I.T. Erudio

Category: music

  • “hit” me

    One the daily Britannica emails told me that that a Britney Spears “hit” was based partly on a misinterpretation of American slang.

    Set the way back machine to “late 1990s” and Britney Spears was a “Disney child star” – e.g. she was a cast member of the “Mickey Mouse Club” during the shows 1990s revival

    The original “Mickey Mouse Club” ran from 1955 to 1959. There was a “syndicated” revival of the show in 1977-79 and then a third revival in 1989-1996.

    That third revival would help launch Ms Spears singing career along with other future “super stars” e.g. Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, JC Chasez (*NSYNC)

    Child Stars

    Just in general – the “performance” expectations for “child stars” is different than for “NOT” child stars.

    i.e. the “child star” can often get buy with saying their lines and being cute

    “Never work with children or animals”

    -W.C. Fields

    Now, I’m not throwing stones at anyone here – just making the observation that a “child prodigy” is often considered “something special” because they are a child, not because they have a high level of ability/talent.

    The genuinely talented “child star” still needs to mature and develop as an artist if they want to be taken seriously as “no longer a child star.”

    the Disney Inc factory

    Walt Disney created a sort of “myth of American childhood” that he would describe as being “fun/entertainment for all ages.”

    “The Wonderful World of Disney” was a staple of Sunday night television for most of the second half of the 20th Century – and “Disney” as a brand came to mean “family entertainment.”

    Obviously over that long a time “child stars” grow up and new child stars need to be developed. For better of worse, Disney, Inc became a “factory” of sorts – developing and replacing “child stars.”

    Now, this fact isn’t inherently good or bad. There are a lot of “child labor” laws that need to be complied with – which can make using REAL children in movies/television a challenge.

    Yes, that is often why we have the “25 year old professional” playing a “15 year old” – but that is just the business.

    Over that many years and that many people – not everyone is going to have a positive experience.

    Part of the “Disney child star” process was controlling their “image” – which means that the “fame” trade off for the “child star” can be a lost childhood of sorts – and then when they are no longer a “child star” they may have trouble adjusting.

    Re-branding …

    SO the “child star” that wants to break away from being a “child star” has two options – 1. change career fields. OR 2. re-brand/re-invent themselves.

    In 1998 Britney Spears “management team” very obviously went with option #2. They re-branded from “squeaky clean Disney star” to “sex kitten.”

    “… Baby One More Time” would “hit” #1 and spend 32 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999.

    The album would go 14x Platinum in the U.S. selling over 10.6 million copies – and 25 to 35 million copies worldwide.

    SO the Swedish team that wrote “… Baby One More Time” thought that “hit” was American slang for “call.”

    Now, if you have seen the video for “… Baby One More Time” there isn’t much doubt on what the “protagonist” is asking for – the song is still an ear worm, but Ms Spears performance isn’t subtle.

    For the record – no, I wasn’t the target audience THEN and don’t have much (any?) 1990s pop music on my play list NOW.

    Britney Spears has become a very public “cautionary tale” – hey, she seems like a very nice person, I’m not throwing any stones here – I won’t try to guess what is going on in her head – and we are moving on …

    La Roux

    If we look at JUST the lyrics for “… Baby One More Time” – we find a sort of “flame song.” The protagonist regrets leaving/breaking up and wants the “lost love” to respond – so “call me one more time” would be a plausible line.

    Of course Ms Spears performance elicits a much more “carnal” interpretation – so “hit me” becomes a euphemism for “sex.”

    Just for fun we can compare and contrast “… Baby One More Time” with Bulletproof

    Bulletproof peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. but would go all the way to #1 in the U.K.

