Because It's Friday That's Why

Music Is Kind of a Disgrace Now

They just don't make music like they used to. I've never realized the truth to these words until recently, because I feel like we've definitely entered into a very dry spell for music. But... if you can't beat 'em, you should join 'em. So here's my celebration of songs I secretly (not so secretly) love, but are kind of a disgrace to this whole "music-making" bizness.

• Carry Out-- Justin Timberlake and Timbaland: Although it pains me to ever write anything awful about these two, especially in what should be the holy grail of booty-shakin' music, I have to say that this one is pretty bad.
• Quote that puts them on the map?"Baby, you lookin' fine, I'll have you open all night like you IHOP" and "You lookin' good (baby, butt stays heavenly) I'm pretty sure you got your own recipe, so pick it up pick it up, yeah I like you, I just can't get enough I gotta drive through. So it's me you, you me, me you, all night, have it your way, foreplay-- before I feed your appetite."

   

• T.H.E.-- Will.I.Am feat. Jennifer Lopez: T.H.E (The Hardest Ever): I love Will.I.Am, particularly his Brazilian Samba album, but this just hurts me. He also runs around in a space suit, which is... kind of weird
• Offending quote? "Will he survive? Never deceased, I don’t think I’m ever gonna rest in peace, Imma kill the game, leave the rest in pieces, Now everybody want my recipe, Tell a jealous chicken I don't know what the beef is, I'm just making money for my grankids' nieces, Imma work hard, that's my thesis, This beat is a shit, feces"

 

•  Mmm-Hmm-- Austin Mahone feat. Pitbull: Anyone who knows me knows I love Pitbull.
• Offending quote? The entire chorus *sigh*. "When I saw her, walkin' down the street, she looked so fine, I just had to speak, I asked her name, but she turned away, as she walked all I could say was... mmm mmm yeah yeah, mmm mmm yeah yeah, all i could say was, mmm mmm yeah yeah, mmm mmm yeah"

•  OMG (If I Was You)-- Far East Movement feat. Snoop Dogg: I also love the FEM, especially since their 'Round, 'Round days, but... these two amazing things (FEM with Snoop Dogg) was supposed to be awesome, and it's just more awesomely terrible pickup lines
• Offending quote? " You ain't a dime, you a silver dolla, it'd be a crime, if I didn't holla!"

• Top of the World-- The Cataracs: I was actually surprised that The Cataracts didn't make more of a splash, because they are churning out some pretty awesome dance music, but that doesn't stop them from having some awesomely bad pick up lines in their music too...
• Offending quote? "Your daddy must have been a drug dealer (why) cause you dope, you the Bonny to my Clyde, Juliet and Romeo"

•  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (Turn Around)-- Flo Rida: I really wanted to like this one, especially since it takes place in Brazil, which holds a special place in my heart.
• Offending quote? "Gotta body like this your world, make your booty go stupid gurrl"

Ever Tried Explaining a Kanye West Music Video to Someone?

 

It's impossible. You sound crazy. But here's why Kanye West does follow the classical arc of the hero as defined by Greek mythology:

Kanye West, born as Kanye Omari West in 1977, is a Chicagoan born and raised. First known for breaking on the scene as a producer under Roc-A-Fella Records, he achieved early recognition for his work on Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint” (released in 2001) because of his unique production style of using high pitched vocal samples from soul, be-bop, motown and early rock songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. Some attribute this style to his family roots in Motown. Regardless, Kanye later expanded his musical influences to include R&B, electronica, folk, alternative, industrial and synth pop into his repertoire to broaden his appeal and further experiment and challenge the confines of musical genre. Raised as a young man in a middle-class household in Chicago, IL, many of Kanye’s musical content has been influenced by the trials and tribulations of what could be seen as an “everyday hero” that has been adapted to the modern day.

