Visual Project: Magazine Cover

A Cool Pop Culture App

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photo-collage-editor/id531357950?mt=8

Unit Pop Culture Websites

https://www.pandora.com/

http://www.billboard.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/

https://www.photocollage.com/

http://www.ign.com/

https://www.gamespot.com/

http://www.4gamer.net/

Music Genre: Funk

Summary of The History of Rap Music

    The reading, The History of Rap Music, talks about the development of rap music. Rap origins in West Africa, and the Africans who became the slaves brought rap music to the U.S. Logically, Africans and Black born in the U.S were the main power to evolve rap music. In the 1970s, rap was a street art which appeared in inner-city schoolyards and street corners. Because the content of rap music was negative, harsh, and vacuous, such as drugs, lust, sex, and racism, rap music and its audience began to be criticized and vilified. However, rap music has still attracted different age groups with the argument for more than 20 years. Now, rap is becoming more and more popular by the creation of the artists and the support of the audiences.  

Summary of Blues Texts

       The reading, International House of Blues Foundation Blues SchoolHouse Timeline Overview, talks about the history and the development of Blues. In the 1500s, Africans who have a lot of musical styles began to be traded as slaves from their countries to the U.S. Their friends and families were separated, and they did not have right of freedom and personal property. The things they had were their traditional culture and musical practices. When they were working, they were not allowed to speak. Therefore, they used songs to be the method of communication. In this method and the oral tradition, they had passed their culture and music to the next generation from the 1600s to the 1865 when they were slavers. Because of the Civil War, Africans began getting more freedom even though they were still discriminated and did not have full equality. Then, from the 1865 to 1900, they could use more musical instruments to create music. In this period, the blues was not set form, but the spirituals which were about their religions were the most characteristic form. They also began to have a folk ballad style. From 1900 to 1930, African Americans gained more freedom, so they could travel, live with family members, have personal lives, and then they could have more freedom to create their music. As the result, the content and the ideas of their songs began having different aspects of life. The blues music was born; one was country blues, another one was classic blues. The characteristics of blues music were their life stories and emotions. The blues music began more and more popular, so it spread throughout the South of the U.S. Because of the great migration from 1910 to 1960, African Americans brought their culture and music from the South to the North. After this movement, the blues music began to spread in the North of the U.S. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the country blues began to update and adapt the performances to the urban surroundings when the musicians arrived in the cities. Therefore, the blues began to have the new forms, such as jazz, boogie-woogie, gospel merged, and rock and roll. Because of the successful mixture of rhythm and blues, both black and white began to be attracted by blues music in the 1960s. From the 1960s to the 1970s, soul music, funk, and rap had appeared because of the combination of different music elements, social environment, and economic climate. In the 1980s, rap music and hip hop became the American cultural form, and R&B and soul music also became stronger and stronger. Then, artists began to create music by mixing the different genres together. In the 1990s and 2000s, the music reflected the social, economic, and political climate of the U.S, and the blues-inspired music has continued to tell life stories, social issues, and musical voice with emotions and humor in the new millennium.

 

Unit Reflection 4

Unit Reflection 4

Critical Insight:

What is music? The answer from Wiki is that “Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time”. For the computer, the answer is coding. In philosophy, music is a language. In physics, music is one kind of sound which is logically produced by shaking. The general answer from common people is the sound that is composed by rhythm and melody. Actually, it has too many different answers for this question, such as a form of the poet, an art, a thing for relaxing, and “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La Si.”

I think that everyone has their own answer. For me, broadly, music is one of the human cultural products. To be abstract, music is a power. As “Blues SchoolHouse Timeline Overview” says, the Blues, which is one kind of music, is a method of communication for African Americans. In this case, music is a power to build the community for African Americans. For another reading, “Same Old Song”, it mentions that music can lead people to a wrong value and fight against political correctness. This example shows that music is a power that can influence people’s thoughts. Music is also a power that can stimulate people’s emotion and imagination. When people listen to the fast pace song, they may feel happy and get energy, and when people enjoy the quiet song, they may feel sad and begin to sigh their lives. Obviously, music has become a positive and negative power that can affect people’s lives.

