The Problem With The Music Industry

Listening to the radio is fast becoming a thankless everyday task which you'd prefer not to endure but sometimes, the pain is just unavoidable. Like seeing a plumber's arse crack, standing on a plug or being stabbed.

There was once a time where you could turn on the radio and actually hear music which wouldn't make Mozart turn in his grave, the talentless junk that litters the radios of today and attacks your ears like a parasite is simply beyond a joke.

The greatest issue I have with the artists in the charts is that they're not musically talented in the slightest. They can't play an instrument and they can't sing to save their lives, think Rebecca Black, N-Dubz, Chipmunk...

People may make the point, well after the singing's been autotuned to death and a simple bass line from 'Garage Band for Dummies Volume 1' has been installed, the song sounds good even if it requires little talent.

The fact is, it doesn't.

It sounds so bad in fact, that it makes my ears bleed. I'm a firm believer that people should only gain respect and be recognised for what they're good at, singing into a computer like a drowning cat on crack cocaine and then autotuning it to make it sound like you can sing isn't talented, it's cheating. Earning a living off cheating and attempting to gain money from something you're incompetent at is quite frankly fraud and I'm not an avid believer that fraud is the way the music industry should be going.

It makes sense though, because being incredibly judgmental and prejudiced; I'd guess the likes of Dappy have got far more ASBOs and criminal offences to their name than they have qualifications in music.

Furthermore, the fraudsters are so lacking in musical flair and creativity that they can't even create their own music, they have to steal what's been done before, and it's not even subtle. Let me give you an example. I'm sure, like me, you've had the misfortune to have heard LMFAO's terrible 'song' titled 'Party Rock Anthem'. If you're lucky enough to have not, here it is:

Listen to the melody at 2:24, don't you think it sounds a little like that from the song 'No Speak Americano' by 'Yolanda Be Cool'?

Fast forward to 0:48 and you'll hear what I mean, I think they're a little but too similar to be a mere coincidence. In fact, 'Party Rock Anthem' is just 'No Speak Americano' in a wig and a false mustache, nice try, but it was a poor attempt.

It's not just that, but the lyrics are terrible and have obviously been written by someone with the lyrical skill of a five year old and the musical diversity of a bluebottle. For example, 'Party rockers in the house tonight, Everybody just have a good time.' and 'Everyday I'm shuffling.' Genius, just genius, that's all I'm going to say.

Yet it doesn't end there either...

Take Katy Perry's newest song titled: 'ET' featuring Kanye West, those of you with no so short memories might realise it sounds a little like a song by Russian Lesbians 't.A.T.u' names 'All The Things She Said'. If you haven't heard it, take a listen, the resemblance is frightening, I think anyway, especially the choruses.

Does nobody else's ears bleed at the start of E.T due to the tedious synths and terrible lyrics where Kanye West rhymes 'ways' with 'Milkyway'? Oh dear.

I could think up of countless other examples, Chris Brown's 'Yeah 3X' sounds so much like Calvin Harris' 'I'm Not Alone' that Calvin should be named as a co writer to Brown's pathetic copy and Brown should be locked up in the jail of music forever for attacking the nation's poor ear drums. it makes a change from attacking Rihanna I suppose.

Also, one of the top comments on the video to 'E.T' is a gentle reminder as to why I hate the charts, with a few desperate links to songs that would struggle to attain a 1 out of 10. here it is in all its glory: 

Bruno Mars had a Grenade, and Tiao Cruz had Dynamite, so they both threw them at Katy Perry who exploded like a Firework. The bang was so loud that the Black Eyed Peas forgot The Time, while Rihanna had memory loss and ran around saying Whats My Name. Eminem looked around and said Im Not Afraid then Willow Smith began to Wip Her Hair, which started a Far East Movement. They then crashed their G6 into a club and stopped Party Rocking. Luckily for Nelly it was all Just a Dream.

And that my friends, is why the music industry is the truly embarrassing mess we find it in today, but it's not all bad, oh no.

Music nowadays no gives us all hope that one day we might earn a hell of a lot of money out of a something we're actually incredibly bad at, thanks to the invention of computers. To take advantage of this, I'm now going to video myself playing the guitar and then photoshop myself doing it whilst juggling and rollerskating down a hill, which are three things I'm not very good at. Then I'll send it into Britain's Got Talent and earn a packet. Isn't fraud brilliant?

