Identity through Covers

Today, I have been to Virgin Megastore at Landmark where all the awesome music and video games can be found. One thing that grabbed my attention was how each music genre has a way to express its music theme through CD Album covers. An example would be rock music . This type of music culture has many prominent and district features in its CD covers. The overall look of such covers is sort of gothic with skulls and people screaming and all. However, we can also see that rock music is divided into many subcultures such as metal, hard, emo and alternative. Each division has its own way of presenting its music and the overall look. I am honestly not suprised at how the identity fluidity had increased in the past couple of years given how music from all types of cultures is sold everywhere.

One of the interesting rock genres that should be touched upon is emo rock. Emo rock bands try to express their sorrowful way of life through singing. The emo fashion is getting more and more widespread especially these days. The performers usually have lengthy dark hair, with highlights, covering their eyes and wear tight fitted jeans. And whether the performer is a girl or a boy, the makeup is all over their faces. I think it is pretty interesting that this sort of subculture has local, translocal and virtual scenes almost everywhere in the world. Although emo is not very accepted in the middle east, there are some concerts that occur in Dubai in the “Dubai Rock Festival.” Below is a self-explanatory video of how emo people act and dress

Anyways, so back to Virgin, my friend showed me one pretty interesting thing. The cover of the Transformers Collector’s edition has the regular Optimus Prime character icon on it. However, when you flip the cover upside down, you can see Darth Vader from Star Wars. This is a very impressive form of product placement. Although the producers of the Transformers and the Star Wars movie franchise are not the same, this indirect form of advertisement happened. I find it amusing that companies find these indirect ways of advertising. This is much more interesting than watching a movie trailer about Star Wars on TV. This is mainly because people hate watching advertisements especially while they are watching their favorite TV series. It sort of feels like we are being interrupted somehow.

Of Queen and Masculinity

      This week's readings bothered me.

      While I fully understand that as a highly respected sociologist, this chapter's author is at the very least knowledgeable about issues of masculinity, I still felt that he was making countless ruthless assumptions about audience preferences in the 1970s. In truth, there is no need for me to further elaborate this point. I would just be wasting your time. All I need is a single word.

      Queen.

      ...They're that band with the really cool song.

      Well, they also had another equally cool song that will rock you. Among several other songs. You can't really stop them. They're true champions.

      Formed in 1970, Queen is a British rock band best known for their highly theatrical, complex, and innovative musical style. A single Queen song could incorporate several musical styles (as evidently shown in their revolutionary hit Bohemian Rhapsody, the really cool song in the video above), and therefore include several complex yet innovative transitions.

      One could go on forever about the history and the legacy of Queen, being a band that greatly revolutionized the rock genre with their daring and flamboyant style. In this blog, though, I will focus on their 1975 album: A Night at the Opera.

The tracklist for A Night at the Opera

      At the time of its release in 1975, A Night of the Opera was the most expensive album to have ever been recorded. The single Bohemian Rhapsody landed a then unprecedented success in music history, breaking a UK Singles Chart record by remaining as the top single for an entire nine weeks. A Night at the Opera's production was absolutely bizarre yet effectively innovative. For instance, can you believe that Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon was recorded out of...

Source

      A. TIN. BUCKET.

      My mind is blown.

      Rather than outlining how the image of masculinity is so carefully controlled in the media, I personally felt that this week's readings instead reinforced preconceived notions of masculinity. There was a significant disregard to exceptions to masculine portrayals typical of the 1970s. While the 1970s did indeed introduce the new notion of the "sensitive man" (albeit for only a short period of time), this renewed perception of masculinity was still not void of typical masculine traits such as physical strength and financial success.

      Queen dared to defy the then typical portrayal of masculinity through their flamboyant and theatrical musical style, styles that were typically adopted by most female singers as opposed to the typically stern yet enigmatic musical style of most male singers. Nonetheless, what most predicted as a surely controversial and highly risky musical style ended up as both a commercial success and musical legacy, as evident by the insane sales records A Night at the Opera achieved.

      Queen continued to defy such notions throughout the rest of their legendary musical career. Their most straightforward defiance of "typical" masculinity is most obviously seen on the music video for their single I Want to Break Free from their 1984 album The Works.

It's a girl! It's a mustache! It's Freddie Mercury...with a mustache...as a girl.

      
      It gradually becomes more evident that there is a gap in this reinforced belief of "typical" masculinity proposed by Michael Messner. How could Queen, a band so defiant of these social norms of gender, succeed so incredibly? Obviously, a large portion of the 1970s audience did not really abide by these reinforced social norms if they chose to support a rather "feminine" and theatrical band such as Queen.