Football and Music

I remember back when I played football in high school. Here are some pictures to laugh at:

Football is a funny sport because of how crazy guys get and how much music is involved. I remember sitting in the locker room before games and getting so pumped up listening to music. One song we used to always listen to is The Kill by a band called 30 Seconds to Mars. We used to get so pumped up.

I was looking around on the internet and came across a highlight video for the Florida Gators 2008 football season. The video is a combination of pictures and film with music playing in the background. The video and pictures are nice but the music adds a nice effect. It has a good beat that would get you fired up and ready to hit someone.

It Leaked

People are always so eager to hear the new music an artist has coming out and these days it's easy do that before the album release date. There are many websites such as It Leaked, that are dedicated to getting the music to the public before the album is even available. The main problem in music used to be the illegal pirating of music, but now this is happening before the album is even available to buy. If I were an artist this would really bother me. Here is hip-hop artist Keri Hilson on the leaking of music:

My Love

So it's been almost a year now since I fell in love with Brooke Fraser. Her first two albums "What to Do With Daylight" and "Albertine" have gone 13 x platinum in her home country, New Zealand. According to her website, "she makes the kind of music that sounds like a pop marshmallow has dropped into a folk hot chocolate and become a warm, spicy chocolatey broth." I was first introduced to her through the music of Hillsong United, a worship band I have previously blogged about. Here is a music video of Brooke singing "Lord of Lords." It's a video of her singing the song, but the video has been taken from a number of cameras and the film has been combined for different angles and images.

We Are Called To Be Different

This is a video from the band Philmont. I was recently told about this band and when I looked for them on YouTube I found a music video of one of their songs called "The Difference." It's about how if we are really Christians then there should be a difference in how we're living from the rest of the world. We are not supposed to blend in with culture but to be new creations living like Jesus. Everything Jesus did was in love, out of obedience to God, and this defied a lot of cultural barriers. Jesus looked really different.

This video is really neat because they pause parts of it throughout the video while other parts are still going. It starts out with everyone frozen except for the lead sings and then one by one each of them starts playing again. It's a really cool effect.

Poker Face

One of secular music's new sensations is Lady Gaga. This 23 year old came to fame recently through her songs "Just Dance" and "Poker Face." Although these are not the real music video's of Gaga, they allow you go listen to the songs. She is known for her weird music and videos and I don't really like it at all. The real music video for "Poker Face" is really inappropriate, however, there is a version of it that I do enjoy. Colleen Ballinger is a Broadway singer that does funny video parody's on YouTube. Here is a serious video of her singing a song called "Take Me Or Leave Me." She is talented singer, but she is better know for her role as Miranda. She has a channel on YouTube called Miranda Sings. Here is a video of her performing "Poker Face." She has taken several films of herself in different outfits and areas and then taken them and put them all together to make a "music video." Enjoy!

Music Sets the Mood

In Douglas Menuez's video "Heaven, Earth, Tequila: Un Viaje al Corazón de México," he strives to portray the Mexican culture. The focus of this video is not music but it reveals the power of music. The song that plays during the video, "Blue Agave" by Douglas Lora Las Casas, sets the mood because it is a spanish guitar. The pictures are inspiring themselves but when you add music to it makes it more dramatic. Also, the music is specific to the culture; it makes sense to have this style of music playing for a video about Mexico. When it comes to the media, music plays a very important role. Imagine the video without the music and I don't believe the effect would be as grand.

Kanye is Dumb

So everyone has probably heard of what happened at the MTV's Video Music Awards this year but I feel that I need to talk about it as well. Taylor Swift, who happens to be a country singer, won her first VMA at age 18 for the Best Female Video of the year for her song "You Belong With Me." Although there is no video with great editing and cool features, there is footage of Kanye West's reaction:

MTV Shows

So to be totally honest, I just watched Taylor's video of "You Belong With Me" and it made me really happy and it made me smile. Does that make me less of a man, I think not. However, what Kanye West did is uncalled for and heartless, and for that, he is less of a man.

Here is a really cool commercial promoting Rockband's latest edition of the game for XBOX, Playstation, and a number or other video game consuls. This commercial features The Beatles because the new edition of the game is all about The Beatles. You can play their songs from when the first started to some of their last ones. This video is really cool because it is based off of The Beatles most famous album cover "Abbey Road." What's neat is that although it is based off of a picture it seems that there is real footage of The Beatles, possibly from other live footage, and also other real people. It's an amazing combination of film. Check it out.

"Mess of Me"

Switchfoot is a main stream band with a strong Christian influence. They were thrown into the public eye when one of their songs "Only Hope" was sang by Mandy Moore in the movie A Walk to Remember. They are a very talented group of guys led by Jon Foreman. Below is Switchfoot's new single and their new music video. What they have done is taken all videos from their tour and put them together to create one video. Sometimes the video matches what music is doing and other times it is just random footage. Throughout the course of the video the speed up the footage and also slow it down producing a very cool effect.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

"Twitter Will Kill You"

David Crowder* Band is the worship band that had the most effect on me in high school. My iTunes library(which is arguably one of the greatest tools for downloading music) contains 79 songs by Crowder. While writing their newest project, Church Music, they have created what they call a "Rockumentary" where they make funny videos and place them on their YouTube channel. Since Twitter was such a hot topic in our class discussions I thought it was appropriate to share the David Crowder* Band's video called "Twitter Will Kill You," which ironically has the most views of all their videos. Yes, the video is funny, but it has nearly 100,000 views and the second most viewed video has just under 30,000 views. The video has nearly nothing to do with the new album that debuts soon, but is just a funny video submerged in pop culture. It's interesting how these artists are so connected to culture and how they would rather portray that than their new music. Maybe it's less about the music and more about how you present yourself.

An Unexpected Journey

One of my favorite worship bands is Hillsong United. There home church, Hillsong, is located in Sydney, Australia. The first video clip on Hillsong United's homepage, titled "W.A.I.T.T.," is about their unexpected journey around the world. They started out just playing worship music for fun, and now they travel the world and witness all kinds of poverty. One of the best lines of this three minute video is "if what's happening within those four walls is having no effect on those streets we travel to get there then maybe we're missing the point." The church is called to love through actions.

Welcome

Hello to all!

I'm excited and a little worried about my blog. I've been seriously thinking about a topic and I believe that I will blog on music. It will range from what's going on with specific artists, like the David Crowder Band, a leader in contemporary christian music, or things like the illegal downloading of music on websites like It Leaked. I believe this will be fun and interesting and I invite you read my blog and enjoy!

Kyle