Ark Music Factory Star: Rebecca Black

Ark Music Factory

Ark Music is a producing company that lets rich parents spend 2,000 dollars to get their kid in a music video. Even if they cannot sing, they will put auto tune on it and they will have an automatic billboard hit.

Rebecca Black's "Friday" reached one million views on youtube within one week. This is also one of youtube's most disliked videos.You may not know this, but the like and dislike system on youtube is just a rating. A youtube video gains popularity by the amount of ratings it gets. A video can get even more popular if the user hits the “like” button underneath the video. Now, with websites such as facebook, tumblr, and twitter, the ease of sharing a video like Rebecca Black’s “Friday” can be as easy as two clicks. This alone allowed the video “Friday” to get so many views so fast.

This has had a huge influence on music today. Famous singers and pop stars of the music industry started to notice Rebecca Blacks gaining popularity, and Lady Gaga said that she is proud of Rebecca Black for becoming an overnight sensation and being herself. Many people on youtube started doing cover songs on youtube in order to get views from people searching Rebecca Black. There were good ones as well as bad ones, people just doing it for attention, and people just doing it for laughs.  

This song is another typical song that the music industry has produced that could be classified as "teen pop".

Even though this is a terrible song, that reason alone is why this song gained so much popularity. Many people started sharing this song because it was bad, and more people soon caught on to this trend. Now no one remembers this song.

This song got stuck in my head for weeks. As a listener it made me hate Friday because of her annoying voice. I think Saturday is my favorite day now.

Resources.

http://arkmusicfactory.com/

Ark Music

Nine-Inch Nails – Trent Razor

Nine-Inch Nails – Trent Razor

Nine Inch Nails could be one of the bands of today that are strongly influenced from Kraftwerk. However, Nine Inch Nails is generally only a one-man band when run in the studio. How far you can go with rock and electronic music defines the band Nine-Inch Nails. Trent mixes everything from Drum Sets, Synthesizers, Keyboards, Guitars, Bass Guitars, Vocals, and other sound effects in the songs he writes in the studio. He then gets his bands together when he goes on tour to play those songs live.

David Bowie and Trent Razor created a song together called “I’m Afraid of Americans”. I think that it is interesting that David Bowie wanted to work with Trent Razor because he saw that Trent had developed a similar sound to Kraftwerk but with a much modern sound and with today’s musical technology.

Nine-Inch Nails was able to gain a widespread popularity by offering downloadable stems of his work as well as streaming his music for free online when the time was available to do so.

Trent Razor also wrote the score to The Social Network, which won an Oscar later that year.

Trent’s unique ability to get amazing effects but blend them in well with what ever else is going on in the song are quite outstanding. When you hear a song done by nine inch nails you immediately recognize it because of the band’s unique-trademarked sound.

I have been following Nine-Inch Nails for quite sometime and have always wanted to see them live but have not had the opportunity yet. This is one of the few bands that have unlocked the potential to MIDI, and have shown that even just one person can run the whole show, and that they do not need anyone’s help when recording a project by themselves.

Biography of Nine Inch Nails bio, history, career, evolution, music. (n.d.). Nine Inch Nails - Lyrics, songs, Biography, Discography, Interviews, Picture Gallery. Retrieved March 21, 2011, from
fromhttp://nineinchnailsweb.yaia.com/biography.html

Electronic Music

Kraftwerk

Music and Image

The music and image of Kraftwerk came about from an influence of American pop and rock music at that time period. Kraftwerk wanted to make music like that, but they wanted to put their own German style to the music that was there. Kraftwerk wanted to embrace Germany’s past by using humor and knowledge to reinvent the way people looked at Germany and also Electronic music. The new generation at the time was looking for new ways to feel towards personal liberty.

Kraftwerk Albums

The first album Kraftwerk that was released in 1974 was the 20-minute song autobahn. Due to the albums mainstream success over in the United States, this allowed the band to tour in the US. The performances were also often described as awkward.

The second album Kraftwerk released was in 1975 and was called Radio Activity. This album came about because of the band’s commercial radio success, hence the title of the album, Radio Activity.

Following Radio Activity, in 1977, Kraftwerk released Trans-Europe Express, which was about European trains, and most of the rhythm from that album was inspired from trains.

In 1978, Kraftwerk released the album The Man Machine. Kraftwerk did not go on tour again until after the Computer World album.

The Computer World Album was released in 1981 and was inspired by computers.

Two Characteristics

One of the main characteristics of Kraftwerk’s first hit is their song Autobahn. It was inspired from the German Autobahn, and the entire album had a road theme to it. You could also say that this fact itself was inspired from the beach boys. Every album from Kraftwerk had a theme to it, and this was known as a concept album.

Impressions

Kraftwerk was very cool to me. I liked the fact that they were able to step out of their comfort zones and help pave the way for other electronic music.

References
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqlx_8MtoSk

The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground and Nico led the way for many other Punk Rock, and Alternative bands. No album they released afterwards was as brilliant as their debut album. The album featured the bands lyrical genious, Lou Reed. It featured Sterling Morrison on lead guitar, Maureen Tucker as the drummer, Nico, and John Cale who was the musically gifted part of the band. The band’s producer, Andy Warhol, was the one who decided to place nico, the German front man of the band. He also helped add a different edge to their debut album.

