The Sky Has Limits

Some nuggets

Be them gold, or of a darker sort, I promised to publish the main concept for my story here, and we'll pray that my audience is either so small, or so disinterested in my work that the thing will not be stolen out from under me before I even have a chance to write it.  While my Script Frenzy page has a one-line blurb about the play, here is a much more comprehensive idea of what I'm going for:

Explanation of Alex's Oyster

Alex is a fairly typical girl who goes through a variety of situations that happen to just about everybody, but the scenes will focus on the ones that impact her most, and shape who she will become.  Sadly, most of these have the effect of causing her to loose her innocence and, eventually, her interest in life.  The scenes will each occur during one of her three most important growth phases: when she is 16 (the HIGH SCHOOL PHASE), when she is 20 (the COLLEGE PHASE), and lastly when she is 24 (the CAREER PHASE).  Each phase will have some of the more obvious situations (romance, alcohol/drugs, siblings/parents) but the things that happen will be anticipated/reflected in the other two, and not necessarily in chronological order, but with obvious logical implications.  I plan to bounce around (Lost-style) and hopefully there will be enough continuity to not confuse everyone.

The title is a reference to the popular adage, "The world is my oyster" which comes from a Shakespearean play.  Many people take this to mean, "I have my life ahead of me, and I shall embrace it to seek my destiny/fortune."  In case my use wasn't obvious, I'm being depressingly ironic, because gradually Alex no longer cares about seeking her destiny.

Also, although there is a spot for me to list my script's soundtrack, I'm not allowed to link them, so here it is (for flavor), so far:

Mindy Smith - It's Amazing
VAST - Here
T.H.C. - Dip
T.H.C. - Need to Destroy
Britney Spears - Unusual You
Hilary Duff - Stranger
Ben Folds Five - Brick
Jonatha Brooke - Inconsolable
Linkin Park - My December
Five For Fighting - 100 Years
Jon McLaughlin - Human
Ben Folds - Still Fighting It
Avril Lavigne - My Happy Ending

You may have noticed I've created a good candidate for "Most Depressing Playlist, Ever".  I'm still searching for songs to soften things a little, but stay within the mood.  We shall see what lightning strikes me in that particular vein.

A Circus, indeed

The other day I heard the new song from miss Britney Spears, which was the title single from her new album, Circus.  I was surprised by how much I liked the song, though after acquiring the album, I think I understand why.  Britney is now making extensive use of a voder which, when paired with her more mature, lust-object, sound and writing has created another intoxicating "sex and synth" combination.  As I have mentioned before, I gravitate towards this like a moth to flame.

While I have no doubts that much of Britney's work is far from free of a voder, gone is the minor tweaking that almost the enitre pop industry now uses, and instead we get heavily augmented vocals that have been playfully working their way into other genres.

Her previous album, Blackout, was the big "comeback" album that garnered a lot of attention, and not just because she has a veritable font of money.  Here was a new Britney, sexual and uninhibited, no longer hiding behind the teen-age icon she had been saddled with.  Blending her pop vocals and slutty image with thick urban beats had created an album that should have just been called, "Songs to fuck to".  Circus is not quite as sinful, but still carries on the tradition of scandal and egotism.

The entire album has a matured feel to it, though she somehow stays close to her pop roots.  The video for "Circus" is filled with vaudeville imagery and thick with dance, while the song uses a darker minor key to accompany the night-time mood.  The rest of the album ranges from double entendres to surprisingly tender, including a track that is obviously written for her sons.  My least favorite, but touching, nonetheless.

A friend of mine at work spent $229 per ticket for Britney's upcoming KC concert, and while he's sitting 6 rows back, 8 seats from the center, that is still a ridiculous amount of money.  I was confounded by this (and I've seen her in concert) until I realized something.  If you're a fan, you don't go to concerts very often, and she is coming to a hall near you, I'll bet a Britney Spears concert is a pretty awesome performance.  Especially now that she's not catering to the 10-14 age group.  It made me kind of envious...

