Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Music Blog – Critique



http://musicthing.blogspot.com/

As someone who is very interested in music, I find this blog very interesting. It explains clearly and thoroughly on new musical instruments and accessories, including the latest of pedals, latest tuner and there are also some interesting videos.

This blog page is full useful links, but at the same time very neat with clear and neat fonts. So, viewers don’t get confused or even annoyed when they read the entries of this blog.

This blog is all about music, music and also music instrument, so, the owner of this blog had uploaded many relevant images and videos along with his entries. The images and the videos are uploaded as evidence to what he writes about in his entries. The relevant images and videos are what attract me to read his blog. It is hard to get on track on the latest music technology nowadays, as new things come up every day. But by reading the entries in this blog, it is easier to look on which music instruments and accessories are better by reading his opinions, as I think to know how good the product, you have to know what some people think about it. Another interesting thing about this blog is, the images that he uploaded are real images, and they’re all very clear.

For example, in one of his entries, he wrote about an incredible DIY guitar and tin-can amplifiers, and he even uploaded a photo of the self-made guitar! Another good example is his entry on ‘Drumometer’ where drumming can be considered as an extreme sport! A ‘Drumometer’ is a little box that can measure how many times you can hit the drum in 60 seconds. So, by using this, there drummers can now have a tournament. This blog also tells me a lot of things that I’ve never heard about, like the ‘Weird headless guitar, from the 1950’s’. The fact that I know there are many photos on this blog, and the interesting titles, make me want to read his entries even more!

The way the owner of this blog writes his entries, makes me feel convinced on his opinions and views. He sounds like he’s really into music and has a lot of experience in the music industry. For example, when the blogger writes about a new guitar modeller, he wrote, “VG-99 Guitar System This looks like the mother of all guitar modellers - like the old VG-8, it runs from a hex pickup, has a tonne of guitar and amp models, and a MIDI out port. I'm not sure how you use the ribbon controller while playing guitar, but, you know, it's cool to have.

MV-8800 'Production Studio' Their big daddy MPC4000 killer, with built-in TR808/909 Space Echo models, a colour screen and an output for a monitor, it's almost like... using a PC.”. This is how convincing his opinions and views are!

VG-99 Guitar System This looks like the mother of all guitar modellers - like the old VG-8, it runs from a hex pickup, has a tonne of guitar and amp models, and a MIDI out port. I'm not sure how you use the ribbon controller while playing guitar, but, you know, it's cool to have.

MV-8800 'Production Studio' Their big daddy MPC4000 killer, with built-in TR808/909 Space Echo models, a colour screen and an output for a monitor, it's almost like... using a PC.

50 Questions & 50 Answers



1. Sex? Male

2. D.O.B? 02.07.1983

3. Height? 178

4. Weight? 67

5. Waist measurement? 30”

6. The girth of your chest? No idea

7. Feet size? I wear size 9 – 270 mm

8. Blood type? B

9. Nick name? Han

10. Hometown? Busan, South Korea

11. Current address? 78/414-418 Pitt St. Sydney NSW 2000

12. Family? Father, Mother and me

13. Character? Too complicated to explain

14. Drinking capacity? Two bottles of Soju (Soju is Korean alcohol – 21% of alcohol)

15. Smoking? Stopped

16. First kiss? When 15 yrs old

17. Where? My friend’s place

18. Who? A girl!!

19. Why? Drunk!!

20. How was it? Drunk!!

21. Hobby? Playing soccer, Watching soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, table tennis and movies
(Korean), Listening to the music and Reading soccer magazines

22. Motto? Do your best! & Enjoy your life!

23. When you want to get married? Whenever I think I’m ready

24. Describe yourself by one word? Weird

25. Favorite movie? My sassy girl

26. Favorite novel? The old man and the sea - Ernest Hemingway

27. Idol? Aresene Wenger, Guss Hiddink and Rui Costa

28. How do you keep fit? Drinking a lot … of water

29. Sleep habit? Snoring, kicking and hugging a pillow

30. What type of person you want to be? Competent, credible or reliable person in my field

31. Good points?

32. Bad points? Lazy, thinking too much and timid

33. How do you get rid of your stress? Singing and playing soccer

34. Unforgettable friend? Too many to write

35. Unforgettable TV show? K-league highlights

36. Unforgettable soccer match? Liverpool versus A.C Milan (CL Final 2004-2005)

37. Favorite song? Master of puppets

38. Favorite food? Fish & chips

39. Favorite season? Fall

40. Favorite singer? Metallica, Zakk Wylde, Slayer, Black Sabbath and Ronnie James Dio

41. Favorite soccer player? Rui Costa, Cesc and Rosicky

42. When do you feel that you want to be in love with someone? When I am sick and tired

43. Your dream when you were a child? Soccer player or manager

44. Now? Soccer journalist or analyst or reporter or commentator things like that

45. Hateful singer and song? No idea

46. Idle type of woman? Hot, rich and smart

47. Role model?

48. Happiest moment? 2002 world cup

49. Saddest moment? Military service

50. Angriest moment? Military service


Monday, January 15, 2007

Metallica – Metallica (Part II) – Arguing for Metallica



Introducing Metallica

Metallica who did prove the fact that heavy metal is not just underground music any more, recorded best-selling in 1991 with their fifth album ‘Metallica (the black album)’, sold 14 million, and showed qualities of heavy metal through having a performance in Grammy Awards in front of all genres’ super-stars. Metallica is regarded as one of the most successful, in terms of music and business, and widely-loved heavy metal band, since the term heavy metal used. As usual as other heavy metal bands, messages of their songs are about repugnance to the older generation, criticism to sluggish societies and anti-wars. Moreover, they always play heavy metal.

