Review

Beyoncé is a very talented and passionate artist.   She is unmistakably one of the best performers of her time and has a fan base that is worldwide.  Beyoncé’s most recent album “4” is one of her best albums as a solo artist.  It is an incredible album with music that everyone can enjoy.  She was able to incorporate different styles of music that has reached various demographics that she did not reach before. On her album, she has music that reflects the independence of being a women and even music that expresses love.  There is definitely a visible difference in her maturity as an artist and the message she wants her fans to here on this album.  The album gives us a glance of where Beyoncé is right now in her professional and personal life.  It is an album made for Beyoncé’s love of music and her want to connect with her audience.   

“4” was a very diverse album especially in the style of music Beyoncé used.  This album was able to incorporate so many diverse styles of music because Beyoncé was able to get her inspiration from different cultures from around the world.  The beats to the majority of her songs are unlike any other I have heard, and the instruments used (if they are instruments) are not recognizable by the average person.  Even the background singing on this album is different from what she usually does.  This album is a total 360 degree turn from what is regularly expected of Beyoncé as an artist.  She is a pop-artist and a lot her music is to an upbeat tempo.  Usually on her albums she has 2 or 3 slow songs with the rest being upbeat, but this album, the majority of the songs were slower and you could hear the emotion in her voice as she sings.  I think this album helped Beyoncé’s fans get to know her better as an artist.  She was able to show a more vulnerable side of her in this album.  For this album, she also didn’t do a regular tour.  She did four nights at the Roseland theatre which is a relatively small area for Beyoncé’s fan base.  She wanted a more intimate area so she could connect better with her audience and give them more of her.  

One of the most influential songs on the album would have to be “I Was Here”.  This song was able to capture everything Beyoncé has accomplished in her lifetime.  It details the impact she’s had on the world and everything about her.  While performing this song at her concert at The Roseland theatre, Beyoncé gets emotional.  Her fans respond by also getting emotional.  You can hear the love and desire in her voice as she sings.  Beyoncé album “4” overall is a feel good album that has music for everyone to enjoy.  This album is a reflection of all the accomplishments Beyoncé has made over the years and a preview of what Beyoncé will put out in the future.  Beyoncé still has more things to accomplish as an artist and this album is only the beginning for a new form of music Beyoncé will make way for.  

Spring Break

Spring break for me is not really exciting.  Not to say that any other year for me has been more exciting but this one is going to be extremely boring.   I have no real plans, but to work and to study.  My grades aren’t at an acceptable standard for me, so besides working, I’ll probably be studying.   When I first arrive to the city, my family is having a small get together so I’ll attend that.  I probably won’t want to stay at this gathering for too long because I’ll just have got off a two and half hour train ride.  I’m excited to see my family but due to the exhaustion I’m sure I’ll feel, I will want to sleep!  This weekend will be the only time I will actually do anything because my plan is to work all next week.  For Saturday I’m planning on surprising a close friend of mine with a LATE birthday cake.  I hope she enjoys it, because it’s going to be a twist.  Her mother told me she likes strawberries in her cake, but since I can’t get to the bakery in time enough to order a cake with strawberries, I’m going to buy a cake and strawberries.  Then I’m going to give them to her at the same time.  I hope she enjoys the freshness of the strawberries!  To end my weekend, I’m planning on going to church since I haven’t been in a very long time.   I’m also sure I will see my significant other various times through the weekend.  We have nothing planned but something is bound to come up.  Besides the fun of this weekend I’m excited to work.  I love shopping and in order to shop, I need money.  This is the plans for my spring break so hopefully everything works out.  

ethnography

My taste in music is completely different from most of my friends simply because I’m more interested in R&B styled music.  One of my favorite albums right now is “4” by Beyoncé.  I decided to invite a friend from high school over to listen to the Cd with me.  Her name is Candice Mallet-Torry.   She is really into rap which is totally different from R&B.  I explained to her that I would record her reaction to the music and what are her emotions towards the album.  She understood what I said and we began. 

·         She was initially was lying down in my bed on twitter through her cell phone.

·         1+1 was the first song to play and she began to sing along.  Towards the second verse she gets really into the song and throws her hands up and waves them. 

·         During the special of the song, she gets up and gets on the computer to get on twitter.

·         She then checks weather for spring break.

·         The next song title “I Care” comes on. 

·         She question what song it is and I tell her the song title.