    Showing the oddities of awards that have to be voted on – La Roux would win a Grammy for “Best Electronic/Dance Album” for their (2008) debut album

    fwiw: “La Roux is an English synth-pop act formed in 2008 by singer Elly Jackson and record producer Ben Langmaid.” Thank you wikipedia … 

    With the protagonist in “On More Time” being younger and less “jaded”/experienced than the protagonist in “Bulletproof”

    The two are separated by 10 years on the Billboard chart – so they could get a sort of “dotted line” thematic connection – “One more time” being the young/naive protagonist and “Bulletproof” is the older/jaded/experienced protagonist …

    One ditch to the other …

    What differentiates the “great” acts from the “flash in the pan” is the ability to adapt and grow. That doesn’t mean they have totally reinvent themselves – but they need to release something “new” on a regular basis.

    i.e. if we think of the artists career as a path/trail/road then there are “ditches”/extremes on either side of that road that it will be best practice to avoid. Then staying “on the path” is going to be the long term goal.

    e.g. If you look at Taylor Swift as a “pop culture” phenomenon she grew and changed along with her audience. There were obvious style changes – but no dramatic changes in “public image.”

    Bing Crosby had a long and distinguished career that lasted 50 years – and still set records for “streaming” around the Holidays.

    Frank Sinatra’s career had several distinct phases in a 60 year career – with a very noticeable “fan demographic” shift from “mostly young women” BEFORE WWII to “mostly adult men” AFTER WWII. Maybe he drifted a little more on his path, but he stayed on the metaphorical road.

    Elvis Presley still holds “American icon” status – and he had distinct “phases” in his career. The difference between “young Elvis,” “Elvis in Hollywood,” and “Vegas Elvis” probably aren’t as big as they may appear – but he adapted and grew.

    Of course NON of the above were “child stars” – Ms Swift was 16 years old when she released her first album – but it was HER album.

    … meanwhile Britney Spears jumped from one manufactured image ditch (“squeaky clean child star”) to the other manufactured image ditch (“sex kitten”). THEN she went further into the ditch with a series of public meltdowns that ended with a “conservatorship” that started in 2008. She sold a lot of records and made a lot of money – but also acquired a drug and alcohol problem.

    From the outside looking in Miley Cyrus jumped from one ditch to the other. She broke with her “Disney Child Star” image – but that mostly consisted with her being unable to stay fully clothed.

    Live fast, die young …

    of course “young and famous” often ends in “died before their time” – I don’t think Britney Spears is somehow worse than any of the above celebrities, just making observations about the “way that seems right” but “leads to death”

    My candle burns at both ends;
        It will not last the night;
    But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
        It gives a lovely light!

    “First Fig” Edna St. Vincent Millay

  • radio.iterudio.com – now radio.clancameron.us

    … this was kind of a “web design” exercise/proof of concept

    functionally this is a “web radio” front end – there is an “on/off” button that toggles playing the stream

    I’m told that the Safari web browser might have issues playing the stream – so this is kind of a “beta test” request

    the music is all “public domain” – the pictures of paintings are examples of the “Hudson River School” movement from the mid-19th century – i.e. they aren’t related to the music, just some files I had available

    I’m always quick to point out that I am NOT a graphical designer – e.g. as I was cobbling the front end together it occurred to me that having the “on/off” toggle at the top (and bigger) might be a better option

    SO if you could take a look honest feedback would be appreciated – MOSTLY I’m curious if it works – the pictures should rotate through 10 images, “current song” info should update, there should be music, is the on/off toggle obvious enough …

    https://radio.clancameron.us/

  • “Movies”, “Records”, and me – part 2

    Records
    Notice that the word “movie” is not bound to a specific technology. e.g. “Movies” used to be synonymous with “films” – then the film went away, but the pictures remain …

    The same is true of “records” as a noun. Remember, gool ol’ Mr Edison made the first sound recordings on wax cylinders. So “records” is (probably) traced back to “phonograph recording” in some form or other – BUT “wax cylinders” were obviously fragile …

    I’m guessing the “disk shaped vinyl record” that was common for most of the 20th Century came about for practical commercial reasons – that it hit the sweet spot between “cost of production”, “shipping cost/convenience”, and then “sound quality”

    SO “pressed vinyl disks” became synonymous with “records”
    (pop quiz: how many “grooves” does a “vinyl record” have? A: only 1 continuous “groove” – otherwise the recording would “skip”)

    Tapes
    When “tape recordings” became popular they were referred to by the technology (e.g. 8-track, cassette tapes) PROBABLY for simple marketing reasons.