Arguing against Metallica

Just after, Metallica’s fifth album ‘Metallica’ was released, there were a lot of criticism. So many critics said like “Metallica is getting on. They are not Metallica that we know any more. They are not strong as they were. Metallica’s time is out. They abandoned their style and color.” The reason for that is the sound of Metallica’s fifth album is slower, softer and weaker than before.

Arguing for Metallica

I personally believe that as a professional musician, the most important thing is having one’s own color and style. What I mean by the color and style is an identity. The most important and fundamental thing is what and how they play as a musician. Metallica was still playing heavy metal in ‘Metallica’. Moreover, not just playing heavy metal as any other bands do but playing heavy metal in their own style or identity which no one can have only they can have. That is the point. Simply, they altered their way of expression or playing but they did not abandon their identity as heavy metal band and Metallica. Their music was still containing a lot of energies, rages, grooves, melodies and emotions. They were just expressing their definition of heavy metal in more sophisticated ways. That’s what they did and why so many people were confused.

Although, their way of playing is slower, softer and weaker than ever before, they still have the most significant thing. They are still playing heavy metal as Metallica.

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Sunday, January 07, 2007

Paris Whitney Hilton – Is Paris Hilton really news? – Tabloid Journalism

Just before Minehan’s first class in the New Year, I had not been into discussing on Paris Hilton at all. But during that class, I began to relate Paris Hilton to tabloid journalism, and then it gets on to me.


Apparently, the most famous name in the realm of celebrity journalism is Paris Hilton. Whatever she does, it becomes news on newspapers, magazines and television, everyday. Then, why is she such an issue? Is Paris Hilton a big deal for everyone? Is it because she is young and glamorous heiress? What makes her a worthwhile front page?

I personally think who Paris Hilton is and what she does is not a big deal. In the rest of the world, there are bunch of more extreme, interesting and exciting people’s stories that would be better news than Paris. However, my point is that, arguably, she becomes the news by the media; particularly an arena of tabloid journalism which is the most significant consequence of the relation between the media’s aspect of business and capitalism.

Jeff Cohen, who is one of the founders of FAIR, the media watchdog organization, and the author of several books critical of mainstream media, said in his interview with St. Louis Journalism Review that one of the major reasons for the flood of tabloid and celebrity news is, firstly, it is cheap to produce.

“You can fill up hour after hour of coverage with a crime story, a sex scandal, with just idle speculation. And the speculation never has to be accurate; and if the speculator proves to be wrong, well, he or she will be on the next tabloid story without any problem. So they're cheap to produce.”

The second main reason is that tabloid and celebrity news does not cause any serious problems.

“If you went after President Bush and if you were ferocious as we were on the Donahue show during the run-up to the Iraq war, if you were doing sort of appositional journalism and presenting voices that were informed, well, that gets you into trouble. Remember the operative word in television, in the phrase "news show," is show. It's a show. And if you are tough, they'll freeze you out. They won't send you the guests, and management doesn't like that. If you do reporting on economic power, you might even lose a corporate sponsor. If you do real journalism and real reporting, there are some downsides.”

“At the beginning of summer 2001, the story was shark attacks. The media coverage was in heat, but there was no real increase in shark attacks. And then you had four months, right before Sept. 11--this is a chapter of American history that most television journalists would like to forget--when all they talked about was Gary Condit's sex life and the missing intern who was killed. Gary Condit had nothing to do with it, but they spent months speculating about his sex life and whether he had killed the girl. If you do thorough political coverage, there's a downside. But if you do these tabloid stories, they're cheap and there's usually no trouble for management and no economic trouble in terms of sponsor threats or sponsor flight.”


As far as I’m concerned, tabloid journalism has been increasing its impact on our society under the name of business and making money. As we can see from Paris’ example, so many ridiculous things are being decorated as news just to make money. Moreover, Paris also cleverly accumulates a lot of money with using the media’s aspect of business.

As long as the media is in relation to business, tabloid journalism will never loose its power in our society. So what I’m really worried about is that, due to a significant increase of tabloid journalism, a fundamental concept of journalism which is supposed to investigate and report the area that public can not see from the surface, will not be able to function well. As Cohen expressed the media as a nervous system of democracy, it needs to be as it should be. Am I expecting too much from a business? I don’t know…

“If you do real journalism and real reporting, there are some downsides.”

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