In fact, I do not admit that the vacuous “music” is music. Music should not need to be noble and positive, but music must not be vulgar. A song, Meet the Flockers, by YG caught people’s attention because its lyric is to appeal for robbing Chinese. Also, quite a lot of rap music lyrics have dirty words, such as “Fuck”, “Bitch”, and “Shit”. I think that they can express whatever they want to express. However, for them, the music is just a tool or a form, and they do not really think that the music is an artwork. I consider that not all the sound can be thought as the music.

Everyone should have their specific definition of music, so everyone has their own understanding of music. However, people need to admit that music has become a culture, which connects people together, and a power, which influences people every day.

Aha:

       I like listening to music, but I was not care about the genre. Therefore, when I knew the genre of music, I suddenly found out that why the rhythm and melody of some songs were very similar. Also, music, as the other types of culture, has changed and evolved from the past to the present. It was just like the Blues which extended to many other genres, and they even mix together in one song.

       Bumper Sticker:

Music must never offend the ear, but must please the listener, or, in other words, must never cease to be music. – Mozart

       I didn’t know that:

       Actually, even though I know a little bit of the genre of music, I still cannot correctly distinguish the genre of the music that I listen. However, I think that sometime it is unnecessary to understand the genre. Just to enjoy the gifts that music provide is enough.

Goosechase Activity

      We had an interesting Goosechase activity in pop culture today. My teammate, Tingting, and I went together to complete the tasks which needed us to find and take photos for the appointed things, that were all related to culture, such as music, movie, and art. Also, we needed to find some interesting things that had existed around us, like tulips, the Bean, and garbage.

       Before the time of the game was over, we just focused on looking for the matched things and taking photos. However, when the game was over, I soon realized that the city, Chicago, I lived in was full of diverse cultures, and it reminded me that American culture was combined and evolved by immigrants’ cultures. It also extended my thoughts that our lives, societies, and world were all composed by the factors of cultures.

       Culture is in everywhere; a poster on window, a graffiti on wall, the smell from the red-line, and the weather of the city. Culture that is only a notion just exists in our brains; they are the actual forms that exist in our world.

Culture, actually, is always with us, but we sometime just ignore it because we have already gotten used to having it. This is the best evidence to prove that humans unconsciously create cultures, and cultures unconsciously affect humans.

Pinboard

https://www.pinterest.com/lazyboyfs/sky/

Responding: Same Old Song

    Why does the “vacuous” pop music exist in society? Because these songs are composed by the common language that people speak in their daily life anytime and anywhere even though some are bad language. The language that people always use will become more relative to their daily life and will be easier for people to understand and accept. In general, when people are talking, they always use simple and direct language, but not use complex and indirect language. For example, when people quarrel, they usually say the “F” word because this word can direct reflect their emotion, indignation. If they do not say this word, what the other language they can say when they are very angry? Can’t they say, “I’m unhappy, crazy, and angry”, to express their emotion? Of course no one will do like that. Sometimes, the bad language, like the “F” word, is the best vocabulary to vent the emotion. Therefore, for a song which has some bad language that relate to sex and violence, they sometime are the simplest and the most direct language to show people’s real desire, pursuing, and thoughts, and they are the words that sometime cannot be expressed by the “good” language.

       In addition, the target audiences of pop music are for common people. Not everyone has a professor degree and graduates from the great educational institution. Common people may not have very high level of language skill or art appreciation to understand the classical music, abstract painting, and literary writings, and these are always defined as the “good” and “high” culture even thought they sometime use the “beautiful” words to describe the “dirty” things. I believe that even for some people who have doctor degree cannot completely understand the meanings of Chopin’s piano music, Van Gogh’s paintings, and Shakespeare’s works. Therefore, pop music, which may be used the “low” and “dirty” works to describe the certain events, beliefs, and thoughts, is just using the most “correct” words to explain their the most real thinking, but not using the most “pretty” words to cover their “bad” thinking.

       Some pop music is composed by the “bad” lyrics, such as sex, violence, and gangster, but in contrast, the successful drama and movie always have these bad factors which have already become the formula of success, and they not only have the sense of hearing, but also have the sense of vision. As the result, if people need to focus on the “bad” culture, pop music should not be the first sufferer, and the first victim is the movie.

