Cultural Differences at Rock Shows

In the past two weeks, Christian and I saw one of my all-time favorite bands, OK Go, in Hong Kong and Shanghai.  Seeing them twice in a week made me think about why I sometimes go see bands multiple times on one tour -- even if the setlist is the same, each show is unique because of the crowd.  With this in mind, I thought about the fact that I've been to shows in multiple countries -- the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and now this year, South Korea, Hong Kong, and mainland China (I count HK as being separate from the mainland).  So having seen OK Go in four completely different places (the US, Germany, HK, and China), here's a comparison of seeing shows in those places.

OK Go in Shanghai

Spotify vs. Taylor Swift vs. The Listener

I know that recently I've been posting a lot about moving to Shanghai, but with the news going on regarding Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify, I needed to throw my two cents into the conversation and go back to talking about pop culture.  So bear with me.

In case you're living under a rock (or in my case, living in China and a bit far removed from western pop culture news), Taylor Swift released her fifth album this week, 1989.  However, the album isn't on Spotify; in fact, she pulled her entire catalog from the streaming service except for one song.  She explained:

"In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently."

Even so, her album is setting records, her decision to keep her music off Spotify is being intensely debated, and basically, you can't escape Taylor Swift in the media.

As a free Spotify user, I'm torn.  I don't actually listen to Taylor Swift, and, wanting to know what the hype was about, I checked out the first single off 1989, "Shake It Off."  (I keep thinking it should be "Take It Off," but then I remember that was from The Donnas.)  Because I can't listen to it on Spotify, I decided to turn to Vevo and watch her music video, which I happily discovered was directed by Mark Romanek:

Aging rock stars and how it can be a bit sexist

On Wednesday, I went to see Blondie in Cologne.  I'm not a huge Blondie fan, but big enough that I was really excited to hear hits like "Heart of Glass," "Atomic," and "One Way or Another."  To be clear, I don't actually follow Blondie at all; I actually just listen to the music and don't look out for them in the media.  And this is probably what my problem was because when Debbie Harry came out on stage, I thought to myself, "Whoa, Debbie Harry is old!"

Before you tell me I'm a raging idiot and of course Debbie Harry is old, let me clarify why this came to me as a surprise.  Debbie Harry's face is so tightly bound to Blondie's image that when the band was getting popular back in the day, everyone actually thought Debbie Harry's name was Blondie (it wasn't, and there was a campaign from the band with buttons that said, "Blondie is a group.") Everyone knows what Debbie Harry looked like in the 70s because she graces t-shirts and other items as modern vintage.  At the concert, they were also selling t-shirts with her face on it, but it was an image from the 70s, not from now.  Even if I google "Debbie Harry Rolling Stone," the search results show a German cover from July 2011.  And guess what?  It's not Debbie Harry as how she currently looks, but what she looked like 40 years ago:

Sure, the lead article is, "35 Years of Punk," along with "The Myth of Debbie Harry - Meeting with the Punk-Pop Goddess" and "Blondie - The New Album."  Although two out of the three articles deal with Debbie Harry now, Rolling Stone chose to feature her image from the 70s.  It's only when you look inside that you see what she currently looks like.

A Visit to Abbey Road Studios - The Sound of Abbey Road

Back at the beginning of May, I had planned a trip to London.  While talking to a friend, they asked if I was going to do anything Beatles-related.  I asked myself if perhaps Abbey Road Studios had changed its policy of no tours, so I checked their website.  To my surprise and delight, there just happened to be a talk in Studio Two the weekend I would be there, "The Sound of Abbey Road."  I immediately ordered my ticket, wondering if I should really drop the hefty £90 (114€/$150 USD) price to get in.  Friends and family thought I was nuts.  Some understood why I spent the money, others didn't.

Why did I even have my doubts?

