The threshold of Pain (痛みのしきい値)

Its difficult and quite ironic how the youth of today undergo painstaking retrogression, even though the world where in they live today is abounding with information. It’s funny, yet absolutely wretched, to see one even the most unworthy of people being flashed and adored on the tube, while the people who most definitely deserve recognition are stuck within the bowels of society.

Why do I say this? Because I have witnessed, or rather, listened to music that managed to take my breath away – in a very bad manner. I would define the music video I watched to be one of the worst three minutes and forty-seven seconds of my life, and I’m not even kidding.

Last night, one of my good friends posted a link on Facebook, with a caption, which says that: ”we would die laughing when we watch this music video.” Then I clicked the link, waited for the video to load, and then watched afterwards. On my first attempt watching, I did not even last 20 seconds before I hit the COMMAND+Q button to close my internet browser. My first impression of the music was that it was an absolutely horrendous, abominable, spine chilling, and blood-curdling piece of work. I then thought to myself this:

“I HAVE NEVER LISTENED TO MUSIC THAT IS ABSOLUTELY EXCRUCIATING TO BOTH MY EARS AND MY MIND!”

And that was without the exaggeration – candy-coated words just to make me feel that I’m a wonderful blog writer; or even to make the readers feel my intense emotion. I truly felt excruciated in listening to a “work of art” – now that’s irony.

Because art is a form of arranging items that may suggest an idea, an emotion, or even an intellect.  Art should appeal to the person who created it, and it is his duty to make it appeal to the viewers. Art also has very intricate connections with the case of aesthetics – which is the concept of beauty itself.

Though beauty is one subjective issue. It will forever be in the eye of the beholder. The individual evaluates the concept of beauty. Meaning to say that an objective statistic for the concept of beauty does not exist – and will forever be, subjective.

Now going back to debating about this wretched piece of music, I then thought about the things I blurted out and actually felt a little bad with the things I’ve said. So I decided to give her another chance. I logged on to Facebook again, watched her video, this time until the very end.

And who would have ever thought I would actually get through that ordeal? For three minutes and forty-seven seconds, I found myself being purged from beautiful music and plunged into a penal, and abominable world of pain! With song lyrics absolutely redundant and dimwitted – daft and ludicrous, even seven-year old children would know that Saturday is the day after Friday! Though, I found myself to actually be laughing instead of feeling bad. Yes, I did laugh the whole evening. Because I could have never imagined that there was someone who actually made Bieber seem smart. Yes, her name was Rebecca Black, and she’s the new “guinea pig” that will forever fear the condemning words of teenage music aficionados who hold detrimental feelings for her music.

Now I just acquired news from the friend of mine who posted the link from Youtube. Apparently, Black wasn’t the composer of the music. There was a production, namely the ARK Music Factory that was looking for teenage children – from the jocks to the dirtbags, who were willing to become the next Youtube Sensation. Apparently a girl named Rebecca Black accepted the seemingly generous offer without reluctance and hesitation, and have found herself recording this poor excuse for a piece of trash. So apparently, it was the owners of the company, namely Clarence Jay and Patrice Wilson who composed the music, with Black recording it. So I would think that these two clowns hold a big responsibility in wrecking the person’s career – a teenage girl finding she to become the laughing stock of the Internet since Bieber.

The song apparently found itself being sniffed out by the nice magazine reviewers to the feared music critics who threw a plethora of negative remarks and meager amounts of positive ones. In fact, the scent of the song was powerful, that it even attracted me – a person who doesn’t really have much concern for popular music. Because the song’s musical and lyrical content was so pathetic, yet painstakingly and sickeningly catchy, it had attracted the attention of people who don’t even care. And since it had attracted my attention, I have to go at this at full speed – say what I want to say about the music, without having the fear of being criticized for my insensitivity.

