A Holiday Without Celebration

One can easily view from this film that Billie Holiday's life was nothing of glamor. Raped as a teen and her mother working as what appears to be a slave, Holiday moves to New York to be closer to her mother and works and lives cleaning at a whore house. As she ages, she becomes one of the nymphos herself. Tired of the lifestyle she leaves and lands a job across the street as a singer. Her career explodes and she takes off on the road with a band where she is exposed to various forms of racism and drugs. Once home after being awaken by the death of her mother, Holiday begins rehab where she is picked up by investigators and held for the illegal use of drugs. She cleans up from drugs, starts new only to land herself right back into it, ultimately causing her death at just 44.
While the life of Billie Holiday is sad, I land no sympathy for her after the days she left the whore house. From then on, everything was her decision. She chose to selfishly deal with the addiction of drugs and physically threatened to kill her eventual husband over the addiction. Apparent to the many loved ones surrounding her, Holiday suffered tremendously from this addiction and took for granted the ones supporting her. After being sober, she lands back into drugs only to bring her pianist, a close friend of hers which got her a spot singing to begin with, down with her and ultimately causing his death as well. Throughout the movie, she fell in her own self-pity only to take for granted the ones who lifted her up.

Musical Dreams

I think there are pros and cons to having musicians visually stimulate their music onto the screen. On one hand, it does give the fan more capability to fully understand the point that the artist is trying to make or have the fan feel when listening to the music. It allows the viewer to get wrapped up in the mood of the song, creating a dream like stage while listening and viewing the song. Some songs even become instant hits mainly because of their videos. For example, when I think about Michael Jackson's song "Thriller" the first thing that comes to mind is the dance everyone knows created from this video. So without the sense of videos for these songs, their rise to fame probably wouldn't exist.
On the other hand, like a movie based on a book, it takes away from the imagination. Most people prefer any book over a film based on it because it allows the reader to view and create the characters that they want to create. Much like music and the lyrics being sang, the listeners can create an idea of what the artist is trying to proclaim. So music videos take away from the listeners sense of creativity.

Talk To Me

Watching this film, I quickly felt the connection that the actors displayed in the characters. The film begins with a convict, Petey Greene, getting the opportunity to do talk radio in prison on good behavior. He meets an employee, Dewey Hughes, of a local radio station called WOL when he comes to visit his brother in prison. After an agreement with the warden, Greene gets out of prison early and finds himself at WOL attempting to get a job. With his job and reputation on the line, Hughes talks his boss into giving Greene a chance. Greene goes on air and proclaims foul statements which losses his opportunity to be with the station. But after hearing the publics possitive reaction to Greene's blunt and honest remarks, Hughes gets Greene back in the booth where his talk radio show becomes an instant hit with the public. Hughes was raised in the projects and aspired to become someone successful and get out of the trouble he was brought up around. He explains later in the film that he learned how to act, talk and dress by watching the Tonight Show. Hughes takes on the responsibility of Greene's manager and quickly lands him publicity doing stand up comedy and his own comedy show. Though it isn't stated in the film, the actor playing Greene does a phenominal job of displaying his characters distatse for all the fame and new direction that his manager is taking. Hughes is too caught up in his own dream that he is playing out in Greene that he doesn't realize the conflict happening. He gets Greene a spot on the Tonight Show and feels that they have finally reached the top. But when Greene takes the spot light on stage, he annouces his disgust in being there. After doing so, Greene and Hughes got into a fight off stage, ending the friendship and partnership between the two. After a period apart from each other and Hughes becoming the new talk radio host and ultimately buying the company, they reunite their friendship until the end when Greene dies at just 53 years old. His funeral session was held in public where over 10,000 people came to mourn his death. Overall, I felt that this film was excellent and the cast chosen to portray the characters were perfect for each roll.

U2: Philanthrapist or Hypocrite?

Being a fan of Bono and his philanthropy, I enjoy their music and have read Bono's book, On The Move, about poverty in Africa. I enjoyed the film in the aspect that it showed the side of U2 that makes them real people. A lot of times, people have this idea that rock stars live such a glamorous lifestyle of fortune and fame. And while that is true, U2 proves that they still thrive on being normal. My favorite part of the film is when they travel to Harlem to sing with the gospel choir that did a spin off their song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". And even after that, they stand outside and listen to the elder man singing and playing his guitar. It shows that they aren't the self-righteous type as most people become when seeking fame. A lot of people criticize U2 for their acts and words of philantropy but in my opinion, why criticize artist who attempt to raise awareness for peace? True, Bono still spends money on out-landish things but most of us would if we could. The real people that critics should scorn are those who only spend money on themselves rather than putting forth their effort and profit to help others. Bono has devoted much of his time in Africa helping with AIDS awareness. And although it is claimed that he's spent 40 million dollars on advertisement for his Insi[red] campaign to raise money for AIDS awarness, it is still more than the average person does to help. So to those of you who say you'll support his efforts after he shuts up, get over your self-righteousness and support the effort of helping the thousands dying everyday.

