Final Project: How Michael Jackson Changed Society

Thesis:

Michael Jackson had a wonderful career that was filled with stardom, wealth, and power. The music he created brought in new ideas into the music industry, and according to britannica.com “by 1984 Jackson was renowned worldwide as the “King of Pop.”” Without Michael Jackson, some of the things that we might appreciate today would have not been brought to existence without his help, such as music videos, breaking down racial barriers and finally celebrity advertisement.

Music Videos:

Music videos were created well before the rise of the great late Michael Jackson, but not really did you see so much interest in watching such videos until 1983 when Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” hit the world by storm, which according to highsnobiety.com “cost over $500,000 to make at a time when most videos cost in the tens of thousands to produce.” In my opinion the 13 minute video which I have provided below was more like a short film, but extremely entertaining, and fun to watch. Michael Jackson paved the way for what the current standard for music videos now, which is high production values. According to theguardian.com “Thriller sealed MTV’s reputation as a new cultural force; dissolved racial barriers in the station’s treatment of music (though MTV has always denied they existed); revolutionized music video production; spawned the “making of” genre of documentary (“The Making of Filler,” as Landis said at the time); helped create a market for VHS rentals and sales, because fans were desperate to see it when they wanted, rather than at the will of TV stations; and, in 2009, became the first music video to be inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.” In the video itself you can see lots of examples in which the timbre changes such as when he sings the word “thriller” which is sung at a much higher tone, and my in opinion it really goes well with the music video. The lyrics for the song reminds me of scary story, or in other words has that Halloween spirit within the song. For example in one of his lines he sings “Creatures crawl in search of blood,” and in another line he sings “As horror looks you right between your eyes,” definitely phrases that can resemble a scary story. The tempo is nice and steady during the verses, while during the chorus it starts to pick up in the 1984 version, when the song came out as a single.

This video was published on Oct 2, 2009 on YouTube by Michael Jackson, but was made in 1983. “Thriller” was recorded by Michael Jackson, composed by Rod Temperton, produced by Quincy Jones and released by Epic Records.

Breaking Down Racial Barriers:

According to theguardian.com “as the first breakthrough black performer to grace the screens of MTV in any regular fashion, he continued breaking barriers long after the official word was that there were no barriers left. “Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama,” said Sharpton.” Also before Michael Jackson was famous for his music videos he needed to be accepted by MTV first as an article by articles.sun-sentinel.com states “it’s one of the great tales of culture clash: The young, rock-oriented MTV refused to play black music, including the moody video for “Billie Jean”. Jackson’s label, CBS, threatened to pull all of its artists from circulation. MTV relented. “Billie Jean”, the first MTV-aired video by a black artist, became a smash.” “Billie Jean” is played at a fast tempo, and after listening to the song I found it playing at a 4/4 time, and the smooth beat helped me identify this. According to genius.com the lyrics for the song are about a “tale of a young girl who claims to be the mother of Jackson’s alleged son.” According to the same website Michael Jackson stated “there never was a real Billie Jean. The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years. I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone’s child when it wasn’t true.” The song contains a much softer and serious tone during the chorus, and during some parts where the singer exaggerates his voice on some notes.

This video was published on YouTube on October 2nd, 2009 by Michael Jackson, but was made in 1983. “Billie Jean” was written and composed by Michael Jackson, produced by Quincy Jones, and released by Epic Records.

Celebrity Advertisement:

