While watching the presentations in class this past week, the one about Celine Dion caught my attention, and ever since, I’ve had the song ‘Natural Woman’ stuck in my head so I thought I would do a post about it. The song ‘Natural Woman’ was covered by Veline Dion, but was originally recorded by Aretha Franklin. The song was co-written by Carol King, and the song was able to reach the Billboard Hot 100.

Many different artists covered this song including Whitney Houston, however her version was never recorded. It only premiered on her Bodyguard World Tour. This song has a very slow, yet powerful, soulful feel to it. The lyrics seem to speak about how a woman is talking to her man saying that he makes her feel natural, alive, and that she can truly be herself with him. It seems to convey the message that the woman singing this song never had peace inside until she met this man, and now she can be at peace with herself. Listening to this song, to me, is very peaceful and does make me feel at peace with myself. It is a very strong, yet soothing tune, and a wonderfully written song.

Adelle even covered this song in her “Rolling in The Deep” tour. However, a Matt Mauro of the Vh1 Blog said that it was a dangerous move for anyone to try and cover an Aretha Franklin song. He also said that Adelle was smart to not try imitate it, but rather interpret her own version in her own way. Of course, no one can do any song exactly the way the original artist performed it, however, I feel that all of the covers that I have heard are wonderful, especially Celine Dion’s version. It seems to fit her voice perfectly, especially with her unique, flowy, throaty sound.

For this post, I wanted to talk a little bit about country music just because I am very fond of the majority of it. Back when I was in junior high, all of my peers had me convinced that country music was for losers, rednecks and people who didn’t have a life. Because this sort of image went along with listening to country, I chose not to because I would of rather not been labeled as one of these things. However, the summer of my eighth grade year, I would visit my uncle a lot and he would always be playing country on his boom box. Subconsciously, I began to memorize the lyrics to some of the songs and they began to grow on me.

The care-free feel and laid back vibe that country music gives off is what really drew me into it. There are some rather depressing country songs which I would rather not listen to, but the ones that talk about enjoying life to the fullest and have an up-beat, catchy tune are very hard for me not to enjoy. I particularly enjoy Jason Aldean, Blake Shelton, and Rascal Flatts. I feel that most country is very relative to life, and maybe more people could realize that if they would just listen.

However, I can definitely see where some people are coming from when they say that country music just isn’t for them. Some country is terrible, depressing, or just too ‘redneck’ in general. When an artist puts too much “twang” in their voice, that’s annoying because everyone who has ever heard them speak in real life knows that their ‘country’ voice is just a show. An example of this would be Taylor Swift back when she considered herself ‘country’. And now that she’s not ‘country’ anymore, her twang seems to have disappeared.

As a whole, country is very relaxing to me and is always a genre of music that I feel I can go to when I don’t know what else to listen to. It never fails to put me in a good mood or brighten up my day. It is especially good music for listening to in the summer time or on a nice day driving around with the windows down.

The first song that I every heard by Lady GaGa was “Bad Romance”. I remember really loving this song a lot and always having the tune stuck in my head. However even though I really liked the song, I never felt that Lady GaGa had a spectacular voice. It always kind of seemed just mediocre to me. After I heard this first song, I would hear other songs of her’s on the radio here and there, but I always just half listened because I don’t know why my impression of her was that she was just an average female singer. I felt that she had a sort of “one hit wonder” sound. Now, I can say that I really like her music.

I feel that rather than Lady GaGa’s music seeming unappealing at first, and then later on appealing to the vast majority of audiences, she has always been appealing to almost everyone from the very start of her career. I don’t know if it was her crazy style that caught the attention, or her very upbeat, fun sounding songs that reeled audiences in, but there is no doubt that GaGa has always been a huge success from the very start. As the reader says in chapter 87, “GaGa can really sing and really write.”

Lady GaGa’s ‘dance music’ style is built around the “brawny, slightly overbearing synthesizers of Gary Numan and his British peers like the human League.” GaGa has a very loud, harsh tone to her voice that allows it to easily reverberate off of the walls in any room and give her no problem at all being heard. I think what makes GaGa so appealing is the fact that the majority of her songs are about not caring about anything, getting drunk, and being high on life; much like the vibe of the majority of The Beatles’ songs. However, although artists such as GaGa, The Beatles and many other artists give off this sort of “I don’t give a f***” vibe, I wonder if this is really the way these artists think, or if they just write lyrics like these to publicize their songs and make them more popular to the general public?