Upon getting to the studios, I was out of breath from running through St. John's Wood to get there on time.  The guys up front assured me I was on time and that the talk hadn't begun.  As directed, I walked through a hall and down a staircase decorated with various black and white images of musical legends recording in Abbey Road -- from The Beatles to David Bowie to Oasis.  At the bottom, I made a right and entered the legendary Studio Two.

The inevitable post about Game of Thrones

As much as I consider myself a pop culture fanatic, I also get into TV shows considerably later than everyone else.  Consider that I got into Lost, How I Met Your Mother, and Mad Men after their second seasons had already aired and finished on TV.  And I'll admit it -- I have never seen an episode of Breaking Bad or Downtown Abbey, watched only two episodes of The Walking Dead (which I liked), and only started watching 30 Rock in earnest this year, which is a shame because it is simply hilarious.

And then there's Game of Thrones.  

I only read the books because my husband had gone through all of them and had only praise.  It took me a really long time to get through the books that are out.  My first impression was not that enthusiastic and after reading the fifth book, I still haven't warmed to the series.

As for the show, I had watched a few episodes and again, was not super excited to watch it.  In fact, I kept having the tendency of falling asleep.  "But how?!" you scream.  It took me a really long to stop falling asleep while watching The Godfather and realize how brilliant of a film that is, so maybe this the same.

However, I'm forcing myself to watch this season because I've already read the books.  More importantly, it's for the water cooler talk.  God, I can't escape it.  Even though season four is only two episodes in, it's everywhere.  I can't be the annoying person that asks, "So, did that happen in the latest episode?  Oh, did I just spoil something?  Uh, sorry."  Because that's what will inevitably happen and has happened for the past two weeks.  True, I could just read the reviews for experts on The AV Club and that would save me the hour of watching the show, but then I feel like I'm raining on everyone's parade.

(Stop reading here if you don't want to read any spoilers.  I mean it.  I'm bringing in stuff from the books.)

The series finale of HIMYM: It's not about the mother, it's about the how

If you know me, you'll know that I watch only two shows on a regular basis -- How I Met Your Mother and Mad Men.  Both of these shows are ending this year and the expectations for both are incredibly high.  The series finale of How I Met Your Mother aired last week on March 31.  I didn't have time to watch it until Friday, so I might be slightly behind on jumping on the commentary bandwagon.  I actively avoided Twitter (we know how much that can spoil stuff for me), but unfortunately following the show on Google+ made me want to tear my hair out with this (I mean, seriously, there's so little stuff on Google+, who would've thought it would spoil a bunch):

Lady Gaga is totally rock & roll.

Lady Gaga just announced her European tour dates for the fall this year. I asked a lot of different people if they want to come with me, and the general reaction I get when I posed this question was raised eyebrows.  Apparently I don't come off as a Lady Gaga fan because I am definitely a rock fan, not pop.   Truth be told, I only really became a fan after studying her closely for my master's thesis on music videos.  (Have you seen the videos for "Paparazzi" and "Telephone" in succession?  No?  Do it.)  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Lady Gaga actually could fall under the umbrella of "rock and roll," which is why I like her so much.

Happy 2014! Remember 1994?

Well, it's been quite awhile (again) since I've written, but I constantly think to myself, "Ooh, that'd make a good blog entry."  And then I just never get around to it.  For example, I've been wanting to write about Pharrell Williams' 24-hour music video, "Happy."  Yes, you read that correctly, a 24-hour music video, which is probably only possible thanks to the internet.  No, I haven't watched all 24 hours of it.  Considering that I'm all about music videos and the internet and I wrote my master's thesis about the topic, this is really up my alley.  However, I will have to put that aside for another day because I wanted to talk about the fact that it's 2014.

What's so special about 2014?  Well, it's not so much 2014 that's special, but pretty much one of my first thoughts in the new year was, "Holy crap, 1994 was 20 years ago."  For me, I think 1994 is the year that I became pop culturally aware.  Having two older sisters, I had always just sort of absorbed what they liked, but I began to branch out on my own.