Shame

I just downloaded Hilary Duff's Best Of album and the remix of "Reach Out" is my new favorite song.  I also downloaded some Avril Lavigne, and while I cannot stand her videos--and her music is hit-and-miss for me--I think she is absolutely the most alluring creature on the planet.  Cross that with my orientation-bending lust for Britney, and my unhealthy infatuation with Mariah in high-school, and you get a latent 14-year-old school girl.  Or maybe a 14-year-old adolescent boy who has never grown up...

"This is the remix..."

While Aaron's fetish with mashups occasionally makes me want to gag, I am no stranger to the alteration of work for something new and/or different.  I thought Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory was brilliant work--synergy between rap and rock (something 311 had done in a different genre) to craft a unique sound really attracted me.  I was blown away and became a fan almost instantly.  Then, they released their second album, Reanimation.  They had taken their own songs, ripped them apart, spliced in work from brilliant artists around them (like the leads from Korn, Staind, and Jurassic 5), and created versions of my favorite songs that became my new favorites.

Six years later, I have fallen in love with Techno and Trance, and every once in a while, Aaron will play a mashup that I'm fascinated with.  Much of these genres rely heavily on the work of those who have come before, and the most amusing part is that, unlike people like Disney, they recognize and worship the people they are pulling from for their own creative expression.  I will say it again:  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  There is tremendous cultural power in the sharing of artistic ideas.

Wired made me aware of a movie coming out in March called RiP:  A Remix Manifesto that explores the culture behind the people who scramble music into new forms and those who are terrified that mashups might do a better job with their work than they originally did.

It's a very interesting concept to watch the line blurring around the "tools" used to create original content.  Raph Koster fervently pursues this concept in video game context, as games like Little Big Planet and Spore start changing the way we define entertainment.  While those are obviously geared towards content creation, who is to say that Photoshop or Flash aren't "games"?  Again, obviously those pieces of software understand their nature quite well (and charge accordingly), but this is something Microsoft has understood for decades--people are using the things they created to create things of their own.  That is why MS Office has never been offered for free to students.  I think music artists are just irritated that the poor anticipation of how their material would be used resulted in a lack of monetization.

Zelda, FTW

So, in looking for "Chop Suey", I happened upon this nugget as well:

Zelda, WTF?  Who are these guys?

Rock out with your [guitar] out

I admit I was a naysayer last year when Aaron was drooling over the news about the original Rock Band.  My "nays" turned to "yays" when it finally hit, and (someday) I will own a copy myself.  At this point, I may just hold out for Rock Band 2, because the article at GameSpot made me salivate.  They have listed a couple of the tracks that will be available for it, and I have emboldened the ones I am dying to sing/play:

"Ace of Spades" -- Motörhead
"Everlong" -- Foo Fighters
"Pinball Wizard" -- The Who
"Panic Attack" -- Dream Theater
"Any Way You Want It" -- Journey
"Chop Suey" -- System of a Down
"Kids in America" -- The Muffs
"Give It Away" -- Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Hello There" -- Cheap Trick
"Pump It Up" -- Elvis Costello

Nothing against Cheap Trick, it's just not my favorite song by them.  Their insane guitarist has also made our blog-news before.

But fuck yes, I cannot wait to try "Everlong", "Chop Suey", and "Give It Away" on all three instruments, and adding Journey for me to sing is like gravy on the mashed potatoes.  If they keep this up, it won't matter if the competition makes shitty, I mean, cheesy PR videos (that video so goddamned ghey, I'm ashamed to link it), even though I do really want to try "Are You Gonna Go My Way".

Rumors In My Ghost

As I was adding the comprehensive (and unbelievably brilliant) Ghost in the Shell official soundtrack collection to my iPod, I was looking through the vast Wikipedia logs and happened upon this nugget in the manga section:

"As of 2008 DreamWorks acquired the rights to produce a 3-D live action film adaptation of the original manga with Stephen Spielberg tipping the scales in DreamWorks favor. So far Avi Arad and Steven Paul are confirmed producers and Jamie Moss will be adapting the manga into a screenplay."

This reeks of bullshit.

First, the cited source for this entry was completely absent, which made me worried.  A quick jaunt to the IMDB raised my spirits, as there is a listing for a 2011 version of the film (which you must be an IMDB Pro member to see info on).  Apparently, there was Wired article about it that slipped completely under my radar in April, and it turns out that Spielberg himself is a big fan.