According to billboard.com “Coca-Cola offered a $1 million deal that was rejected and the Jacksons moved on to PepsiCo, where then-CEO Roger Enrico was looking for a big idea to launch his youth-targeted “New Generation” campaign for the brand. “The goal was to make Pepsi look young and Coke look old, and Michael Jackson was in fact the choice of that generation” when Jackson suggested using his song “Billie Jean” as the jingle (with the rewritten chorus, “You’re the Pepsi generation/Guzzle down and taste the thrill of the day/And feel the Pepsi way”), Pepsi was sold.” As you can see this iconic deal was great for both parties, maybe better for Pepsi as they made huge profits that year, but either way this deal created new paths for future artists, and celebrities to be used in advertising. According to billboard.com “the trend of Pepsi signing music stars as spokespeople has continued into the present day, with Lionel Richie, Madonna, Beyoncé and Britney Spears all lending their name to the brand. Corporations of all stripes now align themselves frequently with pop artists, but with music and advertising becoming increasingly fragmented, Jackson’s deals with Pepsi will likely remain the industry standard-bearer.” The melody of the song comes from Michael Jackson’s original single “Billie Jean” but with a new twist in the lyrics. For the lyrics of this song, instead of talking about a young girl who claims to be the mother of Jackson’s alleged son in “Billie Jean” this little jingle is about drinking Pepsi and making this choice for being “a whole new generation.” The first two verses in the little jingle are sung with a more serious tone trying to sound more influential, which from the whole idea of having the commercial was his job. After the the two verses the remaining lyrics are sung at a much softer tone, which really brings out the same melody as “Billie Jean.” The song is once again follows the same meter as the original song “Billie Jean” which is a 4/4 time.

This video was published on YouTube onApril 29th, 2009 by Modegy. However the song was created in 1984 for a Pepsi commercial. The director of this commercial was Bob Giraldi, and the lyrics were made by Michael Jackson.

In the end, the power that Michael Jackson had through the creation of his music allowed him to change our society in my opinion for the better. Even though this blog post does not cover all of the influential things that Michael Jackson has contributed to our society like his iconic dance moves, his contribution through music videos, racial barriers, and celebrity commercial have developed to what it is now with his help.

Sources:

1.) Atkinson, Sophie. “Music Video History: A Complete Breakdown.” Highsnobiety, Highsnobiety, 16 June 2017, www.highsnobiety.com/2016/09/21/history-music-videos/.

2.) Vincent, Rickey. “Michael Jackson.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 26 July 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Jackson.

3.) Younge, Gary. “Michael Jackson Was the First Black Superstar of the Post Civil-Rights Era.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 June 2009, www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-black-superstar-icon.

4.) Hebblethwaite, Phil. “How Michael Jackson’s Thriller Changed Music Videos for Ever.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 21 Nov. 2013, www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/21/michael-jackson-thriller-changed-music-videos.

5.)“Eight Ways That Michael Jackson Changed The World.” Tribunedigital-Sunsentinel, 27 June 2009, articles.sun-sentinel.com/2009-06-27/news/0906260229_1_pop-star-mtv-billie-jean.

6.) “Michael Jackson – Billie Jean.” Genius, 2 Jan. 1983, genius.com/Michael-jackson-billie-jean-lyrics.

7.) Herrera, Monica. “Michael Jackson, Pepsi Made Marketing History.” Billboard, Billboard, 14 Jan. 2013, www.billboard.com/articles/news/268213/michael-jackson-pepsi-made-marketing-history.

New Relationship With Music:

This course has helped me understand the analytical side behind music such as, form, timbre, melody, lyrics, tempo, beat, meter, and etc. Before taking the class I really had no background on how one should be able to comment on a piece of music other than just talking about the lyrics, the singer, and beat. I have also started to listen to more instrumental music after finding out more information about The Piano Guys in my blog post about The Role of the Performer. I also got to learn more about my Korean culture with understanding how two traditional instruments the P’iri, and kayagŭm are played in my blog post on Taking a Musical Trip. Overall, this class was one of my more interesting classes I have taken for my Civil Engineering degree, and would highly recommend it for any university student to enroll in.

MUSIC AND THE FICTIVE DREAM 2: Rocky III – “Eye of the Tiger”

Overview:

For this weeks blog post (Continued Explorations) I have decided to do another topic on Music and the Fictive Dream with the movie Rocky III and with the movie’s most popular song “Eye of the Tiger” by the band Survivor. Rocky III is the third movie of the famous boxing movie series, Rocky and according to rocky.wikia.com “Rocky III was an enormous box office success. It surpassed the domestic gross of its predecessor Rocky II and became the fourth highest grossing film of 1982.” The movie was released in 1982 and the screenplay was written once again by Sylvester Stallone. For the series third installment the plot of the movie deals with once again with profound boxing champ, Rocky Balboa played by Sylvester Stallone and how his opponent James “Clubber” Lang, played by Mr. T thinks Rocky is fighting a bunch of fake fights which allows Rocky to stay undefeated for 4 years, and so challenges Rocky to a fight. Inevitable James “Clubber” Lang wins the fight and the title of heavy weight champion, while Rocky loses his personal trainer/best friend to a stroke at the end of the fight. Rocky than realizes that he’s been getting a little soft and after the death of his friend he begins training with his former boxing rival/friend Apollo Creed. In the end, Rocky eventually wins back the title from James “Clubber” Lang, but during his training with Apollo Creed Rocky realizes that he’s losing the eye of the tiger that he once had, which ties into the song “Eye of the Tiger” and becomes a big theme throughout the movie.

“Eye of the Tiger” was written in 1982 by the band Survivor, and according to songfacts.com Sylvester Stallone didn’t want this song to be similar at all to the song “Gonna Fly Now” used in the first two movies of the series. According to an interview on songfacts.com it was stated that “the first two Rocky movies used a very popular orchestral theme written by Bill Conti. That song, “Gonna Fly Now,” was a #1 hit in 1977. Says Peterik: “We didn’t want to do anything like that. Stallone, in his first conversation to us, he made it real clear he wanted to distance himself from that first song.” The song played in the movie was just a demo created by the band and do to it’s liking by the director it wasn’t cut or edited at all for the movie. However, the band produced a single for the song 3 weeks later after the movie available for the public in a professional studio.

YouTube Video published in 2009 by the name Survivor Band showing the music video “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (1982).

Lyrics:

According to loudersound.com “Stallone sent the first 10 minutes of the film for us to watch, and I was so upset when it cut out,” he laughs. “So I told him I needed to see the rest of the movie to do it justice. It was totally untrue, I just wanted to know how it ended.” Basically the band was able to watch the movie and get feel for what type of song the movie needed, and originally Sylvester Stallone wanted to use “Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen for the theme song, but couldn’t get publishing rights. According to songfacts.com “Jim Peterik explained in our interview how Survivor wrote the song: “Frankie (Sullivan) came in with the lines, ‘Back on the street, doin’ time, taking chances.’ I loved those lines immediately and suggested, ‘Rising up, back on the street, did my time, took my chances’ to make it fit with the story line and to make the rhythm of the words fit the music I was hearing in my head. That was certainly the lyrical spark that got the song started.” The lyrics for the song basically explain what happened to Rocky during throughout the movie with lines like

“Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive.”

The lines above basically explain how Rocky lost his way of staying hungry as a competitor and trying to win back his title from James “Clubber” Lang. While the lines below describes how Rocky will challenge James “Clubber” Lang again and show everyone that he still has that eye of the tiger in him.

“It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the dream of the fight
Risin’ up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he’s watchin’ us all with the eye of the tiger.”

Meter:

After listening to this song I found it playing at a traditional 4/4 time, and it wasn’t that hard to identify from the song. I don’t believe it changes at all throughout the song and it was a good choice from the artists to have it played at a 4/4 as it makes the song more catchy.

Timbre:

Louder tones are noticeable during the intro of the song and towards the end, but the vocalist doesn’t seem to have too many cases of a change in timbre other than a small part where he emphasizes the eye in the the last line before he starts to just repeat “the eye of the tiger” four times.

Conclusion:

Even though I prefer Rocky 4 over Rocky 3, the fact that Rocky 3 was the first movie to start playing the “Eye of the Tiger” within the context of the film makes it my second favorite choice in the series. The lyrics for “Eye of the Tiger” is basically illustrating the basic theme for the movie, and it’s also a good workout song in my opinion because it reminds us that even though we might fail, we should just get back on our feet and continue to regain that eye of the tiger we all have.

Sources:

1.) “Rocky III.” Rocky Wiki, rocky.wikia.com/wiki/Rocky_III.

2.) Songfacts.com. (2018). Eye of the Tiger by Survivor Songfacts. [online] Available at: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3938 [Accessed 29 Jul. 2018].

3.) Ling, Dave. “The Story Behind Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger.” Loudersound, The Home Of High Voltage Rock’N’Roll, 8 June 2017, www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-eye-of-the-tiger-by-survivor.