·         She switches topics and begins talking about the weather during spring break.

·         She discusses how the weather is going to be great.

·         She begins talking to my roommate and ask why she isn’t following her on twitter. 

·         They both follow each other on twitter and she begins singing along to the chorus of the song.

·         She then goes to the bed to check her phone.

·         The next song titled “I Miss You” comes on.

·         She again questions the title of the song and shows a look of disgust on her face.

·         She yells at me how she doesn’t like the song, it makes her feel sad.

·         She sits down at the desk again to get back on the computer.

·         She then signs into Skype and looks through her friends that are online.

·         She explains how there’s no one important on Skype so she gets on twitter and begins looking at various followers pictures.  (twitpics)

·         The next song titled “The Best Thing I Never Had” comes on.

·         She continues silently listening to the music and looking at pictures. 

·         The next song titled “I Rather Die Young” comes on.

·         She complains about the lyrics to the song saying “this song is a joke! The only person I’m dying for is my mama.”

·         She goes on explaining how the song is silly and no one is worth taking her life for.

·         She turns to the next song skipping over “I Rather Die Young.”

·         The next song titled “Start Over” comes on.

·         I can tell she is beginning to get agitated by the music and the messages behind the music.  

·         After realizing she actually like the song she begins to hum to the beat of the song.  I was able to see a whole attitude shift from her.  She began to enjoy listening to the song.

·         She then navigates her attention to Facebook and looks down her newsfeed. 

·         The Last song we listened to was “Love on Top.”

·         She immediately begins singing and rocking to the song.

·         She gets up and dances a little more to the song before retiring to sit on the bed. 

·         She then demands that she doesn’t listen to anymore songs.  She says “I can’t take no more.”

·         After “Love On Top” goes off she immediately switches the music to a rap song called “Riot”

My room is a sanctuary of pink, black and white.  Both me and my roommate’s bed sets are those colors and we have various pink accessories like laundry baskets, garbage cans and pillows.  We both are fans of the color pinks so our room reflects that.  The television was on and an episode of “Family Guy”; However, you really couldn’t hear the TV because we keep the volume low.  The room smelt like French fries simply because before we began listening to music we were all eating French fries.  Candice had on pajama shorts and a big white T-shirt.  She had on a red and white hair bonnet to hold her hair down.   Candice is really into social networks and is almost always one.   While listening to music you were able to see this.  My roommate was indirectly including within my experiment because Candice interacted with her.  For the majority of the time my roommate was on her phone on a social network but I observed her randomly nodding her head in enjoyment to the music.  I also was including in the experiment for I changed into more comfortable clothing before the experiment started.  I had on orange capris and a blue T-shirt.  I positioned myself in the far corner of the room so that I can see everything going on in the room.  I ended up getting enjoyment from the music and I sang along to a lot of the songs even the ones that Candice didn’t react well to.  I think my room was the best place to do the experiment since my room is a very welcoming and comfortable place.  I predicted that I would have random company like I do on most nights but this time no one came to visit me.  I would’ve like if some other friends would’ve walked in to see Candice’s reaction to how they felt about the music.  Overall I realized that even though the music was enjoyable for me, it wasn’t so enjoyable for Candice.  

The movie fan

I have been to blockbuster only a few times in my life.  It was what expected from a video store; loads of movies I’ve never seen.  But due to economic reasons I guess, blockbuster is no longer in my area.  For homework I was asked to go to The Movie Fan which is a locally owned video store.   I wasn’t really excited about this simply since I’m a frequent Netflix user.  To me, Netflix is convenient and not that expensive.  Since it was required, I took the adventure of a lifetime to the video store.  I didn’t really know what to expect since it was locally owned and not a big enterprise store.  While looking outside the video store looked old and boring.  My initial thought was this video store would suck and it wouldn’t have any movies I would want. When I first walked in, it had a rustic feel.  I was right by thinking it was old, but it was a welcoming atmosphere.  When I walked in, I was bombarded with films old and new.  I initially didn’t know what movie I wanted to rent so I went with a classic that I know I would like.  I asked the employee if they had Lion King 2 and he replied “no, someone stole our copy.”  This tainted my already bad view of the video rental place because they didn’t have the movie that every video store SHOULD carry.  I didn’t let this minor setback stop me from finding a movie, so I attempted to find a new movie.  I walked through the store for about five minutes until I find the “New Releases” section.  I was so excited because they had Puss In Boot.  After I found this movie I went to the checkout counter and was ready to leave.  The employee was very nice and informal.  He explained the rental process and gave me my movies.   

