To judge an album by its cover

In the era of music piracy and digital distribution, where songs are becoming single servings separated from the greater context of an album, the art form of the album cover is endangered.  For many musicians, or at least the better ones, an album is not just a means to market a collection of unrelated material that could just as well stand on its own.  Through arrangement of songs around a central theme or themes an album can provide an experience beyond the sum of its parts.  Every part of the presentation of an album contributes to this holistic vision of it.  In this way, album art provides the musician not just with a means to grab a shopper's eye in a record shop, but can serve as a way to solidify or even extend an album's themes.  Some artists put such care into the presentation of their works that their albums and the associated artwork show a parallel progression over time.


Death - Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

Death's 1987 debut is arguably the first true death metal album.  On this primigenic incarnation of the genre, Death offers a primal celebration of violence and mortality.  The deceptively simple, thrashing instrumentation backs harsh, and usually unintelligible growls from vocalist and front man Schuldiner.  The lyrics describe grotesque scenes right out of a B-grade horror film: "Decapitated head licking your cunt / Sucking all the blood from your stump / Intestinal guts taking their hold / Leaving you dead, stiff and cold" opens the title track.  The music alludes to ritualized celebrations of death of the likes of the sacrificial cults of the ancient Aztecs or occult black magic.  The cover art serves perfectly to extend the musical themes of the album.  A ghastly skeletal figure adorned in occult robes oversees his supplicants from a lithic throne.  Just as these figures appear to remain animated through practice of ancient black magic, Death seeks to invoke a visceral response in the viewer through music that is primal in its brutality.  Take note of the band's logo on this release; the inverted cross foreshadowing the ecclesiastical themes of the band's subsequent releases.

Death - Leprosy (1988)

 

The band's sophomore effort saw a development on the primitive, thrash metal influenced style of their debut.  Musically, the the songs maintain a morbid aesthetic, but have become more structurally and stylistically complex to compliment the evolving musicianship of the band's members.  The lyrical content remains brutally violent, but instead of treating its themes with gory detail worthy of a slasher film, Schuldiner instead espouses more of a philosophical view of the inherently violent and unforgiving nature of the world.  On Forgotten Past, Schuldiner reminds the listener that he comes from a genealogy tainted by bloodshed: "Deep in your mind there is another side / A morbid truth one cannot hide / Unimaginable gore was your past time high / To hear people scream, to watch them die".  To hide from this truth is to deny one's true nature.  Here, Death contends that just as the leper of the album's cover is exiled from his desert village because of his outwardly grotesque appearance, so too does society attempt to cover up its undesirable roots by suppressing expressions of man's primitive nature.

Death - Spiritual Healing (1990)

 

Death's third album is the final statement by the band in a true death metal styling.  On the cover of the album, a moribund hospital patient is being consecrated by an animated priest.  It is unclear whether the priest is raising his free hand in an expression of a religious rite or to bring it down violently upon the patient's head.  Here, Death questions the ability of our inventions to save the fragments of our moribund society.  The hospital patient, stricken with a terminal illness, is as assured of a brutal death whether the priest is futilely seeking to heal his illness through prayer or to end his life quickly with a swift blow to the skull.  In our decadent modern society, can our morals and religions save us from a fate of certain death?  Death contends that only by abandoning these antiquated value systems can we begin to escape our harsh and brutal existences.  Genetic Reconstruction looks at eugenics as a possible solution to our biological woes, though not one without its own downsides: "Replacing what is real by using technology / Population control, selecting / those who will breed / A specific type of form chosen for the unborn / A mind without emotion / Progressive anatomy".  Is this race of "human machines" truly what we want?  Only through Death can man be freed of the chains of his existence.