I thought it was very interesting when we touched on the topic of Glam Rock in class, and discussed David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust). What I find most interesting about glam rock is that one of these performances not only has to be a performance, but an ‘act’. The act part comes into play with all of the costumes and makeup involved. What is interesting about this style is that the music itself does not give off a particularly ‘made up’ or ‘girly’ feel, only the person singing it is dressed to the nines and ‘performing’ while expressing themselves through song. So here we see expression in two ways. Through song as well as through choice of wardrobe/ makeup.

In this type of rock, the artists make quite a spectacle of themselves with all of their exotic, overdone makeup and flashy clothes that hopefully give the audience an even better form of entertainment than just the music itself. This style often made audiences wonder what the performer’s sexual orientations were or if perhaps this was a settle way of “breaking out of the closet.”

I feel that glam rock was a very interesting style of music and even beneficial in a way because it allowed artists such as David Bowie to express themselves not only as performers, but it also allowed them to express other things about themselves through their dress and makeup; such as perhaps their sexual orientation (as David Bowie actually did confess to being a bisexual), or even that they like to dress up and be somebody else for a little while, just for the short time they are performing. Glam rock is no different than other rock, except for the fact that it plays more into a theatrical aspect, allowing the performers to not only perform, but actually put on a full blown show.

Being that I am a fan of Beyonce and really love all of her music, I thought that I would do a short entry about her. Beyonce is a pop R&B artist from the 90’s. She is well known for her body, as well as her amazing singing voice and spectacular range. She was discovered through song/dance competitions as a child and made her first real debut as lead singer of the girl’s troupe, Destiny’s Child. Beyonce also ventured into acting, first with Golden Globe in Dreamgirls. 

Many of Beyonce’s most popular songs such as “Irreplaceable”, “Partition”, and “If I Were A Boy”, along with many other of her songs, have that sort of “girl power, girls rule” sort of feel to them. All of her songs really talk about being your own person and not worrying about anyone else’s opinions or not feeling like you need anyone to survive, other than youself.

I think that this is why I like Beyonce so much. Most of her songs are very upbeat and encouraging. I know when I am feeling down, a good Beyonce tune never fails to cheer me up. Even though she pretty much looks flawless, she does not encourage everyone to be that way. She really gets the message across that everyone is beautiful just the way they are, and that there is someone who loves you! To me, she always has a positive, uplifting message, especially for women, and I feel that she would be a great person for any woman to wish to aspire to someday.

I chose to write this entry on chapter 63 about Madonna. This chapter focuses a lot on many of Madonna’s different popular hits, and tells about how she would act in the videos, what the lyrics were like, and her different manor isms in general. In a few paragraphs her manor isms and actions are talked about as striking or surprising to audiences. Some of the clothing that she would wear started huge trends, and some of the things she would say or do would be shocking to audiences, especially at first.

This reminded me a lot of some of the newer artists today. One that was brought to my mind in particular was Miley Cyrus. A few years ago when Miley Cyrus first started doing obscene or obscure things both on public television and at her concerts, everyone was completely shocked, especially looking at her image the way it used to be. When Madonna first started coming out with material that was more on the obscene side, people did not know how to handle it. In other places in this article, it talks about how Madonna began releasing her “inner sexual personae”.

I guess when stars such as Miley Cyrus and Madonna are young and are still in the process of ‘finding themselves’, not everything that they have to offer has fully come out yet. Therefore when they finally do break out and do something that was unpredictable and obscene, it is really a huge shock to everyone. Many artists such as these ones often do something so out of the ordinary for them that some people do not know whether to call it “beautiful” or “grotesque.” I almost wonder if the majority of pop singers feel that they HAVE  to do something completely out of the ordinary like this at some point in their career in order to receive the attention that they desire.

I chose to base this entry off of chapter 62, about Michael Jackson.While reading about Michael Jackson, I read through a lot that I already knew about his songs, when his career really started to pick up, and about all of his cosmetic changes he chose to have done later on into his career. However, while reading about this particular thing, I began to think more into why was this necessary for him to do? It almost seems as if he did this to make himself seem more appealing to his audience by looking more feminine.

I chose to look more into Michael’s plastic surgery outside of the reader and found that he had over 100 different plastic surgery operations to get his ‘dream’ face. I also found out that he loathed his appearance when he was younger, especially because of his darker skin and acne. He felt that light skin was more attractive, and blemishes were not as common for lighter skinned individuals. He also felt that his nose was too big for his face, so therefore he went and changed it along with some other things. However, I wondered if all of these changes effected the way that he performed/ wrote his music?

I learned that after these physical/visual changes were made, Michael started writing compelling songs with messages about social, emotional and physical claustrophobia. He gave the impression through a lot of his music that he felt trapped. Whether it was within himself or through what other people had made him out to be, he was not entirely clear on. Some of his songs such as “Beat it” actually portrayed his anger and frustration. Despite the messages of his songs, this made his performances no less enjoyable to watch.

