Wiki of the Week: Wikirank

So this time it's not actually a wiki. But this is seriously cool. Like google trends for Wikipedia, Wikirank lets you see up to 90 days worth of page view history of wikipedia articles. Searching for something will give you its history, as well as an excerpt from the article, total views, and the ability to add other pages to your graph. There's also some nice, easy URL stuff you can do. For example, doing something like: http://wikirank.com/en/Superman,Batman will give you a graph of Superman and Batman hits. This is helpfull if you want to compare a bunch of different article's but don't want to have to manually put them in using the interface. In general the site is a really great jumping off point for browsing wikipedia, as thier front page contains information on what's being read now and what's getting popular. FWIW I'm also a fan of the site design.

Jake's Web Clippings of the Week

Just a few for this week:

A Ziggy Stardust mashup album. Not as good as the Ocarina of Rhyme (or the original Ziggy Stardust, for that matter) but still worth listening to.

More from Microsoft Songsmith: "Hustlin'" by Rick Ross.

The Snickers company is creating their own language. Looks like they forgot to mention Noam Chompsky.

Science is awesome. Various scientists have determined which English words will go extinct soonest, which part of the brain creates religious experiences, and have even begun to read people's minds. Ok, maybe that last part wasn't awesome.

Ok, so maybe I do usually do this.

Yea, one lazy motherfucker over here, still, I'm not a Rap/Hip-hop fan and this is awesome. The Ocarina of Rhyme is a new album by Team Teamwork, it's an insanely illegal mash-up of rap and Zelda music. You can also download the whole album.

I don't usually do this, but....

I've always been against wasting an entire post on a link to some stupid youtube video. But this is friggin' awesome. Just watch it.

http://thru-you.com/

Jake's Web Clippings of the Week

Here's what I've found on the wonderful internet this week:

Did John Lennon sell his soul to the devil?

An interesting look at morality in video games

Does English already have gender neutral pronouns?

A fairly interesting post about how obscure music genres can be revived.

A piracy Patriot Act. Fuck that.

More people are becoming atheist, apparently.

Old-school electronic games.

In Defense of Auto-Tune

On December 31st, 2008 at around 11:55 PM, one of my friends said to me, "Fuck auto-tune. Here's to 2009." We were discussing what had been good and bad about 2008, and of course, being music nerds, we had to comment on the huge popularity of the effect known as auto-tune. There was definitely some truth to the statement. 2008 could easily be described as "The Year of Auto-Tune" (of course, if you ignore the downfall of the economy and the historic victory of Barack Obama). But is that a bad thing? In order to answer that question, first let's talk about what auto-tune actually is.

Auto-tune is basically an effect that corrects a singer's pitch to match the closest note in a designated key. When a low amount of auto-tune is used, it makes the singer sound like he or she is hitting every note perfectly. When a high amount of auto-tune is used, it corrects every pitch that is even a tiny bit out of key, eliminating transitions from note to note, and making the singer's voice sound mechanical, or even robotic. Auto-tune was first used in 1998 on the single "Believe" by Cher. Even though it was only used a few times in the song, it caught on and soon became more popular. This culminated in 2008 with the huge success of T-Pain, who uses auto-tune in all of his hits and has become famous for doing so. In the examples of Cher and T-Pain, it is obvious from their "robotic" vocals that they use auto-tune. But music producers have said that nearly every pop artist has used lower amounts of auto-tune to simply cover up their mistakes without people noticing. Auto-tune has been criticized by lots of musicians and producers who think that it is simply used to compensate for lack of talent. But is this a bit of an overstatement?