MUSIC AND THE FICTIVE DREAM

Overview:

In this blog post I have chosen to use the movie Toy Story. The production of Toy Story began in 1993 where according to history.com it “was the first Pixar-Disney collaboration, and the first feature-length animated film that was completely computer generated.” The movie was released in 1995 and once again according to history.com it was found to be the “first animated feature ever to score an Oscar Nomination for Best Original Screenplay.” The plot of the movie is generally about a world where toys can come to life and a boy named Andy replaces his favorite toy for a new one, causing jealousy, fighting, and new friendship to emerge from two enemies. The song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman is probably the best song that is played within the movie in my opinion, the song itself was produced for the movie so it was also created in 1995.

YouTube Video published in 2010 by Giorgio Magliano showing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman (1995).

Lyrics:

I think the lyrics are really touching. It portrays the friendship that Woody, one of the main charters wants his owner Andy to come back and feel after he has replaced him with a new toy. The lyrics talk about past friendship and realization to help visualize who you can go to when you have troubles, which in the movies case is Andy’s old toy Woody. The lyrics have 3 different verses and a bridge. According to Randy Newman, on songfacts.com when coming up with the lyrics for the song he knew that “the song is about the friendship of Woody and the boy, Andy,” Newman told Rolling Stone in 2017. “I asked for adjectives, they gave me ‘friendly,’ ‘comforting.’ I took them seriously. Cartoon figures have adult emotions, just like a character in [the war film] Dunkirk.”

Meter:

Timbre:

The timbre within the song doesn’t really change until some parts during the bridge and in the line where he sings “You’re gonna see, it’s our destiny” where it gets sung at a more softer tone.

Conclusion:

This is still a great short song to listen to once in a while, and this is not the only movie of its kind, there are currently 3 more in the series and a 4th one coming in 2019. The lyrics are really about true friendship and even though we’re talking about fictional characters it really applies to people who in real life get left out by there old friends.

Sources:

Role of the Performer: The Piano Guys

I believe that performers are important to the musical industry because they have a special talent which they might not be able to be show through their own words, but they sure can perform the material for our pleasure. For this blog post I decided to pick The Piano Guys. I picked this group because I really enjoy instrumental talent, and sometimes I rather listen to music without the lyrics and just the music itself. So in this blog post I will first give some background information about The Piano Guys then, show some examples of their work, and finally explain their importance as performers.

Brief History:

According to thepianoguys.com “It all started in a piano store in a little Southern Utah town called Saint George. Paul Anderson, the store’s owner, was looking for a new, unconventional way to market pianos.” The location of the piano store and the location fellow members of the group, Paul Anderson the producer, Jon Schmidt the Pianist/Songwriter, Steven Sharp Nelson the cellist/songwriter, and finally Al van der Beek the music producer connected all four of these guys together to create this special group. The group was formed in 2010 and their rise to fame mostly came about from the help of YouTube, which eventually led them to a deal with Sony and according to entrepreneur.com it was stated “in no time,” goes a joke Nelson tells onstage, “the four of us had 54 videos up on YouTube, 600 million video views, four albums with Sony and 3.7 million YouTube subscribers.”

Their Work:

So this group basically reproduces songs of their own choice from well known songs and creates a new version with some engineering, a piano, and a cello. I personally think they are a wonderful group, and their music is special, it’s like the instruments are actually singing the song to you.

Above is one of their works published on May 9th, 2012 on YouTube titled “A Thousand Years” which is recreation of Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years”

If you have never heard the original version by Christina Perri it has a violinist and a piano. The original song itself you can hear several timbre changes in the singers voice, but from the video above you can also hear the cello and piano match this timbre change by how hard and soft the musicians play their instruments. I thought the music video was nice and simple just like the song, and according to entrepreneur.com “the group has always sought to keep crews and production budgets tight, the videos often cost less than $5,000 to film, with sets, helicopters, cameras and other equipment donated by friends, colleagues and supporters.”

Above is another work by the group titled “Let It Go” which was published on YouTube on February 19th, 2014 and was a recreation of Modeoff Idina Menzel “Let It Go” in Frozen.

