitler's Germany. We have to show the world that we were not all like him." This is the entire point of the movie; it shows the men in Germany who didn't just sit with their thumbs up their ass, but who got up and decided to do something about it. It's a risky venture to show men affiliated with Nazi Germany to be human, let alone to be heroes. If the venture had been attempted with lesser actors or a lesser director than Bryan Singer, it would have failed. As it is, however, the characters of the movie are so realistic, so believable, that we overcome the fact that they wore Nazi uniforms and see them as heroes. My Grandmother, a staunchly liberal Jewess who will remain so until she dies, point blank refused to see the movie because "Nazis were all animals. I don't want to see anything that tries to tell me any different." And indeed, we do see the absolute animals who inhabited and thrived in the Nazi Party. Hitler (David Bamber) in the main scene we see him, talks about the Valkyries of legend. "Killing the weak and preserving the strong. One cannot be a National Socialist if one does not understand [valkyries]" showing the Darwinian viewpoint of Hitler. Stauffenberg, on the other hand, is shown, although never explicitly, to be a Christian, praying in church and always wearing his cross. It is this conflict that serves as the focal point of the movie; Stauffenberg's faith and believe that he is doing good versus Hitler's evil, borne out of a misguided desire to do the same.

The movie ends as we knew it would; Valkyrie fails, the plotters were executed or committed suicide. As Tom Cruise shouts his defiant cry "Long live Sacred Germany," after a list of the plotters and how they died, we are left wondering; would we have done the same? Would we, as the movie said, "put our principles above personal gain?" Stauffenberg had a wife and family, and I have been to a couple of their estates. Most of the men who plotted against Hitler had everything to lose, and yet they all, unashamedly, defied him. Movies ought to make the audience think, and Valkyrie certainly does that. If you're only going to watch one World War II movie, it ought to be Valkyrie.


"The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. None of us can bewail his own death; those who consented to join our circle put on the Robe of Nessus. A human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions." -General Tresckow, instigator of the July 20 Plot
***** out of *****

Top Ten Worst US Presidents

As per the request of a friend of mine. In AP Government, I've been analyzing, in detail, the presidency as an office, and the individuals who have held it. Adding into this my AP History course, I've learned a lot about a lot of presidents and their actions in office. As such, here is a list of my worst US Presidents. It's not based on my politics, or on my religion, it's based on what they did in office. (If it was my politics, Obama would be number 1 on that first list.) I'll post a list of my top ten best US Presidents at a later date.

TOP TEN WORST US PRESIDENTS

1. FDR
Ok, this guy was the most scummy guy you can find. He flouted the Constitution and manipulated a good deal of the public into accepting his openly Socialist agenda. He didn't get us out of the Depression, his Federal intervention just made it worse. He also regulated the press and the radio to stop his opponents being able to make known any opposing opinions, so that history seems to tell us everyone liked him. He extended the scope of Presidential authority so far outside the Constitutional limits that he should have been impeached, except he had the full Democratic (IE, Progressive Democratic) party at his back and he wasn't afraid to use it as a club. He bullied the Supreme Court, even threatening a justice with arrest for "treason" because the justice didn't agree with his position. FDR was nothing short of an evil scumbag, and definitely deserves number 1 on this list.

2. Woodrow Wilson
Again, Wilson flouted the Constitution openly, with an "ends justify the means" mentality and the schizophrenic belief that "God has ordained me for this office. All that I do is the Lord's will." He censored the press, had people locked up for disagreeing with him, and flouted the will of the people. Under the Espionage and Sedition Act, and Act that makes the Patriot Act seem mild, he allowed Federal Investigators to raid, beat, and imprison anyone who was "treacherous" IE, who disagreed with him. Also, the way he intervened in Mexico made what Bush did in Iraq look absolutely brilliant and moral. Add into this the fact that, in a presidential speech, he endorsed the KKK, and you have it clinched.

3. Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was one of America's first tyrants. As with the two I placed above him, Lincoln ignored the restrictions imposed on the Executive branch with the mentality that "The ends justify the means." While slavery was an issue that started the Civil War, Lincoln never freed the slaves in the North. Four northern slave states to whom the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply. Going against the will of the people (As the South was about 1/2 the population at the time) and the Supreme Court's verdicts, Lincoln forced the issue of slavery. I'm not defending Slavery, but nor will I defend Lincoln's atrocities in managing the war including; the institution of the draft, the suspension of Habeus Corpus, and the institution of Concentration Camps that resembled something out of Nazi Germany. He was a tyrant and a horrible president.

4. Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt was a nice guy as a person. Ok, yes, he was a little insane, but he wasn't a self obsessed maniac like his cousin. However, as a president, Teddy was atrocious. He was a war monger and an imperialist. The Panama Canal was paid for by us instigating a revolution against Colombia when they wouldn't sell us the land we wanted. Teddy also increased our imperialist regime in Haiti, Cuba, and the Phillipines to a level that resembled the British Empire.

5. Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson was a castrated FDR. He wanted to implement socialist policies, he just didn't have the force of will to make people obey them. His "Great Society" utterly failed, and was nothing but more socialist policies paid in tax dollars and given to those who do didn't deserve them. It's not the taxpayer's job to pay for someone else's welfare. We're still paying for this schmuck's policies, and the backdoor deals he made, including the ones that kept us in Vietnam.

6. Ulysses S. Grant
Grant was, like Teddy Roosevelt, a decent man. Plagued by propaganda campaigns from the South (from which the idea that he was an alcoholic arose) he felt threatened from the very beginning of his presidency. Not made to be a politician, his foolish choices regarding his cabinet ended up screwing the South over big time in the Reconstruction. He was incredibly ineffectual, and so many atrocities happened both to the South and in the South, that I would consider him one of the worst US Presidents.

7. Jimmy Carter
If you want to talk about an ineffective President, look at Carter. Now, I could talk about what a major league pain in the ass he's been since his presidency, but seeing as technically he wasn't in office when he did that, I'll just review what the "baby-faced Baptist" did in office. For starters, he kissed the Palestinians' ass so much that he made the situation in Israel a powder keg. Carter just had no idea what to do regarding foreign policy, and it showed. He talked when he ought to have fought, and bowed when he ought to have resisted. His ass-kissing towards the Soviet Union was sickening, his domestic spending was atrocious. He was without a doubt the most ineffectual president we've had since US Grant.

8. Barack Obama
"It's too early?" Bull. His pushing for healthcare, the most blatantly unconstitutional bit of legislation since the New Deal, earns him a place on this list. He's doubled the government spending of Bush. Bush screwed up again and again in his presidency, there's no doubt, but at least Iraq was constitutionally acceptable by previous interpretation. After William McKinley's presidency, it became legal (although stupidly so) for the President as Commander in Chief to deploy troops, and Congress would have to approve within 60 days for it to be considered a war. Whatever your feelings on Iraq, it was handled Constitutionally (although not as constitutionally as I'd like.) Healthcare is SO anti-constitutional, blatantly anti-constitutional, that the Founders are probably spinning in their graves at such a velocity that we could use the motion as a source of power.

9. William McKinley
I don't think we've had a president, besides Jimmy Carter, who spewed out as much pseudo-Christian bollocks while justifying stupid actions while in office. McKinley's foreign policy was even worse than Carter, and he'd have Carter's place on the list if he hadn't been better at regulating domestic policy. The Spanish American war, and the subsequent occupations of Cuba and the Phillipines were McKinley's brilliant ideas. He felt that God wanted us (well, you, I'm half Jewish and thus subservient in the minds of such men) to extend a hand to the "racially inferior" and "disadvantaged" and show them the "light of Christianity" at rifle point. He bowed to the will of the people when they wanted the Spanish American war, had us interfere in foreign affairs that weren't ours, and basically made a complete ass of himself, earning him number 9 on this list.


10. Andrew Johnson
Lincoln at least was a powerful tyrant. Johnson was a putz. He was completely ineffectual, and simultaneously screwed over the Northern and the Southern states when Reconstruction began to be enacted. Adding into this his refusal to heed the will of Congress, and his shenanigans to get them to agree with him after they overrode his vetoes, has me place him as the 10th worse president.

A Blog to Follow

Here is a link to the blog I set up for Kylie's and my fanfiction project. I'm gonna take control of it because college and other things are taking a lot of her time, which is one reason I even agreed to do this. She wrote the first chapter, and we're working together on all subsequent ones. We'll probably do commentaries of some sort on the chapters as we go, I don't know how that will work out quite. So go check it out if you want.

Fan Fiction (the admission of shame)

Normally I hate fan fiction. I hate Star Wars fan fiction even worse. However, a friend on mine was working on a novel that she sent me and said she wanted my help on. When I found out it was Star Wars fan fiction, I was more than a little hesitant, especially when considering the writing style. However, her begging and pleading, and my needing a hobby atm to take my mind off of school and my non-relaxing extra curriculars lead me to decide to do it. So it is with great shame that I admit that I am....co-authoring a Star Wars fan fic.

In my defense, it's not a stupid slash fic or anything like that. My friend (who demanded that I not tell people her name so her girlfriend doesn't tease her) at least had some originality. She decided that it would be interesting to speculate as to what might have happened if, in Episode III, Palpatine had died. Due to my extensive knowledge of the expanded universe (I was quite the Star Wars dork when I was younger) she asked me to add the EU stuff in that she didn't know about and then complete the book. She was about 1/3 of the way through and wants to see it written but she hit a block in the writing process so now it's in my hands. I'm going to leave the material she's written basically untouched (though I might rewrite certain elements of it) and then I'm going to finish the book off. When it's down, we're going to post it on a blog of it's own, chapter by chapter, and see what people think.

