crank what?

my brothers are, unmistakably, more immersed in no other stream but the mainstream when it comes to their music tastes, and most of the time it's too much in the mainstream. while i have no problem listening to my own music library (thanks to my own laptop) which maintains a certain distinctness while having some sort of connection (perhaps 30-40% of the contents are similar between the two), i still feel pretty bothered at the direction theirs is going. let's compare.

fall out boy? okay, that's fine. i have my own stash, but only because 90% of my fall out boy content involves kanye west in mash-ups. it's decent. avril lavigne? ew. while "hot" is interesting due to the... well, interesting tempo changes within the song, and while she still puts out a good melody, it's still painfully bland when you listen to it. sorry, dianne.

kanye west? definitely. t-pain, akon? best hook singers at the moment, definitely. but we scroll down to mr. soulja boy tell 'em (yes, that's his whole handle) and here i am, flabbergasted. somehow crank that is way more inane than anything lil' jon and/or the ying-yang twins have tried to put out. hell, i'd even bet that jim jones and his ballin' self is better than this kid. i do applaud him for producing his entire album all by himself, but tell me, is that why it sucks? is the fact that he did his own producing something to marvel at or the cause of his stupid song? i mean, the song consists of his multi-tracked voice... and synthed jamaican-style steel drums. while i love steel drums, it's boring when you get to the first time the hook is sung. or spoken. whatever.

and these are the kinds of songs (crunk and 70%-80% of mainstream hip-hop) that are killing the hip-hop genre. i empathize with kanye when he started bitching that he didn't get any VMAs, not because i think graduation was a magnum opus (the college dropout is still the best one in my opinion), but because he's been working so hard to be different and to rise up against the tide of inane hip-hop songs (even though "golddigger" walks that fine line). i believe he and chamillionaire (go listen to ultimate victory, which, curiously, does not have any profanity. applaud) are leading some sort of revolution, some sort of new wave. the gym class heroes are one of their foot soldiers, the hook singers are their specialists, and the producers, oh, the producers, are their strategists and tacticians.

the mainstream is the mainstream because the mainstream is generally stupid. only a few are barely recognized as diamonds in the rough. here i wonder why they can't be the ones who consistently rack up number one spots. fuck you, soulja boy, your potential is seemingly wasted at the moment - if you rapped smarter, i'd be a big fan by now. and this wraps up tonight's ranting.

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Now playing: Kanye West - I Wonder
via FoxyTunes

round three

there is a new enemy of the state once again, and this time around, it's mr. jimmy kimmel. another person whom i'm a fan of. not as much as jon stewart, but i like jimmy kimmel's work. he's always been entertaining, especially on the man show. i don't worship him like a god or something but i don't hate him either. i'm just a fan. i like his work.

anyway, the deal is jimmy kimmel made a racist (it sucks to be politically correct sometimes) comment towards us while interviewing josh hartnett, who just happened to finish shooting a movie in davao. kimmel joked with josh that had he been kidnapped in mindanao, we wouldn't be able to read the ransom note because "they probably don't speak english in the philippines."

wow.

for the first time, yes, i am offended by this comment. but! yes, there is a but. because i'm a level-headed person. but 1) i'm not offended to the point of making a death threat, 2) there is some truth to his statement (the truth does not lie in us not speaking english, but us not speaking english right), and 3) i understand the inner workings of comedy enough to take it like a man. because there will always be racist jokes as long as everyone has a little racist inside of them. and when you have a little racist inside of you, you will laugh at racist jokes. not all of them, but you will eventually laugh at one once in your life. hell, most filipinos discriminate fellow filipinos. who hasn't made fun of a visayan accent? or the skin color of an aeta?

so it didn't really take long for me to get over kimmel's statements, because hell, i'm already countering him as we speak just by writing this entry. see folks, this is the better way to profess your anger. drop the pitchfork.

what really bugs me is this tabloid opinion article pertaining to the issue. it's by a certain jojo gabinete, who says he is currently living in the US. mr. gabinete, i'm calling you out. why? because you're an idiot.

you see, mr. gabinete took the time to write up an article to counter jimmy kimmel's comments. of course, knowing the nature of filipinos, when i say "counter", i really mean "talk shit and bash the person". while mr. gabinete does acknowledge the fact that most filipinos are totally "teh suck" at grammar and diction, it is only common sense that surely, this guy knows what he's talking about, and surely, he's better than most filipinos and doesn't suck at grammar. or diction. i don't know about diction but can i just say that his article only made us look even dumber than smarter (by, in fact, knowing how to speak english). the article started out just fine but towards the end, it was already looking like a twisted-metal car accident on the autobahn, and what's more annoying was his self-righteous air, writing all that stuff like he was some poet laureate. fail.

and because of his disastrous english, all his fiery thunder and rage were totally fucked up by him not knowing how to write in grammatically proper english. any american can read your article and tell that it's an ugly piece of writing and tell you that you fucked up your sacred english. so where does that put us now? sure, you did prove that we speak english, but you didn't make us look any smarter, jackass. next time, leave the holier-than-thou act to those who can do it right. and don't publish it on a tabloid, because it screams small-time and irrelevant. sorry, but that's just the way it works.

if you can't walk the walk, don't talk the... fuck it, if you can't even talk the talk, don't talk.