The Art of Abbreviations

It's not too hard to find fundamental issues with the English language if you search a little below the surface, and one way to improve it in a convenient and light hearted manor is to create your own words basically, via the art of abbreviations (abbrevies).

To some, the thought of such an idea is nonsensical and pointless. Personally, I'm of the opinion that they're creative, smart, intelligent and utterly brilliant.

This is a simple way of personalizing the English language yourself with everyday phrases, and it's brilliant fun.

For example, words that are a bit of a mouthful like 'achievement' and 'underestimated' can easily be shortened down to 'achevvy' and 'underezzied'.

The spell check on here is going crazy by the way with all these abbrevies, and there another red jagged line has appeared...

Lets be honest, dropping random words that nobody else knows the meaning of into an everyday sentence is pretty cool, and also makes you feel superior to them in a way as they try and get their head around simple phrases such as 'I dunna reck if I'm hon'. The confusion on their face is truly brilliant.

The aforementioned phrase has been created by shortening words that aren't even a mouthful to make them quicker to say and make simple phrases roll off the tongue. The full phrase in standard, boring English is 'I do not reckon if I am honest.' Be hon, you read that in a posh accent, didn't you?

This whole process should be treated as nothing more than a lighthearted bit of humour and nothing too serious, yet look around and abvrevvies are all over the place, littering society with the utter pointlessness.

Simple examples include everyday nouns such as 'pub', 'PC' and 'loo' which are used instead of their full names of 'public house', 'personal computer' and 'lavatory' respectively.

This shows that abbrevies are part of everyday life and without them the English language would be far less convenient and would sound very different.

For example words such as 'won't', 'don't' and 'can't' are all abbreviations commonly used to shorten terms like 'will not', 'do not' and 'cannot'. These abbreviations have been accepted into society because they are convenient, simple and speed up the process of an everyday sentence. Yet if you thought my abbrevies were stupid, then technically these are just as bad.

For starters, why is an apostrophe needed? It's utterly pointless. The apostrophe is there is indicate that at least one letter is missing from the phrase. For example, 'don't' is missing an 'n' and an 'o' from its original form 'do not'. What is the point in stating that a letter or two isn't there? I think it would be quite clear from the word 'dont' that there are letters missing from the term 'do not' hence why it reads 'dont' instead of 'do not'. it's common sense.

If this logic was consistently used in life there would be apostrophes in the FIFA headquarters stating that there was once a non-corrupt, competent leader and now there is not, only Sepp Blatter. The same theory would mean apostrophes would be found in the charts, stating there was once tolerable and reasonably talented music here, now it is missing and we have the displeasure of listening to N-Dubz making us cringe until you stab your ears to the state of deafness. Or simply turn off the radio, whichever is easiest.

The problems don't end there as the abbreviations aren't even technically correct. Can anyone explain to me how 'won't' is a shortened version of 'will not'? Surely, based on the rules that create 'don't' and 'can't', it would be 'willn't' instead of 'won't'?

The whole process doesn't make sense and means that sentences that contain the original term in its full form 'will not' appear not to make sense.

Say the phrase: 'Won't you shut up?' and it seems perfectly plausible, yet repeat it in its form of inception: 'Will not you shut up?' and it appears to be total nonsense, simply because nobody says it that way anymore and the abbreviation is nothing like the original.

'Do not you want to go and get some dope Leroy?'

The same applies for the terms 'Do not you want to go?' and 'Can not you go?'

That brings the thought of a mindless, drunk chav starting on one of their victims and intimidatingly asking, 'Do not you want to go?' That would be classic.

Abbreviations are also used to create hidden or secret nouns for certain items, this is obviously so nobody listening knows the topic of subject. This is commonly used in the world of drugs as terms such as 'Cannabis' tern into 'weed', 'puff' and 'dope'. Technically, these are more substitutes than abbreviations, yet their existence is still for a similar achevvy.

My point is, as silly as the logic of 'abbrevies' might be and how unbelievably crap some of them might sound, they have been accepted as a part of modern day language through the process of word of mouth where the habit has spread.

The most successful ones are used on a daily basis and aren't seen as abbreviations but an official term. Ask people if they want to go to the 'public house' and they'll look at you with a tilted head and crumpled eyebrows in a look of confusion; yet ask them if the want to go to the 'pub' and I'm sure they'll know what you're on about immediately.

