o holy night (?)

Possibly the worst version of this song you may ever hear, but somehow also heartfelt. Not for the weak of stomach.

O Holy Night

the coke and mentos guys

I know you probably already know it, but the Coke and Mentos guys have just finished their latest video, and it's definitely worth the portion of your life you waste watching it, because they have wasted so much more time making it.

http://eepybird.com/

a brief LDS music rant

The niche entertainment business geared toward Latter-day Saints is booming. I suppose I am part of that boom. A few big companies dominate the market - Excel Entertainment and Deseret Book (each with several subsidiaries) are the biggest for recorded music. In LDS sheet music, Jackman and Larice are big, and Deseret Book has a big segment of that market as well. Little, independent publishers have sprung up in LDS sheet music, like Sally DeFord (who offers her music for free download), Craig Petrie, Choir Works, and of course LDSmusic.us. I like many of the offerings of each source I have listed here. My problem comes when the desire for a popular style causes the music to slip into speculative doctrine, casual reference to Deity, or bad taste.

Casual Reference to Deity
Maybe I'm a stick in the mud, but I don't remember any stipulation in the scriptures where lowering the status of God or Jesus Christ is allowed for artistic purposes. Yet culturally we have become accustomed to songs referring to Deity as "you" instead of "Thee" or "Thou." I understand that it's harder to fit the formal references into the flow of a song. That is the necessary challenge of the skilled songwriter. Of course, many songs have been written that teach principles of truth without referring to God in the second person at all. I prefer that. It's easier. But when I do include a literal prayer, I make an effort to be formal in addressing Him.

Speculative Doctrine
This is going to make me unpopular. I don't like songs like the ever-popular "O Lord, My Redeemer" and "I Heard Him Come." Why not? They have nice tunes and nice messages. There is plenty to like about them. But I am uncomfortable inserting fictitious characters and situations into the scriptures. I am fine with expounding on the truths found in scripture and recounting the events and parables used therein, but I feel like some songs treat those stories as just stories, open to free and careless interpretation.

Of course, some songs take the speculation much farther, such as the show Saturday's Warrior. This includes some blatant doctrinal mistakes as well as sketchy speculations. For example, a concept of predestination is presented in which there is only one "right one" for a certain man or woman to marry, chosen before birth. This is clearly unsupported by scripture and modern revelation.

Bad Taste
Finally, this boom in the popularity of LDS media has brought with it some reeking examples of bad taste. Taking phrases from religious service and mocking them in song may entertain momentarily, but often crosses the line to mock the sacred. Consider the soundtrack to Sons of Provo, a movie about a fictitious LDS boy band. In one rap, the background singers shout repeatedly "Will all those in favor please make it manifest?" a la Eminem. Sure, it's for fun in a film parody of Mormon culture. But isn't the process of sustaining our leaders vitally important in a religious sense? If a teenager listens to the song only a few times (it only took once for it to get stuck in my head), will he think when he hears that phrase in Church about sustaining people who have been called of God, or will he smirk and remember the mocking song?

Another genre of bad taste which is currently popular is to take a hymn or Primary song and remix it in a modern style. Some of these are really good and tastefully done. Some of them cross the line. For example, one version of the Primary song "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" has been recorded in a sort of punk style with a grinding voice and driving guitars and percussion. To hear the name of the Savior and the Church as performed in this recording grates my nerves. The name of Christ is holy, and should not be yelled for entertainment purposes.

After saying all this, there is much of good in the LDS music world. I am just disappointed in some of the offerings of our "best and brightest" who know better and can do better in creating music of faith. The major LDS music companies should encourage this. We as consumers should encourage this. We are getting to the point where we as LDS consumers do not need to buy a CD or DVD just because it's made by members of the Church - many entertainment offerings by Latter-day Saints are now available. We can afford to use discretion and decide even within the so-called LDS music market what is appropriate and what is not, and when something is not, leave it alone.

that said...

I know I've been down on Internet Explorer 7 the past couple of days. I'm not trying to make undue peace with it, but here are some things I like:

• DevToolBar. It's something you can download from Microsoft, and it's in a Beta version right now. It gives some nice tools most casual surfers don't need. You can get some similar addons for Firefox, but I like the way these are grouped.
• The zoom tool on the bottom right. Very handy for viewing ill-designed sites with too-small stuff.
• The Anti-phishing thang. I always look at the URL to make sure I'm at the right place before entering personal information, but this will help quite a few people who aren't terribly savvy.

