Gratuitous Gradients! Luminous Layers! Sworded Lawnmowers! That's right, R.O.P.D.R.P.W. has gotten a little upgrade (read: I'm playing with a fun new image editing program). While some things are new, others are not. We regret to inform you that complete ridiculousness and bad puns shall continue indefinitely!
Well, sort of, anyway. Since at least one of you demands more, I feel I must oblige. Now, obviously, I've been a little light on inspiration of late, and when I go back to one old standby (ranting about politics) I'm either misunderstood, or nobody cares, so I figure I'll go back to another old standby. You're not going to like it.
That's right. I'm going to review stuff.
I told you you weren't going to like it. Now, to be honest, I do have a fairly ambitious little writing project bouncing around in my head, though I'm not sure it's entirely appropriate for this space, seeing as it would be a tribute to a work that's never been published in any real capacity. But, that is another post for another time, and a project I'd really rather keep under my hat for the time being.
For the first review, I'll start small.
Keane, a "piano rock" group from Battle, East Sussex, England, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has taken up the recently popular trend of artists, publishers, etc. having their own YouTube channels. On their channel, they've got music videos, behind the scenes stuff, and other little oddities. One of the nice little gems you can find here is what they refer to as a "live mash." It's a bit of a tribute cover for two different songs: "Another One Bites the Dust," by fruity yet bad-ass defunct rock group Queen, and "Dance Wiv Me," by British rapper who I had to look up on Wikipedia Dizzee Rascal, featuring Scottish songwriter/producer who I also had to look up on Wikipedia Calvin Harris. The result is the bizarre yet beautiful "Another One Bites the Dizzee." Basically, it's the verses and baseline from "Another One Bites the Dust" with the chorus and melody from "Dance Wiv Me." I found that once I got past the original "What were they thinking?" reaction, I rather enjoyed it. Keane singer Tom Chaplin's voice is a great match for Freddie Mercury's, and when you put the addictive baseline of "..Dust" together with the too-catchy-for-its-own-good melody of "Dance...," well, I don't know... it just works! They mesh so well! If I weren't familiar with one of the songs already, I would have sworn this was the original, which is, I think, the best compliment any cover (mash-up or otherwise) can receive. Hats off to Keane then, I suppose!
...as does most ranting of the insane. This goes for crazy liberals too... I'm looking at you, Chris Matthews!
This is not to say that I despise all pundits who dare take a position. You know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Rush Limbaughs, the Michael Moores, the Bill O'Reillies, the Al Frankens of this world. (The fact that he might be a senator in a few weeks is terrifying). What sickens me about these people is not their political stance, I support a wide variety of positions in the media. What I can't support though, is the fact that most of them rely not on presentation of evidence and analysis of said evidence, they rely on sensationalism and rumor. I suppose I'm just harping on the whole thing with Obama again, where people were afraid he was a Muslim, and even though that's just wrong, if it were true, it would somehow make him less qualified to govern, or less American or something. I'm all for discussing your views, but to be condescending and spread misinformation is not a way to do it.
For a good example of the way to do it, I'd offer up the McGlaughlin Group. That show frequently has people of widely disparate views talking about current issues in a rational manner, rarely if ever resorting to smear tactics. And it's exciting too, you get to watch them yell at eachother! If you've never watched Elenor Clift and Pat Buchanan yell at eachother for ten minutes, you really should.
So concludes my least coherant post in a long time. Yay!
It's Romanian. Roughly translated, it means "you don't, you don't take me with you." This can be heard in the song "Dragostea din tei," by Romanian pop band O-Zone, made popular in the US by poorly-named internet video "Numa Numa". Learn it. Know it. Pass it on!
