Wednesday, June 21, 2006
A very slow day at work by ones self results in a suprising amount of time to think and (for better or worse) much of that thought is going to end up here today.
Foremost of these thoughts with relevance to this site is the thought of why do I even bother? Not a pity plea by any means but the on and off joke for the past while in that 'Pearls before Swine' comic in ze Herald where the Rat is bugging the one character about how if no one reads his blog then why write one got me thinking. If indeed no one really reads this space I can always contain my thoughts to their natural habitat of my mind and the odd conversation here and there. This course of action would definitely save me some time not to mention some grief on the internets part. Well the better portions of it anyways. So yes although I do enjoy doing this, that enjoyment only comes from knowing that others actually read this. That being the case if you do read and wish for its continuation then please leave a comment from time to time. Otherwise I will just file this in the 'failed project' bin and move on.
Moving on
Reading in the ol' tree press news distributary today they had an article on Nelly Furtadoes (spelling?...I can check that on the internet? Get out of here) new sound/image brought up the memories of my commentary on the same back when I first heard about it. Their commentary on the subject of course just fuelled more of the same and so I shall expulge said commentary. Also I have apparently caught some sort of virus that is causing me to write in a far more attempting to be elaborate style than necessary. Hopefully it will pass. Now as you may or may not know on her new album 'Loose' she has forgone the ethnic folk infused music style of old and switched to a more hip-hop, dance style ala Madonna or Gwen Stefani (Hearald comparisons) not to mention changed her look to suit this shift in music style (See more sexed up to put it nicely). Now from the moment I saw her new music video from said album (Promiscuous) and watched ol' Nelly prance around some dank club ala Lindsay Lohan or artists of that vein I thought to myself "Boy has she sold out." Suprisingly (or not depending how cynical you are towards modern media) the Hearald's article went on in length defending her choice of change and lambasting people who claim she has sold out.
Their argument is that why didn't these fans who hate her image change so much go out and buy her last album preventing it from being such a commercial flop. Now in no way do I make claim to be that large of a fan to have had more than a passing interest in her music but I feel that this does not detract from my point. Which is that if she had such desire to do her ethnic roots infused pop then what would sales have mattered. Artistic integrity means standing behind your creation because you believe in it and sales good or bad are just an after effect. The fact that she changed her sound and image to a more commercial friendly one instead of saying record sales be damned! counts as selling out in my books. Having the Hearald make their rather weak point on how artists should only stick to their image if it sells well just accentuates my point. If Nelly Furtado really wanted to express her roots through song then she should have continued to do so rather than team up with some super hip-hop producer just to marginalize her sound. But hey what do I know, maybe she woke up one morning and thought to herself 'you know... my sound just isn't mainstream enough...' Granted I am a rather pretentious 'Indie Rock' jerkass so there is the slight chance that my music mentality (current in any case) might differ from that of the norm. Who knows, but that is my opinion and I am sticking with it.
From the next post onwards I think I shall spotlight some webcomics that I have either came across recently or feel deserve spotlightage. It should be fun as well as recommended reading.
Now if you will excuse me I am going to go watch
Extras, a brilliant television programme on channel 50 at 9:30 on Wednesday nights which you should be watching as well and if your not then by all means start! If by chance the humour style doesn't sync with your vibe then I am seriously surprised you have been able to pretend to stand being around me for so long.
Chris
-The Author of this blog has definitely NOT seen Nickleback in concert nor uttered the words 'They put on a decent live show' so there is no risk to his indie cred whatsoever nor of this post being hypocritical-
1 Comments:
Nice rant my friend. And PS I do read your blog.
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