In my opinion I think that The Piano Guys version was more intense than the movie version by Menzel, but both were really good. I believe the tempo seemed to be the same as the original, but the melody is a little different. The dynamics were a lot louder in The Piano Guys version, and maybe this is because it’s a contest between a persons voice vs a piano and cello.

Importance of Performance

In the end, The Piano Guys really bring in this fantastic option to musical industry through musical mashups that are uniquely instrumental. They really show people that you don’t need to have a really good voice to be a good musical performer. They also show us that you can recreate music with your own little taste to make it sound more desirable to listeners such as their version of “Let It Go” in the second video I shared. Instrumental versions of songs have gotten more famous throughout years, and Spotify even has channels that solely dedicate listeners to instrumental beats, and instrumental versions of songs, and I wouldn’t be surprise if The Piano Guys inspired many musicians to help this side of the music industry grow.

Sources:

Weiss, Geoff. “How These Four Dads From Utah Quit Their Day Jobs to Make Millions on YouTube.” Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, 27 Mar. 2015, www.entrepreneur.com/article/244389.

“The Piano Guys Biography – Facts, Childhood & Achievements.” CMUSE, 1 July 2018, www.cmuse.org/the-piano-guys-biography/.

“About.” The Piano Guys, The Piano Guys Https://Thepianoguys.com/Wp-Content.Uploads/2016/08/Final-TPG_Logo-300×113.Png,thepianoguys.com/about/.

Korean Music: Take a Musical Trip

As a Korean American I enjoy not only songs based out of the USA, but also in South Korea. I always wondered the history behind Korean music because now it has even influenced many listeners overseas such as fans in the United States. So in this blog post I will begin with a brief overview of the early history of Korean music, and some of the traditional instruments used back then and slowly progress to what the music is like now over there.

History:

According to britannica.com “The earliest references to music in Korea are found in a 3rd-century-CE Chinese text that comments on agricultural festivals (nong’ak) with singing and dancing among the tribes of northwestern Korea.” Back than Chinese culture heavily influenced Korean music which is why each country played similar but different instruments. According to timetoast.com Korean music was not influenced by Western civilization until 1885 with the help of “American missionary, Reverend Henry Appenzeller who started teaching American and British folk music at a school in Korea.” According to the same website the first known Korean Pop album was introduced in 1925 tilted ‘Yi Pungjn Sewol’ or ‘The Tumultuous Time’ by Park Chae-seon and Lee Ryu-saek. Years later we see the creation of Rock music in the 60’s and Folk pop music in the 70’s. Then the Ballads took over in the 80’s and finally K-Pop took over by storm.

Traditional Instruments:

One of the two most well known instruments in Korean traditional music is called the p’iri, and I really enjoy this flute like instrument because of how much the timbre changes throughout a tune. The instrument itself has 6 holes with a gigantic mouthpiece and a specific length of 31 inches and was introduced in the 11th century according to britannica.com.

This video shows a solo being played with the P’iri, just a heads up the video is very loud because of the loud dynamics of the instrument itself.

The next instrument I will go over in this blog is called the kayagŭm. According to britannica.com the kayagŭm is a “Korean board zither with 12 silk strings, 12 movable bridges, and a convex upper surface. Fashioned from paulownia wood, it forms a rectangle about 160 cm (62 inches) long and 30 cm (12 inches) wide.” This instrument was created in the 7th century and is very fun to watch the musicians play.

This video is dated back in 1966 showing how the kayagŭm is to be played. As you can listen the tempo changes a little and in the end you can hear the dynamics lower.

Founding Father of K-Pop: Cho Young Pil

In Korea anyone who listens to music knows Cho Young Pil, he basically shaped Korean Music to what it is now, even creating hits today in his 60’s. According to the koreaherald.com Cho Young Pil is “Widely referred to as “Gawang,” which literally means the king of singing, Cho occupies a unique place in the popular music genre in Korea as the O.G. idol singer, pioneer of many genres and the most influential figure in the scene today.”

