How I Analyze Music...

Lately, I've been looking back at old songs that I have on my iPod. Realizing that I'm very picky about the music I listen to, I decided to analyze how I examine a song, and I discovered the following:

1.) I look at beat/instrumental first. If I don't like it, then I quickly discard the song. This is the most important aspect of the song for me, and I download a lot of instrumentals as a result. I feel that there are a lot of songs, especially in rap, that have good beats but poor flow or lyrics, but I will still listen to them anyways. Conversely, I tend to disregard those that have good flow or lyrics if they do not have a good beat. Sometimes, I find certain songs downright unlistenable due to a beat I don't like. For instance, Lil Wayne is known to be an extremely witty and clever lyricist, but some of his songs have beats that I don't like much, so I guess I don't give the song enough of a chance because of that (this is why I like songs like "Go DJ" and "Shine" much more than "Dr. Carter" and "Shoot me Down"). The same goes for Eminem, whose lyrics are also incredible, but some of his beats, such as in "Kim" or "Remember Me," are sometimes hard to listen to (usually when he produces the track.)

2.) Once beat/instrumental is satisfied, I start analyzing the flow of the rapping. This is why I tend to like rappers like Bone Thugs N Harmony, Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, and 2Pac. They rap alongside the beat so fluidly that their raps, in addition to the beat itself, stick in my head. One of Eminem's songs, "Square Dance," is the epitome of his incredible flow, and since it has a very interesting beat, is one of my favorite songs. Some of his songs don't have great beats, as mentioned above, but since Eminem has a very listenable flow, he singlehandedly makes the song sound better. Meanwhile, I think Talib Kweli does not have a great flow, and despite his lyrics being politically charged and interesting, I don't like a lot of his songs because the way he raps often isn't in-line with the beat.

3.) The last thing I look at is lyrics. When the criteria above are satisfied, I finally look at the wit of the lyrics and the storytelling abilities. This is where Lil' Wayne, Eminem, Drake, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Common, and Kanye West excel, as they are either extremely clever or tackle interesting subjects. One song, in particular, that satisfies all three criteria is "The Winner" by Drake. This song has an amazing beat, so, "check." Drake's flow is "revolutionary," as he likes to say, so that's a "check." And finally, his lyrics are really witty and he has a lot of good one-liners, so that's a "check" too. Some other examples are "Last Call" by Kanye West, "The Corner" by Common, and "I Got a Story to Tell" by Notorious B.I.G.

There's so much amazing music out there, but I thought it was interesting to reflect on what I find most important in a song. I'm sure everyone differs in these criteria.

Prescription Drug Commercials...

I have never understood why there are commercials for prescription drugs. I could understand having advertisements for over-the-counter medications, since we, as consumers, can make our own choices about what sort of medication we like more or works better for our bodies. (I feel like this is very Seinfeldian)

It makes no sense, however, why prescription drugs, such as Vytorin, Avodart, Plavix, Lunesta, and so many more, have advertisements. When a doctor finds a particular problem with a patient, he/she will determine and prescribe the best medicine. We effectively have no say in their prescription. Even if we do suggest a particular drug that we saw on TV, it's not as if the doctor would not know about it, as it would have been prescribed to us had he/she felt it was appropriate.

Do these commercials target doctors and not patients? Are they trying to take advantage of doctors' inherent biases, or even manipulate their views, towards certain pharmaceutical companies, so that the doctors prescribe one particular medication over another? I guess that would make most sense, but I still don't see why they bombard a mass audience that only has a small percentage of doctors with all of these commercials. Maybe I'm missing something.

Federer: G.O.A.T. (as much as I hate to say it)...

So my dad, my brother, and I have been discussing whether Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player of all time. In light of his victory at the French Open today, it is only appropriate that we discuss whether he is, indeed, the greatest.

If the greatest of all time is purely quantitative, Federer has to be the best, since he does have the most grand slams of all (T-1 with Sampras), and to top it off, he finally got that elusive French. To be honest, even without the French, had he won another major to get to 14, I would still consider him better than Sampras due to his consistent excellence on clay, namely his getting to four French Open finals (even Sampras agrees). And this is coming from an avid Sampras fan. He has the excellence on grass, the will on hards, and the patience on clay. Sampras could never say that, as his best run at Roland Garros was the semis (and once, mind you.) God, this hurts saying all of this. (I'm going to ignore Laver for now since I was -20 years old when he played.)

