The genre I choose to dissect is music, the topic is one of my favorite bands- "Halestorm".
Halestorm is a hard rock/heavy metal band.
Their album "Strange case of..." has a unique style to it. Mixing up racy edgy songs with more softer emotion felt songs. According to Ms. Lzzy Hale herself, she explained how her band's edgy technique helped break down this amazing musical barrier " We were on ‘ten,’ and we blew through the songs in a safe way – or as safe as something that goes, ‘I get off on you getting off on me’ can be. This new record demonstrates more depth and heart. It’s a lot more expressive and really lets down the barriers.” Lzzy also declared that she was going to scream her heart out, she included engineer Bay Seven’s opinion too with her statement “At that time, I decided, ‘I’m going to scream my head off and make really gritty songs, “When we finished ‘Love Bites,’ the engineer at Howard’s studio, Bay Seven, said, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s the fastest song we’ve ever done here.’”
Their album “Strange Case of” consist of two tones, whether it be “Love bites, so do I” or “ I hate it when you see me cry”. I'm going to compare and analyze some lyrics from both these songs.
“Love bites” is basically, in my opinion about a man who apparently deserves better in a relationship because his girlfriend is saying he's not a good enough boyfriend based off of magazine articles or dating tips. The lyrics I'm about to show you implies that Lzzy wants this guy to feel a somewhat comforting feeling
“Don’t listen what your girlfriend says
She reads those magazines
That say you failed the test
You don’t have what she needs
I slither like a viper
And get you by the neck
I know a thousand ways to help you forget about her”
She reads those magazines
That say you failed the test
You don’t have what she needs
I slither like a viper
And get you by the neck
I know a thousand ways to help you forget about her”
“I hate it when you see me cry” shows more of the fragile part of Lzzy being self conscious in a relationship.
“I hate that I need you now
To hold my hair, to hear me out
If I wake up on the bathroom floor
Will you still want me in the morning?
Oh babe, I need you now!”
“I hate that I need you now
To hold my hair, to hear me out
If I wake up on the bathroom floor
Will you still want me in the morning?
Oh babe, I need you now!”
The purpose of this album is to relate to those who; Have been in failed relationships, Love Rock and Roll and Sex. The audience for this specific album is more teen/adult bases I think. According to Alex Newton this was a highly successful album for Halestorm stating “With a feature on Glee (yes, that's a good thing) and a Grammy Awards nomination now in their pocket, the sky's the limit for Halestorm as they continue to show that mainstream hard rock has some life left after all.”
Allmusic.com gave this album the rating of 3 stars out of 5. Gregory Heaney posted his review of this album claiming that “Hale helps to give every song that special something”. Allmusic apparently posted some possible themes of this album referring to it as, aggressive, angst-ridden, nocturnal, sexy, and much more.
The best review I think the two best reviews would have to be the review from Lzzy herself and from Alex Newton. I think that Lzzy’s review was extra special because this was Halestorm’s first album, and her opinion on her first album is highly important. Most artist criticize their work, looks for new ways to make it unique. I also thought Alex's review was good because, he described how the album style was he also informed me that Halestorm was nominated for a Grammy.
ReplyDeleteSantiago,
I think it’s super-cool that you chose to do this PB1A assignment on a band that you like. When you can study/write about something that you’re interested in, DO IT! ☺
Alright, so check it out: I only asked us to think about how country music songs and horror movies are genres because I was trying to give us a *stepping stone* from what we already knew about this “genre” stuff in our own lives. The world of *textual* genres is a bit different—I now need you/us to focus on WRITING. So music isn’t really a textual genre that we can analyze for the assignments in this course.
What you COULD analyze, though, are the ALBUM REVIEWS of a certain band, or the album reviews of a certain type of music. Album reviews are based on written language, right? It’s the ingredients/conventions of writing that I want us to check out. So, from what I know about them, here are some of the conventions of album reviews: some kind of rating system, reflections about how THIS album compares to their other albums, if the band is maturing and getting better of if they’re on a decline, and 1 or 2 songs are usually analyzed in depth.
It looks like you touched on album reviews (a genre), the lyrics themselves (another genre), and something that Lzzy Hale wrote (a 3rd genre, although I’m not quite sure what it is—I’d have to see it). I want you to pick ONE of these and then find 3 samples of it, then analyze what patterns you do/don’t see across them.
All that said, you have the right idea of bringing in slice of language into your post. I really like how you quoted Lzzy as well as the songs—that helps me SEE what you want me to see, which is great. Make sure, though, that whatever you decide to quote is in there because it “proves”/supports something. For instance, at the end of your post, you wrote “The best review I think the two best reviews would have to be the review from Lzzy herself and from Alex Newton. I think that Lzzy’s review was extra special because this was Halestorm’s first album, and her opinion on her first album is highly important.” What was it that you saw/read that made you think it was the “best” or “extra special”?? Any of these claims that you make need to be tied to the genres/writing that you’re looking at.
In ENG 101-108, I’m trying to train you to become super-observant so that you can get down to the nittiest of details and adhere (if that’s what you want to do) to the audience’s expectations for all the different genres that you’ll write here on out. By gaining a deeper and more critical reading awareness, you’ll be able to adopt/adapt writer’s choices (their writing) into your own writing.
Z
This is honestly very interesting. And the style in which you write is interesting too. But you could also show more instead of telling. It's really hard and I have a hard time doing this too.
ReplyDeleteLove you boo,
Kassy
Well, it seems like most of us are struggling with the whole genre thing. Choosing your favorite band was a great start, but it wasn't a specific written genre. But it’s okay, my genre, Satire, was too broad as well. Instead of satire, I could have chosen Satirical new articles. Same applies to you, like Z said; you could have chosen Halestorm Album Reviews as your genre. But that's something that a lot of us can work on. Another small criticism I have is that you could have added about one more image, but that’s really not important, the album cover was good enough. But I do like how you specify the album and its features. I also enjoyed how you described the albums’ relation to its audience, and its overall tone. You really hammered home the album and the band’s conventions as a whole. Overall, good job, you just need to specify the genre.
ReplyDelete