Channel V and Modern Music - An Infinite Possiblogities Rant

Sorry, but there's not going to be much of an intro today. I hope you can keep up.

So the cafe at uni has recently had Austar installed and as I result I'm constantly exposed to the music channel known as Channel V. Seeing as how I see the damn show almost every day I thought I'd discuss Channel V and the current music scene in general. So here it goes.

First of all I don't understand the actual attraction of Channel V. What's the difference between it and the radio or an mp3 player? All it does is play the same garbage you can't help but hear every fucking place you go. Just as an example Channel V alone are likely to play certain songs no less than 5 times within 24 hours. If I have to listen to Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas one more time I think I'm going to flip out and murder someone (more on Black Eyed Peas later). In a world where you can listen to whatever you want whenever you want I'm surprised anyone still has time for music channels.

Channel V has this horrible obsession with Pink at the moment as well. They've got this competition running where Pink fans have to prove how devoted they are to Pink in order to win VIP tickets to Pink live. So far all they've proved is how boring and moronic they are. One girl actually just screamed on her vid. This other girl went into all this creepy detail about how she wanted to jump on Pink and hug her and touch her. Coming on a little strong there aren't we? Maybe you should hold off on the whole "I want to wear your skin" shit until after you got her tied up in your basement. And what's with calling Pink the greatest rock star on the planet? Since when? Did she suddenly become more talented overnight or something? Unless you mean another, far more desolate planet...then I MIGHT believe you.

Really though I suppose there's nothing exactly wrong with Channel V. It's using a formula that it's absolutely impossible to fuck up and I'm sure the people who like the music they play are perfectly happy to watch it. Which brings me to my main rant. Modern music is a little stale. I suppose I should say popular modern music because it would be unfair to group a multitude of talented musicians with the mediocre and shitty pop bands. The main problem I have is just how uninspired, predictable and manufactured it sounds. It succeeds because of market research as opposed to musical eptitude, creativity or talent. Just as an example the new Black Eyed Peas song Boom Boom Pow is about as vanilla as urban songs get these days. They make numerous claims in the song to be "very trendy and with it" but really all they're doing is pathetically trying to keep up with what everyone else is doing. Some simple rhyming couplets, a lazy semi-electro style beat, chuck in some product placements and then it's all aboard the auto-tune train for instant hit station. It's like if instant mashed potato was music and all you had to do was add your own name and vola, song made. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not against auto-tunes or anything here. For example I thought Kanye's 808's and Heartbreak was an excellent album. But the thing is that Kanye put a lot of time and effort into that album. He had a vision and a passion for what he was doing and he went against the grains that he himself had helped to make great. It didn't sound as though his record label gave him a power point presentation showing what music was selling well. And really that's the crux of what I'm saying here. I can potentially like any genre as long as it's presented well. It might be interesting musically or vocally or it might have a great lyrical depth. It's hard to describe what kinda of music I like because I honestly don't know. But I can respect something unique, or even something that isn't unique but done really well. Not knowing what I'll be into next is an exciting adventure and I think that's how artists and record labels should treat their musical ecploits too. Then perhaps we'll start seeing some more fucking depth in this industry.

Welcome to School Girl Internal

Have you ever thought about porn a little too much? I don't mean in the perverted, peeking into the girls change rooms kinda way. I mean in a logical kind of way. For example have you ever thought about how often pornstars get pregnant? I mean their job is to have (usually) unprotected sex on film. Surely with all the masses of porn constantly being made there must be some pregnancy flying around the place. The thing is you never see it though. It's the sex without any consequences...until now. Welcome to School Girl Internal, a porn site with a twist. Basically every plot involves a school girl having casual sex with a neighbour/teacher/football hunk/guy who just happens to be passing by but the twist is that they always end up pregnant. Here's what the site itself has to say...

"There's just something about schoolgirl snatch. Once that hydraulic young pussy clamps tightly around your bareback dick, there's just no getting out! Like a houseguest that gets too comfortable, your cock just doesn't want to leave. No matter what you promised about pulling out. No matter what logic dictates. Once your little head starts doing all the thinking, instincts take over and your dumbass dick won't want to bail till the job is interally done. Why does it have to feel so damn good? This is the question we're asking at SchoolGirlInternal.com!"

