A personal blog by academic Kyle Moody, where popular culture mixes with storytelling to provide insightful looks at personal history that is wrapped up within cultural processes.
Today I’m going to talk about vanity projects and music, using Danger Mouse’s latest record as an example of the benefit and problem of this topic.A collaboration with Italian composer/arranger Daniele Luppi, this album’s concept is laid out within its title.Rome is a scarily accurate summation of the music of Italian film composers and pop confectionaries, gliding on a mood of classic Sixties and Seventies nostalgia.Your mileage may vary depending on how appealing you find that description to be.
It’s well-known that I’m a huge fan of movies, and I watch them at any chance I can get. However, I am an admitted fanatic of a specific genre of movies, and that is the genre of teen movies. I’d like to explore this love of teen movies by seeing a select number of movies that focus and fixate on teenage life (and often love), and ultimately come to a larger focus of meaning behind these films. Therefore, this summer I’m going to be reviewing seminal films of the teen movie subgenre, as well as providing analysis for why they have endured as long as they have (and indeed, if they have lasted as long as we think). I’ll be going in chronological order, so if your favorite film doesn’t come up you might find it later. Just wait until you see what I’ve got in store for John Hughes…
All in all, there will be 24 movies that are covered through this series, which should make for an interesting (and hectic) summer. I will be providing these reviews on Monday on Moodicarus beginning when my summer does, on May 16. Be prepared to track back down memory lane, and feel free to provide reactions and reviews of your own in the comments section.
I’m starting with 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause. “You’re tearing me apart!”
Here's the list of films I've planned for this series:
Rebel Without a Cause
The Last Picture Show
American Graffiti
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Sixteen Candles
The Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Pretty in Pink
Some Kind of Wonderful
Valley Girl
The Last American Virgin
Better Off Dead
Heathers
Say Anything
Dazed and Confused
Angus
Can't Hardly Wait
American Pie
10 Things I Hate About You
Bring It on
Mean Girls
Superbad
Easy A
Adventureland (not technically a teen movie, but I have my reasons for putting this on here)
There is some music that catches the listener’s attention at first listen. There is some music that demands that the listener turns the volume up and pay attention because, for whatever reason, THIS IS IMPORTANT! And then there is some music that makes you get up from your seat, go to your car, and drive to a town 30 minutes away just so you can hold the CD in your shaking hands as you pay for your purchase in rapture, rip the plastic off the case in breathless anticipation, and have your moment completely fulfilled by the wonder that emerges from the speakers.
That was Fleet Foxes for me. It was the music of affect, which is perfect for summer.
In order to provide some context into my music preferences, I guess I should provide some insight into the I love the Subways, and it’s an unequivocal love that is a case of “Right band, right time” in every sense. However, in spite of this, I don’t think that you can write them off just based on this. In fact, I think that the most important music one will ever hear comes from this alchemy, and this is largely why the Beatles were so important. But the Subways stand out because they are exactly what music needs at this point, and that’s a young and hungry rock band not afraid to seem a little stupid and trite while searching for its own voice, because when they do find their voice above their influences the band is a rock n’ roll hydra that towers over the accomplishments of their peers.
(Note: This is an advance review. Wasting Light will be released in stores and online in the United States on April 12, 2011)
Wasting Lightisn’t going to surprise anybody with its sound, but that’s par for the course with the Foo Fighters at this point. What should surprise you is how tight the set is, and the hope is that the Foo Fighters can really pull off the neat trick of growing older without losing any of their fire. As far as this year goes, I’m comfortable with claiming that it’s a great way to begin the summer, and is the strongest that the band has sounded in years.
I have found a home for my work on ArtSTALK, a blog site created and edited by students in the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This is exciting news because it now allows you to find a ton of other content from other soon-to-be influential bloggers, and it also pretties up some of my work a bit. Check out my first post here, then go online and let me know what you think if you haven't already. More new content is coming on the way, I swear it!