    “Tapes” were obviously more durable than “vinyl records” – i.e. step on the vinyl record that you threw on the floor of your car and it is probably going to break, the cassette might break, while the 8-track would bruise your foot and twist your ankle.

    HOWEVER – the “sound aficionados” out there would probably argue that “vinyl records” always provided superior “sound quality” to both tape technologies.

    “Cassette tape” probably won the technological fight with “8-track” for the same reason “VHS” beat “Betamax.” i.e. The AVERAGE consumer had the ability to “create” recordings with cassette tapes (the dreaded “mixtape”) and then VHS tapes – which made those particular technologies more attractive to the average consumer.

    btw: it seems like I’ve been hearing about how much money “media piracy” costs the “big multinational conglomerate media companies” my entire life – i.e. “that new technology is gonna kill the industry” is something “chicken little executives” have been saying on a regular basis for years

    Don’t get me wrong – “piracy is bad” – but in general the folks pirating content aren’t gonna buy it in the first place (so they aren’t in the “customer” category). The WORST thing a “media company” can do is make it harder for their paying customers to consume media they have purchased – and we are moving on …

    CDs
    then the “compact disk” (CD) was more durable than cassettes AND held more music AND had a better sound quality – so (for the most part) cassettes are no more.

    Ultimately the problem with CDs is lossy compression during digitization – short version: you end up with a “tinny” sound as opposed to the full spectrum preserved with “vinyl record pressings.”

    Speakers
    I always loved the “marketing speak” behind “Hi-Fi” sound systems (i.e. does anyone sell “lo-fi” systems?).

    The term “high fidelity” in regards to “sound recordings” goes back at least to 1938.

    The fact that the recording was supposed to “sound just as good as live” was the whole point of the famous “RCA dog” logo – oh, and then there was “it is live, or is it memorex” back in 1981.

    BUT what gets overlooked is that the sound is coming out of a set of speakers. it doesn’t matter how “hi-fi” your recording medium may be, if you are playing sound out of low quality speakers.

    Well, that is probably why in 2021 we talk about “sound systems” and not necessarily about individual components.

    Cinema Experience
    The obvious advantages that “the cinema” has is (obviously) the “big screen” as well as “theater quality sound.”

    My memory of seeing “Star Wars” (when there was only 1 “Star Wars” movie) “way back when” in a “first run” theater VIVIDLY includes the opening scene with the Star Destroyer coming in from off screen.

    In a “good sound” theater setup you hear and FEEL (through the “bass rumble“) the vessel before it appears on screen (giving the illusion that it is flying overhead and immersing the “younger me” in the movie)

    Obviously I’m a little harder to impress now than “back then” – but “Avatar” in the theater with the 3D-experience was a similar experience. To be clear, I’m not comparing “Star Wars” and “Avatar” as “motion pictures” but as “cinematic experiences.”

    Silent movies
    Since I’ve kind of stumbled into a study of “public domain silent movies” (I’m going to put together a documentary, so I can say I’ve made a “movie”) – I’ll point out that “silent movies” were always accompanied by live music.

    We have come to expect sound and pictures engineered/designed together to create a “cinema experience.” From a practical point of view – that means that any music soundtrack that is included with a “silent” movie was done “after the fact.”

    Kind of like my editing exercise with Home on the Range

  • User interfaces

    Making a product “easy to use” is never “easy.”

    “Elegant” products are few and far between. Merriam-Webster tells us that “elegant” means “marked by elegance” – which then requires another click for “elegance” and we get “dignified gracefulness or restrained beauty of style”

    An “elegant product” becomes an example of “beautiful simplicity.”

