Synoiz Music Blog

Posted 22nd January 2012

Another personal blog here, there's lots going on in the Synoiz world but I felt i'd have a sit down and muse on this topic while it's still in my head after listening to a lot of Etta James and hearing a lot about Rihanna lately.

Are singers like Rihanna and the media good for the perception of women?

Now i'd say it would be daft to call me a feminist, not because I don't believe in feminism but simply because there are lot of people out there who are doing a lot more towards it. Although I grew up in an environment that didn't give me room to conceive that women and men shouldn't be equal. Even now I don't understand why some people could view them as unequal or think women should have less rights/money/freedom than men. I've always known women far more noble and intelligent than I am so it seems daft that anyone could look down on them just cos of gender. Indeed I have weird other views about men being less equal than women in certain areas (as a man it's far socially acceptable to wear whatever you want etc) but that's for another day, either way the culprit is still the same. 

During one of my many Twitter rants about the Barbie doll with a grating voice also known as Rihanna (if you don't know who she is then I envy you), a few interesting points came through. Obviously Rihanna demonstrates the wonderful PR trick of "make them think it's freedom and liberation while still getting them to do what you want". 

For instance Rihanna's fans seem to claim her as a model of female independance and strength even though the label (judging by production staff they're mostly men also) write her songs, tell her the words to sing and tell her what to wear (some of which is covered in this article about how much it cost to write her album for her and promote it for her). So what we have is a "strong independant woman" whose videos and promotional materials are fiercely provocative, sings about being obsessed with sex and does what the man tells her to do. I don't think this could be more perfect for men and demeaning to women unless they wrote her some songs about being good at cooking/cleaning and not wanting to interrupt their video games with idle prattle (I want royalties if this happens btw). 

But what we need to see is that the media is about advertising, it's not a system of "news" or "informing people" it's about letting people know what companies want to sell and making people want to buy it. If we had TV or magazines pointing out just how beautiful women can be without buying or using any makeup, not needing their overpriced mini weightwatchers meals, not needing cosmetic surgery (hell I'm sure even the ice cream industry might suffer from less girls feeling like they need to comfort eat), then the media wouldn't make any money. Hell some of you may remember how stunned I was by that "How to look good naked" program I saw while on holiday earlier in the year that carried the message of "you can look great naked if you just spend lots of money wearing more clothes to be a socially acceptable Adele-brand of fat". 

So what I see is REAL artists and real strong independant women constantly ignored by the limelight and success in favour of puppet "artists" like Rihanna simply because they can't sell the range of products that the Barbie dolls can.

How Etta James ties into this...

Recently famous Blues singer Etta James passed away, admittedly I had totally past her by and didn't know of her work but spent most of Friday listening to her music and kinda feeling like I'd missed out on something great for a long time (this isn't the best song to argue female independance but her voice is amazing). 

However it did make me think. Etta harks back to the old ways of music, before the 70s or the glorious 80s, when people were JUST singers. They didn't need to play an instrument, other people wrote the music and the lyrics (which are where the royalties went) and the singer or "artist" was a doll that just got a little from in between. 

So if I'm complaining that it's such a shock that there are artists like Rihanna/Beyonce etc who just sing and don't tend to get involved with the music side at all (I know I'm ignoring the woeful and equal male side with JLS, The Wanted, One Direction boybands who are just as bad for being puppets) then how can I possibly talk about how great the old time artists like Etta James or Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday were?

Simple, all of them are dead now and we never saw their rack properly.

These women had a power, they had a sway over both the industry and men while still giving nothing away and still jumping through the hoops that a male-dominated industry forced them through. Sure they probably weren't involved in writing the songs but they made men feel like they were the weaker ones and that it was a priviledge to be in the company of such women. I know a fair few men who think, while they doubt they'd ever get to meet Rihanna, the most they'd have to stretch to is a drink or two before they struck gold (I'd say Nicki Minaj might be cheaper). 

It's the horrible realisation that "artists" like Rihanna make me actually start thinking of women as dolls or being less than men, seeing her music videos and promo photos I feel like I'd be breaking some kind of social etiquette if I didn't stare at her breasts and slap her on the arse since those are what she seems to advertise herself as. 

But what about Lady Gaga?

