Aidan Parr
The blog of a student journo - random musings/diary entries, reviews, articles and whatever else comes to mind…
Archive for December, 2009
December 25, 2009 at 1:48 am · Filed under Uncategorized
So I’m sitting at 01:27 on Christmas Day morning, looking through all the Celebrity Playlists on the iTunes store, and I figured I’d do my own. So these are my top tunes of the year - bear in mind, they’re not all songs that came from this year, just the ones that meant something to me!
Jay-Z / Empire State of Mind: I could pick a fair few of his songs, but this is the one that really introduced him to me, and the one that I love the most - mostly because New York is somewhere I really wanna go in the future.
The Who/ Baba O’Reilly: This was my opening song of this year’s Radio Sonar show, ‘Classics on Sonar’. Crazy piano playing at the beginning made it the perfect introduction!
Arctic Monkeys/ Secret Door: My favourite song off their latest album ‘Humbug’. Its got a haunting melody to it that very nearly reduced me to tears one early morning after the stresses of essaying.
Journey/ Don’t Stop Believing: There are many songs that could fill this slot, but this is the tune that reminds me of epic reflex times. It is THE place to be in Soton.
Spandau Ballet/ Gold: They got back together!! One of THE defining bands of the 80s reformed and released a new album. Gold is a classic and will forever be one of my all time favourite songs!
Lady gaga/ Pokerface: I must stress that it is the acoustic version I like. That kinda pop music isn’t my usual cup of tea, but she does have great talent, and an amazing voice when she sings acoustically.
Stevie Wonder/ Superstitious: Epic tune, found it on my Motown compilation album. It really makes you wanna dance. Played it on my show a few times.
Robbie Williams/ You Know Me: Its probably not cool to like him anymore (unless you are a 30 year old woman!) but Robbie’s comeback album was a hit - and this was the best song on there!
Tinchy Stryder/ Number 1: It was my tune of the summer, I loved it! ‘Nuff said!
There you have it, my 9 songs of 2009. Of course, there were loads of others, but I had to keep it to a respectable amount! I’ve already got a few albums to check out when the new year (and funds) come my way. Until then, I will revel in the best of 2009. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
December 16, 2009 at 4:23 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Ok, I won’t lie to you, I only bought this album to see what all the hype was about. I’d never really been a big Jay-Z fan, infact, I’d have struggled to name three of his songs. Yet this album has opened doors to me.
This album has belatedly introduced me to one of the biggest and best hip-hop/rap artists of all time.
Upon released The Blueprint 3 - named after Jay-Z’s most successful studio album - was surrounded by hype. It was arguably the most awaited album of 2009, and rightly so. After his controversial appearance at Glastonbury 2008, his high profile relationship with pop sensation Beyoncé, work with the Pussycat Dolls and Rihanna, Jay Z was THE man of hip hop. This is the guy that the likes of Kanye West looked up to. And I knew nothing about him.
The critics were not unkind to the release, many of the singles (especially Empire State of Mind) loved both by the critics and by the public, yet many seemed underwhelmed by the entire package. Killian Fox, of the Obeserver states: ”His spectacular career arc might bear out some of these claims but, while an improvement on the last two albums, this is no Warhol masterpiece.”
This makes reference to his self styled ‘Saviour of Hip Hop’ slant, with songs such as D.O.A. (Death of Autotune) admonishing the current generation of rappers and producers, telling them: “You niggas singin too much, Get back to rap you T-Pain’n too much”. Alongside this is boast upon boast of his musical talent (”I crush Elvis in his blue suede shoes”) and his power and influence (he’s a ”small part of the reason the president is black”). Yet surely this is deserved self praise? What other rapper is as rich as him, as powerful as him, as successful as him?
Sure, this is a boastful, self congratulatory album. And no, it probably isn’t his best work. But for me, this is what hip-hop is all about. To me this album is perfect.
December 3, 2009 at 2:16 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Ok, so I am blogging for the first time in forever on the night that I was setting aside for essay fun.
I am currently embarking on an essay about global journalism, well, that’s what I’m telling people. In reality I am surfing the net (does anybody ever say that any more?) looking at advancements in web based media.
Recently I discovered a website called ReadWriteWeb, and made a contact called Marshall Kirkpatrick. Through conversation and reading the site I am getting more and more excited about various bits of media and social networking that are coming along every day!
We all know about blogging - usually only one person with their own blog, or in the case of the guardian, a group of people blogging together - but with RWW you get an international group of people bloggong for a common cause, a real step forward in the search of global journalism.
I’m also getting excited about going to the next SRAcon at Nottingham Trent uni - if its anything like the last one we will have some fun times, and might learn something too.
Anywho, flying visit for now, must get back to the essay!!!!!!!!!