Well, I think so. For one thing, the outcry against auto-tune has, in some cases, been WAY too dramatic. For example, Death Cab For Cutie wore blue ribbons at the Grammy awards to protest the use of auto-tune. Are you a little bit pissed off by that? No? Well I'll say it again. Death Cab For Cutie wore blue ribbons at the Grammy awards to protest the use of auto-tune. If you don't think that's really kinda fucked up, then I'll break down why I think it is. DCFC (I don't feel like writing out their name again, although writing this little aside took up more time and space) could have protested anything they wanted at the Grammy awards. If they had their hearts set on wearing ribbons, they could have protested AIDS or breast cancer by wearing red or pink ribbons. Or if they felt like supporting some other cause instead, they could have done what Sean Penn did and spoken out against homophobia (although it might not have had the same relevance at the Grammys that it did at the Oscars, it still would have been great). Or they could have raised awareness of global warming, or poverty, or nuclear proliferation, or TONS of other stuff. They chose to protest auto-tune. Does anyone else agree with me that this is SO FUCKING ARROGANT!!!??? To quote the band, "I think over the last 10 years, we've seen a lot of good musicians being affected by this newfound digital manipulation of the human voice, and we feel enough is enough." Such heartfelt words. I have to thank them for raising awareness of this horrible societal ill. I didn't know that so many good musicians have been having their voices manipulated against their will. Enough is enough! I, for one, will continue to fight this battle against the evil manipulation of the human voice.

Actually I won't, because if I want to be a pompous asshole while supporting a political cause, I'll at least pick a good one to support. Shit, at the very least I'll pick one that actually fucking matters. I didn't really like DCFC before, but now I like them even less. I mean, if anyone could benefit from auto-tune it's them.

If you take a good look at the words they chose to use in their "political" statement, it's easy to see where all of their many logical gaps are. For one thing, they describe a "newfound digital manipulation of the human voice" seemingly without any sense of irony. Auto-tune may be a new effect, but digital manipulation of the human voice is nothing new. It's been around since the 40s at least. In an article that I posted to the blog a couple weeks ago, Wired magazine cites 1935 as the earliest example of vocal manipulation, and 1971 as the first time vocal manipulation was used in music. This alone subverts DCFC's idea that vocal manipulation is something new, but the Wired article mainly just talks about the vocoder. If you think about it, vocal manipulation techniques have been around as long as LPs have, since playing LPs at different speeds can dramatically change how the vocals sound. I've heard people say that the reason Robert Plant is able to hit those crazy high notes on Led Zeppelin albums is because he actually sang them at a lower pitch and the vocals were just sped up, and watching Led Zeppelin live footage certainly supports this, since he can't hit those high notes live. Don't believe me? Well, even if that fact about Zeppelin was made up by someone else, these same vocal manipulation techniques were used to create the Chipmunks.

DCFC also make absolutely no sense when they talk about how "good musicians" have been affected by auto-tune. Actually, by their logic only bad musicians are affected by auto-tune. But there's more to analyze in those two words than just that simple contradiction. They specifically mention "musicians" in their statement, but they never mention producers. This shows a huge level of ignorance. There's a strong view held by many music fans (snobs is a better word) that music is only worth listening too when it is musician-oriented; that is, when it's listened to because the musicians are talented. The epitome of musician-oriented music is music by incredibly skilled musicians that shows no signs of production after recording. Most jazz falls under this description, as does a lot of rock music, especially if it features solos. Because musician-oriented music is understandably more respected among musicians, many musicians look down on producer-oriented music. I've met tons of music snobs (mostly jazz fans) who have dismissed producer-oriented music simply because they don't understand its merits; they think that production is only something used to cover up a lack of musical talent. Now, there's definitely something to be said for musician-oriented music; some of my favorite bands are the Sparta Locals, Steely Dan, and Black Sabbath, who I like because they're insanely good musicians. But musicianship doesn't necessarily make music good. It's impossible to deny that the Van Halen brothers, for example, are incredibly talented musicians, but it's also hard to deny that their songs are totally generic and cheesy, not to mention misogynistic. Likewise, music doesn't have to feature incredible musicianship in order to be good. There's a lot to be said for good songwriting, for example, or for originality. And there's also a lot to be said for producer oriented music; if you ignore the importance of producers, then you ignore the importance of producer-oriented genres like dub, rap, and any form of electronic music, all of which have dramatically shaped music as we know it. And you also ignore the fact that music production is an art in itself. A good producer can take a few instrumental tracks and turn them into something entirely different and unique. Yes, producers can make bad musicians sound good by doing this, but that's not an issue when you listen to music created by a talented producer simply because of its production. Production has been accepted as an art by some, as certain producers have released their own albums that were acclaimed for pioneering techniques and creating entirely new sounds, which is more than can be said for many great musicians. Plus, it's hard to dismiss the work of great producers by saying that production is easier than performance; it's an entirely different set of skills that requires just as much persistence and innovation to master. Lots of great musicians, such as Elvis Costello, have tried producing albums and failed miserably. Just listen to the albums that Elvis Costello produced for the Pogues and the Specials and you'll see what I mean. When a good producer shows high levels of talent and creativity, it's more than fair to call them an artist. Don't buy my argument? Then just ask Lee "Scratch" Perry, Brian Eno, and Dr. Dre what they think.