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Now playing: Luther Vandross - Dance With My Father
via FoxyTunes

down low on the stream

for the past couple of months, i've replaced good, ol' fashioned limewire with the sheer awesomeness that is bittorrents. for the uninitiated, this allows me to download bigger things such as full games, movies, tv shows, and whole albums intact and at breakneck speed. the newest version of limewire finally has support for torrents, but is it just me, or did it also become as buggy and slow as well? either way, i haven't started up limewire for a while now.

now, because it is now possible to download whole discographies without sweating your brow, because it is now easier to download all of that artist's brand-new album, what kind of threat does this pose to the music industry? bigger loss of money, that's what. i will admit that i've already resorted to downloading complete new releases on torrent (save for the eagles' new album, which i shelled out my precious money for). and i'm guessing so have many other people.

but have we really figured out why? why we choose to do it all free, preferring to wait for the download instead of paying for the real thing? especially here, in the philippines?

to anyone who's ever bought any cd save for blanks in their entire life (especially here), the answer is obvious: it just costs way too much.

case in point: eagles new cd ran for P515. good deal, considering that it's a double disc. that's around $11. while full albums run for $15-20 in the states, it's not right to compare, because of inflation. yeah, if you're american or a balikbayan, you'd rather buy these stuff here, but what of us natives? yeah, it just costs way too much.

better solution? re-introduce and popularize the system of releasing singles and EPs. yep. it works wonders - it's cheaper, more accessible to casual fans of the artist, and brings usually more material than an ordinary album would. while not to say that singles are virtually nonexistent in the philippines (the remake of santana's why don't you and i with alex band instead of chad kroeger was released here, and for P250 i think, so that'd be around $6), it's an age-old system that would totally cut down on unnecessary downloads, and it would help the record industry, both local and international. now if you really want to make it appealing, put out singles in flash drives! kanye is doing it, we should too.

another good strategy is to open up an itunes store for the philippines. the folks at apple are real geniuses for coming up with the itunes store. it's a wonderful place on the internet, especially for those who love love music. with the itunes store and a credit card (something also needs to be done about this; teenagers make up a big part of the downloading demographic) you can download that hot new single tearing up the radio really cheap and guilt-free. hell, if you can't bring over the itunes store, i challenge someone in the record industry to make a philippine equivalent. just don't be too tacky with it.

so the next time you see a news piece about the RIAA, and if they're condemning illegal downloads, don't feel that guilty. it's not your fault music is expensive. it is your fault, however, if you do choose not to pay the artist by resorting to illegal downloads.

holiday of the dead

a few observations regarding the state of dead holiday celebrations (that includes halloween, all saints' and all souls' days):

• regarding the state of ayala alabang halloweens, i don't see the logic of all the outsiders excitedly queueing up rather early to get first dibs at all the candy at madrigal avenue, which i shall now nickname 'the strip'. (it seems that the once-rockin' aava halloweens have devolved to being mainly in madrigal, whereas before you can go to any corner and see almost everything lit up. when we went to kuks's house last night, which is in acacia avenue, everything was quiet. either no one really set up for anything major there, or it was already past 7-8 pm... at which time i recall there would still be people, so it's gotta be the former.) i mean, sure the candy is free, but you're not exactly gonna get by on candy! maybe if the homeowners were handing out free cheeseburgers, i'd understand, but this is candy! what's all the hubbub on sweets? i understand that they're kids, but it seems that the parents were the ones pressuring the kids to get candy like it was a survivor challenge. you don't sweat out the mid-afternoon lining up just to get all the candy down the strip! it's just not logical!
• i actually just got back from the cemetery tonight, and let me tell ya, there was a concert, headlined by mymp themselves. the main gripe about this is that there is no sense at all playing a concert in a cemetery. i would completely understand the food stalls but not any concerts. you know how manila memorial park doesn't have concerts on all saints' day? yeah, that's professional. i'm not exactly oh-so-religious these days but i do realize the sanctity of reverence. having a mosh pit (ironically there wasn't one, as the local rock band tanked) does not equal reverence.
• and on to the news once again. i don't know how it happens, but people are dying in cemeteries. very ironic, yes, but i'm sure that the people who died today while visiting their dead never planned on joining them on the days of the dead. what kind of sheer idiocy happens at the really-really-cramped manila cemeteries? it's like we have our own local version of jim morrison's grave! people are indeed really stupid, if people have to die due to stupidity on this day. (and tomorrow.)

there you have it. anyway, i bought the new eagles' album last night. review to come on multiply when i feel like it or when i've listened to enough of it to judge it right, whichever comes first. cheers.

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Now playing: Eagles - How Long
via FoxyTunes