Almost Famous

I had never seen this movie before but after watching it I found it to be inspiring is some aspects. I found it to be interesting that a kid only 15 years old, William Miller, was courageous enough to lie to Rolling Stone Magazine and go on tour with a band cross country. Along the trip, the kid sees things and views the real world of rock and roll that he didn't know existed. Being a fan of this band, Miller strives to find the best things he can about the band to write about and he befriends the lead guitarist, Russell Hammond who's talent seems to be on a higher level than the band. Again, the kid proves to be quite daring when he writes the things he actually sees. He planned to give a sugar coated review to Rolling Stone to glorify the band, but instead he writes what he truly sees and the issues within the band. I think that the director does a phenomenal job of portraying the feelings brought out in the characters and the realization of the problems the band faces. The actors in the film make you believe that what you're seeing is the real deal. The members of the band seem to truly be at war with Hammond and his self-righteousness all while Miller is the reporter along for the ride who falls in love with one of the groupies. As an aspiring English Writing Major wanting to write for a car magazine, I found the movie to be inspiring myself due to the fact that the kid was willing to risk everything to fulfill his dream.

Piracy

I personally do not find the "piracy" of music to be such an offensive act. After reading this article, I found even more reason as to why I believe that it is not a bad thing. For example, most CDs are sold around $15 each. It's states in the chapter that the Chinese get access to the same CDs for only 50 cents each. So, with the record industry claiming to lose 4.6 billion dollars a year due to piracy, it seems to me that Americans are getting screwed as well. If they can sale copies for 50 cents, yet charge us $15 then they seem to be the one's that should be accused of piracy. And if they sold them cheaper, maybe then piracy wouldn't be such a problem.

Another thing stated in the chapter is the example of Microsoft allowing the Chinese to have bootleg copies of their software so that, in the long run, more Chinese will see the software and start to buy it. This just proves that companies are happy to break the law as long as they get to profit from it. Which makes them no better than the ones stealing from them.

It is also stated in the chapter that the law aims to rid the use of piracy that robs the author of his profit. But, on average, a Musician really only sees 50 cents for each CD sold. Most of their money comes from concerts. And as the chapter states, the difference in downloading music and stealing a CD is that the CD stolen is one less CD for sale. But downloading an album does not take a CD of the shelf. So a scenario probably not researched is that the millions of claimed people that download music probably attend concerts of the bands they are interested in. Therefore, increasing the money that artists make.

There are roughly 300 million people living in the United States. Of these 300 million, 100 million are members of Kazaa, the most popular p2p sharing network. So with a 3rd of the country being apart of it, along with millions of others that apart of other networks such as Limewire, the chances of officers and other officials who are suppose to rid this "piracy" are more than likely involved with it themselves.

Again, as I stated before, the companies are more than happy to be apart of this piracy as long as they benefit from it. This is recognized again later in the chapter when he describes the four parts of piracy. Type B is defined as someone downloading a song and if he/she likes it, the hope is that he/she will go buy the CD or refer a friend to buy it. Again, the companies would do nothing about piracy if this were the only way it worked.

In 2002 it was reported that CD sales fell 8.9 percent and it was blamed directly on piracy. But What was failed to be reported was that the number of CDs released were dropped 20 percent. So their were 20 percent less CDs for sale. so if you do the math, if the CD sales falling 8.9 were directly due to piracy, then sales would be down 28.9 percent.

It also shows that the law decided by Congress is that the copyright holder does not get all the value that his copyright created and has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work. Therefore, a loop-hole is created in the copyright and the artist is not entitled to all that the copyright states.

So in my opinion, downloading music from the internet is not robbing the artist at all. Not only might it be helping the artist by increasing attendance at concerts, but it is shown that lawfully the artist is not due all that his copyright states. Besides, programs like iTunes who sale songs individually for .99 each are seeing more money off these albums than the artist himself.

First Music Experience

Growing up, my sister, six years older than I, obviously had an influence on me as someone I looked up to. I always wanted to do the things she did. Therefore, the music she listened to was the music I wanted to listen to and was what I thought was "cool." Luckily for me, in my opinion still, she had good taste in music. I grew up listening to bands like Bush, Incubus and Fuel. Also along with her influence on me was my Dad's taste in music. He enjoyed bands such as Kiss, Queen and The Beatles. So my taste of music ranges far in age but along the lines of the same Genre. When I was twelve, my sister burned a cd for me with bands from her and my dad's collection. I felt a sense of "maturity" by having this cd because I felt as if I was par with them now. To this day I still have that cd, though it struggles to play as many times that it's been used.