On the same topic someone asked me how I could be a fan of Lady Gaga (who wears practically nothing or very revealing outfits quite a bit) and slag off Rihanna for the same thing. The answer here is that Gaga's style seems to have a lot more thought behind it (plus if you believe it or not she probably designed/co-designed/decided to wear it - deciding or designing something skimpy to wear is a whole world apart from saying "yes I'll wear that Mr Man who gives me money") and she has a way of turning sexy into creepy. Like she doesn't just wear panties and tape round her breasts, she wears them with a black eye, blood round her mouth or a dead cat slung over her shoulder, almost using her form to inspire revulsion or defensiveness rather than just product selling sexual attraction and lust. This is the difference between a life modelling class and a porn movie, the context and the understanding put behind the composition.

Conclusion

Rudeboy was a terrible song, Man Down was bought pre-written by the record label for a lot of money, Only Girl In The World is about how a woman needs a man. Oh and I'd prefer to listen to claws on a chalkboard than Rihanna's tired flat attempts at vocals. 

I think I stumbled a bit on the dismount there.

Posted 6th January 2012

Bit of an odd blog this time, hope you had a good new year and have not yet broken ALL of your resolutions. I just thought I'd take a moment to write a film review as I've just got back from the cinema. 

The Iron Lady

I have to say I wasn't totally sure what I expected of this film. On principle I don't pay attention to reviews from people I don't know and it looks like I'm the first one of my friends to see this. 

Personally I am unsure of my opinion of ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, I grew up with adults around me still seething about her, still hating her even though she was out of office. But for me, to make that much of an impression on a country, on a world, makes me wonder if I should respect her for simply DOING things and having the nerve to simply make decisions that people wouldn't be happy with. I guess I've grown up during the period in Britain where nobody does anything cos they're scared of upsetting someone or messing up the balance. For instance, the only reason I can remember who John Major was (the guy who followed Thatcher as Prime Minster) is because of his caricature in Spitting Image (left)! No idea what he did for the country. 

Anyway, the film. Straight to the point, it's not a brilliant film. It's a film that quite simply stumbles along and flutters about as though it's a wall of post-it notes and the window is open. The story and flow just don't work for me, there are times when it genuinely feels like an unbiased documentary about a woman's life taking you through her highs and lows, her triumphs and her mistakes, and then it will suddenly cut to a total propaganda section punching you in the face to feel sympathy for her. 

It feels as though there was a script, then someone with a red pen got to it and put "this bit may stop people liking her, do something like this instead", the same way that Michael Bay (of Transformers infamy) might go "this bit is too slow, we need to put an explosion or a car chase in". 

The "plot" follows Lady Thatcher (Meryl Streep) near to present day as she lives coping with dementia and being an old biddy being old, imagining her dead husband Dennis (Jim Broadbent) is still talking to her and alive. The film works like an edition of Tales From The Crypt with old-Thatcher as the crypt keeper having trips down memory lane and reminiscing or weeping over flashbacks of her life. In places this works, in others it doesn't. The sections with Young Thatcher are cringeworthy, with Dennis proposing to her only for Thatcher to go into a speech about how she refuses to be a house wife and she'll never be the sort of woman to wash dishes as the stirring music rises beneath her words.

I think I just heard a suffragette clapping from the 1930s.

Just one. 

Often in The Iron Lady it's not what's BEING said, it's the way it's said. It feels like the film has no idea how to lead its audience and the music and words are expecting the audience to feel something while they're actually feeling the total opposite. 

HOWEVER...

...it is impossible not to say that Meryl Streep is amazing. It feels weird saying this but it's great to see real acting again. Throughout the film she IS Thatcher, from mannerisms down to speech and you get a constant feel for her and what she's thinking and what she must be going through. One of those roles where you forget that it's a person you've seen in plenty of other films, you ALMOST even forget sodding Mamma Mia.

When myself and Ian Lawlor (from 12 Ft Beast Productions) went to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (awesome film, bleak but amazing) I remember him saying that Dragon Tattoo will probably miss out on all the awards and fame because of films like The Iron Lady. All honesty, if there's any justice in the world that won't happen, however Streep does deserve the Best Actress award for The Iron Lady even if it winning Best Film would whiff of money changing hands. 

The simple fact is that no matter how good Streep's performance is, even she can't save the film from itself and the heavy handed script. I have to say there are times when the Britishness of everything she does and her tone of voice got to me, but that is what Thatcher was like as Prime Minister. 

All in all I give the film a score of 4/10, mainly for Streep's performance and the way that some dark events weren't skimmed over as I expected them to be.