Death - Human (1991)

 

On Human, Death begins to explore progressive metal styled instrumentation.  The heavily thrash-influenced playing of the first three albums is fused with the compositional techniques of progressive rock.  Here, Death confronts the limitations of our moribund fleshy vessels to comprehend objective truths.  The lyrics and instrumentation here take on a psychedelic quality, and this is reflected in the cover art.  We see on the cover images of man and his viscera in various states of disassembly and decay, dissolving or being absorbed by some sort of radiant energy.  The physical bodies of the subjects of the cover art are as dysfunctional and ephemeral as are our contemporary lives.  Death contends that we are too self-absorbed in trivial matters to begin to scratch the surface of reality.  In the end, we can only blame ourselves for the continuation of the cyclical nature of violence and retribution: "Reaching into the minds of those that created / The depression in which they / In which they drowned / their flesh and blood / Lies / So easy to blame the / Everlasting fear on a pathetic attempt / To justify the ending of life". Unless humanity can overcome this "everlasting fear", the fate of our world is to end as one of the Vacant Planets.  Here, the band's logo undergoes significant changes.  Gone is the inverted cross, indicating Schuldiner's attempts to disconnect the image band from any ties to organized religion.

Death - Individual Thought Patterns (1993)

On Individual Thought Patterns, Death sees a continued evolution of its stylistic foray into progressive metal.  The album's themes continue the critical examination of human cognition that was explored on Human.  Death questions the ability of socially sanctioned knowledge structures.  How can we trust what were are told if we do not even know ourselves?  Our blind acceptance of the word of The Philosopher cements our meaningless and moribund fates: "Do you feel what I feel, see what I see, hear what I hear / There is a line you must draw between your dream world and reality / Do you live my life or share the breath I breathe / Lies feed your judgement of others / Behold how the blind lead / each other / The philosopher / You know so much about nothing at all".  Through critical and personal examination of the world we can devise the atomic bomb that can destroy the false beliefs we are spoon fed from birth.

Death - Symbolic (1995)

 

On Symbolic, Death takes yet another step away from its death metal roots.  Structurally, this music on this album is more akin to progressive rock or NWOBHM.  Lyrically, Schuldiner continues a harsh and critical examination of the normative impulses of modern society.  On Perennial Quest, Schuldiner invites the viewer to join his spiritual quest for truth: "Won't you join me on the perennial quest  / Reaching into the dark, retrieving light / Search for answers on the perennial quest / Where dreams are followed, and time is a test".  Here, Death seems to have lost the structural and thematic direction of its earlier works.  Schuldiner no longer seems as sure in his nihilistic interpretation of society's invisible structures.  The instrumentation often seems campy its attempts to appear technically proficient.  We see here this disorganization in the band's thought in the album cover.  A collage of images from various sources creates a scene that does not seem to lend itself to one interpretation.  Perhaps as Schuldiner's Perennial Quest for truth has led him ultimately to philosophical disorientation, so to has the band's music wandered from its original path.

Death - The Sound of Perseverance (1998)

 

This album's title is certainly apposite; this is the sound of a band persistent in its desire to bury its musical roots.  This would be the final album from Death before Schuldiner's death from cancer in 2001.  Here, the musical disorganization of the band is even more evident than as seen on Symbolic.  The band seems to be grabbing into the dark for its ideas for riffs and lyrics, just as the figures on the album's cover blindly ascend through the fog towards a cave of unknown nature.  The listener can no longer be sure what is the band's Story to Tell.  As a final nail in the coffin of Death, the closing track on this album is not even an original work, the band instead choosing to cover Judas Priest's Painkiller. 

 

How to Make a Violent Movie PG-13

Many of you may see the exciting trailer for Suckerpunch, the newest action film from director Zach Snyder, and hope for another 300-like experience. Insane non-stop action, choreographed slow-motion sequences, and gushing blood are all things we have come to expect from the visual director who awed us with 300 and Watchmen. Unfortunately, Suckerpunch lacks the latter component which leaves something to be desired to its adult audience who had grown accustomed to seeing blood to become immersed in the action.