    Under Steve Jobs leadership Apple was known for “striving for elegance.” When he was alive Mr Jobs liked to say that they (i.e. Apple) didn’t do a lot of “product research” – which I believe, BUT we have to distinguish between “product research” as in “asking users what new products they want” and “product testing” as in “testing and improving the user experience with existing products.”

    e.g. Apple did not invent the “mobile music player” but they perfected the “mobile music device” with the iPod. The first couple generations of the iPod become a case study in the “search for elegance.”

    I have had several “iPods” – but I distinctly remember not being able to figure out how to change the volume of an “earlier” release. The product had a “rocker dial” which I assumed if I held down on one side the volume would go up, and if I held down on the other side the volume would go down.

    ANYWAY – It turned out the the volume was controlled by “sliding” and not “rocking” – and once I was shown how it worked it was obvious (and I admit “better”) – so early iPods were beautiful and easy to use, but not “elegant”

    Of course the first step in designing an “elegant” product is that the product does what it is supposed to do (i.e. form still follows function) – this tends to require “high end components”. SO Apple has never sold “cheap” products.

    The number of products that exhibit “pure elegance” is probably zero – i.e. “pure elegance” is (probably) unattainable.

    This becomes an interesting thought experiment: e.g. There are a great number of products that are “easy to use” once you have been shown how to use them. However the number of products that “announce how they work through their design” is very small if not zero.

    Remember that we have to start with a “user” that has no exposure to the product – e.g. if you’ve seen “Demolition Man” (1993) (a “not bad” Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes vehicle) you might remember the “three seashells” joke.

    If you haven’t seen the movie (it is fun, you can probably find it with little effort) – Sylvester Stallone gets brought out of “suspended animation prison” to catch super villain Wesley Snipes – but the plot isn’t important. Mr. Stallone plays the comedic “fish out of water” that doesn’t understand the simplest aspects of “modern civilization” one of which is the “modern” bathroom facilities that consists of “three seashells.”

    The point (if I have one) is that in the movie the “three seashells” are a great example of “un-elegance” (which was used for comedic effect – and no, they never explain how the seashells are used, BUT they make it clear that EVERYONE knows how to use the seashells).

    SO in “modern times” the best we can hope for are products that are obvious to use for those that have experience using similar products.

    The “web design” gold standard has been (some form of) “don’t make the user think” (probably) as long as there have been “web design suggestions.”

    From a “software design” point of view “elegant user interfaces” are also few and far between. “Functional” interfaces are a dime a dozen – but systems that are actually “pleasant to use” are numbered in single digits.

    Combine “functionality” and “ease of use” is never easy BUT if you get it right and have a little bit of luck – you might be the next Google or Facebook …

    This song (“Something” by the Beatles) came to mind as I was composing this post. Beatles fans will recognize this as a “George” song – the song would peak at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1969.

    George Harrison was the youngest of the Beatles – which really doesn’t mean anything in the “big picture” (i.e. it isn’t like the age difference was a big deal – they were all within three years of each other) – but becomes significant when we talk about “song writing development”.

    e.g. three years difference is like the difference between “high school seniors” and “high school sophomores” – fwiw: Mr Harrison admitted that he always “looked up” to John Lennon.

    SO “George Harrison songwriter” had the benefit of seeing two of the all time greats become two of the all time greats (“Lennon and McCartney”) but also developed his own distinct “elegant” style.

    (the disadvantage to being a Beatle for “developing song writer” Mr Harrison was that some of his “early” work ends up being compared to “Lennon and McCartney” unfavorably – not that his early work was “bad” so much as “not as good”)

    “Something” becomes a compact “mature love story” – Mr Harrison was in his late 20’s when he wrote the lyrics, so he is writing about the experience of “falling in love” with the realization that what he is feeling might not last.

    Compare that with the “more mature” view in “What is Life” from George Harrison’s first solo album (1970) – and we see why “George was the spiritual one”