Live-action GitS in 3-D?!?!  This sounds too amazingly good to be true!  I am praying to every god I know of that this doesn't fall to the same depths as some previous attempts at this type of film.  Here's hoping that if Stephen thinks he can still direct movies about Indiana (not the state), then maybe he could try his hand at some more Sci-Fi.

These are some sound tracks

(ZOMG, someone kill me before I make a double entendre that bad again)

In watching seven seasons of both Scrubs and Buffy, I decided to check out their soundtracks as well.  I found two-disc compilations that lumped together music from every which-way, but I found these really only whet my appetite.  It was like buying a pack of cards from each series in a CCG--I craved completion.  I then found a 200 song Scrubs soundtrack and an insane 650 song Buffy "unofficial" soundtrack that has every song in a Buffy episode.  Ever.

First, the Scrubs soundtrack, while hiding a true gem here and there, was surprisingly void of music I enjoy.  My Ex loves it, of course, but that is because it is rife with something I started calling "emo".  Turns out, the genre of Emo died out as a subset of rock a while ago.  Still, I have no idea what to call Aqualung's "Easier to Lie", David Gray's "Please Forgive Me", or The Fray's "How to Save a Life".  I enjoy a good, sappy cry as much as the next guy, but these aren't really Rock, are they?  The rock beat is there, but this music is something else.  I define modern Rock as Fall Out Boy and All-American Rejects.  And don't say, Alternative, because I call Incubus and Our Lady Peace "Alternative".  I'm honestly at a loss.  Suggestions?

And the Buffy set I have is something I'm still probably going to be weeding through for the next month--I have to listen to each track, at least once, to rate and classify them.  4 min avg per song X 650 songs = around 40 hours of music.  So far, it's been much more up my alley.  Alternative, punk, rock, some techno.  There's a wicked song by a weird little band named Laika (yes, after the first dog in space) and I can't decide if I like them yet or not.  Somewhere between Jazz and Electronica.

And then there's Bloom.

Absolutely breathtaking.  I did not know I could get a high off of sound this way.  The funniest part is that the first time I heard anything of this project was when I saw a video pairing the Junkie XL remix of "World on Fire" with scenes of abandoned World of Warcraft locations that were partially rendered.  I ravaged the net to get my hands on the song, then forgot about the album for a few years.  Recently, I have transcended and become aware of music that is truly in tune with my soul.  I imagine I resemble my father when he first heard Clapton.

Needless to say, I have been broadening my horizons around here quite a bit.

I've found Gold!!!

(WARNING!  The following post is YouTube-link intensive.  Not for the faint of internet connection.)

It began 2 years ago with that LG phone commercial for the "Chocolate" that featured a clip of a song by a group called Goldfrapp.  I loved the song so much I furiously searched the web, found it, and downloaded it.  The story ended there for about 6 months until Aaron pointed out one day that Goldfrapp is the group being talked about in "Hard Candy" (OMG, get it:  Candy/Chocolate?  It's a small web, after all...).  This still did not inspire me to pursue my interest.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago when I signed up for the ultra-fast Cox internet package, where my downloading is at unimaginable speeds.  For no reason whatsoever, I decided to get all four of Goldfrapp's albums, and they are amazing.

Goldfrapp is trance/electronica that has been called a blend of synthesizer and sex.  While they have some strange videos, some of their songs are simply stunning.

The first album, Felt Mountain, is actually my least favorite.  Mellow and gentle, it puts me to sleep.  I have read that this album met with very limited success, as much as it did get them widespread exposure.  Black Cherry, on the other hand, is amazing and by far my favorite.  An almost complete turnaround, they maintain their mellow songbird subtlety while heavy punctuating beats and bass give it the surreal club sound that I love.  This album brought them a LOT more success.  Supernature was the big one, earning them two Grammy nominations in 2007.  It continued the feel of rock beats with thick synth and suggestive vocals just dipping their toes in the dirty.   Last week they released  Seventh Tree, which appears to be a move to their roots, resembling the relaxed lighter sound of their first run.  It is not what I love about them, but we'll see if it grows on me.

If you liked the songs I linked at all, go pick up Black Cherry or Supernature.  It will be worth your while.