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[wierd]

And yet, that is what people apparently WANT.

(As evidenced by the fact that it its what is mainstream.)

I think that is what the real problem is.  People don't want good, new, or original. They want familair, they want what reinforces their worldviews, and what makes them feel comfortable and safe.

In my opinion, that is what is behind 90% of the worlds social and political problems.

[scrdest]

And yet, that is what people apparently WANT.

(As evidenced by the fact that it its what is mainstream.)

I think that is what the real problem is.  People don't want good, new, or original. They want familair, they want what reinforces their worldviews, and what makes them feel comfortable and safe.

In my opinion, that is what is behind 90% of the worlds social and political problems.

It's mostly 'familiar'. You could probably make a black metal song popular on a mainstream radio if you would pay the radios to play it sandwiched between two popular songs ad nauseam.

[scrdest]

Music tends to be fantasies straight from the hearts (and loins) or star-eyed lovers or hardedge thugs.

Clearly you're not listening to enough good music.

And if we're talking about pop, those aren't even fantasies anymore, fantasies imply a degree of originality - those are cliches by now, just recycled over and over, and no wonder since three quarters of the singers uses a professional songwriter. Singular fully intended.

I seem to recall that a ridiculous percent of mainstream pop are written by a single person. And all of those are following pretty much one or two themes and chord progressions so formulaic I literally could write the melody for any of these given a key in five minutes.

Four-chord songs, you know it. I don't listen to that rot, frankly- I was making sweeping generalizations of mainstream music and media, which, granted, probably isn't healthy for the formation and communication of general ideas, but eh. I'll agree that I'm not listening to enough good music, but that's because most of my musical material is at home and I've exhausted my digital library during these two weeks away. Recently, it's been Chick Corea and variants, the soundtrack to .hack 2/3 (I think), and Depeche Mode. The last one definitely toes the oversexed pop line, but they've been a favorite of mine for years.

The single songwriter thing is news to me, though- I can believe that most are getting their drivel from one source. Who's this fellow?

Damn, I wish I remembered, and I didn't even check for a reliable source when I read it when I did, so don't quote me on this.

[MagmaMcFry]

So I joined Google+ today, and boy is it infuriating. The layout is confusing as shit, no I don't want to see all your fucking recommendations, please stop putting tips all over my screen, for the twentieth time I don't want to take a tour of this feature, I've found four separate settings menus and I still haven't found the setting I'm looking for, and put that ad back where it came from or so help me. Arghrg.

[Vector]

So I joined Google+ today, and boy is it infuriating. The layout is confusing as shit, no I don't want to see all your fucking recommendations, please stop putting tips all over my screen, for the twentieth time I don't want to take a tour of this feature, I've found four separate settings menus and I still haven't found the setting I'm looking for, and put that ad back where it came from or so help me. Arghrg.

Yeah.  I'm currently shopping for phones, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with the one that has the most user-friendly website out of sheer spite.

[Flying Dice]

Never forget that Google is evil.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

It's mostly 'familiar'. You could probably make a black metal song popular on a mainstream radio if you would pay the radios to play it sandwiched between two popular songs ad nauseam.

You remind me of the radio my bus driver listened to when he was taking us to and from school.

You could hear the same song FOUR TIMES in two 15-20 minute trips.

I got myself an MP3 player after that, and once I finished school, it broke, as if it knew its job was over.

Littlefoot all crying over your MP3 player. Petri looks up and, his voice cracking, says "Is ... is it gonna be ok?". The triceratops girl frowns. "Nope nope nope."

Also, re: songs, I'm sure everyone has seen the XKCD on x-mas carols. I think it extends to all music. You put on a "rock" station in my area and you're not gonna hear anything newer than 1990.

[Putnam]

http://bgr.com/2014/01/14/net-neutrality-court-ruling/

[Tellemurius]

http://bgr.com/2014/01/14/net-neutrality-court-ruling/

Welp, i'll expect the reaming letters from comcast sooner or later.

[nenjin]

-snip-

What class was this?  I need to find where this is offered and send it to all of my relatives/close friends/random people on the street.