There's still a bitter taste in my mouth though. How can the greatest of all time have a nemesis? If he does have a nemesis, should that not automatically eliminate any chance of his becoming the greatest of all time? Who knows. Rafa may actually become the greatest ever, and if that actually occurred, then there probably will not be any doubt, since he beats Federer on a consistent basis (now, even on Federer's good surfaces: grass and hards). But for now, if Federer isn't the greatest ever, then who actually is? Just by statistics, it has to be him. I guess I can live with that; he turns tennis into an art form.

Er...I really miss my 90s. Where are MJ and Sampras?

More on Refs...

John Hollinger writes the following:

"No, the problem is a more basic one: consistency. If players don't know what a foul is from night to night or quarter to quarter, it's inevitable that they're going to be upset, and equally inevitable that fans are going to start flinging conspiracy theories at the wall to explain what they're seeing. In a perfect world, the words "adjusting to the officiating" would never have to be mentioned.

Whether I've been watching in person or on TV, it's hard not to notice that the overall quality of the officiating is worse than it was, say, four or five years ago, and that the night-to-night consistency has been erratic as well. I'm not sure it has much impact on the league's popularity -- for comparison, soccer refs tend to be horrid, and it's still the most popular sport in the world -- but it definitely has an impact on the game outcomes.

And as the series moves to Denver for Game 6, that's likely to continue. With a tight whistle so clearly favoring the Nuggets and a loose one so obviously giving L.A. an advantage, it seems almost inevitable that the officiating will again be a huge story."

No doubt the media and fans are blowing this up, but it seems that whistle-blowing has suddenly changed from relatively constant to erratic. Who knows. It's fun talking about it though.

Addition to the Ref Saga...

"My single favorite old-school moment of the past two decades happened at the end of Game 5 of the 1993 Eastern finals, when Chicago's Jordan, Pippen and Grant famously blocked four straight Charles Smith shots to clinch the victory in New York. Were the blocks clean? I don't know. Did the Knicks complain after? No. Because you had to watch the whole game -- that play didn't just happen. All four quarters were played with that same cutthroat intensity. Unlike today, the officials didn't change their minds midway through the game on what contact was acceptable. They didn't try to manage the game. They let the players decide what happened and intervened when necessary." This is exactly the inconsistency all of us have been mentioning.

This is from Bill Simmons' article today on ESPN's Page 2. He's making my point. Also, it's a good read in general, so I recommend going through it. He makes some points that I don't think anyone has bothered to mention, such as the referees' being excruciatingly old for this increasingly uptempo game. Obviously, that isn't the refs' faults, but the NBA's.

Refs Ruining the Playoffs?

John Hollinger wrote this article a few days ago mentioning how most NBA fans have been complaining about how the referees' excessive whistle-blowing has ruined the fluidity of the playoff games. As he mentions, the number of blown whistles has gone up proportionally in the playoffs compared to the regular season, as it has in recent years. Thus, he argues that fans should not be complaining.

What he doesn't realize is that fans, like myself, are not complaining about the number of calls; we are complaining about the accuracy of the calls. As we all know, Nike and Vitamin Water have been plugging the dream Kobe vs. Lebron matchup for weeks, and obviously the NBA wants a piece of that lucrative pie. By having such bad calls (I have plenty to choose from) as Pietrus' phantom foul on Lebron in the waning seconds of regulation in Game 4 (as Tim Cowlishaw points out, if that was Ben Gordon or someone of that caliber, we all know that call wouldn't have been made, and it would have just been his "slipping" on the floor), the accuracy of the game is in question, since now many fans are skeptical about the motives of the NBA front office. Do they want an accurate product or do they want the money?

Why we even have to discuss this is a shame. Since the refs are already stopping the game by calling an inordinate number of fouls (according to Hollinger), why don't they stop the game to review the bad or controversial calls? Thanks to the Magic's being on the verge of beating the Cavs, maybe the league isn't rigged after all, and integrity is returning to the game. However, as long as Tim Donaghy's name continues to be uttered, the refs will continue to be scrutinized. I have no problem with that. I think I speak for a lot of fans when I say, "All we want is consistency."

India...What a Place...

I know it's been an entire semester since I last posted something, and to those who care, I apologize.

I recently came back from India, where I spent three and a half weeks absorbing one of the most mind-blowing places in the world. India is a place that you both love and hate at the same time.

First I will discuss very briefly and informally why I love it (as this is not the main point of this article). It has this charm that you can only find from the incessant noise, the diverse languages, and the amazing food. You can never get bored and you will always learn something new, even if it comes within an inch of you in an auto-rickshaw. It is honestly this ineffable experience that can only be absorbed and not articulated. The people are so affectionate, so real, and just so helpful. It makes you get emotional about how you want to see them as happy as possible. Really, I'm just shaking my head at a loss of words for how amazing this place is.