This video was taken in 2013 showing Cho Young Pil playing one of his newest hits during the time titled ‘Bounce’. I think that he still has a very good singing voice, as this was him when he was 63.

K-Pop Today:

According to soompi.com “the influx of the R&B genre changed K-Pop forever. Starting as early as the mid- to late 1990s, many Koreans returned home from overseas. Among them were musicians who grew up in America listening to R&B music, they bought this genre home to Korea with them.” K-pop is classified today into two different genres ballads and dance, and with the introduction to rap and hip-hop Korean music today has grown as a global leader in the music world.

This is the music video for the song ‘Mic Drop’ by BTS which was the first K-Pop group to reach No. 1 on the billboard album chart. According to The New York Times ““Love Yourself: Tear,” the new album by the Korean boy band BTS, has opened at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. This makes it the first entrant of the exuberant Korean K-pop genre to reach the top of the album chart.” The song itself dates back to 2017 and I think timbre has really nice changes and lyrics are pretty good.

Sources:

Innovations & Evolutions: Music Videos

Every song that you hear today now comes with its own personal music video that helps listeners feel more attached to the song by creating a visual for the music, making it more exciting for listeners. According to Business Insider “at 12:01am on August 1, 1981, history was made when MTV, the first 24-hour video music channel, launched onto our television sets and literally changed our lives with the birth of the music video.” The most ironic event that has occurred with the birth of the music video is actually the title of the first music video ever aired on MTV, which was “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Buggles. After watching the music video I found it a little interesting, but again if you think about how much technology they had back in 1981 I find the video to be pretty good, just like an old 80’s movie. As you can see from the video I linked below, it adds interest to the catchy melody, making it interesting for their listeners.

– Above is the music video for “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Buggles

Before YouTube, MTV was the primary source for viewers and listeners to see music videos. Also just because MTV was born in 1981 doesn’t mean that music videos just came about, actually many historians can date music videos back to as early as 1926. However, it was not until the 1960’s and 70’s that music videos became more well known with the help of famous musicians and bands such as The Beatles, David Bowie, and Queen made promotional clips for their fans.

– Above is the iconic music video “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen

Music videos started to get more famous in 1983 with Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” which according to highsnobiety.com “cost over $500,000 to make at a time when most videos cost in the tens of thousands to produce.” In my opinion the 13 minute video which I have provided below was more like a short film, but extremely entertaining, and fun to watch. Michael Jackson paved the way for what the current standard for music videos now, which is high production values. In the video itself you can see lots of examples in which the timbre changes, and my opinion it really goes well with the music video.

-Above is Michael Jackson’s music video for “Thriller”

In 1992 MTV hit a road bump in the television world with America’s new favorite thing to watch, reality TV. Several years later the climb for music videos started again with the creation of YouTube, and Vevo, allowing record labels to get paid for highly viewed music videos. In 2015 YouTube became the 2nd most visited website and according to highsnobiety.com “arguably this could be the reason for the rise in exciting, innovative and experimental music videos in the past few years: if YouTube remains at the top of the pile in terms of visits, it makes sense for record companies to focus on videos since it becomes one of the most valuable promotional tools an artist has at their disposal.”

Today music videos have gone a long way from being just promotional videos to airing on TV, and to forging a path creating high production values eventually allowing music videos to get onto the internet. In our present day we now see music videos showing cinema production, or being related to a cinematic film, such as the famous car racing film series The Fast and Furious with the music video “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth. This song is well known not only because of how great the song is, but how it is portrayed in the movie with the death of one of the main actors Paul Walker.

– Above is the music video for “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth

Sources:

Atkinson, Sophie. “Music Video History: A Complete Breakdown.” Highsnobiety, Highsnobiety, 16 June 2017, www.highsnobiety.com/2016/09/21/history-music-videos/.

Guerrasio, Jason. “A Very Ironic Video Was the First One Ever Played on MTV 34 Years Ago.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 1 Aug. 2015, www.businessinsider.com/video-killed-the-radio-star-34th-anniversary-of-music-video-on-mtv-2015-7.

“Music Video.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 June 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_video.