So I'm keeping it. I won't be using it much, but I'm keeping it so I can be sure gratemusic.com and LDSmusic.us don't look too dumb in it. I just care that much.

i.e. 7 again

I still don't like it. OK, it's been less than 48 hours, but a few things drive me nuts about Windows Internet Explorer 7:

Most notably, the text menu bar is gone (you think). You actually have to press ALT to get it to pop up. You have to do this to get to some of the features. And when you click anywhere besides the text menu bar itself? Yes, it closes. This was obviously not designed with mouse klutzes like me in mind. I hear that you can make it "sticky" so it displays all the time (rumor only - I have not done this yet), but either way, it still displays below the address bar, which is wrong.

A principle of good design is that you don't move something from a familiar location unless there is a really good reason. How did Microsoft do?

Suddenly the icon to access the Favorites menu has moved from top center to second row left.

The reload button looks different and now lives where the Go button was. You can't find it by muscle memory anymore.

Go is gone. Oh, wait. When you type an address, Reload becomes Go. Confusing.

The Home icon has moved from left to far right along with Print.

Where is help? You don't have the text menu bar right at your fingertips, and there is no help icon. Of course it's there, Silly! If you need help, all you need to do is go through TWO drop-down menus easily accessible through the 2-millimeter double-arrow thingy (>>) on the FAR RIGHT of the screen. Don't worry that it doesn't look like a button (or anything, for that matter) until you roll your mouse over it. When you try to drag that little help icon onto the bar with Home and Print where it belongs, of course it is not allowed. Asking for assistance is harshly discouraged.

i.e. 7 - watch out!

After my post about IE7, Dieter sent me a message on my Vox account about a security vulnerability in it. Already. Frightening, no? I am not an alarmist, and I don't believe that Internet Exploder Explorer will be the end of society as we know it, but I am less than pleased with it at the moment. You can read about the vulnerability here. If you don't have Firefox, you can download it at the bottom of this page.

i.e. 7

I just upgraded (not positive about that term) to Internet Explorer 7. It seems like everything new about it that is good and useful on the consumer end has been essentially copied from Firefox. Tabbed browsing, for example. I don't like that the menus at the top of the window are gone - it just doesn't seem right without File, Edit, Tools, etc., but maybe I'll get used to it.

I'm not an expert on the security side of things, but since IE supports ActiveX and Firefox doesn't, that automatically makes IE more vulnerable. Maybe the new version will be better, but when I'm surfing around on sites I hadn't previously known (like when doing research), I still always use Firefox.

I was also quite happy to discover that gratemusic.com and LDSmusic.us still work fine in IE7. No emergency redesign! Woohoo!

just a visitor

For the past couple of days, I've been listening to music from Ellis Hadlock's newest CD, Just a Visitor. I'll say up front that my listening preferences often have very little to do with my songwriting style. I don't think it's healthy to like my own work too much, and if I listen too much to other artists who have a similar sound to mine, I tend to get either jealous or annoyed. That, my friends, is human frailty. So that explains why I like to listen to other types of music in my recreational time.

Anyway, back to Ellis. He is a great guy and a great musician. Some of his songs sound like they belong on soundtracks. Some sound like they belong on Echoes from Public Radio International. I suppose people file him under Electronic Ambient, Light Rock, World, New Age, or one of those other titles that doesn't mean anything. I suppose if I were to file him in a category, I'd just put him under Instrumental Miscellaneous and leave it at that. Every piece has a different charater, most of them telling some kind of story.

Just a Visitor is full of well-conceived soundscapes. I was surprised at the changes in my mood and stress level as I listened to each track. As a musician, I liked the various synth effects combined with some live instrumentals. As a listener, I liked that it didn't require me to be a musician to enjoy it. There is something just likeable about this music.

I suppose that the best review I can give is this: Hadlock's Just a Visitor helped me forget about my pressing deadlines for a few minutes. That's saying something.

You can check it out at http://cdbaby.com/cd/ellishadlock5