Hello!

Today I will be talking my point of view of the Grammy Awards from last Sunday. I watched a good bit of the Grammy Awards this year because I was mainly just waiting to hear Metallica perform and to see if they would win a Grammy. There were lots of awards handed out last Sunday and today I will give my opinions on why I’m glad a certain artist won, or why someone else should have won.

The first award I will talk about is going to the main one which was album of the year. Adele won this award from her most recent album, “25.” I heard a lot of people saying that Beyoncé’s album “Lemonade” should have won. I haven’t heard both albums myself because I’m just not into that music. I also don’t care too much of what the album means or what it represents because I’m more just about the music and how it sounds. In my opinion, I think that Drake’s album, “Views” should have won album of the year because that album was very successful and I personally just loved so many songs on that album. Drake broke numerous records for this album which made him deserve album of the year. Drake became the most streamed artist on Spotify because of this album. Out of the 20 songs on his album, 16 of them were all in the top 100 the first week of the album’s release, which is insane! This album also set the record for most streams in the first week of its release. The album was streamed 245.1 million times in the United States alone and currently has over 1 billion streams just on Apple Music. Tell me after setting records like this that this album didn’t deserve a Grammy. Drake’s album “Views” is definitely one to check out because he has such a good flow in all the songs and the beats are so good.

The second award I will talk about is best new artist. Chance the Rapper won this award and I was really happy with him winning this award. I honestly don’t even like Chance the Rapper because I just don’t think he’s that good to me, but that’s just a personal reference. The reason why I’m happy that he won this award though is because I know that he’s an artist that isn’t signed with a record company and the fact he’s not signed and won a Grammy is really impressive. It really shows that he knows what he’s doing and that he wants to do everything his way. It also shows how successful he has been since the start of his career. It’s also cool to know that he performed here at Indiana University of Pennsylvania about 3 years ago and now he’s a Grammy winner.

The third and final award that I will talking about in today’s blog is one that kind of disappointed me. The award was best rock song. I didn’t see if this award was televised but the winner of this award was “Blackstar” by David Bowie. Now the only reason why this award kind of disappointed me is because David Bowie is dead unfortunately. I understand the respect everyone had for David Bowie, and I’ll admit that he was a legend in music, but the thing I see in my eyes is that he’s never going to actually receive and see the Grammy for himself. To me, Metallica should’ve won this award for their song “Hardwired” because this song is old school Metallica that all rock and roll/metal lovers love. Also, to make the comeback after 8 years of no new music with a song like this one was really impressive. Another thing too is that to be performing the really heavy thrashy music Metallica does at their age is amazing and to me they should’ve won this award.

Hello!

Today I wanted to talk about an album I have been listening to a lot lately. The album is called “Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.” This album is the newest album from the metal gods themselves, Metallica. This is Metallica’s first album in eight years, and I have to say that this album might be one of their best albums I’ve ever heard from them. Metallica is mainly known for their hits such as, “Enter Sandman”, “Master of Puppets”, and “Nothing Else Matters”, but this album is so good considering how old the members of Metallica are now and how they are able to put out such an amazing sound for their first album in eight years. Here are some things and some of my favorite songs that I absolutely love from the album.

First, I wanted to talk about the sound and arrangements of the songs. All these songs have their own kind of sound and some songs sound like old Metallica, as well as newer Metallica. They basically mixed their different sounds throughout the years and put it all into their new album. Being a drummer, I really appreciate all the aspects they put into this album because some of the songs are really heavy and fast, as well as difficult to play on any instrument. Other songs are slower, but still just as heavy as Metallica has been forever.