A Musical Analysis #2 on “Imagine” by John Lennon

John Lennon, once a member of the famous band “The Beatles” set out his own route in the music industry after the band’s separation in 1970, and successfully created his number one hit single “Imagine” a year later in 1971. Imagine is a wonderful song that many believe including myself that the song portrays a vision of peace and freedom, but after extensive research I have found that this was one view point of the song. If you carefully read the lyrics they seem to disagree with this vision of peace, and deals more about corruption. In this blogpost I will go over the lyrics, timbre, tempo, form, and meter of the song.

-Above is a video I found on YouTube where you can listen to the song yourself, and I hope you enjoy it.

Lyrics:

In the video above the lyrics are included in the video, but I have also included a link from an addition source from genius.com that specifically lays out each verse, and the chorus of the song. Originally, John Lennon proposed that he was the sole song writer of this song, but according to songfacts.com it was found out later that he stated “his wife, Yoko Ono, should have been credited as well, as he got the initial idea from her book Grapefruit, which is a book of instructions with things like “Imagine the sky crying…” or “Imagine you’re a cloud.” I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted to mention her contribution.”

As I mentioned earlier, when you first listen to this song you feel the happiness flowing through your soul as the melody of the song is very peaceful. However, if you read the lyrics more careful and observe the first verse where Mr. Lennon sings “Imagine there’s no countries,” and ” nothing to kill or die for” it may seem that he is supporting a government free world. The song also has lines that say “no religion” and to me it shows that Mr. Lennon was imagining a world with no form of government, but maybe one person in charge of the entire world, like a king. At first I thought I was over exaggerating about the lyrics, but I’m not the only one who believes this theory, and from biography.com “Lennon was approached by the World Church asking if they could use it but change the lyric to “one religion” instead of “no religion.” Lennon said no, explaining that that would defeat the whole purpose of the song.” Now why would it matter if we changed one word in the lyrics to “one” instead of “no” my only theory is that he disapproves the freedom of choice. Even though this is one theory to the lyrics of “Imagine” by John Lennon, I can be 100% wrong about it, but this is what I just believe.

Timbre:

This song didn’t really have that many changes in tone, but you can hear the last line in the chorus section “and the world will be as one,” sung at a more serious tone, and it sounds like the artist is trying to emphasize his listeners to really understand his message about a better world. Another area where his voice does seem to change in the song is every 5th line in the verse. He increases his voice during those lines and also includes that “you” at the end of those lines at a softer tone of voice.

Tempo:

The song starts of at a nice smooth temp with the piano music playing in the background. Nothing really starts to pick up in terms of pace until he sings the 5th line again “Imagine all the people living for today” where it seems to pick up a little more speed, but restores back to normal again. During the second chorus he also seems to also pick up the pace and when he goes back to verse 2 it slows down again. Finally when he sings the last chorus section the song starts to slow down nicely.

Form:

This song is written in a A-A-B-A form where it includes a bridge at B with the second verse talking about being humble and nice, while the first verse talks about what the world around us would look like if we decide to change the way we lived as a whole society. I think this adds a nice touch to the song because of how short the song is, and I think it would get really boring if he decided to just repeat the same lyrics over and over again.

Meter:

Sources:

Ulster, Laurie. “The Life & Legacy of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 7 July 2016, http://www.biography.com/news/john-lennon-imagine-song-facts.

“John Lennon – Imagine.” Genius, 11 Oct. 1971, genius.com/John-lennon-imagine-lyrics.

A Musical Analysis on “Location” by Khalid Robinson

Mr. Robinson, the young 20 year old published this song about two years ago (April 2016), and over the two years it has become well known in the music industry, reaching over 290 million views on YouTube, and solidifying its greatness by reaching certified platinum status, which became Khalid’s first platinum single. I chose this song because when I went on vacation last month, this song was one of the first songs on my playlist and became really catchy during my flight. One of the main things you can appreciate from this song are the lyrics, which I will go in further detail later in the blog. I also appreciate the steady beat and smooth timbre.

-Above is a video I found on YouTube where you can listen to the song yourself.

