Captured Thought: James Blake's Album

First off, I’m going to have to get this off my chest: I was extremely skeptical of James Blake going into this review. There’s a huge amount of hype surrounding this album because of the attention his EPs (The Bells Sketch, CMYK, Klavierwerke) received in 2010. I am glad to say he meets the hype.

As a music listener, it’s important for me to have a vast collection that can fit any mood. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I lack albums that I can listen to when I’m depressed or just need some quiet time to think. Enter James Blake. If you’ve ever wanted to just escape your life and take some time to figure out your problems, turn on this album.

Ironically, the best thing Blake uses to invigorate his sound is dead air. Almost every track contains a pause for effect which makes Blake truly unique. For instance on the track “Lindesfarne I”, the whole song is solely Blake’s auto-tuned voice. You did just read auto-tune, but this is one of those rare instances where auto-tune is used well (for a bad example, see Bon Iver’s parts on Kanye West’s last album…). Combined with Blake’s passionate, gospel-like vocals, silence truly is golden on this album. There’s never a spot on the album that feels empty despite it quiet emphasis.

Another thing that James Blake does exceedingly well is the use of loop machines. I’m fairly sure he made the whole album by himself, so this instrument allowed him to take his voice, and along with some pitch tweaks, create the allusion of an entire choir. Any aspiring artists out there who don’t have backing bands should really learn something form James Blake. The closing track on the album “Measurements” takes full advantage of the loop machine. With only a bass synth supporting, the James Blake choir takes center stage on one of the album’s best and most moving tracks.

The only things that bothers me about James Blake is that when first described to me, some one said he was dubstep. While there are a lot of dubstep influences and instances (“Limit to Your Love”, “I Never Learnt to Share”), James Blake should NOT be billed as a dubstep artist. I think he should be given the Primus treatment and given his own genre. The second thing about this album is that it borders on boring at times. It never crosses the line, but there’s a stretch of three songs after the Feist cover “Limit to Your Love” that don’t build off of the momentum brought on by the first half of the album.

All in all, James Blake is surely a contender for album of the year despite it’s early release. Think of it like Vampire Weekend’s Contra or Beach House’s Teen Dream: even though it came out in the first 3 months of 2011, give it some respect. James Blake is a truly unique artist that will for sure have a huge year. Tickets have sold out in minutes (like the Chicago date… don’t worry I have mine!), and rightfully so. This guy is the real deal and I expect great things in the future.

An Inconvenient Truth: Radio is Dead

Nothing annoys me more than when people claim that radio is dead. We've heard it for years. Television will kill radio. The Internet will kill radio. Satellite Radio will kill radio. But all these years later, AM/FM radio is still alive and doing quite well, thank you.

As a station manager of the radio station here at South, I take all these comments personally. Imagine if you loved playing football and people said, "Don't bother going in to football, it'll be gone in 10 years." See how aggravating that can be? People don't realize that radio is actually much better off than you'd think.

People try to claim that television is the radio killer. That's funny because television is quickly being replaced by OnDemand, Hulu, and Netflix. There is no replacement to having a radio in your car because TV in the car is ridiculous. There's also the topic of satellite radio replacing the traditional AM/FM options. However, not everyone want to pay for something they don't use a whole lot. Having satellite radio in the car is like a traditional AM/FM, but you have to pay for it and some of the channels are way too specific (Death Metal?).

So the next time someone says radio is dead. Look them dead in the eye and say, "You're wrong, friend."

Blogging Around!

I decided to post on Rayn's entry because I agreed with her.

Rayn,
This post is really neat. I enjoy surfing YouTube as well. It's a great opportunity for us to both be enriched by the videos people share, but also grow as a class while we bond over interesting explorations of the humanities.
If I had to pick my favorite, it would have to be the video we watched with the graffiti artist and his eye-sight only computer programs. It was so inspiring!
Thanks for an interesting post.

The next post I commented on was Stephanie's blog entry about Formspring. I go on that website occasionally, so I thought I'd share my thoughts.

I kind of agree in a sense that Formspring is the main offender of people using Internet anonymity to hurt someone. In my experiences with Formspring, people have asked really hurtful questions and half the time just use the submission box to post something mean.
I think it is a good idea in principle, but really can't be trusted to today's youth. Kids are too immature and abuse the technology we have. It does promote the idea of being open with people, but you can do that in person.

Best of Week: My TED Speech

The hands down best part of my week was getting my TED speech done. I'd been stressing out about it for a while, so when I was finally up there and performing it, my stress levels plummeted. I worked pretty darn hard to tune up my speech because my paper wasn't the best it could have been. After all that preparation, I feel like I really knocked it out of the park.