DCFC made the horrible mistake of ignoring producers in their statement, which is probably why they hate auto-tune so much. From the perspective of an "authentic" musician who ignores any form of production (except production techniques to make the recording sound more lo-fi and therefore more authentic), auto-tune is the epitome of producers' indulgence, and it shows just how much a producer will do to compensate for an untalented musician. But from a producer's perspective, auto-tune is an incredibly useful tool that can be used in many creative ways.

By ignoring producer-oriented music, DCFC ignores the creative ways vocal manipulation techniques such as auto-tune can be used, simply dismissing it as a program that does nothing more than make bad singers sound good. As Cher and T-Pain have showed us, auto-tune can also make your voice sound fucking weird and cool. And this in itself shows us the limits of musician-oriented music. Production technologies such as auto-tune allow musicians to create sounds that they would never be able to otherwise. Yes, auto-tune can be used to compensate for lack of talent, but it can also be used in really creative, interesting ways. I'll provide two examples of ways that musicians and producers have actually done great things with auto-tune to illustrate my point.

1. Daft Punk – "One More Time"

Everyone knows this song is heavily auto-tuned. But many people don't know just how auto-tuned it is, and just how creative this song is. Daft Punk went through a very interesting process when making it. First, they invited a horrible R&B singer to record a song for them. If you listen to what they recorded, it's really really terrible. Then they took his horribly out of tune vocals and put heavy auto-tune on them to make them sound like robot vocals (that's why they sound so electronic; he was so out of tune that auto-tune had to compensate so much). Then they chopped up his vocals to create the lyrics they wanted (you'll notice he never says "one more time we're gonna celebrate" during the original song). This shows how auto-tune can be used in unique ways to create really cool effects that wouldn't be the same otherwise. And it also shows how innovative producers can be. Notice how in this example we don't care who the singer is, and his (lack of) talent is irrelevant. But we care who the producers are, and we listen to this song because the producers are talented, and because they found a new, creative use for auto-tune (and also because you can dance to it). Producers are often times more creative than musicians.

2. Radiohead – "Kid A"

Now, I heard about this example from a pretty unreliable source, and I wasn't able to fact check it (mostly because every google search for "Radiohead Kid A" leads to reviews of the entire album featuring indie kids describing how many times a day they masturbate to it). But it makes sense, and even if Radiohead didn't use auto-tune to create this song, the process described is still a great idea that someone else should definitely use. I know for a fact that Thom Yorke hated the lyrics to this song and didn't want his voice to be associated with them, so he filtered the vocal track through a vocoder. But someone else told me that he also put it through auto-tune in a really cool way. Apparently, he just spoke the lyrics and put them into auto-tune, so that every syllable was randomly assigned a note in the proper key. If you listen to the song it sounds like this could be true; the vocal track is totally in tune but contains no distinct melody. Even if Radiohead didn't actually do this, it's just another great idea for how auto-tune can be used in a creative way that has nothing to do with compensating for lack of talent.

In order to bring this very long post full circle (thanks for sticking with me if you've made it this far), I'd like to discuss T-Pain again. While I can't say I like his music, I have to defend his use of auto-tune, simply because he's not trying to hide the fact that he uses it. He may not be the best singer, but he's not using auto-tune to compensate for this without listeners noticing; he's just using it to create a really fucking cool, unique sound. I would even go so far as to call his use of auto-tune original, since he's really the first person to use it this prominently. So while auto-tune can be used to create boring music, it can also be used to create original music. There are a lot of great singers out there, but not all of them are original.

And one final word to all those whiny, self-righteous pricks who think that there is no cause more noble than stopping the manipulation of the human voice: enough is enough. Auto-tune is more than just a cover-up. It's a useful production tool, and how it's used distinguishes the creative from the non-creative.

