Author Archives: Kenneth's Music

A Love Letter to You 4

fourth mixtape by rapper Trippie Redd

A heartbreak mixtape released by Trippie Redd, this is the November singles playlist for those who haven’t gotten a date for cuffing season. November marks the start of social activities like seeing festivals of lights or Santa pictures. As December draws near, no doubt the feeling of single hits, but like the song says, who needs love?

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this playlist. I don’t believe it’s a healthy thing to deny yourself of positivism and happiness, and this album seems to celebrate that feeling of loneliness and isolation. But at the same time, the beats and rhythm is sick and it features such talented artists like XXXTentacion (RIP), Juice WRLD, etc.

Overall, I don’t think it’s a bad album, I think it’s very mixed. However, the theme itself is contradictory to the album title, which may be the artistic intent. It’s most definitely not a love letter, because it talks about denying that love, but also wanting it. Rather, maybe it’s an expressive work talking about an unfulfillment in these artists lives?

Essay 2: Myself As A Publisher

My blog is meant to be a platform which I share my experiences with music. It is my personal blog that I am using as an extension of myself and sharing with others the way certain songs or artists impact me. I believe that music is something very personal and is an extension of one’s personality. Therefore, most of my efforts with this blog has gone into creating something authentic and that I can proudly say I own (Thorn, 2012). 

“It’s well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn’t ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves moreopenly ” (Suler, 2004). I share my experiences and explain why it makes me feel the way it does, and if I can’t explain it, I don’t try to because there’s a reason it can’t be placed into words. I think my blog might be helpful in terms of helping people express their own opinions. As an introvert, I prefer to keep to myself, and this course has allowed me to open up and share a comfortable amount of myself, through a medium that utilities the experiences and feelings of others. Thus, because this blog is meant to be more personal, I write using my own voice rather than through a formal tone. My goal is to connect with an audience that face the same issue as I do expressing myself. The changes I made to my blog were to mediate this. I followed a design structure similar to my personal style as a designer, and I voiced my content in such a way that stayed true to how I felt about the music I was listening to. Although my audience base is rather small, I am addressing them through authenticity. To interact with my audience, I mainly use audio, mainly the songs I want to highlight, and sometimes accompany it with visuals. 

Looking back, prior to and during the beginning of the course, I believed publication was content alignment with visual identity, simply because of print/digital media publication. I believed that the content itself needed to be rich and deep, and the visual identity needed to reflect that intensity. Creating an online presence is part of my academics and going into this course, I felt confident in my ability to create a brand identity for a company. Because of this, I wanted to challenge myself, and created this blog to help create my own online presence and see how it differs from creating a branding and identity for a company/group/collective. This course has helped me understand the importance of quickly establishing an ethos and pathos for an audience to base your content off of.  

This course helped deliver methodologies in establishing oneself in a digital landscape and why online presences matter. Rather than just being synonymous to media, publishing is more about information’s integration as part of technology and its effects on non-digitized documents. As we enter a new era of significant technological advancements,  “the world around us is increasingly mediated by screens and our understanding of it defined by digital information, we are rapidly losing touch with our undigitized past, left adrift in an ever-changing ephemeral world of bits and bytes without our physical past to anchor us” (Leetaru, 2017).

Moving forward, as a design student interested in branding and identity, this course has taught me the steps beyond establishing an ethos and pathos, and how to develop interpersonal relations through an online presence. I believe this course has taught us how to stay true to our individuality and our values, but also expressive about how the content of others can assist self-reflection.

REFERENCES:

Leetaru, Kalev. (September 29, 2017). In a Digital World, Are We Losing Sight of Our Undigitized Past?

Suler, John. 2004. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” Available from: Cyberpsychology & behavior 7.3 (2004): 321-326.

Jesse Thorn. 2012. “Make Your Thing.”

Closure

A song about not giving up on someone, even if that someone has given up on you, Closure talks about fighting for that someone in your life. People come and go, and if we don’t fight for the people we want in our lives, we’ll have no one that we actually care about.

Say that it’s okay
I know that it isn’t
Say you need space
That is your decision
Say it to my face
Tell me how I’m tripping
This is something real
I’m what you’ve been missing

At this point in my life, I can without a doubt say that I’ve lost people that I fought for. When we lose the people we thought cared about us, it becomes easy to lose yourself in negative thoughts, but this song reminds us of why we care. We fought for a reason and we loved for a reason. We cared about them and if we didn’t fight for that love, it just meant that wasn’t genuine love. To have fought and lost is better to just let things go without trying. Even in defeat, there is still victory.

Though this song can be interpreted as holding onto a feeling, I truly believe there is something deeper than that behind this. If people don’t reciprocate the same feeling back to us, then that’s one thing, but not letting go without a fight for the people you love and cherishing your relationship with them is another. Obviously we have to pick our battles here, but I think this song beautifully expresses how we should at least attempt to hold onto the things we hold dear.

Christmas Classics

With one and a half week past the end of Halloween, it’s time to begin the Holiday season and bump the classics, featuring Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé.

1. All I Want For Christmas Is You

If this isn’t the first Christmas song you’re playing then you’re doing something wrong. When you hear this song, you know it’s that time of the year to bring out the decorations.

2. Bublé Christmas

This entire album is so iconic might as well just add it all to your Christmas music queue.

3. Feliz Navidad

Honestly, the most fun Christmas song. You either hate it or you love, but you will never be able to resist the urge to sing it.

4. Jingle Bell Rock

The funniest use of Jingle Bell Rock yet, this song is an iconic symbol as both the holiday season and a Hollywood moment.

5. Last Christmas

Perhaps the saddest of the Christmas jingles, Last Christmas teaches us that the holiday seasons are meant to be spent with special people, not someone who will just give your heart away

Jesus is King

Released on the 25th of last month, Jesus is King is Kanye West’s new latest album. Previously known as being an atheist with a belief in the only the truth, this album’s gospel theme is Kanye West’s interpretation regarding God and his conversion to the Christian faith. Full of passion, it is a beautiful expression of his experiences.

Image result for jesus is king kanye
  1. Every Hour
  2. Selah
  3. Follow God
  4. Closed on Sunday
  5. On God
  6. Everything We Need
  7. Water
  8. God Is
  9. Hands On
  10. Use This Gospel
  11. Jesus is Lord

Without a doubt, this is an artistically chilling album, but without a doubt, the Sunday Service version elevates the lyrics behind the entire album.

To be honest, the album has me lost for words. There is just something speechless about the delivery and how Kanye chooses to articulate himself. As a non-Christian and someone who has very little experience with gospel music, I am astonished by how quickly the album grew on me. Give it a listen, even if you’re not a Kanye fan or a Christian. Appreciate good art.

I Might Be A Weeb

So for a few weeks, I’ve been on a Japanese music-spree and honestly I have no idea what they mean, they just sound nice and I like the melody and rhythm. But yeah here’s a music dump