I don't feel like I'm being cocky by saying my speech was well-delivered. I think it's more of a confidence thing. Cocky would be to say I'm definitely getting an A on it. I honestly don't care about my grade because I think people actually got to learn something from my speech about copyrights and why we need to change the laws. This speech and my Rilke mashup are part of my push to muscle through 4th quarter and fight off senioritis, so my success today is a long run victory.

Another part I enjoy about being done with my speech is that I can enjoy everyone else's speech so much more now because I'm done. I won't have to get stressed out or worried that mine isn't that good because I not only completed my speech, but it was a job well done.

I feel like the picture I put at the top because I am able to notice the small, yet wondrous things in the world because of my recent alleviation of stress. Huzzah!

Rilke Mashup: Solitude

Solitude
a state of seclusion or isolation with intense self analysis.
1.

2.

... most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth.

3.

When I'm by myself, I can be myself, and my life is coming but I don't know when.

4.

This meant establishing a clear division between the soul and the body.

5.

6.

"The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky."

7.

Even I, like the Curtis children, harbored a suspicion it was my mother's fault when my father disappeared... Too much the good daughter, I never formed a verbal accusation but I allowed my secret blame to color our relationship for years. And then at some point I lost the energy to blame and decided to believe that... they had found a kind of joy with each other.

8.

Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth...

9.

10.

The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.

11.

For all these things, there is an infinite span of time. In endless time, all things can be accomplished. Thus all things can wait.

12. It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.

13.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

14.

... there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along...

Works Cited
1. Laying Down the Lawlessness (Blog)
2. Rilke, Rainer Maria, and Stephen Mitchell. Letters to a Young Poet. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Print.
3. Butler, Win. "Empty Room." The Suburbs. Arcade Fire. 2010. MP3.
4. Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1994.
5. EveForeverYoung. "I Want to Live Where Soul Meets Body." www.polyvore.com, 2009.
6. Rilke, Rainer Maria
7. Wiggins, Marianne. The Shadow Catcher. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.
8. Rilke, Rainer Maria
9. Tame Impala. "Solitude Is Bliss." Innerspeaker. 2010. YouTube. 16 May 2010. Web. .
10. Rilke, Rainer Maria
11. Lightman, Alan P. Einstein's Dreams. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Print.
12. Rilke, Rainer Maria
13. Carlyle, Thomas
14. Rilke, Rainer Maria

Best of Week: Do You Mind?

Out of all the assignments I've done in a classroom setting, Do You Mind? has to be the most enjoyable. Not only do I get freedom of creativity, but I also am beginning to learn a lot about myself through the questions.
The types of questions in a typical Do You Mind? day are not easy to answer. They require me to actually think about my response. For instance, who does owe me an apology? Have I ever really thought of that? I have no reason to lie in these questions because I am the only one who will see them. With that in mind, I find myself answering 100% truthfully. Sometimes the things I write have never even crossed my mind before that day.
I've pinned down why this phenomenon of my self-analysis comes from: The phrasing of the questions. A question like "Who owes you an apology?" is worded to make me think someone owes me an apology. If the question were "Does anyone owe you an apology?" then I might not have written down what I did that day.
I know it seems weird, but I feel as if these questions are helping me move on from high school. They're allowing me to tie up any loose ends that I might have by making me say/write what I truly feel. People lie, but when the only judge is yourself, there's no reason not to be honest.

Blogging Around! LATE PASS

First I looked at my good friend Doug Cummings' blog where he spoke about appreciating art by creating your own understanding.

Doug,
I agree with you in that dancing is very difficult for me. It's hard to not feel awkward when moving your body to a rhythm or beat. I also used to find watching dancing awkward until I watched this film.
Dancing, like most forms of art, is pretty subjective, so I think you and I learned a great deal by learning to make our own understanding of a piece before we judge it. Appreciation of art stems directly from understanding the art.

Next I went to Benjy Wax's blog where he wrote about the kids he's met in gym.
Benjy,
This is a really great thing to talk about especially with our class going off to college next year. I feel like gym class can be likened to the first day of college where you are forced to meet and work with people you normally would not. By realizing this, I feel like you're putting yourself in a great position to make friends early next school year.

Final Blog

In my literature circle experience, I read the book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson.
I chose to compare my book to my good friend Benjy Wax's book. In The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain, Benjy talked about how the Internet, with all it's pros and cons, is neither rotting nor enhancing our brain. We have the same brains of the past, just differently programmed. For instance, an inventor of the early 20th century would head to his study and toil away for hours at his latest ideas. After weeks of seclusion, he/she would emerge victorious, invention in hand. But Steven Johnson brings up the point of how 21st century inventors operate. They would post their idea to a forum, receive feedback and finish their product within a couple of weeks.
Are these processes different? Yes. Do they produce the same result? Yes. So as Benjy read in his book, the human brain is not smarter, nor dumber, it is just different. Thanks to the innovations of the modern day, the creative process is completely changed.