Next, I wanted to talk about some of my favorite songs from the album and why they are considered my favorite songs on the album. The first song on the album, “Hardwired”, is a big favorite of mine on this album because it’s very heavy and fast and it was the perfect way to open the album. “Hardwired” was the first single released for the album, and this song has that feel from their very first album from back in 1983 entitled, “Kill ‘Em All.” It was so cool to see that Metallica went to their sound from all the way back from the beginning of Metallica. Another song I really enjoy is the second song on the album called, “Atlas, Rise!”. This song is a lot different from “Hardwired” because the tempo is a lot slower than “Hardwired”, but this song is arranged very strangely. There is a lot of time signature changes and I absolutely love songs that have a lot of time signature changes because they make no sense at all….unless you’re a musician. Another song that I love off this album is “Dream No More.” This song is very slow with a nice groove to it, but it is by far the heaviest song on the album in my opinion. You can easily tell that guitars are tuned down really low and that James’ voice is really raspy and creepy sounding. I love this song because of the groove it has in the beat. It’s a simple 4/4 beat during the whole song that makes you want to do the slow head bang to it. The last song that is considered one of my favorites is the last song on the album called, “Spit Out the Bone.” To me, this is my favorite song on the album out of all of the others. This song is a song I listen to daily because it’s just that good. This song is very fast and thrashy that it makes you want to go nuts. It starts off with a fast drumroll on the snare and it just builds up to this really fast 2/4 beat. This song has the best transitions because there’s nothing that they could’ve done better with them. The way the song flows is so good and each transition has myself mind-blown every time I hear the song. Most of the song is fast, but some parts get slow for a bit, and then picks right back up with the normal fast tempo. The drum fills in this song have me in awe because they fit so well.

Overall, this album is definitely one of Metallica’s best albums and it’s definitely worth to listen to the entire thing. I wasn’t a big fan of their recent album “Death Magnetic” back in 2008 because it just didn’t have that Metallica sound that I was hoping for, but in “Hardwired…To Self-Destruct”, they definitely redeemed themselves. So if you’re a fan of metal, give this album a listen. It definitely won’t disappoint.

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In class so far we have been getting into the introduction of music learning different terms that play a big part in music. We started out with the basics talking about the beat which is the pulse of the song. We talked about tempo which is the speed of the tune. We also talked about rhythms, melodies, harmonies, and even some offbeat meters. I’m a drummer and I have been drumming for about twelve years, but it’s always to freshen up on material like this in class.

Starting this week we started talking about the early history of music starting with African American music. These topics of early music are always really interesting to me because most of this information is all new to me. A few things I have learned about African American music so far is the pattin’ juba which an improvised circle dance to clapping. Drums were prohibited by slave owners which was really interesting to find out, but at the same time not that surprising because of how loud drums are. Being a drummer, I can definitely understand why they were prohibited by these slave owners.

Another topic that we started to talk about was Minstrelsy, which was a topic I have never heard of before. Minstrelsy is whites (later blacks) performing caricature of African American dances. I’ve never heard of anything like this, and it was very strange to hear that was a thing back then. I just thought it was very odd, but understandable at the same time because this took place during the 1830’s. One of the famous Minstrelsy actors/dancers we were learned about was a man by the name of Thomas Dartmouth Rice. Rice imitated the dancing of a black man, but his character was Jim Crow who is known for the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were laws that basically engaged in racial segregation. Once again, this information was all new and interesting to me because I never knew about music during this time.

One man we also talked about this week was a man by the name of Stephen Foster. Stephen Foster is the first great American pop song composer. He is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and he has his own statue down in the city. His first big hit was a song I have actually heard of before which is, “Oh, Susanna.” (1848). He was known a minstrel artist because he composed minstrel songs.

We also learned about a group that I have actually heard of before which was “Tin Pan Alley.” Tin Pan Alley was very active and popular from 1875 to about the 1950’s. Tin Pan Alley was the center of the music business and they played pianos that sounded like tin pans, hence the name “Tin Pan Alley.” I’ve heard of this group before from a previous music class I had, but never really knew anything about them.

We just started getting into the blues, which I am a little more familiar with because it’s progressing towards today. The blues is African American folk music and originated around 1900, but it was first recorded in the 1920’s. The location where blues originated from isn’t really anywhere exact, but all that is known is that it came from the South. Blues music is a major part of jazz, but it was the main foundation of rock and roll.

All the information we are learning about in class so far is really interesting, and it’s only going to get more interesting as we progress through the 1940’s to today’s music.