In the end I left feeling sympathy for Thatcher, not because the film depicts her as a poor defenceless old widow who just did what she felt she needed to do and everyone ended up hating her for it, but because the film shows a flicker, a hint of a great life and story that still needs to be told by better writers. It might not be a happy story, it might be about a woman who did damage the country in some people's eyes, but it's an important part of British history that needs to be told well.

Posted 31st December 2011

Well I was going to write a big blog about everything that happened in 2011 and what was good, what was bad, and I just gave up. I didn't enjoy 2011 much at all so I'm glad to turn my back on it and work for the best from 2012. I hope you all have a great time next year and that things go well with all of your endeavours (oh and that the world doesn't end). 

I'm very much looking forward to 2012 as there's lots of nice Synoiz projects on the go, including: 

• Darkling album (Finally!)
• Darkling music video
• New collaboration album from Shaun L'Orange & Synoiz (no name yet)
• New Synoiz album

Posted 18th December 2011

Ohohohoho it's getting close to Christmas, and we all know what that means! The horrible and tragic realisation that you don't truly know or understand the people you're trying to buy presents for. Maybe I have a very pessismistic view of the Christmas season but for me it's just cold, ice, social expectations and sodding Wham! on the radio every ten minutes. Still I suppose it's nice for getting a bit of chill time to, say, update this blog and finally say hello to the nice new followers on Twitter.

The main thing I want to say now I've got a moment is thank you to everyone who came along to the first ever Synoiz live performance in November as part of the Cutting Edge Film Festival in Newcastle. The whole day was awesome once I'd stopped stressing about things and just decided to have a good time!

Hilariously the performance was a bit of a shambles as lots of things went wrong and meant that neither the backing videos that myself and 12 Foot Beast Productions had spent most of the previous week filming nor the right channel of most tracks worked at all. Two of the more important tracks had to be skipped because of a bizarre and unforeseen bass limiter on the venue's mixing desk (meaning that the main parts of Getting Safer and Ever Emptiness were totally cut off)!

Still even if I see the gig as a disaster a lot of the audience still said they enjoyed themselves and it gave me a great opportunity to get used to playing in front of people and being the centre of attention (which I've never liked the idea of), I had a lot of fun with the audience, joking on about the technical issues, even attempting with Alex (after someone shouted it out) to do an a cappella version of Getting Safer that was both hilarious and a disaster.

Setlist:

1. The Open Sky
2. Andromeda
3. Long Lost...
4. Ever Emptiness¹
5. Getting Safer¹
6. Of Rolling Hills
7. Darkling

¹ These were the tracks that had to be skipped due to technical issues.

Thanks to everyone who came down and who requested songs to be played, Andromeda and Of Rolling Hills were the fan chosen tracks and went down a treat I think. Thanks also to Alex Campbell for pulling through for me and helping me out with additional keyboards and banter for a few of the tracks.

All in all the Cutting Edge film festival organised by Antoni McVay of Mitsuko Studios was a big success, there were some great films being shown as well as some hilarious ones! Lots of nice compliments (ie: "that was bloody freaky") on my scores for the films Nightmares and The Dark Passenger plus, I think it got mentioned in the news section, I won the award for "Best Actor" for the stuff I did for Le Belle Dame Sans Merci and The Dark Passenger (the soundtrack of the dark passenger was cobbled together meticulously compiled, remastered and released a few weeks ago if you want to go get it by clicking here btw). We've discussed the idea of releasing the more dramatic Nightmares soundtrack too but since it was composed by both myself and Guy Newby and edited by me we'd have to work a bit more out in terms of which versions to use, whether to include unused tracks or scenes and stuff and so it's probs a "tomorrow after tomorrow" type job.

I didn't win the "Best Soundtrack" award as that was taken by Brendan Ratliff (aka @echolevel on Twitter) and his brilliant organic score for Le Belle Dame Sans Merci. I think I would have been jealous if any of the other soundtracks had beaten the three I had done for stuff in the festival but I remember hearing Brendan's first version of the score on a pre-final edit of the film and thinking that it was exactly what I had wanted to go for but didn't really know if I could achieve, his score was perfect for the film and I'm a firm believer in the importance of considering what is best for a project and not just my own portfolio.

Anyway there may be some pictures or videos of the Synoiz live performance coming at some point, I saw one or two camera phones and Ian from 12 Foot Beast was recording the whole thing from somewhere at the back so they may get added to the YouTube or news section at some point.

Hope you're all well and if you don't hear from me, have a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Posted 11th December 2011