       People, especially the children and the youths, always receive the “positive” and “absolutely correct” thoughts from textbooks, great people, and education. They are bored with listening the “good” words again and again, so they begin to be interested in the “bad” words. However, people should not say that the “bad” productions, like the pop music, are vacuous just because they will be short-brilliant. In fact, for music, common people think the classical music, which is certainly a good culture, is much more vacuous because most of them think those music is boring, and they do not understand. As the result, does it mean that people can define the classical music is a “bad” or “useless” culture?

Why pop music is pop music? That is because it uses the common language to talk about common people’s thoughts and lives even though some thoughts are antisocial and against political correctness. Therefore, pop music should be composed by public language which includes the “bad” language.

       Actually, I do not agree that pop music can break the limits because they are not good for the people who do not have enough understanding, judgment, and independent thinking.

Unit Reflection 3

Unit Reflection 3

Critical Insight:

From silent to voiced, from black and white to colorful, from film to digital, from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional, movies, as the production of social development, have been evolved for a long time. It impacts people’s emotions, lets people learn to deeply think about their lives, and influences development of humans’ culture.

In general, a movie shows an unreal story, but it reflects a real life and an actual world. In Titanic, people find out the holy promise of love. In The Shawshank Redemption, people understand that the light of hope will eventually come if they do not lose hope. In Grave of the Fireflies, people feel the cruelty of the World War 2. Movies have become the nourishment for people’s minds.

Broadly, movies are humans’ economic, technological, and cultural productions; it reflects actual social situations, such as historical, political, racial, national, interpersonal, and emotional problems. For example, in many White’s movies, Blacks are always the supporting actors and the bad guys. As Tyler Perry’s Money Machine says, “black characters exist solely to teach valuable lessons to white characters.” It relates to the Oscar that all 20 actors who were nominated were all White in 2015 and 2016. Therefore, many Black movies won the Oscar in 2017 because they wanted to prove they were not racism. However, this thinking and result obviously prove that they are actually racism. For another instance, movies are a tool to make money for big movie companies. In order to beat their commercial opponents and earn more and more money, big companies use many methods of commerce war, such as purchasing the small companies and studios, advertising its movie anywhere, employing famous stars, having the best special effects, and belittling opponents’ movies. Therefore, in fact, the bad movies that are made by big companies can get more box office than the good movies that are made by small companies. This is the law of the jungle: the Weak are the prey of the Strong. It also relates to Maltin’s Movie Treasures That Time Forgot; it is unfortunate for people that they miss the good movies that they will never watch.

Movies, which have become a common and popular entertainment, have become a part of people’s daily lives. Movies have also become a cultural and artistic medium for transmitting thoughts and feelings to common people.

Aha:

       Actually, I am not very interested in watching movie, so I am not care about movie news. Therefore, when I heard that Disney purchased Pixar, it soon reminds me that Tencent, which is one of the biggest companies in China, always like to purchase the small companies in order to become stronger and stronger. The most famous trade is that Tencent purchased Riot which created the most popular online game, League of Legends. Tencent is also the developer of Wechat and QQ which are the most popular social media for Chinese. Therefore, Tencent almost rules the Chinese Game market. What Tencent has done is the same as What Hollywood has done. When some companies create new types and systems of a game, Tencent immediately copies them. Once some production teams and companies achieve big successes, Tencent will soon purchase them. These ways make more and more players not have chance to play the good and original games and seriously affect the development of games. I think that the commercial war is anywhere, whatever they are movies or games. However, the bad competition of marketing will destroy the quality and culture of movies and games.

       Bumper Sticker:

Movies, which have already become a specific culture in humans’ societies, reflect the actual world from various aspects.

       I didn’t know that:

       I think almost all the principles and the reasons I have already known because they are the basic rules of the development for the society and the world. Maybe, it let me know more about terms, information and knowledge about movies, like the Genre. However, I do not like watching movies, and I am not interested in sharing my senses and thoughts to others after I watch a movie. Until today, I think that I just watched no more than 25 movies. I also will not be attracted by the movies which are created by famous companies and directors or have all-star cast. I just choose the movies for watching by my feelings and moods.