Suckerpunch tells the story of a girl who is framed by her stepfather for the murder of her mother and stepsister and institutionalized in a mental facility where she is doomed to receive a lobotomy. Before her terminal treatment, she learns to delve into her imagination and create a fantasy parallel universe where she can be the hero and save her fellow female inmates  from their nightmarish situation (a videogame fantasy in many respects). At a first look, the movie appears to have everything one would desire in an action movie: guns, dragons, robots, Nazis, zeppelins, and gorgeous girls (in their twenties despite their schoolgirl looks). For a thirteen year-old, this movie is perfect, but for an adult the action is insufficient to make up for a lack of blood. For example in one fantasy, Babydoll, the protagonist, needs to steal a map from a Nazi courier before he makes his escape on a zeppelin. Standing between her and the map is an army of Nazi infantry, and killing them would be sufficient in an R-rated movie. In an PG-13 movie however they are not living bleeding people, they are undead. "Brought back to life by German engineers and doctors and powered by steam. So don't feel bad about killing them," says Scott Glen playing the good-guy general, before he proceeds to head shot a couple of Nazi Zombies with his sniper rifle. Instead of blood, injured German spew steam from their wounds which is interesting, but ultimately not satisfying. These Germans are also incapable of harming the girls. No matter how hard they hit, the girls bounce back up and hit twice as hard without even a bruise or scrape on them. A steam-punk's wet dream perhaps, but to an audience expecting to be drawn in by Sin City-like violence the movie feels superficial. 

All in all, the movie contained enough violence for a PG rating, like The Chronicles of Narnia. The rating of PG-13 was mostly attributed to the dark and suggestive themes. Had Zach Snyder been willing to go for the for the full R rating, I feel that the movie could have been a greater success by adding a little blood. Blood is a powerful image in movies and the lack of it in the most pivotal moments of the movie makes the characters look dry and empty. Without blood, we might as well be watching barbie dolls fighting in a PG-13 Team America.

Wrestling: Now and Then

I grew up during the 90's era of WWF wrestling when The Rock was still a wrestler. My father's side of the family would watch Monday Night Raw and Smackdown religiously, but somehow I could never get into it. It looked so silly to me that I would just do other things while they were watching it. Although sometimes I did watch the programs with them I hardly paid any attention. I would ask them questions about whether they knew it was fake or that all of their favorite wrestlers were also their favorite actors. What they told me was that they didn't care. What mattered to them was the entertainment that wrestling provided and continues to give them to this day. Who am I to knock them or the millions of people who continue to watch these programs (shoutout to Prof. Lirette) with a relish that will never fade.

He Took His Job! (south park reference)

So to talk more about wrestling, I never had any sort of appreciation for the sport. I actually didnt even think it was a sport. Every time I saw an event it just seemed like a joke. All the stomping of the floor and all the storylines, it just seemed so scripted. I think an episode from South Park really speaks to how I viewed wrestling.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s13e10-wtf

You can tell from the video that the creators of the show share the same views that I had about wrestling. That its just a soap opera with muscles. However, this portrayal of wrestling doesnt help its public image with anyone who has not been exposed to the sport. But after seeing the clips from wrestling from the 1990s I have a new take on wrestling, at least from the 1990s.

Im not sure if I can put my finger on it but I just feel like the wrestlers back then were putting more into their characters and trying to make a name for themselves. Today everything seems stale. Maybe I just enjoyed the eccentricity of characters like the ultimate warrior who seemed to give his all in every one of his performances.

Of course, I am not the right person to be dissecting wrestling since I have barely watched any but this is just how I feel about the past and present state of wrestling.

Violent Groups Satirized and Stereotyped

Blazing Saddles is one of the greatest farcical, satirical pieces ever created. It rivals only with the best like Monty Python and Caddyshack. Throughout this blog we have dissected different forms of satirical pieces. Natalie Portman’s ‘Natalie’s Rap’, South Park episodes, Weird Al’s ‘Amish Paradise’ and other agents have become notorious for poking fun at their respective industries. The satire and comedy in this movie is set on an over-the-top (almost too much) tone that makes Blazing Saddles an instant Mel Brooks Classic. Take a look at this one scene from the movie when the state procurer, Hedley Lamar, lists off his desired types of scoundrels for his army and then interviews them in the desert.