Wiki of the Week: International Music Score Library Project

Ever looking for some new music to play? Looking for the complete works of Bach in .pdf? Then look no further than the International Music Score Library Project. The somewhat self-explanatory goal of this Wiki project is to "To create a virtual library containing all public domain musical scores, as well as scores from composers who are willing to share their music with the world without charge."

The site was shut down for about a year due to copyright issues and public domain laws in different countries, but returned this past summer as strong as ever. The content is really interesting. looking through you get a whole bunch of really awesome works from famous classical artists (and many not-so-famous ones), but you also get new-age, wierd, CC licenced stuff too.

This is a great resource for those of us looking for some new recital material, or just something new to play.

IMSLP main page.

IMSLP on Wikipedia.

Lulz of the Time

 

Try this in Firefox. It actually works, though it tailors the suggestions based on what you've searched before, so yours may be slightly different. Click. To....Enlarge.....

Is Hollywood Finally Coming Out of the Closet?

Upon realizing that I'm a social liberal from Los Angeles, nearly every homophobic asshole that I've encountered has proceeded to make some outrageous statement about the supposed inherently gay/liberal nature of what they like to refer to as "Hollywood." These have ranged from the absurd and offensive ("All gay people are actors") to the ridiculously absurd and ridiculously offensive ("Everyone wants to be gay. Being gay is trendy. I mean, just look at Hollywood."). There are so many things wrong with these statements that I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start here:

1. People always use the word "Hollywood" as a synonym for the movie industry. This is wrong, because:

a) the vast majority of people from LA (such as myself) are in no way connected to the movie industry. This is why people who say that everyone in LA is "fake" or "plastic" are also wrong, since they are probably only referring to people in the movie business, who they haven't even met since they've probably never been to LA.

b) Hollywood isn't even the area of LA where the movie studios are located. All the major studios that I can think of are in Burbank, Studio City, and West LA.

2. "Hollywood," more accurately referred to as the movie industry, is not as progressive as conservatives make it out to be (just like how California, with its homophobic laws and Republican Governator, isn't the bastion of liberalism it's frequently portrayed as). While mainstream movies have at times been a very effective medium for addressing social change ("Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" is the first example I can think of), mainstream movies are at heart a money-making effort, and as such will only support social causes that the filmmakers know aren't too controversial.

Which brings me to the focus of this post: the awkward interactions between the Academy Awards and the gay rights movement that have been occurring for the past few years. At the 2005 academy awards, Crash, a film about race relations in Los Angeles, won best picture, beating Brokeback Mountain, a film dealing with homosexuality. Now, this is just my opinion, but I think that Brokeback Mountain was a far better film than Crash. This is probably partly because of the fact that every film junkie I knew had been practically masturbating to Crash before I saw it, so it had been ridiculously overhyped for me, but I also thought that all of its characters were ridiculously stereotyped (some people have argued that this was intentional, but I still think it took away from the overall message of the film) and its takes on race were way too simplistic. I saw this movie when I was in high school and my own views on race were, in retrospect, overly simplistic, but I still thought Crash was too simplistic THEN. In comparison, when I saw Brokeback Mountain I thought that it was groundbreaking, had terrific acting, and that the characters were anything but stereotypical. In my opinion, Brokeback was far more deserving of an Oscar than Crash, and I will admit that I was nothing short of shocked when Crash won best picture. I mean, I at least thought that Good Night and Good Luck had a better chance of winning than Crash.

I don't think it's any kind of stretch to claim that Brokeback was snubbed because "Hollywood" didn't want to openly praise a film dealing with homosexuality. As stated before, movies can be progressive, but only when they can do so while making absurd amounts of money. Brokeback's loss occurred at a time when a conservative ran the country (damn it feels good to say that now) and only one state (not California) had legalized same-sex marriage. If the Academy had allowed Brokeback to win best picture, they would have opened the door for all kinds of homophobic criticism that would have, unfortunately, been listened to by lots of people. And by letting Crash win, they also likely managed to get rid of some criticism from liberals as well. "Yeah, we didn't give the best picture award to a movie about gay people, but we did give it to a movie about race! We're still progressive and open minded!" If you think that I'm just imagining the snub and that Crash was truly a better movie than Brokeback, just consider the fact that Brokeback was nominated for 8 awards, the most out of any movie that year, and while Crash was nominated for six, they both won three awards, as did King Kong, which was only nominated for four, and Memoirs of a Geisha, which was also nominated for six but received terrible reviews. Brokeback was statistically the most likely film to win the most awards, but it tied for first place with three other films, one of which beat it for best picture. It seems that the Academy wanted to recognize Brokeback, but were too afraid to do so.