So I'm not really sure what they're getting at here. Are they trying to promote safe sex? Are they trying to describe how hot their actresses are? Are they trying to cater to a strange, impregnating school girls perversion? I have no idea. I watched a preview for one and it seems to treat the whole thing like a joke. That's right, let's all just laugh it up as we watch the guy running and screaming after receiving the news several months later. It even plays comical music and speeds up the reel. Aside from that though it's really just the same old routine as far as porn goes. A bit of this. A bit of that. Maybe a tiny bit of the other to cater for those few who are into it and then...Oh my god! It's hilarious. They actually act out the whole "coming inside them" scenario. It's amusing because it is clearly fake. Male porn actors are required to have strong control over that particular bodily function. I particularly love the half-arsed "oh oh OOOOh!" they put in to tell the audience "yes, I am coming now" and then poorly acted response "did...did you just come in me?"

So where am I going with all of this? I dunno. I guess I just wanted to rip on something stupid. In the end I don't really know what to make of it all. It's clear that the porn industry is struggling to come up with believable scenarios for porn and so are instead opting for semi-comedic, Ralph magazine type scenarios where women play a Wheel-of-Fortune game with different positions and what have you. I guess we've all been cracking jokes at porn for so long now that the industry has just gone "Fuck it! Nobody is taking us seriously. Let's just go with the flow and make funny porn."

P.S. Have I become a little too familiar with this industry?

Daria - Review and Rant

Appologies once again for the recent inactivity on my blog. My uni exams are creeping up closer everyday and I fear having to repeat Geology (shudder). Anyway I'm taking a well earned break and I decided to review Daria.

Before moving away to do bigger and better things my good friend Lucy was generous enough to burn me dvd's with all the episodes of Daria on it (including the movies). So first I'd just like to publically thank Lucy for giving me such a wonderful gift (even though I'm certain she doesn't read my blogs anymore). Anyway so Daria is a cartoon series that MTV ran in the 90's as a spin off series to Bevis and Butthead. Daria is one of those curious shows that truely divides people in two. It's like avocado or anchovies. You either think it's the one of the greatest and most beautiful things in existance and it makes your life worth living or you think it is disgusting filth that you have nothing but absolute contempt for. I fall into the first group. I loved this show as a young adolescent and having come back to it I am able to appreciate it on much more complex levels than I ever could as a noobish child.

For those who've never seen Daria it's a show about a teenager called Daria and her life at school as she deals with a slightly disfunctional family, moronic and shallow peers and corrupted and downright mental teachers. Accompanying her through all this is her best friend Jane Lane and the dry and sarcastic witicism the two frequently exchange. It sounds like nothing much and many people have called it just that but really there's a complex soul to the show that makes it one of the most believable depictions of highschool life on the TV. Well developed characters and some truely sharp writing have helped to make this show shine. That and its soundtrack is brimming with 90's alternative music and the like. It's pretty much got it all really. There were times where I laughed so hard and times that I really felt a warm and fuzzy connection with the characters. Especially in the later episodes Daria herself comes across as a very sympathetic character. There's a touch of heart amoungst the black humour and satire that is capable of making you feel for the characters. Now after all that the show does have a few niggles. There is the odd episode in which the writers find themselves straying a little too far from home and into some very rough patches indeed. I found the musical episode to be particularly discomforting. But on the whole the show is pretty rock solid and deserves to be checked out, even if you don't end up liking it.

Now onto one other gripe I have that's not so much with the show itself as it is with the whole fucking world. I watched every episode of this show on windows media player in avi format that had been transferred from VHS at some point. It wasn't exactly a blu-ray type experience. Now the reason I had to do this is because Daria is one of those shows that has proven itself rather difficult to get released as a DVD set. There are many horrible legal and buisiness-like reasons for this such as all the copyrighted music it uses and shit like that and I gotta say it's fucked up. Here we have a fucking work of art and people can't even fucking buy the show because the world is a fucking red tape, greedy-ass, capitolist wasteland full of people who would rather squeeze every penny than contribute anything to better the world.

So just to sum up the general thrust of this here review. Daria is a brilliantly realised and executed show that never quite got the recognition it deserved and the human race is shit for both failing to recognise it's magnificance and holding it back from a DVD release with all sorts of greedy legal bullshit.