I chose the new cover for The Lion King Blu-Ray edition.  The first reason I chose this picture is because it is totally different from the original Lion King cover for the DVD or VHS.  The original cover had an orange background and the characters faces looked soft and more inviting.  The cover also depicted the attitudes of most of the characters.  For example, in the first picture Timon was giving of the look of relaxation.  This shows how he lives the model of “Hakuna Motto” meaning no worries.  Pumba is pictured smiling and looking up to TImon which also shows his character because not only was he a care free soul, he was also genially happy all the time and he looked to TImon for guidance.  Another good example is the picture of Scar.  He looks very sneaky and devious which also describes his character in the movie.  This picture did a good job of explaining the movie and the attitudes of the characters. 

Now on the Blu-Ray cover the background is blue and the characters faces look harder for lack of better terms.    There is no extra light shinned on the faces of the characters to give them a glow which is more appealing to the eye.  Another big thing that sticks out is the picture of Mufasa is the silhouette of the cover.   This makes me think that Mufasa has a bigger impact on the movie than he did in earlier years because he’s not pictured at all in the first cover.  For the Blu-Ray cover all the characters are looking towards a common direction.  This also speaks volumes on the story plot because they’re always trying to move forward and leave the past behind.  Although some aspects of the Blu-Ray cover tell the story of the Lion King, Overall I think the old Lion King cover did a better job.  It helped explain the movie and the characters. 

 

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love since 2008

They met in august of 2007.  They lived two houses away from each other so they walked home from school with each other.  She wasn’t interested in him and he thought she was cute but he didn’t want to be with her either.  Walking home, they would have random conversations, but it was just small talk.  Due to a mutual friend, they began to talk to each other on a more serious note.  On June 1^st 2008 they made it official.  It has been 3 years and 8 months since they’ve been together.  Their relationship is far from perfect, but to them it’s worth it.

 She loves him and he loves her and no matter what, they will always be together.  Distance nor time can separate them, they aren’t afraid to fight for each other.   He is s a year older then her but her age doesn’t affect him.

 They were able to stay together through his first year of college, and they’re fighting to stay together through her first year of college.  The odds are against them, but they feel they can make it.  After all this time it’s impossible for them to separate or even think about seeing each other with someone else. 

                They’ve planned their lives together, but more than likely their plan won’t go the way they want it to.   To them it doesn’t matter, as long as they’re able to stay together.     It’s times where they don’t like each other and even say words to each other they wouldn’t say if they were of sound mind.  This doesn’t matter either because they understand that sometimes you do crazy things out of anger. 

                They’ve grown to think of each other as family.  They’re familiar with each other’s families.   One day in the future they’re planning on creating a family together, but no time soon because they still have life goals they have to accomplish. 

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TV Shows and Commercials

The direction that commercials go, deals a lot with who views the TV show and how they will be affected by it.  I recently watched Bad Girls Club which is a reality TV show aimed toward older teens and women in their twenties and thirties.  Even those this is the audience that this show is aimed a lot of other demographics watch this show.  For example, even though Bad Girls club is targeted at women, a lot of teen men watch the show.  Beyond that, the commercials are more catered to women.  For example there were multiple lotion commercials that advertised soft skin.  The actors in the commercials were women at a youthful age.  Another aspect of the commercials was celebrity usage.  For example, the Jenny Craig commercial, featured Mariah Carey in a Belly top in a long skirt; even though, the skirt was long it had a long split on the side that was almost the length of the skirt itself.  Recently Mariah Carey gave birth to twins so for her body to be tones enough to wear a belly top and revealing skirt pulls people in to use the product she used to lose weight.  This is aimed at women who are not confident in their bodies and with the right push, will buy anything to get the Mariah Carey look.

                I watched another TV show called Family Guy which airs on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network).  I would think this show is more aimed towards men.  The commercials also prove that it’s aimed towards men due to the commercial choice.  For example a Gamefly.com commercial came on where only men were shown on the commercial and this fits the stereo type that men are video gamers.  It was also other male dominated commercials like the Guitar Center commercial where it was an all-male group who was feature in the commercial.  I believe, depending on who the show is trying to reach out to, the commercials will reflect the interest of those group of people. 

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