Category: Analysis
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The Dream Is Over: The Life And Times Of Chris Cornell
I bought a CD copy of Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger in Chilliwack in 2019. At the time, I didn’t know anything about the Pacific Northwest, Grunge music, Soundgarden, or Chris Cornell, but I bought the CD because I was interested by the complex album artwork, and the fact that it was a “25th Anniversary Remaster”- I thought…
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A Year On The Road, Pt. 2: Genre and Form Defined in the 21st Century
What musical genre does Twenty One Pilots and Imagine Dragons belong to? And don’t try to tell me it’s “Indie Rock” or “Alternative Rock”. Indie Rock is made on a budget and Alternative is introspective music with a focus on songwriting rather than production. “Pop Music” is often used as a derogatory term by music…
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Head For The Hills! (A Misunderstanding Of Southern Gothic Literature And Cinema)
H.P. Lovecraft writes in his essay “Supernatural Horror In Literature” (published in 1927) “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. The essay goes on to describe the progression of Gothic literature, and the ways that it allowed for supernatural and…
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A Year On The Road
Genre, style, and accent are expressions of individualism. David Lynch has a pastoral, surrealist approach to filmmaking. In some ways, his films are extremely simple. This ‘style’ of filmmaking has much in common with the religious tradition he was raised in, Presbyterianism. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” trilogy is an expression of Roman Catholic culture. The…
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Canadian Influences on American Popular Music
It has been said that the last great music scene was Seattle in the early 90s, before, during, and after the Grunge movement exploded onto the charts. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden had an old soul with a new sound. Washington State had long been disregarded by the cultural centres of California and…
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Mother-Blaming and Mother-Worship in Rap Music
Hip Hop, as a genre, is traditionally assertive. It tells the listener that the artist is powerful, determined, unstoppable, and capable of anything. The stereotypical attitude towards women in rap is manipulative, utilitarian, promiscuous, and dominating. As a result rap music is often labelled as misogynistic. But “misogyny” is a term loaded with judgement, and…
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Long Beach Pet Sounds
Brian Wilson started a rock band with his brothers and friends in the early 60s, called the Beach Boys. He lived in a suburb of Los Angeles (Hawthorne), and became an international superstar, recognized for his musical genius. He has outlived many of his band mates. Calvin Broadus, known professionally as Snoop Dogg, started a…
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Tears In Rain
In the film ‘Blade Runner‘, the question that all of the characters grapple with is “What does it mean to be human? And, what effect does our humanity have on our actions?” “Blade Runner” displays the emotional reactions (love, hate, sorrow), that Replicants (humanoid robots) have, and the relationships they have with each other, in…
High Strung Poetry and Analysis 