Two characteristics of The Velvet Underground and Nico would be that instead of their debut album being happy like most of the albums were at that time, this album was rather depressing. The only had one song that was a tribute to the 60’s, and that was the first one. The rest of the songs on the album were about the Vietnam War, and other images of discontent. That is also why many people think this album is so brilliant. It is because of the lyrics and what it is about that made the album rise to its popularity.

Another characteristic would be that it spoke for all the struggling artists during that time period, and still speaks to many today. They also spoke a lot about their lifestyle, and surroundings.

This album left me depressed and sad as a listener. As a professional, I thought it was a very good album; it was simple and easy for any one to understand. I thought the mixing was also good, for that time period. Even though there were no serious advances in recording technology yet, this album was great for its time period and still manages to be one of the best today. Despite the albums references, if you give it a chance you just might be surprised! 

references 

http://themusicbasement.com/blog/2011/04/09/the-velvet-underground-and-nico-1967/

The Beatles' Album Revolver

Revolver

Before the album Revolver, The Beatles were influenced greatly by Indian music. Later on when two band members took LSD, the band’s sound dramatically changed, and gave way to new sounds and creative ideas.

Many people say that LSD was a big influence in the music and some of the lyrical content of Revolver. Timothy Leary was the one who found this LSD experience. He felt lots of paranoia and confusion. Another factor in the non-musical elements of The Beatles’ Revolver was because John Lennon bought a copy of the book “Psychedelic Experience”

The Beatles used the studio as an instrument to immerse the listener into their songs. That being said, they wanted to give an experience of music that could not be duplicated on stage of during any other live performances.

The Beatles used effects in a few different ways on the album Revolver. For instance, you have the beginning of “Taxman”, which was the start of them recording the song in the studio. In the song “I’m Only Sleeping”, The Beatles used lots of backwards tape effects and manipulated vocals. Also in the song “Love To You”, features The Beatles’ band member Harrison- on multiple overdubbed vocals. This was one of the first songs to use this effect, thus giving the vocals a full and clean feel.

As a listener and a professional, the album Revolver makes me feel very happy. Strangely enough, the albums title being Revolver, it has some up beat tunes and some slow ones. Though it did make me feel sad at some points, this album is great, and I feel that I can connect with it very well emotionally. Revolver will always be one of my favorite albums of all time, and The Beatles I often look up to when I am writing music and producing. I have not really listened to this album in a while though because I have been trying to open myself up to different styles of music. Revolver truly is, in my opinion, the greatest album of all time.

Newman, Ray. (n.d.). The complete story of the beatles revolver (E-Book), Retrieved from http://revolverbook.co.uk/abracadabrav1.0.pdf

References

Pet Sounds-

spears, chrispy. (n.d.). Brian wilson podcast . Retrieved from http://soundcloud.com/chrispyspears/brian-wilson-podcast

Revolver-

Newman, Ray. (n.d.). The complete story of the beatles revolver (E-Book), Retrieved from http://revolverbook.co.uk/abracadabrav1.0.pdf

Pet Sounds

The music and image of The Beach Boys prior to their album Pet Sounds was mostly about surfing, and having fun in the sun. Their producer and writer Brian Wilson first noticed surfing was becoming more popular when they were in High School. The main reason was because they found out a new way to make surfboards in some sort of fiberglass material. This made it easier for kids to carry their surfboards to beaches, since they were not as heavy as the wooden ones. One of Brian Wilson’s major influences before Pet Sounds was The Four Freshman. The Four Freshman were an acapella group that focused on intricate harmonies. You can clearly hear their influence in some of The Beach Boy’s earlier work, including Surfin’ and Good Vibrations.

Brian Wilson had a major role in The Beach Boys’ early work before he had his nervous break down. He was their producer, writer, engineer, and many other things. He even would go on tour with them until he had his nervous breakdown as I previously mentioned. Back then if you were in a rock band, one would have to release at least three albums, and have a new single come out every few months. 

I mentioned this earlier, but one of Brian Wilson’s first influences was The Four Freshman. This brought about the band’s intricate harmonies as well as interesting vocals. Before Brian Wilson made the album Pet Sounds, one of his major influences was the Beatles. They had just come out with a concept album- and Brian was impressed at the fact that all the songs on that album were good. They all had the same sound, and they were not all just hits strung together one after the other. This got Brian inspired, and he wanted to create an album that was like theirs.

Two major characteristics of Pet Sounds would be that it was The Beach Boys’ first album that could be considered as a concept album. A concept album is an album that has the same sound throughout the entire album. This album was also not very well accepted in the United States, but it blew up when it was delivered to the UK.

Pet Sounds, as a listener and professional made me feel glad to have someone that I can relate to with all of these songs. It also made me wonder what people think about when they don’t have anyone to relate to with what these songs are about.

spears, chrispy. (n.d.). Brian wilson podcast . Retrieved from http://soundcloud.com/chrispyspears/brian-wilson-podcast

Welcome Blog

Hi!

My name is Luke Icard and I am a recording arts major at Full Sail University. I came here because i wanted to learn more about recording, and how to get better at it.

My musical tastes are pretty much anything. I have opened myself up to a bigger variety of music since i came to full sail. as long as its not to vulgar, i will probably like it. haha. My favorite genres range from dubstep to hard rock.  My favorite band right now is angels and airwaves.