Hip hop is dead

The phrase Hip hop is dead is used now from many artist. They see there competition making it big with songs with no meaning in their lyrics. All they rap about has to do with money, fame, and women.Nas is an enormous believer in this statement. I can not be a hypocrite because as stated in Jeremy's post, I like the artists such as Lil wayne, Drake, and such others who only rap about those topics. The artists such as our guest speaker Billy Drease Williams show you do not have to just rap about those topics, and can be a positive role model while making great music. He is a story teller and a good man, it is a shame that to become overly successful you have to rap about a new dance or how much money you have. Artist's such as Billy Drease Williams are the only artists keeping Hip hop alive.

Mtv over the years

Mtv began in 1981 and played many pop hits, now theres is two main mtv channels and both mostly play reality tv shows. Why do you think this happened? Also how do you think the artist's reacted to this major change? If Mtv went back to playing just music videos, and got rid of the reality tv shows how do you think people would react? As we stated in class there is seperate channels that you have to pay for that play just videos. How long do you believe this will last and still be popular?

Stones vs Beatles

I have listened to both these groups growing up my father is a huge Beatles fan. I am surprised my dad likes The Beatles over The Rolling Stones. As we said the beatles sound was monotone and the same every song, where as the Stones had much more variety in thier music. My dad claims the Stones did more of the hard rock songs, and the Beatles played a pop, pleasant sound such as "I wanna hold your hand." Also he says he liked John Lennon and Paul Mcartney and they had amazing composing skills. George Martin pushed the Beatles to look and sing a certain way, and to have a certain style that he believed America wanted. The Beatles gain alot of credit for being the first band to change over and make it big, but the Stones influenced many artists in the future.

The Rise of Rock and Roll

One thing that I learned this week from class was Black musicians were the first people to start the rise of Rock and Roll, and many white musicians stole there songs. These cover songs would gain all the popularity, and the black musicians would lose most of their credit and fame. Surprisingly to me Elvis was one of these artist, my mom is a huge fan of Elvis and she had no idea he covered hounddog. I always considered Elvis and Bill Haley to be Rock and Roll stars, but after the lecture i see there more on the country side, and the Rock side came from stars such as Big Joe Turner and Chuck Berry. I believe Chuck Berry was the first legit Rock and Roll star of his time uniting blacks and whites together through his music. This was a major breakthrough for black musicians in the later years. Alan Freed was one of these Dj's and concert promoters who began to play black musicians songs and give them the credit they deserved.

If I Could Turn Back Time

Better late than never? (Not at all! I understand I will NOT be receiving credit for this entry, but still!)

I'm not gonna lie... I totally forgot about posting a blog entry. But here I am nonetheless. I was a little bummed that we didn't have class this week! AMS is one of my favorite classes, it helps balance out my other dull classes. I totally registered for this class like a month before school started just to have a back up. I had originally planned to drop this class (before classes started) because I felt like I was taking too many credits. BUT NO. I went the first day and saw Lady Gaga on the first page of the syllabus... I knew it wouldn't be a typical class, so I decided to stick with it. I'M GLAD I DID!

I have enjoyed all of the topics we've covered (even if the text wasn't necessarily my favorite read). I really enjoyed the weekly articles. One that I found the most interesting was that of Rap music. I am a music lover, and whenever I get a chance to learn more about it in any class, I take it! The whole thing with MTV not wanting to play certain music videos was really interesting. It's weird looking at how much MTV, and our society, has evolved!

I apologize for the terribly late blog entry, but this week was kinda odd with not having class and having this due by midnight on Friday. My planner tends to be the last thing I look at on Friday nights, see you in class!

Semester in Review

I believe I'm with the majority of this class in saying they were pleasantly surprised with this course. The broad range of topics relating to America and American culture kept me interested and engaged with class. I especially enjoyed the unit spent discussing vampires and their origins. I feel like the more modern incarnations of vampires continue a trend of straying further and further from their true roots. I feel that this theme of adaptations based on the time period carries through to many other parts of the American Studies field.

Class

This course provided some really excellent information and commentary about society, and the indivial's place within society. The "other" was a very powerful theme that permeated through each concept that we studied. It's important to analyse how our ideological foundations have formed and changed as time has passed; and this course provided that analysis. The knowledge gained from this class will stay with me, and assist me in my other studies.