Tag Archives: music

Amusing the Church to Death

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"When church music directors lead the congregation in singing some praise music, I often listen stoically with teeth clenched. But one Sunday morning, I cracked. We had been led through endless repetitions of a meaningless ditty called, ‘Draw Me Close to You.’ The song has zero theological content and could be sung in a nightclub, for that matter. When I thought it was finally and mercifully over, the music leader beamed at us and said in a cheerful voice, ‘Let’s sing that again, shall we?’ ‘No!’ I shouted loudly. Heads all around me spun while my wife cringed."

"I admit I prefer more traditional hymns. But even given that, I am convinced that much of the music being written for the Church today reflects an unfortunate trend—slipping across the line from worship to entertainment. [We] are in danger of amusing ourselves to death, to borrow the title of the classic Neil Postman book."

That quote might have been written by any number of disgruntled (neo-, ultra-, or otherwise) traditionalist Catholics I know, but it wasn’t. Chuck Colson, a prominent Evangelical wrote it. Read the rest and leave a comment here so we can discuss this problem Evangelicals and Catholics must face together.

On a side note, Amused to Death is also the title of a very good Roger Waters solo album.

Horrendous Halftime

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Wow. That halftime show really sucked. The sound was terrible for at least half of the first song due to a guitar was left out of the mix, amonst other things. Even if the sound was perfect, though, the Stones would have sucked. First of all, I think they’re one of the most overrated rock bands. Sure, they have a number of good songs, but so do a lot of bands who don’t get nearly the attention these guys do. Secondly, they’ve been a band longer than the Superbowl’s been played. I’m impressed by their longevity and I wish them all the best, but they’re way too old to be an appropriate act for the biggest ratings event of the year.

Mick Jagger was an ugly dude when he was in his prime. Now he’s like the crypt keeper. Worse yet, the crypt keeper was wearing a shirt that showed off midriff and was gyrating like he’s still (or ever really was) a sexual icon. Watching him hump the air in the audience’s direction was like watching old people having sex. Thank goodness there weren’t any wardrobe malfunctions. *shudder*

Folksonomies for Music Files?

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I’m getting tired of having trouble deciding where to put albums and individual songs when I rip them. Compilation albums are particularly troublesome. Strict hierarchical file systems don’t make information accessible in common sense ways. So I’m wondering – are there any tools that allow one to organize music using tags, much like one organizes bookmarks in Del.Icio.Us? For instance, it’d be great if I could find and gather all the songs I own that have a Celtic feel or all the progressive rock without copying or moving any files. Anyone out there know of such a tool?

Another Reason to Hate Country Music

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This is freakin’ hilarious.

"This is the greatest collection of Al-Qaeda crooners ever assembled — almost 2 hours of the most memorable country music titles all on indelible hi-fidelity audio — featuring 13 huge hits, from the caves of Pakistan to the ‘private studios’ of Guantanamo Bay, including 10 Top 10 country smashes, duets with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri and more! Digitally remastered from the original sources for sterling analog sound quality"

Read the rest!

Dean Gray Tuesday…er…Wednesday

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I didn’t get around to posting this yesterday, so I’ll tell folks about it now. Actually, I’ll let BoingBoing explain.

Today is Dean Gray Tuesday, a net-wide day of protest over Warner Brothers attempt to censor a stupendous noncommercial mashup album called American Edit that remixes Green Day’s album American Idiot.

For today, websites across the Internet are mirroring the American Edit album and/or turning their page-backgrounds grey. Mashup albums don’t hurt the sales of the albums they sample — at worst, they have no effect on sales, at best they can promote them. Artists who are signed to major labels can avail themselves of labels’ legal departments when they want to remix others’ work and get their samples cleared. Indie artists, hobbyists and fans don’t get legal assistance from labels’ high-priced fixers. This is pure patronage: in the old days you couldn’t make art unless the King or some bishop granted you permission; today you need permission from a studio executive.

The labels admit this. Last year, EMI made headlines by censoring DJ Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, which remixed the Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. I raised this with an EMI representative at London’s Creative Economy conference and she shrugged it off: "What’s the problem? We later hired Danger Mouse to make a mashup album for us."

The problem is that copyright law is supposed to decentralize the process of making art, moving the power to authorize art from royalty to the marketplace. Labels have no business setting themselves up as arbiters of what art can and can’t be made.

Happy Dean Grey Tuesday. Up yours, Warners. Link

Update: Matt cooked up this sweet Dalek/Warner lawyer graphic in honor of the day.

Here are a three more cool mashups for your listening pleasure. 🙂

The Kleptones – A Night at the Hip Hopera
Various Artisits – llegal Art
Various DJs – Flip the Swtich (Chemical Brothers Remixed)

I’ve added a button to my left sidebar with a link pointing to Banned Music. They have links to other mashups (like the infamous "Grey Album"). Check it out.