Posts by Rich of Observationz
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For most of the time graphed, NZ governments have been pumping fairly large amounts of money into favoured industries: big-budget films, big sport, tourism. Doesn't seem to have got us very far?
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Tom Beard,
Also produced by Georgio Moroder:
I have it on vinyl. Unfortunately it's about 100bpm with a 200bpm half-beat so impossible to mix with normal dance music.
(Friday afternoon game for militaria geeks - identify all missiles and aircraft shown in that video.)
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Story, in reply to Tom Beard,
It's just new to America.
< gross oversimplification >
Basically, dance music has evolved along various paths from the initial prototypes of disco, early house and electronic music pioneers such as Kraftwerk and New Order.Outside the US, you had the stuff you mention, plus acid house and its progeny. In the 90's, dance music did a big fork into ghetto (rap, garage, etc) and posh (trance, house, psy. And hardcore, really). The US wasn't part of this - apart from a small underground (like Rabbit in the Moon) their scene was pretty much rap.
(This was affected by the US music industry taking a much less lenient approach to uncleared samples, inhibiting a lot of the creativity that European producers were able to bring in making and distributing white labels of dubious legality)
In the last few years, the commercial music industry in the US has finally cottoned on to the dance-music-not-rap thing as something the kids might like. Also, MDMA. They've given this the new name of EDM, but basically, it's the same music than in 2005 would just have been a form of 'ouse.
< / gross oversimplification >
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I don't think that EDM article's very nice. I'm sure Afrojack has a mum and family who'll be really offended by some snotty upperclass magazine suggesting he doesn't know what a bar is. (Every piece of production software I've ever seen works in bars. Even FL Studio. Unless he gets someone else to hit the keys, he's got to know what a bar is) It's just working on stereotypes of black people being dumb gangstas only interested in bling.
Also, they seem to be upset that their hermetic world of mystical clubs with elitist door policies like the Paradise Garage has been corrupted into a commercial scene for drunken teens with fake ID, off their faces on PBR and heavily stamped on molly. They omit where that music's been between 1987 and 2013 - through the whole trance/hardcore scene in Europe, the UK (and even NZ) - then back into the US for a new generation that's tired of pretending to be a thug.
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Most people know that the Finnish Post Office has an office that replies to letters sent by children to Father Christmas.
What is less well known is that the South African Post Office also has a department dedicated to collecting and disposing of parcels of stale leftovers addressed to:
The Starving Children,
Africa -
Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to Chris Waugh,
when Eric Clapton called to ask if he could cover it
That would have been before Clapton came out as a nazi?
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Stephen R,
If Hooton doesn't include himself in the apology, will that affect any libel case that might eventuate?
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Hard News: Local interest, in reply to Emma Hart,
Does that disqualify one? As opposed to be completely and utterly Upminster* which is a positive requirement.
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I'm quite disappointed in the ability of pretty much all Wellington's candidates, including our mayor, to give a straight answer to a simple question. They seem to think that if they fudge enough, all the voters will think the candidates views match their own.
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Hard News: Not so insane, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Any idea *why* smoking is so much more prevalent in China?
I assume Big Tobacco wasn't allowed in during the Communist era? Were the population already addicted by the 1950's? Did the government tacitly encourage smoking as a relief valve or revenue source?
Is any national effort being made to reduce smoking now - presumably it must cost the health system a lot of money? (or maybe not - if a countries life expectancy rises due to healthier lifestyles, does that lead to more expenditure on an aging population?)