“Hedley Lamar Raises an Army”

The reason I chose this scene in the movie is to show the stereotypes associate with the violent groups of history. Just in this one scene (set in the 1874 Wild West mind you) we see the typification of gun-slinging Mexican ‘bandits’, Nazi Germans, ‘cross-burning’ Klu Klux Klan members, Indian ‘agents’, cowboys, greasers, and men on camels. No group was spared in the stereotyping here. By incorporating these violent agents (in a stereotype) Brooks showed us a more complex aspect of human nature…the nature to judge.

When we think of someone (anyone) in Germany, our minds almost immediately revert to some of the atrocities done by the Nazi people. When we read Blood Meridian, we cannot help but despise the Indian ‘savages’. These types of stereotypes are exposed in an overt fashion by Brooks and he does this ‘over stereotyping’ to make fun of the situation. He creates many scenes of different violent militias from across the world to show us the humor in his story. However, underlying this humor is the sad fact that people still misconceive cultural and societal perceptions off of these (often false) stereotypes.

Regardless of the stereotyping depicted in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles the sheer comedy that runs throughout the film will have the audience laughing uncontrollably. However, some may disagree with the over-generalization of violent groups in the film and a correlation with their ethnicities/hertitage. They may look at these ‘jokes’ as a way of reinforcing or backing up the stereotypes themselves. So what do you think?; did Brooks do anything wrong by incorporating these images? Or was it simply all fun in games and a hilarious way to get some laughs?

Racism and Violence

As you all probably have seen by now, a UCLA student named Alexandra Wallace's supposedly "non-political and non-racist" rant on youtube. Racism in no way is really funny (although, I must admit hesitantly, I do laugh at my fair share of racist jokes). Moving on, Wallace's video has sparked so much outrage and media coverage that I just read an article about her on the NY Times. What's so surprising is not only the media coverage, but the severe backlash that she has gotten usually also in the form of violent, sarcastic/humorous, threats. Watch this video below to get a better sense of what I mean.



We all know the history behind racism and its volatile relationship with violence. The Rodney King riots were sparked directly as a result of police violence against a black motorist. Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr. not only had to combat police brutality, but mob brutality from American society. When issues as serious as race arise, there always seems to be some sort of violence that ensues. Despite the fact that Wallace stated the most ridiculous, racist, and tasteless comments (she even mentioned the tsunami/earthquakes in Japan), I think she deserves a second chance. She is already feeling the painful consequences of her actions from the media, those who have watched her video, and her peers at UCLA. Hopefully the outrage against her comments don't spark into violent acts.

Bottled Violence

This blog seems to have taken a turn for the grotesque. It seems like an appropriate time to review Patrick Suskind’s German horror novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Set in 18^th century France in the fascinating world of perfume making, it tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a man born without a scent of his own. The deranged protagonist is one of the most compelling and unique villains I have ever encountered, and that includes Judge Holden in Blood Meridian. Everybody who meets Grenouille hates him because they cannot trust someone who has no scent; and in turn, he loathes the scent of society. As a young child, he becomes intoxicated with the scent of a young girl. He resolves to bottle her scent and turn it into the most beautiful perfume ever made. However, as soon as he kills her in an attempt to capture her essence, the elusive scent goes away. For the rest of his life, he embarks on a serial killing spree of 25 beautiful virgins, and he bottles their scent in order to enact his final revenge against those who have wronged him. Powered by hatred and disgust for humankind, and his own genius for creating perfume, Grenouille . The novel is in grotesque territory the whole way through, but it almost becomes unreadable in the last quarter. The ending involves a savage, disgusting twist that involves Grenouille’s own suicide and consumption by a horde of frenzied criminals.

The 2006 movie has been described on pajiba.com as “perverse whimsy” and a wasted opportunity to connect with the audience, so I’d advise against watching it unless you want to experience a “kinky fairy tale set in a violent, brutish world”. Perfume offers an interesting, highly surreal approach to the motives of serial killers, but its potential is wasted by the successive twists towards the end of the book. It’s just too much. There is just the right amount of perverse violence that achieves a spine chilling effect on the audience, and Suskind unfortunately goes overboard with his scentless demon.