It WAS a class in the Print Journalism Major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. There used to be three majors: Print, Broadcast and Advertising. The year I graduated they rolled all three majors into one major, so every journalism student now gets an equal helping of broadcast, advertising and (belatedly) print journalism.

Training the next generation of "journalists" to sit around reading Twitter and Facebook for their ledes, I suppose. It was honestly the shift from print to "all things digital" that really convinced me not to pursue my major after college. Teachers talked a good game about the principles of sound reporting, solid ethics.....in the same breath they were telling you about the death of print and the move to journalists being everything: reporters, writers, graphic designers and TV personalities. "You never know when in the course of a story you're going to be required to be on TV. So you'd better know how to deliver the news on TV." Blech.

It was one of the saddest experiences ever to listen to these veterans of the industry for over 30 years lamely tell me that their way of doing things was dying and that everyone had to change or find a new job. Every industry goes through that, but I wonder if every industry also watches the standards that defined it eroded by new business realities. Probably, I suppose.

[Lagslayer]

It's mostly 'familiar'. You could probably make a black metal song popular on a mainstream radio if you would pay the radios to play it sandwiched between two popular songs ad nauseam.

You remind me of the radio my bus driver listened to when he was taking us to and from school.

You could hear the same song FOUR TIMES in two 15-20 minute trips.

I got myself an MP3 player after that, and once I finished school, it broke, as if it knew its job was over.

Reminds me of my bus driver. Always played the same rap station, and that station always, always played the same songs at the same time of day.

You put on a "rock" station in my area and you're not gonna hear anything newer than 1990.

In my area, there are like 3 rock stations. One which plays just about anything, but half of it really sucks. One which plays mostly new stuff, which mostly sucks. The last one is a classic rock station that recently started playing 90's stuff.

Seriously, though, music in general has seen a steady decline in the number of timbres, while simultaneously getting louder (consequently, reducing the quality of each note).

Science has, once and for all, proven that new music sucks.

[GiglameshDespair]

Well, someone's always saying something that can be made into a scandal on them. What how we the people cope if we weren't bombarded with how so-or-so is a racist/sexist/homophobe/terrible person because they said something construable as something bad on the internet?

I saw a news article about how some trolls said some horrible things online, but as they were in a different country nothing could be done, and I thought how is that news? What new things have we learnt from this? And that was on the BBC, which used to be pretty decent to be honest.

It's 24 hour news: everything must be rehashed over and over, the slightest things must become terrible controversies, important things are ignored because they aren't eyecatching enough, and everything's dropped to make room before you ever really hear the conclusion.

[nenjin]

I can't tell if he was being serious or not, but I watching Colbert last night and he said "If you let your guest talk for more than 7 seconds, you've clearly lost control of the program and need to get it back on track, or you'll lose your audience."

While that's somewhat hyperbole, part of it is not. If you've ever watched either a CNN roundtable or Fox & Friends.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/tech/beats-headphones-audio-market/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5

I like how CNN has basically become a marketing shill for the iPhone and other like products. Every day there is at least one "story" about a product that, if you read between the lines, comes straight out of a marketing press release.

And seriously, Beats changed the industry? Were none of these people alive in the late 80s and 90s when people used stereo headphones? All they've done is make a eye-gouging plastic shell for it and put it on some celebrities. There's nothing new or revolutionary about full-size headphones. "Oh but they've increased the market for quality headphones." No, they capitalized on the market and are now trying to convince every schmuck with an MP3 player that big headphones are cool again.

Then again, I'm sure there's a % of CNN's staff that believes head phones started with earbuds.

If tomorrow the Atlantic ocean swallowed the eastern seaboard, I'd consider the biggest perk that it took CNN off the map. Forget their politics. They're arguably as bad as Fox now for what they're doing to actual journalism.

Newspapers have always published PR releases on slow news days and/or for money. Frequently without editing.

[nenjin]

It was bad practice then, but at least there was a printer involved. With a digital CMS, you can shovel an unedited press release into the eyes of millions in seconds. That's demonstrably worse to me.