Discussion Post 1
Part 1: Hi my name is Simon I am senior mechanical engineer expected to graduate June of 2020 and have not currently decided what I will do this coming summer. I enjoy almost all music, but I really like Hip-hop, rock and some electronic. Out of those genres, I usually listen to Mac Miller, Wiz Khalifa, Red hot Chili Peppers, Cage the elephant, Hippie Sabotage, and Kygo. My favorite show was probably when I saw Hippie Sabotage at the Palladium in Hollywood.
Email: simon.glezer@du.edu
Part 2:
A: Three key features in an album review as a genre of writing include how well different sounds affect the listener, how the lyrics convey a message, and what are the emotions and feelings brought from the music. These features are important as the reasons for how listeners will interact with music. In Balmer’s there is a good example of describing the melody and sound “Basically a vocal group using rudimentary riffs and instrumentals fuzzed-out guitar, strong emphasis on beat, adherence to 4-4 tempo” and calls the album vulgar, but impressive. In Derogatis’s Courtney Barnette’s album review Derogatis starts right off by describing the emotions felt by this work of art. She says “Dread can yield frantic needling work: deranged guitar a yelping vocal. Yet Barnette’s most defining characteristic is her nonchalance. She sounds gloriously enviably, unbothered even as the circumstances around her openly deteriorate.”. In Power’s review of Daft Punk’s album RAM, there is no description of the lyrics, because daft punk is a band that focuses a lot more on the instrumentals and sounds created like this description “On a purely musical level, RAM defines through these oozy pleasures around sound a prog rock keyboard blending with some guitar boogie”.
B: In the article with Courtney Barnette, we learn that men fear women laughing at them and women fear men killing them, so she sings about how walking in the park alone at night is impossible. She has gone through domestic violence in her life but is still non-challant about it. Knowing this can help listeners understand the metaphors in her lyrics and the punk rock feel of her music.
Part 3: D Smoke, 33 years old, is an Inglewood local born and raised, and was recently featured on Chance the Rapper’s hip hop competition show Rhythm and Flow. D smoke won the competition by creating an amazing music video with star producers, a live performance in a feature with Miguel a famous hip-hop artist, and finally to win Rhythm and Flow with an original track performed live. With the victory, D Smoke was featured on Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist, awarded 250 thousand dollars and better opportunities to create his first album Inglewood High. D Smoke was a good student and was encouraged by his older brothers to do so as his father was incarcerated at a young age (but was released prior to his win on Rhythm and Flow), he has been a Spanish teacher for ten years while creating music.
All the struggles coming from growing up and Inglewood and the overcoming of these struggles are beautifully expressed through D Smoke’s album. D Smoke’s musical talent is undeniable as he demonstrated in Rhythm and Flow that he can play piano, guitar, some drums and produced and wrote the lyrics for almost every song. In Inglewood High, he accompanies his amazing production with Terrence Martin on the saxophone, Sha’leah Nicole and Tommy Sketch on “Carry On”, and Tiffany Gouche who has a beautiful voice on “ain’t you”, a song for the ladies. D Smoke uses guitar looping for most of the melody with different drums and patterns that bounce with the vocals and melody. Inglewood High also displays signs of jazz and reminds me of Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly through his cadence and voice. D Smoke are both are kids who had the will to carry on during the struggles of growing up in Inglewood and can be seen in their lyrics and display of oppression as well as gang violence. One of my favorite lines displaying this struggle is seen in the track Honey Jack “ Systematic oppression, we just servants indentured politicians retire while we work ’til we indentures they kill our black heroes and then just give us one avenger Wakanda forever, my nigga more like pour me a drink, I wonder what kind of liquor”. However, D Smoke can put his own twist on the music through his own struggles and the incorporation of his Spanish talent to his music. A great example of Spanish lyrics can be seen in D Smoke’s Let Migo ‘Un jovencito me paró (Dale) Y me preguntó (Yeah). Si vamos a levantar la’ mano’ como el muchacho el puerco mató Sangre en cada calle. Cada montaña tiene valle. Cada valle puede tener un río rapidito cuando la lluvia cae’ this translated to ‘A young man stopped me and asked. If we’re going to put our hands up like the boy the pig (cop) killed. Blood in each street. Every mountain has a valley. Every valley can have a rapid river when the rain falls.’. Although this translation does not flow in English, in the music video, D Smoke is able to translate the lyrics to rhyme in English and create a smooth flow in Spanish. With his ability to rap in Spanish, D Smoke brings in a whole new audience to his music and potential to grow. D Smoke is the next generation of hip-hop and his album is getting great reviews and fan love. He is bringing a new flow and life to hip-hop and people are loving it.
Simon's Music 