Episode 165 – 2424

Black Mirror is an anthology of dystopian tech-based episodes. Twilight Zone is the closest comparison. Some episodes are ok, many are outstanding. Some of my favorites:

USS Callister https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5710974/?ref_=ttep_ep1

Nosedive: about social credit scores https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/?ref_=ttep_ep1

Be Right Back: After learning about a new service that lets people stay in touch with the deceased, a lonely, grieving Martha reconnects with her late lover. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2290780/?ref_=ttep_ep1

White Bear: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2542420/?ref_=ttep_ep2

and my favorite–Bandersnatch, an interactive choose your own adventure in which you ruin a guy’s life–est watched with other people.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9495224/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_5_q_bandersna

“Will we be listening to Taylor Swift in 50 years?”

I know that I certainly won’t, nor will my kids–we’ve loathed her music from the beginning…and it’s not anywhere close to the worst music in this day…just not excellent music. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of this stuff from Swift and her contemporaries…don’t worry, I didn’t forget you, Bieber and Eilish!

While bad (mediocre, etc.) music has been written during every period of modern music history, there’s been an especially significant dearth of quality music for the past couple decades. I’m not just referring to “mumble rap” and “whisper singing.” Because the barrier of publishing music is lower these days, plenty of songs that would have never seen the light of day in the past are exposed to the world, diluting standards further.

Elvis is an interesting example to bring up when it comes to creating music. While Elvis was a fantastically popular performer and singer, he can’t take credit for actually creating the songs, because he didn’t write any (at least not of the hundreds of songs he recorded…maybe he wrote something that wasn’t recorded?). However, Elvis did take credit for writing songs which he had had no hand in writing. In a practice that continues to this day, Elvis (which includes the many people in the music industry behind him and his success) demanded that he be given 50% of the songwriting credit as a stipulation for recording a song. (Incidentally, sometimes performers even demand all songwriting credits, and instead pay a fee to the songwriter…and make them sign an NDA, of course.) Not all “songwriters” are truthfully songwriters.

I long for the days of yore when musicians who had real talent won Grammy’s, like Milli Vanilli…they sure didn’t need Auto-Tune! Nor did these guys blame anything on the rain or forget my number. Girl, you know it’s true! 🙂

https://youtu.be/UvPXmkYMHFg?si=-YAU3Lz8gMdaJ_ef

-Dmitri