Particularly, one can see that West has transcribed classical, Greek-inspired storylines into his works and has reinterpreted them to be fitting for the world that he relates to. Born from classical mythology and made popular by Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth” pattern, a “Hero’s Journey” is typically characterized by a hero that ventures forth from the world of the common day where fabulous forces are encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero then comes back from this adventure changed.  Although West started with a focus on societal and cultural issues in “Workout Plan” and media expectations as seen in “Jesus Walks” in his first CD “College Drop Out” (2004). In his second CD (“Late Registration” in 2005) , Kanye the protagonist hides little as he continues to take on larger challenges, true to his self-adopted hero image by taking on such topics as the blood diamond industry in “Diamonds from Sierra Leone”. Additionally, a turning point is reached as he begins to depart from the social commentary and moved toward the self-inflationary attitude that we know now through “Gold Digger”.

Kanye’s challenges mounted in 2007 with the death of his mother, Donda West. Critics believe that this marked a turning point in his career when he became increasingly self-reflective and released his third album. Largely upbeat, his third album contained a more personal perspective through his Chicago-homage in “Homecoming” and his partnership with Daft Punk to produce “Stronger” but also more surrealistic, satirical visions such as in “Good Morning”, where he partnered with renowned Japanese anime illustrators to play an animated protagonist bear. His fourth album, “808s and Heartbreak” featured such songs as “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless”, which began to focus more on his persecution as an artist, but also further pushed the boundaries of his traditional producer stylings as he struggled to battle the mounting criticism against his music.

His pinnacle of surrealistic adaptations occurred in “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, his fifth album. In MBDTF, Kanye sought to have all of his songs intertwined with one continuous storyline with such standout hits such as “Dark Fantasy”, “Runaway”, “Power”  and “All of the Lights” (which was banned in some countries due to their risk of causing epileptic seizures). “Dark Fantasy” starts the narrative with Kanye saving an angel, whereas “Runaway” features Kanye orchestrating an elaborate dinner to entertain an angel with professional ballerinas. “Power” frames Kanye as (literally) a mythological hero whereas “All of the Lights” offers a throwback to his earlier Chicago-based days which juxtaposes a 80s-inspired light show with the black and white biopic of a little girl facing her own challenges growing up in the Southside projects of Chicago. Within this album, Kanye West switches from battling societal issues to literally battling people to save his angel. (To view the full video that was produced for “Runaway”, featuring supermodel Selita Ebanks, click here. It involves Kanye saving an angel, throwing a dinner party in an airplane hangar, ballerinas interpretatively dancing to rap, the angel falling into depression and Kanye West having sex with her and then the angel going back to heaven.)

Kanye west has just recently released his “Watch the Throne”, a collaboration with Jay-Z. In his most recent album, Kanye positions himself as a hero returned through such hits as “No Church in the Wild” and “Otis”. In “No Church in the Wild”, Kanye West focuses on a scene of urban protest complete with racist overtones where a masked horseman (literally) stands up for the common man. Otis returns to Kanye’s Motown roots with Jay Z and Kanye West together destroying a Maybach and recreating it as a militaristic car with the backdrop of “Try a Little Tenderness” by Otis Redding remixed in the background. Regardless of whether Kanye West really is the mythological Greek hero that he wants so desperately to be, if the story is to be believed, “Watch the Throne” completes the arc of his development as a musician.

PIMCO Has Become A Lot Like High School

 

Okay. Full transparency time. For a time in my naive life at business school, I thought that I wanted to go into investment management. The investment management industry is a hard industry to get into-- its an increasingly shrinking and consolidating industry (the pie is getting smaller, but there's more people that want a piece), it's filled with ridiculously intelligent people, it will only fill its ranks with what it believes are the smartest people and having a long-lived career in this industry is possible, but it takes a very specific type of person.

Specifically within fixed-income funds (or funds that are known to do fixed-income, as most firms now argue that they offer a variety of products) the game is getting harder because rising rates make people move away from bonds because the returns aren't as good. One of the biggest fixed income funds out there is PIMCO, who I have a huge amount of respect for and even got the chance to visit once. PIMCO has made waves most recently because their CEO and co-CIO (didn't know that was a thing, did ya? I didn't either.), Mohammad El-Erian has decided to step down. 