What I would encourage anyone to do is be creative and create as many confusing and pointless abbrevies as possible to add to the English language's infinite collection. That way you're contributing to society in your own little confusing and pointless way. Like an MP I suppose.

Maybe one day I'll create an abbrevy dictionary, publishing my genius breakthrough in language to the whole world. Would it be a hit? I reck if I'm hon, obvs.

How I've Been Put Off Parenting For Life

Recently, I've been given the shock of my life and realised through the medium of frustration and fear that being a parent would be the most painful experience imaginable. How? By watching a few episodes of Outnumbered.

Although previously I was never really considering becoming a parent anytime soon and at no point did it look easy; my feelings on parenthood have now gone into a stage of depression and will take plenty of rehabilitation. At least 20 years.

Although Outnumbered is an excellent sitcom displaying the everyday hardships of a modern day family, it does have its down sides. How can this make parenting appealing to anyone?

Don't get me wrong, I love the show. I think that the children particularly are hilarious, especially Karen and Ben, whose incredibly pedantic approach to life makes even the simplest of tasks almost impossible. The older child though, Jake, seems less annoying to me and more boring. He should be kicked off the show immediately on the grounds of not being a total immature gimp and making children seem slightly tolerable.

If at any point in my life I'm stuck with a monster of a seven year old boy like Ben, I will be caused to kill someone. Either myself or the child.

I'm not joking (sort of) because everything that child does in any of the episodes is just plain annoyance and this is credit to the actor I suppose. A good sitcom should be judged by the genuine emotions it brings out of the reader and during one episode of Ben's actions alone, I experienced anger, frustration, depression and near insanity. Near, not total.

The reaction's of the parents is also brilliant as I'm sure parents across the nation watching the show will nod in approval of how typically painful the lives of the parents are. This is extremely realistic, I know this because I can remember my parents' reactions to me as a child, and they were generally in frustration. And to be fair I wasn't even a particularly bad child, just an annoying little bugger.

Although the show gave me great entertainment, it did become painful to watch after about three episodes due to the aforementioned sins against the basic human right of not being driven into suicidal mode by hyper lunatics (that, by the way, still isn't a 100% official human right just yet).

That got me thinking into how we could manage the problem as a nation, and I gained inspiration from China's 'one baby policy' whereby each couple can only have one child each.

This turned out to be unsustainable for many reasons, yet I have made an advance on the policy to make it utterly sustainable. Change it to a no child policy!

I'm sure you'll agree, that this is a flawless plan and literally nothing can go wrong.

If no children are being born, then the population is decreasing. People are always moaning about how an exponential increase in population is leading to a lack of resources and higher pollution levels amongst other things, my new theory of a solution would solve this problem majorly.

Secondly, a criticism of China's idea was that only boys were in demand as children because they could continue the family name and gain better jobs; leaving numerous baby girls abandoned, aborted or put up for adoption. This problem would also be avoided with my 'no child plan' as there would be no children to choose from, so no body is aborted or left homeless to die. This will no doubt keep the Samaritans happy and in favour of my idea.

A third advantage, amongst the infinite number of plus points, is that adults can actually life their own lives without worrying about children.

They're always complaining about how much better their lives would be in the absence of chidren, well this is their chance to prove it by spending their hard earned cash on themselves and themselves only, they might even find time to donate some to charity.

I don't know what my parents were like before the hand children because, well I wasn't born; and I don't want to ask them in case they realise that actually their lives back them were far more interesting and end up kicking me out as a result.

Yet I imagine they had far more freedom and spare cash to treat themselves with.

Actually, on second thoughts, with no children to spend money on, I imagine my Dad put all his money in a 10,000% interest ISA which can't be touched for a million years until it 'matures'. This may seem utterly pointless, yet it would provide an income for any aliens that plan to invade earth after we are gone.

So I have proved that by not having any children, Britain can save the world, potentially. Population increase would disappear along with all its problems; less children will be abandoned and lastly we'll save little baby aliens that hatch on earth in a million years time. If that's not sustainable planning, I don't know what is.

That, in a nutshell, is why I will never ever be Prime Minister.

That and the fact I'm not an ugly, middle aged fat ogre like previous Prime Ministers, such as Margaret Thatcher.