A Call From the Grave of Cho Seung Hui

Many are disgusted by the footage of Cho that NBC played. I wasn’t disgusted, but certainly disturbed. I’m sure the footage is on YouTube somewhere right now, but I didn’t bother to look.

Cho’s call from the grave is now going to live a everlasting life (or until the Internet disappears, or until human extinction). This is a call for attention, and NBC granted him that. Is it “clues to the reason of the killing” or a bad step that only fulfills the killer’s goal? Both, I would say, but more of the latter.

The only thing that we got from (or at least me) the video is that Cho is angry. Angry at the world, angry at society, but angry at no one at particular. What triggers this? Is it society’s mistreatment (and what exactly is that?) or his brain chemical imbalance?

I wonder how many people share the same feeling of mistreatment like him.
And switching gears, will this have a negative effect on Asians? I’m Chinese myself, and I just have to wonder. But I haven’t heard anything yet, but again, I didn’t bother to look.

Rant of the Day: Hipsters and Metal Heads

You know what irritates me?

Indie-pseudo-intellectual-holier-than-thou-hipsters. Stop fucking talking about Of Montreal, Arcade Fire, or whatever band you read on Pitchfork.

Once the band sells more than 500,000 they’re going to piss all over the bands that they praised to high heaven. Talk about flip-flopping and narrow minded.

Same goes to I-just-like-guitars-and fuck-electronics-metal heads. Stop talking about how a band “isn’t metal enough”, or how a band doesn’t scream enough.

Once a band put out a record that isn’t as “heavy”, they’re going to spit all over the band and call them “gay”. Talk about meat-headed and closed-minded.

Of course, all of this yapping from me isn’t going to help. And what demographic do I belong to? I don’t even want to know.

P.S. Who the hell is buying the new Lavigne disc? Wait, I had her last two albums, things you do when you’re younger…Now I’m a flip-flopper.

Mass Suckers

It is just another sad thing that I see.

People at the end of the day just want something that’s easier, something that won’t challenge them. They want fucking packaged pop, escapist but not thinkers.

This week there is two major releases---Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero and Avril Lavigne’s The Best Damn Thing. One is a dense concept album with a challenging theme and sound, one is an album with pop songs designed for Top 40. Which one do you think is going to sell more? Lavigne, of course.

According Hits Daily Double, it looks like Avril Lavigne is expected to debut #1 with about 250k in sales, while NIN should be right behind her with about 200k in sales. While the margin is not big, I was a bit sadden by it.

PEOPLE JUST FUCKING WANT DISPOSABLE POP.

Yes, NIN has Internet buzz with the ARG campign, has mostly positive and some very positive reviews, (yes, the album is great). But it touches darker subjects---mass sedation, a controlling government, rebellion, a giant hand of god---stuff that makes for good science fiction. Set in place 15 years from now, it represents a bleak future, and perhaps something that the mass does not want to think about. Hey, there are still a lot of people who still won’t believe that global warming is upon us.

Lavigne, on the other hand, has something better (in terms of sale)---she has Top 40 radio play, a bunch of TV appearances (how punk is that?) and a mass-circulated video. She got mostly average to negative to reviews, but does it mean anything? Nickelback sold a ton.

I guess that’s why most of the time discs that ends up in “Best of the Year” list is usually things that wasn’t a mass –commercial success (again, mostly), because to achieve critical success, it has to be challenging, daring, interesting, and audacious. The average mass is not going for that, they just want something normal, something peaceful and something ordinary.

And who am I to judge?

I don’t even know why I should care anymore.