Captured Thought: Humanities Class

This past week I found out something that I should have figured out a while ago. While it may sound like a bad thing, I encourage you to really think about what I am about to say/type.
I learned that in this Humanities class, the grade I get is neither important nor a reflection of my learning. The important thing about this class is that I'm learning about the humanities and writing. While it is true that I haven't received an A on a writing assignment in quite sometime, my "A-ha!" moment came after I received one of my lit circle reflections. I received an 88%, but Mr. Allen himself said that I am close to "getting it."
I have a few more months left in Humanities, so I am looking forward to the day when I do reach nirvana and finally "get it."

SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR!

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Good Ideas

In the final reading assignment, Steven Johnson once again incorporates themes from previous chapters in order to build his idea. In the chapter entitled “Platforms,” Johnson praises the adjacent possible created by different inventions throughout history, for example Twitter, Global Positioning System, and even the development of coffeehouses. The final chapter, “The Fourth Quadrant,” traces innovations and their associated adjacent possibles throughout the course of history with the use of enlightening, but confusing tables and charts.
The best quote comes from “Platforms” where Johnson is talking about the power of Twitter. “The songbird doesn’t carry the cost of drilling and felling because the knowledge of how to do those things was openly supplied by other species in the chain. She just needs to know how to tweet” (Johnson 210).
Since reading this book, “Platforms” has to be my favorite chapter because it is incredibly relevant to current events in 2011, despite being published last year. The power of Twitter has been showcased in the recent conflicts in Egypt and the Middle East. Through social media, the people of these countries were able to unite as one mass and topple dictatorships that have stood for decades. Without the adjacent possible of Twitter and Facebook, these social revolutions could not have happened. Johnson knows this and praises the innovation; not only adjacent possible, but the future possibilities brought by these platforms are what Johnson is truly trying to convey in his book.

Connection: Einstein's Dreams and World of Warcraft

     Now before you exit out and dismiss the following as a clear reach to make a blog post look intellectual, stick around for a bit and here me out.
     Einstein's Dreams is a book that revolves around the theory of relativity and the different ways that time can act. From standing still, to endlessly repeating, through reversing, and even creating three separate timelines, the concept of time is quite the confusing topic. When life gets confusing, I relate it back to something I understand in hopes of translating it into a more basic language that can be grasped and coddled by my feeble mind. When reading Einstein's Dreams, my mind almost immediately jumped back to World of Warcraft, the massive online video game that has held the attention of over 12 million players for over 6 years now (which in Massive Multiplayer Online games is an eternity). 
      In my travels in Azeroth, I have slayed demons, freed nations, and the fought back the undead as my level 85 Worgen warrior, Wavves. Along the way I have encountered elves, dwarves, and orcs, some friendlier than others. However, the group that reminds me the most of Einstein's Dreams is a brood of dragons: The Bronze Dragonflight. As a probable non-WoWer, you are very confused right now. Please allow me to give a brief history of the bronze dragons...
     According to the WoW Wiki (wowwiki.com):

"Bronze dragons are very cunning, much like blues, and value wisdom and patience over all else. Nozdormu, their patron Aspect of Time, is patience incarnate. Bronze dragons exist to keep the time stream inviolate and the order of events progressing as the fates intended. Bronze dragons are very sensitive to the flow and ebb of the time stream, especially Nozdormu and his prime consort Soridormi. From within their home, The Caverns of Time, located underneath the vast sands of the Tanaris desert, the wardens of time can often be found disguising themselves in mortal guises and entering the time-streams, which they constantly attempt to maintain and repair."

      Now you may ask how this connects to Einstein's Dreams. Well, in a world full of magic and demons wishing to destroy the world, someone has to make sure that Einstein's theory holds up! In the game, players are tasked with entering the Caverns of Time and making sure that events in WoW's history occur exactly as they did. The Infinite Dragonflight constantly tries to disrupt time, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. The Bronze Dragonflight uses different forms of time to accomplish their defense of history. For instance, in one encounter players are tasked with defending an heirloom alongside a future version of themselves. Later in the questline, they must revisit that same mission, but this time they control the future version of themselves alongside their character as they completed the quest earlier. Sound confusing? It is, but as Einstein's Dreams says: "Time is in 3 dimensions all occuring at once." The past, present, and future all meet together and evidence the theory discussed in the book.
     Five minutes ago (or however fast you read), you probably thought I would never connect Humanities to World of Warcraft. Not only are you a naysayer, but now you are an enriched naysayer. Thanks to Einstein's Dreams and the Bronze Dragonflight, we have made a CONNECTION!!!!!