Fast forward to last weekend. Milk had been talked about as one of the best films of the year, with people praising Sean Penn, Emil Hersch, and Gus Van Sant, and rightly so. Not only did it have a great message, but it was also an incredibly well made film, one of my personal favorites of 2008. And it couldn't have come out (no pun intended) at a better time. Not only was its message of equal rights desperately needed during November of 2008, but all the controversy surrounding Prop 8 in California probably helped it succeed at the box office as well. Because of its message and quality, Milk was nominated for 8 Oscars, just like Brokeback was. And it only won 2. That's one less than Brokeback. This must be a sign that "Hollywood" is regressing, right?

Wrong.

While Milk only won two awards, these wins had more of an impact that any of Brokeback's did. In the acceptance speeches for both awards (best original screenplay and best actor), both recipients explicitly and unapologetically talked about the film's queer themes and how they were especially important today, and received thunderous applause. This is HUGE progress, at least in terms of popular culture. Keith Olbermann noted that this was especially progressive since in 2003, Michael Moore made a political statement against Bush in his acceptance speech and was booed. I think it's especially progressive since the way I remember it (please correct me if I'm wrong), everyone kind of beat around the bush about Brokeback's queer themes during their acceptance speeches in 2006.

I've heard all kinds of explanations as to why people were so much more open this year than in 2006. I've heard some people say it's because liberals are feeling more outspoken about their political views now that Obama is president. I heard one critic say that the applause this year, as opposed to Michael Moore's booing, simply happened because Michael Moore is an asshole that nobody wants to listen to. I, for one, think it's because the "Hollywood" liberals finally realized that they have to take a stand. They played it safe when they had a chance to speak out against homophobia in 2006, and look what happened in 2008. The movie industry seems to finally be realizing that since, like it or not, they have the power to truly influence people's opinions, they can't just be complacent and go with the norm if they actually want to be progressive. I dunno, maybe I'm being too optimistic.

You could refute my claims by saying that, once again, the film dealing with queer themes was snubbed of an Oscar for best picture. I was even thinking along those lines for a little bit, since I've been hearing very mixed things about Slumdog Millionaire, which beat Milk. But I would hesitate to call Milk's loss in the best picture category a snub this time around. For one thing, I've only seen two of the films nominated for best picture this year (the other one being Frost/Nixon, which was surprisingly good. While Sean Penn certainly deserved his Oscar for best actor, I would've been equally happy if Frank Langella had won for his portrayal of Nixon.). So while I liked Milk better than the one other nominated movie I saw, I can't actually say if it was better than The Reader or Slumdog Millionaire (I'm willing to guess that it was better than Benjamin Button). Also, Brokeback's loss was largely considered a snub because the general consensus among movie fans at the time was that it actually WAS the best movie out of the five nominated, and everyone was expecting it to win. That can't be said for Milk. Slumdog was the favorite this year, so I wasn't at all surprised when it won. It seemed that in 2006, everyone thought the best movie was Brokeback, but they didn't want to make a real political statement, so they voted for Crash and made a fake political statement instead. This year, it seems that while people didn't vote for the movie that made the biggest political statement, it wasn't because they were afraid of doing so. To me, that is a huge step forward.

More Geeky/Random Web Clippings

I have a few (actually a lot) of my own to add:

 10 Video Games That Should Be Viewed As Modern Art

A History of Robot Vocals in Music

The Worst Song in the World

Weird Japanese Commercials Starring Oscar Nominees

One of the Weirdest, Most Fucked Up Extensions of Colonialism I've Ever Seen

A Synth on the Nintendo DS

Barack Obama Cursing

Did George W. Bush's Grandfather Steal Geronimo's Skull?

The Importance of Being Bilingual

One Reason I'm Nervous About Going to Japan