*hangs head in shame*

Protestantism

Something that has irked me for years is the idea of the definition of Protestantism. Now, raised as I was (a Scots-Presbyterian home, attending a Lutheran church) I was exposed to both sides of Protestantism. When I moved to New Jersey, I found more of my friends coming from the Baptist sphere of Christianity. While I love them to death, and one of them is my best friend (she's a pentecostal, never let it be said I don't give :P) it always annoyed me when they demanded recognition as "Protestants." True enough, to the world at large, there are really only two types of Christians-Catholics and Non-Catholics. However, we, inside Christianity, define ourselves by denomination. I'm not someone who thinks that denominations necessarily detract from church Unity. After all, there is such thing as unity in the freedom of ideas. I think denominations are a very necessary evil in a world where there are hundreds of thousands of beliefs, and while denominations may cause problems, the problems that would arise without them are worse. Hence we have them for the sake of identification. Protestantism works the same way. To be a Protestant, one must be more than just not a Catholic. This is not for the sake of "Dividing Christianity," but rather for the sake of definition and identification. And as any debater or advocate will tell you; definitions matter.

So first up; what are Protestants? Simply put, Protestants are those who hold to the beliefs of the Protestant reformers. Seemingly easy enough. There is significant diversity within the reformers, from Zwingli, to Luther, to Calvin, all of whom held quite different beliefs yet all were reformers. Now, the reformers disagreed on many things; the real presence in communion, systems of church government, forms of worship, etc. But what they DID agree on were the five Solas; Sola Sciptora, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solo Christo, and Soli Deo Gloria. Scripture alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Through Christ alone, and all Glory to God alone. The other principle that all the reformers held in common was the idea of infant baptism. I'm not going to get into the defense of infant baptism, save to say that it has been the historic position of the church since the apostolic age. The reformers did not believe in Professor's Baptism (I refuse to call it Believer's Baptism, you have no idea if the recipient is REALLY saved or not) and out of this refusal to accept the idea of Professor's baptism came the Radical Reformation of the Anabaptists. I will not condemn the Anabaptists (though I admit, some of the "brutal torture'' that they received was deserved, see John of Leiden as an example of an 'anabaptist' who got what was coming to him) it cannot be denied that they were a quite different movement to the Reformation. Was there common ground between the two movements? Of course there was; both were Christian. However, they were separate and distinct movements, and remained so for hundreds of years.

Now, we arrive in the present day. Today, the Anabaptist movement is larger than that of the Protestant movement (of course, might does not make right, nor does size prove a movement's orthodoxy or non-orthodoxy) with the largest non-Catholic denomination being the Pentecostal (IE, radical Anabaptist) Assemblies of God. Protestants, on the other hand, are restricted to the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Lutheran denominations, all of which have only a few non-liberal denominations (and even then, the "non-liberals" such as the PCA are pretty darned liberal.) Both movements have significantly departed from many of the beliefs of their founeders. Luther and Knox would start cracking skulls if they saw the state of the modern Lutheran and Presbyterian churches today. I know that if Calvin saw the state of any church I've attended, he'd have a conniption. Similarly, most Anabaptist movements have moved on beyond the beliefs of the original radical reformers. However, the two main criteria for each movement still hold true. Now, there is overlap between each movement; I have met Calvinistic baptists (although a true Calvinist will hold to infant baptism) and I have met "Presbyterians" who would be more at home as baptists. The issue, however, is that of definition, and it is important to realize that Baptists are.not.protestants. They follow the teachings of a related, but still separate movement, and thus they fall under a different banner. This does not make them ANY less Christian, or somehow inferior to Protestants (the most evil man I've met is a conservative Presbyterian pastor), it is simply a matter of definition. Definition does not lead to division. Division is a separate force entirely. It doesn't matter if someone considers themself protestant or not. I may consider myself black, but trust me, I'm still white (actually, technically not, because I'm half-Jewish, but you get the point.)

As a matter of definition, then it is important that Christians realize their differences. Only through recognizing where we differ can we truly reach unity by finding common ground. Pretending we're all the same is not going to lead to unity. We must realize differences and work past them, and the way we do that is through definition. Also, we must all remember three very important things: The Church Invisible encompasses men and women of many different beliefs (within Christianity. Muslims and followers of Judaism still get to go to hell, despite what C.S. Lewis believed.) We must also remember that while the instruction in the Bible to seek unity applies to the WHOLE church, IE, the Church Invisible, unity doesn't mean just all shutting up and pretending we're the same. Finally, we should all rejoice because of one very important thing: We're not Catholic!! :P