Where have I gone?

So, it is apparent that I haven't posted anything insightful in quite some time. I have been producing music for fun and uploading the songs on the interweb! But, I have learned some things about my instincts.

Modern Media: Sex Sells

Here is the verdict, attractive women suffer from self esteem issues, young adult males are spewing with hormones, teenage girls have the sex drive of a cat in heat.
This is modern society.

Why is it that over the past fifty years, sex drive has progressively affected younger people? Let me answer that with another question: how easy is it to access sexual content today?

Cellular phones, television, music, movies, magazines, books, comics, junk mail, newspapers, and computers, can contain sexual content. Have you ever heard of the term “Sex Sells"? This is used by advertisement creators when designing ads directed toward men.

Dating Sites
I recently saw an E-Harmony ad in which a supposed husband and wife begin to make out, and then the old guy chimes in and talks about the lasting marriages E-Harmony creates. Why do I need two people passionately kissing to advertise that E-Harmony is the dating site to go to?

Food Adverts
Why would a self conscious, low self esteemic model eat a greasy cheese burger? No. Would you (young male) eat a burger that a beautiful woman was eating? Kind of silly if you think about it. “I'm going to eat a burger because a scandalously dressed woman is."

Now you may be asking me, “Lucas, how do I protect myself from the sex filled advertisements?" Frankly, move to a place where even the U.S. government can't find you. We are surrounded by visual and subliminal sexual messages. It is nearly impossible to avoid the “Sex Sells" of our visual society. The only way to stay away from these adverts is to watch pre-80's shows and movies... on Netflix.

Baby Mozart = Man Mozart

    Now, we have all seen the commercials about "Baby Mozart," babies who learn at an exponential rate because of listening to classical music. It appears ridiculous. But alas, I had hope in this theory, so I did a little self test (no, I am not a baby), involving being able to focus whilst doing simple cognitive work.
    This was around the time I was doing summer school at 0530 'til 1200. One day, I would listen to my classical music compilation; the next day, simple lyrical music. I had then noticed that the lyrical music affected my focus, thereon affecting my test scores. Classical music, on the other hand, improved my focus and test scores. I'm not saying that the classical music on it's own helped my scores, I'm saying non-lyrical music helped my scores.
    Now, to segway into what I'm getting at. Have you ever wondered why, when you pay no attention around you that you can still hear your name in a crowd? Or when you walk down the street, that your eyes fix on all the faces? Well, that is the subconscious' job, to do minor focusing. The subconscious, pre-installed with facial recognition, with voice recognition, and with word recognition, allows us to do everyday stuff without fully paying attention. What does this have to do with lyrical music? When focusing on one thing (i.e., school, books, art), the subconscious still focuses on outside stuff. When you listen to lyrical music while focusing on this task, the word and/or voice recognition is listening to your music and reminding you, "Hey, the guitar solo is coming up," or "Hey, I really think Lance Bass sounds gay in this song." So, as you are focusing on this task, your subconscious is nagging at you to listen to the music. Now back to the classical music. When listening to the non-lyrical/classical music, my subconscious had nothing to hone onto, improving my focus and concentration. Therefore non-lyrical/classical is today's "Ritalin."

Associations Part II: Emotional Memory

    When I started working out, I was given some tips by a friend, one of which intrigued me. He said, "Pick a selection of music that you will only listen to while working out." I asked him why, and he said, "I don't know why, but if you listen to the music while not working out, it will mess with your brain." I got to thinking, I have had that kind of experience before. I was going on this long bike trip and all I listened to was Iron Maiden, well a few days after the trip I was listening to Iron Maiden and I had sudden flush of the emotion I felt while biking and the urge to bike. It wore off when I listen to them three days in a row, but I surprised me that my brain had made the association between the music, my emotion while listening to the music, and the urge to bike. Have you ever heard a song that you hadn't heard in a while and you have the sudden remembrance of the location in which you originally heard the song and my emotion. I first had that experience when I listened to "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal, and I remembered being in Tennessee in my families old beat up minivan and it was on the radio. The rush of memory was overwhelming , but I loved the feeling!
    Here is another way the brain makes emotional associations (which I lightly touched upon in my last "Association" post), where a negative experience ties in emotionally with a surrounding. We've all had the arguments where they left an imprint in your psyche, where your brain takes a little snapshot of the emotion, the location, and the person arguing with. This is probably the worst ability the subconscious uses, because of the imprint it leaves on people and places.

Slipknot -- Musical Brilliance

    Ok, start throwing the stones now, I do listen to Slipknot. I'm not gothic, "emo," depressed, etc., I just know a ground breaking band when I hear it. Most bands these days are focused on self image and appearance, not the music they are creating, namely The Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber, 'Nsync, Backstreet Boys, Etc. We have all seen their spooky music videos and the disturbing masks; well, they wear the masks to forget themselves and focus on the music. The ability to forget oneself and to focus on the musical aspects is brilliant. Think of bands that sound like Slipknot... Stone Sour doesn't count, thus there are no bands comparable.
      Now, you are probably saying, "Well, AC/DC was a great musical band and they didn't wear masks!" My answer is, AC/DC could care less about there self image, they were all about, sex, alcohol, and rock 'n roll. Now, think about Lady Gaga, you never see her dress in street clothes or normal everyday clothing, it's always some abstract dress or suit, she has been able to forget herself (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), and focusing on a new abstract identity, allowing her to focus on her music in a different way. This is very close to Slipknot's ideology, showing that music can be great if you forget yourself...