Stroke of Genius

November 22nd, 2010

Music is awesome. I’m sure we’re all in agreement. But I was thinking of things that make music even awesome-er! Agree or disagree… let me know… but these are a few of my favorite modern musical inventions.

Auto Tune
Love it or hate it, it’s changed the sound of music and pop culture. I’m pretty sure it’s here to stay. It so elegantly walks the line of serious and joke at the same time. The best part about auto tune, or “T-Pain’in”, is that it’s constantly evolving. People figure out new and more annoying ways to use it all the time! Jay-Z rapped, “this is death of auto-tune….” Sorry buddy, no one listened. My favorite auto tuned line of the past year, while subtle, is in Drake’s “Over”… “who the @$!#$% are y’aaaall”!

The Altar Ego

Whatever the reasons, pretending you’re someone else is something we all get now more than ever, since facebook and twitter rule our lives. But pop artists have been fabricating altar ego’s for decades. Looking back, it seemed progressive, artistic, and a legit creative outlet (David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band). But nowadays we all have the attention span of a goldfish. So once people get sick of you just re-launch and re-invent as someone else, increase record sales, and stick around longer than you should. Pretty genius. Beyonce transformed into Sasha Fierce, Slim Shady was created to say the things Eminem supposedly couldn’t. More recently, The Biebs morphed into rapper Shawty Mane and Nicki Minaj has her Roman Zolanski persona.

The Hologram

Prepare to be freaked. The future is here. And of course it comes from, where else, Japan! Meet Hatsune Miku a holographic super idol created by a company called Crypton Future Media. She sells out stadiums and has created a legion of glow stick touting fans. Although this is very bizarre, I’m convinced. What a catchy ditty this is! Anyone know what “Po Pi Po Pi Po Po Po Po” means? In fact, maybe one day in the future pop stars won’t even need to tour, they can just send out their hologram.

The Neil Young Impression

Jimmy Fallon has transformed the face of late night television by keeping his love of music in the forefront. I don’t think I’ve been affected by anything more this year than his spot-on Neil Young impression. Recently he sang “Whip My Hair” with The Boss…amazing! I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of this sketch. But I still love the one that started it all “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”.

The Mash-Up

This isn’t a history lesson, so if you want to know the first time tracks were cut-up, bastardized, or mashed, go Wikipedia it. But this technique is definitely genius and the power and influence it can have on listeners, lies only in the imagination of the genius doing the mashing. Danger Mouse launched mashing into the mainstream and now Girl Talk ‘s new release All Day contains something like 372 samples mashed together. That has to be some kind of record. It’s definitely a result of the A.D.D generation and it will probably only get worse… or um better, I mean.