As for the timbre Black unleashed: hideous! Heinous! Absolutely terrible! To think that the Auto-Tune device be utilized for the whole duration of the song. It was, quintessentially, a miserable idea! The Auto-Tune device is for automatically correcting pitches that have slightly strayed off from the line of frequency in equal temperament. However there is a catch. Once the Auto-Tune had been applied in a recording, the tone quality of the voice will change – It will sound “electronic and synthetic”. And to think that this Auto-Tune device was used for the whole song, it would tell us: “She sang disgracefully the rest of the song?”

Though, the ugliness the tone color suggested wasn’t entirely her fault. Part of the blame is to be shared by the composers of the song, who actually wrote disgusting melodic lines that seemed to have a low life expectancy. Top it with the horrendously simple, kinder-grade lyrics – unacceptable!

Have you seen a cardiogram that flashes the condition of a person who just died? Can you imagine the weight of the sorrow of the surrounding people beside that cardiogram, beside the person who just died? Can you hear their cries and wails? If you haven’t, then you better watch this video. Intense gloom does not only limit itself to the confines of death and loss. They also exist in poor music videos.

So without further adieu, here is Rebecca Black, singing her latest sensation, Friday. Enjoy, if you can.

Bieber Fever - SICK WITH IT, OR SICK OF IT? (ビーバーフィーバー-ITと、病気になったり飽き？)

Upon watching his video on Youtube, I stumbled on a particular comment of one user that intrigued me. It reads:

"Justin Bieber caused chaos in Liverpool last night (10.03.11) as fans almost rioted around his hotel.The 'Baby' hit-maker was warned by police not go outside the building which was surrounded by screaming fans as he prepared to perform in the English city's ECHO arena.He was told not to approach the balcony of his room at The Hard Days Night establishment for fear it would cause a riot.The 17-year-old singer posted: "'I cant even say hi to my fans outside cuz of the police.'"

-dubu010

I cited this quotation, because it is actually proof that Bieber does not know the real power of music. And how his music had warped the minds of people either to his advantage or to his downfall.

//

It’s hard to comprehend why someone who merely wants to hit the charts and share his music to the world had become one of the world’s blameworthy zeitgeist contributors. We ask ourselves the question how. How did this young adolescent who goes by the name of Justin Bieber, whose innocence provoked an upheaval (Well, not really an upheaval per se), influence the modern industry of today. How did a youngster, who produced a song full of repetitive lines, progressions, and shallow lyrics become more well known as opposed to the modern-day scholars who seriously pursue music? How does a youngster, who does not know anything about music, gain license to dictate to the world what music is, and how come those very intellectual composers and conductors who have a fountain of knowledge flowing inside their minds, fail to receive recognition?

 His music could be defined to be innocent, sometimes even prepubescent, with titles or song messages that are clearly for the welfare of one’s self, or about the current trend of today. Despite this, his music mysteriously became influential, especially to the industry of today. Is it because of his pretty-boy face that girls eventually took a liking on him? Are it because of his “refined” but prepubescent singing voice that entice girls to buy his music?

If our answer to both questions were a yes, then we are seriously being dragged into a very inartistic type of future. Surely, good-looking people with good singing voices are the vogue of today, but we ask ourselves if there is really any intellectual content in it? Bieber may have enticed a plethora of listeners (and trust me, a majority of them are girls) but we ask ourselves these questions:

“Will we gain significant wisdom by listening to his music?”

“What power is inherent in his music? Is it good or bad?”

Posted in this blog is one of his earlier songs where he gained worldwide acclaim – Baby.

            After watching this video, I came to enlightenment – that this video really did have the power. Yes, it had the power to waste three valuable minutes of one’s life.

The music is shallow – it’s classified as being tonal which revolves around the progression of I-vi-IV-V. The intro starts of with the child spouting ridiculous lines that make him feel the music – the “Ohh woaaahhh” line. This line is sung with a solo accompaniment of a plucked instrument (could be a ukulele or something similar) under the repetitive progression of I-vi-IV-V. Then when he sings the verse, the percussion beats enter, quickly converting the dry song into a danceable one. Then after this short intro, nothing changes until the rap part. The rap part is to be interpreted by Ludacris, whose name is a pun to the saying “Ludicrous” (which I seriously doubt would make him cuter). Ludacris performers the rap part while preserving the ingenious accompaniment. His rap also connects to the latter refrain part, which is to be sung by Bieber himself.

