The main thing that I had trouble doing was trying to keep focused on one subject per post. I felt like I kept going off on a tangent when I posted. Really, you should keep your thoughts focused and easily readable. Write it how you would talk, not how you would write. That makes everything more interesting and easy to read. I enjoyed blogging, when I felt I knew what I wanted to say. When I didn’t know what to say, I felt like it was more of a chore and something I didn’t want to do.

I would recommend any business to start a blog because it allows outsiders to feel more of a personal side to the business, rather than just the cold brick and mortar.

Decca, the record label, passed on signing The Beatles because they didn’t like their sound and thought the electric guitar was on the way out.

The songs “Cocaine” and “After Midnight” made famous by Eric Clapton, were actually written and performed by JJ Cale first.

Sheryl Crow started her singing career as a backup singer on Michael Jackson’s Bad tour.

The Moonwalk, made famous by Michael Jackson, was the end of a evolution of dance moves that started with early tap-dancers and French mime Marcel Marceau’s “Walking Against the Wind” act.

The Robot, was first done by Michael Jackson during the Jackson 5 song “Dancing Machine”

3-Day advance purchase tickets for the first Woodstock were $18.00, at the gate they were $24.

Mamas and Papas star, Cass Elliot met with an untimely end when she choked to death on a sandwich in 1974.

Founding member of the band Chicago met his fate by shooting and killing himself in a game of Russian Roulette in 1978. His last words were, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.’

Monaco’s national orchestra is bigger than its army.

Axl Rose, of Guns N’ Roses, used to earn $8 an hour by smoking cigarettes for a science experiment at UCLA.

Frank Sinatra once called Rock and Roll “The most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear.”

Dave Grohl played every instrument and sang on the first Foo Fighters album, then formed the band after when he wanted to tour.

A concert promoter in Hawaii sold a thousand tickets to a Spice Girls concert. Unfortunately the concert was never scheduled. The man was arrested and told police he needed the money for a nose job and a sex change.

But when I stopped daydreaming, realized I was still driving, swerved to get out of the way of on-coming traffic (just kidding), I started listening to the lyrics. Then I started thinking about the double standard in censorship. Yes, rap music uses stereotypes that do nothing but hurt the images of others. But Papa Roach is talking about their last resort “cut my arm bleeding.” Really? Promoting suicide? Dr Kevorkian was sent to jail for helping terminally ill people end their suffering (that’s another story) but Papa Roach gets nothing for telling able teenagers that it’s the last resort? Come on now. If you’re going to censor one thing, you have to censor it all. “Suffocating, no breathing, don’t give a F$%# if I cut my arm bleeding.” Hmmm can’t say that’s the nicest thing to say in a song.

Now going into this I was thinking how well can he really be singing at the age of 50? I mean I’ve seen The Police, The Stones and The Who (what’s left of The Who anyways) live. Sting tried to hit the high note in Roxanne and his voice cracked, Mick Jagger and female back up singers and Roger Daltrey’s voice just sounded aged. So for Michael Jackson, whose songs contain more screams that a horror movie, it just didn’t seem like he would be able to do it.

Boy was I wrong. Throughout the footage MJ kept telling producers that he couldn’t sing fully because he wanted to save his throat for the actually shows, but damn, his half-assed singing was awesome and the few times he let himself go and fully sing… his voice really hadn’t changed a whole hell of a lot. Not only that, but he was also dancing like he always could to, yet also half-assed saving it for the real show.

To me it was pretty amazing that someone at the age of 50 can still do everything he did when he was in his 20s.

The movie also showed just how hands on MJ was with everything he wanted in the show. There was nothing that wasn’t his choice. Every single little detail down to how many soldiers he wanted in the cgi video. Another this that really impressed me, and it shows the lack of willingness to work some musicians have today, is the fact that MJ knew every single word and every single note to the songs that were being performed. He would stop the song immediately if something wasn’t right and would restart the song. This was done over and over until he liked what he heard. “I was it to sound like the record. The fans bought the records, that’s what they want to hear.”

My only complaint about this was the fact that it was 2 hours long. A little long for a movie with no plot, but it was his entire concert.

Definitely worth seeing.

But what a gem…

More artists are focused on the money making aspect of the industry rather than the quality of music, which is more profitable in the long run. And the customer is feeding into it. The artist creates a catchy hook, puts it up as a ringtone and sells it for $1.99. Then the song gets over-played and that artist disappears. And repeat. This happens over and over because when these artists create their albums, they put all their energy into that one song that blows up and absolutely no effort into the other 10-12 tracks. Consumers just download the one song and then forget about the artist a month later because they have no more good material. I always liked getting albums because you knew that there were going to be 2-4 more tracks that were awesome.

Kid Rock has been quoted as saying that he doesn’t make singles, he makes albums. I wish every artist would follow that ideology. I’m not the biggest Kid Rock fan but his last album caught my attention when he took Lynyrd Skynyrd’s lyrics and Warren Zevon’s music and created “All Summer Long.” I bought the record (vinyl not cd, cd’s are junk) and I have to admit that I really like at least 6 of the 12 songs on that album. This is proof that the album works. Because of his new Texas-Rock sound, he has a new fan base waiting for his new album.

So instead of supporting the singles, support the albums. That way we’ll get better music, and the artists we support will stay around longer.

Many students chafe at inane assignments created with the apparent sole purpose of torturing you.  I hope this assignment isn’t quite like that. Chances are, you’re interested in marketing and communications — or in this class —  because you’re interested in business, but still want to let your creative side come out and play.

After a couple years of school and likely some time working, you probably have something to say about managing communications.  Or people.  Or money.    You have questions,  opinions, observations.

This is your chance to speak your mind.  To create a website.  To begin to create ‘brand you.‘

Don’t worry if the blank computer screen feels like it’s mocking you after you’ve agonized over a topic, and still haven’t managed to write more than a paragraph.  Or a sentence.  Or even a word.

If we pay attention to the world around us, it won’t take long to find something to say.

——————

Response:

While the argument is there that instructors are not just trying torture us, but rather they mould us into the strong men and women. The people needed to take over from the previous generation when they leave the work field. But it seems like some assignments are there solely for torture. For example, why does it seem that the further we go with our education, the more we are “un-taught?” We are taught to write one way, and then taught to write a different way.

In the first 3 years of my time at Camosun College there have been more than a few reports that were 20-plus pages long because that was the requirement. I understand that the majority of those were planned that way so students had to actually think about the topic rather than throwing something together. But to write 20-plus pages on something that could explained in 5, seems a little ridiculous. Not only does it cause students to start putting words that do not belong in the sentence just to make them longer, it causes students to think in the wrong way. Realistically, no business will say “write me a 25 page report on the safety of Tic-Tacs,” when the business knows it can be written in one.

The quote “if we pay attention to the world around us, it won’t take long to find something to say” is completely true. But why is it that I feel like we’ve been forced what to say by these elongated reports?

Update: The topic I have chosen to write about is… dun dun dun… the music industry. What specifically in the music industry will I be writing about? Tune in to find out.