Despite this, I would love to change so many things about it, not for my sake, but to help those who I see struggling to sell toy airplanes at intersections or begging for food or money at the train stations. There is such a blatant discrepancy between the rich and the poor that India's so-called recent successes, namely in the IT industry, have been diluted due to their inability to encompass the whole of society. It is true that such giants as Infosys, Wipro, TCS, and Satyam Computing (the last maybe not so much anymore...) have shown India's prowess in technical ability as well as helped India's economy, and such foreign giants as Microsoft, Google, and Cisco putting branches in Bangalore and Hyderabad reflects a growing need for highly capable individuals, many of whom are found in India. Despite this progress, this is still the same India as it was ten years ago, which was the last time I came (unfortunately). The fact that Electronics City and HITEC City have sprung up has done nothing to change the lack of paved roads in Gandhi Nagar or the blatant flouting of traffic conventions in old Hyderabad. No matter what people say about India's progress, it will never reach its potential of being the most dominant power in the world without curbing its main problem: population.

This nation is literally the size of the eastern United States, but it has five times the latter's population, now clocking in at over a billion people. It would be one thing if the population was predominantly urban and educated, but alas, 70% of India is still rural, and unfortunately, almost half the population is illiterate. This is no excuse for the world's largest democracy. In a nation where the government is supposed to provide such institutions as education and public works projects in order to increase output, there is little evidence to show for. The reason for this boils down to one thing: the government physically cannot manage this many people. There's no legitimate way of taxation because, frankly, who can the government tax? If it taxes the rich, often those who are actually recognized by the government, they can plead that no one else is paying taxes and flea. Obviously taxing the poor does nothing, and the middle class is growing so rapidly that it can't account for all the change.

This population problem then leads to government corruption, as an unmanageable population will lead to resignation from the government, at which point officials will simply chew up the money themselves. The first thing the government should do with such a population is to set a limit on the number of children a family should have. China has done it, and it seems to be working. I'm not saying that it will be a popular move, but it is a necessary one. India's population is getting younger, which means fewer people will be dying, and indeed the population will increase even quicker. This must be stopped by implementing the "Two or Three Children per Family" policy. Obviously this won't be a quick solution, and it will take decades upon decades for India to reap the benefits, but it still is essential that it does so today rather than wait until the entire subcontinent collapses due to overpopulation. Once the government implements this policy, hopefully the population will eventually grow older, and the result in a century will be a more manageable population. (I know this sounds cold, but I'm just trying to assess the reality of the situation...)

As the population continues to decrease, the government must also be restructured. I am unsure of the general political science behind corruption, but it is pretty obvious that there is a lack of policing of government officials. In addition, the government does not instill fear in its people. This can be reflected in the lack of order on the streets. No one follows signals, the police, or street signs. Why? Because no one is going to give them a ticket for disobeying the law (and for some strange reason, people don't realize the danger of getting hit by a vehicle.) I am not saying that India should become some sort of police state, but the government should maintain some sort of power of the people, just as it does in the United States. Though the U.S. has its fair share of problems and, at times, corruption, one cannot argue with the brilliance of its founding fathers in maintaining a checks and balances system that makes sure that no particular person or body has too much power to abuse. India should try to implement this type of system. If this means a complete renovation of the government, so be it. This is necessary in order to curtail corruption. The reason these officials can just run away with government money is because no one is watching them; if they are constantly being scrutinized, they can only act in the most righteous manner; otherwise, they can be ousted. Once the government is in order, people will have more respect for it, and so will pay taxes, follow rules, and have a general respect - and a partial fear - of the government and its abilities. This is not at all impossible, and can in fact be a welcoming addition to an already complex democratic government. The main action item is that it must be implemented on the state and local levels as well. Only then will the money from taxation go towards public works projects, schools, housing projects, and certain social institutions that are required to keep the economy running.

The problem is that India is too smart for its own good. The people are too conniving for their own good. They find ways to beat the system, and indeed have succeeded. It's just strange to see that the government has not found ways to beat the beating of its system.

All of this being said, India still is one of the world's most amazing places. It just hurts me to see that it can be so much more than it is. You just need to give it some direction. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying the solution and my argument is completely convoluted, but one thing is certain: if there is a goal set in place, action can and will be taken. I guess someone just has to instill that goal into people's heads. The question is, "How?"

(Note: I actually wrote this post in India [as if I had come back already] while I was bored, but did not decide to post this until now for some reason...)