I chose to base this entry off of chapter 37, and the section on Beatlemania. The main focus here is how young girls reacted to the Beatles and everything having to do with them. The article says that “Beatlemania was the first mass outburst of the sixties to feature women.” According to this article as well as many other sources, The Beatles were maybe the biggest hit of all time, especially for young women.

While reading this article, I started to think about how the Beatles must have felt, not only as a musical group but also as individuals. As fairly older men, having young girls fall all over you was probably quite thrilling because in reality, they could of had any woman that they wanted. However, as thrilling as this might of been, all of this “ooing” and “aweing” from young girls probably had it’s down sides as well. I could imagine that this probably got very old and annoying after a while. The fact that all of this was not a very calm matter, and often caused riots and injuries probably was a little upsetting for them. The fact that all of these outcomes finally led to the Beatles practically being forced off the stage by their fans was probably even more devastating because that is most likely never how they meant for their music to effect their fans. I know as an artist, I would be sort of vexed because of all of this.

It is a shame really, I think, if any fans of whatever artist acts this way because it not only takes away from the goodness of their music itself, but it almost makes it look as if the music has a negative effect on the fans. To some people, the Beatles might of been looked at as having “trashy” music or something of that sort just because of most of their fan’s crazy and annoying reactions.

In chapter 22, there is a section with an interview with Sam Phillips that I found to be very interesting. Here, he talks about Elvis Presley and how he and Sam got along and what their relationship was along with a little bit about some of his songs. A few questions that Sam was asked which I found particularly interesting were, “What were you trying to achieve with Elvis?” His response was somewhere along the lines of Elvis was the most unique individual that stepped foot into the studio. He says that he needed to “establish a direction” for him. I think it’s awesome how excited he really was about maybe getting a chance to better guide Elvis in the right direction as an artist, being that he did not really belong to any specific band or anything of that nature. He wanted to do something “different” than ever before with Elvis.

In this ‘interview’ article with Sam Phillips, I thought it was great how he was able to see so much potential and originality in Elvis’ style. Enough to be able to decide that he wanted to be the one to take Elvis and try to make something great of him. I also thought it was very interesting how he wanted Elvis so bad, and yet he let him go even though he was a huge success. However, in this article, Sam says that he feels letting Elvis go was the best judgement call he could of made. Sam says that when Elvis finally ‘made it’ he was the happiest man in the world. He really believed in Elvis as a blues singer mainly.

I think through everything that Sam is saying, it would be cool if maybe they would of gotten to have an interview with Elvis as well as Sam to hear his side of the story, and his reactions to everything. I know that Sam believed in Elvis a lot and was very proud of him, but I can’t help wondering if Elvis felt the same way, being that Sam had more of the ‘creator’ role, and Elvis was more of the ‘creation.’ I would like to know if Sam Phillips’ methods and ideas were effective for Elvis and how much he really felt that Sam could help him.

This week I started to read the article entitled, “Rock n’ Roll MeetsTthe Popular Press.” As I was reading, I noticed that the article says that people thought rock’n’roll to be just as suggestive as swing, if not more. So, I thought I might look more into swing music and see if it is as “suggestive” as it is said to be.

The first thing I learned about swing style music is that there a shit ton of instruments involved including, drums, brass instruments like trumpets and trombones, as well as stringed instruments like violin and guitar, along with many more. The emphasis for swing is mostly all of the time on the off beat, earlier know as “swing-time rhythm”. The term ‘Swing’ also refers to the feel of the song, and in this case swing means ‘having a strong groove, or drive.’ However, during World War II is when Swing music began to decline because of all of the musicians that were scheduled overseas in the war.

One thing I found very interesting about swing style music, is that while all of these different varieties of instruments are playing god knows what…there was usually a soloist who would take center stage and improvise for practically the entire time the band was playing. I could never even try to imagine completely improvising a solo over a huge band. Whoever had that job had to of been amazing!

I could not find much about how “suggestive” swing music was thought to be. However, I did find a little bit about how surprised people were about the style change from romantic arrangements such as waltzes like they had been used to. Many people of the late 1930’s were taken back by the sound of the popular, edginess and often erratic new swing music style.

In my opinion from what I have heard of both swing and rock’n’roll music, rock’n’roll has swing beat. If i was to look at both musical styles from the world’s perspective now, I would have to say neither are very offensive. Especially if I were looking at early style rock’n’roll, the suggestiveness is very suttle; but probably not to the average person back when rock’n’roll first originated.