For a long while now, El-Erian and Bill Gross, another major figurehead within the PIMCO family, have steered the company together. In my mind, El-Erian was always the warm, fuzzy guy-- quick to dole out smiles, answer questions and shake hands, whereas Gross was always a little more serious-- still smiling and welcoming (at least when I saw him) but definitely more reserved than his counterpart. Together, they were like the odd couple of the fixed income financial market, but somehow it worked. They balanced each other out, and together they formed (what I thought) was a good team. Recently, however, amid news that El-Erian was leaving, there have been reports of a not-so-happy marriage, where Gross has been reported saying (basically) "I have an awesome track record, what do you have?" and El-Erian informing him that (verbatim) "I'm tired of cleaning up your shit."El-Erian's farewell letter is one of the most thoughtful I have ever read (take note-- not on an iPad) and seems like it could be a veiled attempt at stressing that PIMCO should be a "we" and "you" culture, whereas under Gross it was more of an "I" culture. 

Regardless, it hits me with a twinge of disappointment that the firm that I had so much respect for has now been reduced to little more than high school-like gossip in the papers. Now that the media smells the blood, they have no shame in publishing things outlining the hearsay of what happened within the firm. They've painted Gross as the snobby, popular girl who mercilessly bullied El-Erian away. Maybe Gross didn't like people making eye contact with him, maybe he did like the floor to be quiet (I can confirm that it was a quieter floor than others I have been on), but calling for Bill Gross to step down seems like a mistake. There is an argument that conservative fixed income investors don't want an old man (that has the view that he is right and everyone else is wrong) taking care of all their money, but Bill Gross is an institution that is intimately intertwined in PIMCO. Losing him, especially after losing El-Erian could leave investors even more wary because both of sources of guidance within the firm would be gone. Un-moored, investors would begin to question whether PIMCO could still consistently provide the returns they have previously promised, and even more outflow could be expected (after a summer of record outflows). No, if I were PIMCO, I would stand strong. Acknowledge the stepping down of El-Erian, recommit to their clients and begin to rebuild. To do otherwise would be like throwing good money after bad.

 

Top 3 Reasons Why I Think Our Society Has Reached Its Peak

 

1. We have been actively searching for the "God particle" and we also have the appropriate expectations that we are probably overhyping this whole thing
2. We actively tried to deport Justin Bieber from the US back to Canada
3. And this app is a real thing. Want to wake up to the smell and sounds of bacon without actually getting up and making bacon or having any bacon? (Also known as, want to wake up hungry forever?) No one does! But here is an app for it

Life Is Not Exactly Rocket Science

What should I be doing right now? Sleeping, doing homework, studying for my finals or writing my final papers. What am I doing right now? Ordering new glasses (because I lost mine), doing half-ass yoga (I haven't talked to my best friend in like, a month, and she doesn't mind it when I mouth-breathe into the phone as long as I can recap how my life is) and reading about loggerhead turtles. Why? Because, well. Turtles. Also, because I'm a second year business school student. Which, if I may make such a bold statement, is pretty much like having senioritis in high school, except you can drink now.

So you can't really laugh and lightheartedly call them "senioritis spasms" or whatever. Because, technically, they're really more like, "well-intentioned benders" or "brief expressions of your love of drinking" if you're feeling particularly artsy about it.

ANYway, I'm late to the game but Wired released their "101 signals" list late last year (August 2013, I know, I know I'm stretching the definition of "late last year", but it makes me feel better) which covers the 101 most interesting blogs and channels for a variety of categories like science, design, government, etc. I'm a big fan of most of them, I think it's a pretty effective way to get my news and learn new things, and I've remembered now how much I like Digg.

Also, I have it to thank because now I know that, until recently, baby sea turtles disappeared for years between hatching, crawling into the ocean (palm sized) and then re-emerging years later with shells that were up to 2 feet wide. And now we've chipped them with solar-powered, acrylic-sealed adhesive GPS locators, and now we know that they potentially hitch rides on floating temporary landmasses. So. Yup. Turtles. At my new favorite blog: Phenomena: Not Exactly Rocket Science.