Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Semester Project

Ironically when I was thinking about making a project I wasn't even listening to "The Weeknd." I had my playlist on shuffle and it started to pay "Carrying Cathy" which is a song about a woman named Cathy who committed suicide. Originally I thought about dedicating my project to Ben Folds music and attempt to mesh various instrumentals from his discography. Then when the song switched it started to play Prisoner by The Weeknd ft. Lana Del Ray, which is a song about being a prisoner to his addictions and his toxic habits. This got me thinking about maybe creating something that is musically related and the topic I had chosen was depression and listening to that song made me want to couple it with drug abuse as well. 
Ben Folds
American Singer-Songwriter
Abel Tesfaye
"The Weeknd"
Canadian Singer-Songwriter














When I decided to make a mash-up interlude consisting of instrumentals from songs in which The Weeknd is expressing depressive behavior or indicating drug abuse, a challenge I faced while making the interlude was choosing instrumentals to sample. Some of The Weeknd's lyrical content is based on intensive hidden symbolism and vivid imagery, so I wanted to sample songs that had apparent lyrics that show depression and drug abuse. 

 If I could compare my project to another project that was effective across the world was an album created by Danger Mouse that blended the music of the Beatles’ White Album with the vocal tracks from hip-hop star Jay-Z's Black Album to produce a new record that he called the Grey Album. This hybrid belonged to a musical genre known as "mash-up" a variation on sample-based recordings that had been bubbling under in clubs and on the Internet since around 2000. The tale of the Grey Album offers a rich case study for the examination of a wide variety of contemporary cultural issues within the context of the "copyright wars," remix culture and the age of the digital network. The Grey Album was a great medium to raise awareness of cultural, and online activism.

 The main purpose of my project is to endorse music therapy. Music Therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. Music is known to be a stress reliever and an avid method to boost mental health. This way of mash-up, interludes could be a successful business model in which therapists could cooperate with producers and work on pieces of music that would cater to the patient's choices, and artist preferences. 

 Coachella 2018 Set Design
"The Weeknd"
Edited


Works Cited

Kathleen Smith, Ph.D., LPC. Substance Abuse and Depression. 2018. 22 October 2019. <https://www.psycom.net/depression-substance-abuse>.
London, Bobby. Depression is Political. 31 July 2015. 8 November 2019. <https://thisisbobbylondon.com/2015/07/31/depression-is-political/>.
Loop, Erica. What Are the Benefits of Father Figures for Boys? n.d. 22 October 2019. <https://oureverydaylife.com/benefits-father-figures-boys-42874.html>.
Poli L, Freeman. Music Therapy for Depression. n.d. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 22 October 2019. <https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/tools-resources/evidence-based-resource/music-therapy-for-depression>.
Robinson, Lisa. The Weeknd Gets His Power from an Unexpected Source. 10 November 2015. 22 October 2019. <https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/11/the-weeknd-on-bella-hadid-fame>.
Staff, Noisey. Despite The Weeknd's Complaints, He's Been Nominated for a Kids' Choice Award. 4 February 2017. 22 October 2019. <https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/aejnd8/despite-the-weeknds-complaints-hes-been-nominated-for-a-kids-choice-award>.


Project Links:

Soundcloud Link: https://soundcloud.com/flamemaster777/mashup-dd-the-weeknd
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