Now, one thing that actually provides power to this music is the lyrical content itself. If you’d ask for my opinion, then it’s an impetus as to why I’ve wasted three minutes of my life. Because when we look at the lyrics, they are the type that wasn’t thoroughly thought upon. The first verse is an enticement to the lady, a rather peculiar thing because I thought ladies were the ones that enticed. Even in this first verse, Bieber claims that this specific girl already has her eyes spellcast on him. Especially the last two lines which read:

 “You want my love, you want my heart

And we will never ever ever be apart.”

There is a very negative implication especially to the listeners who don’t use their heads.  They’re being advocated to believe that if they give their hearts to this Bieber kid, they will be with him. That is one way to abstractly hypnotize the audience to “adore him”. He mustn’t have realized that even ridiculous lines like that hold power. To amplify this power, Bieber sings with this very queer coquettish voice. His voice now abstractly screams out to the audience that “That’s right, I’m cute. Come on and adore me.”

Though, the second verse is clearly a direct contrast to what he was saying in the first verse.

“For you, I would have done whatever
And I just can't believe, we ain't together
And I wanna play it cool, But I'm losin' you
I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring
And im in pieces, Baby fix me
And just shake me til' you wake me from this bad dream

Im going down, down, down, down
And I just cant believe my first love would be around.”

Now he’s actually suggesting to the audience that he will do anything for his people. This is actually enticement number two – Letting go of heavy words to the audience. For some people who think critically while listening, they would deduce that this song really possesses a major impact on the listeners. Because we ask ourselves, what is happening now? Majorities of people listen to him and adore him – and it’s thanks to this particular verse. This verse lashed so much power that everyone who listened to it but did not think about it seriously became spell cast with this so-called Bieber-fever. I’m probably spouting very presumptive lines here, but I assure you, the reader of this blog, that music is a powerful tool that could shape, bend, and influence the mind.

And the refrain is just awful. It’s actually responsible as to why this song inherited a very ingenious title. Because it contained the word “Baby” nine times, the song had that title.

To sum it all up, the music is horrendous. Though, I commend Justin Bieber for his talent in actually conjuring up creative melodic contours. Without a doubt, the melodic contour holds power. Because why would it entice people to listen to the music in the first place if the melodic contour was bad? Surely Bieber does have talent as an artist, though his song content is practically hollow.

And what’s with the music video? To be totally honest, I don’t entirely follow with how he connected his music to the video. He was playing bowling with his friends then suddenly he sets his eyes on a cute girl on a neighboring aisle and then attempts to make a move on her by landing a strike. Then afterwards, during the duration of the video, he tries several attempts to impress the girl, then eventually bringing along his friends to have a hip hop dance showdown with the girl’s friends. I won’t (and probably would ever) know the cultural and social significance of having a showdown with your friends, but this I know: It too holds power.

Although the video possesses an extremely boring plot, to some point it did amplify the song’s power. The pretty-boy face of Bieber being rolled up on the camera several times, the rolling of the cute face of the girl he was making the moves with, their social standings according to the video all did play roles in contributing to this song’s power.

Now if you’d ask me, I did not gain any significant wisdom in watching. Although, I do commend Bieber, as he spouted out good melodic contours. The timbre of his voice is – a bit tacky but cannot but classified as purely horrendous. And I believe this timbre of his is what paved way for young girls to adore him and young boys to despise him. But overall, I did not gain any prudent significance in listening. Most of all, I did not enjoy. One of the hard things about musical composition is that, it is ideal for composers to write music that appeals both to his world and to the world outside. And Bieber does not satisfy the second. But guess what, it really is hard to satisfy both worlds, because of music’s inherent subjectivity.