Lyrics:

I have included the lyrics to the song which will be provided by genius.com below, and the website did a great job of showing where the chorus, verses, and outro were located within the song. According to an interview with Khalid by Pigeons & Planes he states “Location is a song that came to me out of no where. From the first time I heard the beat play, the words flew out. Hearing the chords instantly took me the first stage of a relationship. Young love, man. It’s a crazy thing. I first started making music in the winter of 2015 so this is one of my most developed songs so far.”

I totally agree with Khalid on how the lyrics for this song illustrates a vision of young love as in the chorus it has words like “I don’t need nothing else but you” and in verse 1 it goes on talking about how one might feel about meeting someone that they like for the first time by having lines like “Initially I didn’t wanna fall for you”. Overall the lyrics were a perfect match for the beat and theme.

[Chorus]

Send me your location, let’s

Focus on communicating

‘Cause I just need the time and place to come through (place to come through)

Send me your location

Let’s ride the vibrations

I don’t need nothing else but you

[Verse 1]

At times I wonder why I fool with you

But this is new to me, this is new to you

Initially, I didn’t wanna fall for you

Gather my attention it was all for you, so don’t

Take advantage, don’t leave my heart damaged

To understand that things go a little bit better when you plan it… oh

[Chorus]

Send me your location, let’s

Focus on communicating

‘Cause I just need the time and place to come through (place to come through)

Send me your location

Let’s ride the vibrations

I don’t need nothing else but you

[Verse 2]

I don’t wanna fall in love off of subtweets, so

Let’s get personal

I got a lot of cool spots that we can go

Tell me what’s the move and I got you

I’m only acting like this ’cause I like you

Just give me the vibe to slide then

Oh, I might make you mine by the night, and

[Chorus]

Send me your location, let’s

Focus on communicating

‘Cause I just need the time and place to come through (place to come through)

Send me your location

Let’s ride the vibrations

I don’t need nothing else but you

[Outro]

Ride, ride, ride, come and vibe with me tonight

I don’t need nothing else but you

(I don’t need nothing else but you)

Ride, ride, ride, come and vibe with me tonight

I don’t need nothing else but you

Nothing else but you

Do, do, do, do, do, do

Oh, oh, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

Oh, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh, mmm, mmm, mmm

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do

I don’t need nothing else but you

Timbre:

This song didn’t really have that many changes in tone, you can hear the last line in the chorus section “I don’t need nothing else but you” being repeated again, but at a much softer tone, but other than that nothing really changes. However, his voice does seem more powerful after the first chorus. There’s also a loud bass drop towards the end of the first verse that continues with the rest of the song that makes the song seem more powerful.

Tempo:

During the first verse the tempo starts to increase, and you can identify this by listening to him singing with my power in the middle of the first verse which drives him to sing at a much faster tempo. But he switches the tempo back and fourth, having the chorus being much slower than the verses.

Sources:

Confusion. “The New Wave: Khalid – ‘Location.’” PigeonsandPlanes, Complex, 1 June 2018, pigeonsandplanes.com/music/2016/05/khalid-location.

“Khalid – Location.” Genius, 2018 Genius Media Group Inc, 30 Apr. 2016, genius.com/Khalid-location-lyrics.

Introduction Blog Post

Hello everyone, my name is Joseph Kim, I live in Fairbanks, Alaska and I’m currently a senior studying Civil Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Currently I work for Lounsbury & Associates as a summer intern where I hope to leave a lasting impression that will allow me to get an engineering job there after I graduate the spring of 2019 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Some hobbies that I enjoy include golf, basketball, playing board games, tennis, soccer, watching movies, and occasionally some PC gaming. I also have 2 dogs that I play with everyday, but only one of them likes to go outside, while the other one likes being a couch potato.

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My relationship with music is mainly me just listening to music that I enjoy. I tried playing some instruments when I was little, but I never got really into it. I regret this now, but I figured your never too late to learn. I enjoy listening to a little bit of everything including classical and instrumental beats to hip-hop and rap. However, my genre of music has shifted recently to more vocals, and Korean music from just straight rap. I believe that Korean music feels more natural to me, but maybe that’s because I’m Korean. Don’t get me wrong though the music over there is really special, especially when artists mix Korean and English lyrics together such as the song I linked below titled “Panorama” by Junoflo.