Monday 7 April 2008

girls strippin down promotion - where is R.E.S.P.E.C.T.?

While I am watching most of the music videos created these days, I think to myself: "why and who needs this promotion of women as strippers and prostitutes and why do girls don’t respect themselves enought to get involved in that?" Sometimes, you look at a picture and see a girl in bikini or almost nude and your might think that she’s a model or something and than you find out that she is an "upcoming singer". Then you happen to meet these type of dudes who are telling you: "all that sells in the music business now is sex, that’s the way to success, doesn’t matter if you can actually sing!" Then I remember the words of one guy who’s married to a very beautiful model-like lady with very very long and perfect shape legs (all men just get crazy looking at her) when he said that when you see all that every day showing off, at first you get used to it, than you stop noticing and even get tired and then it’s not that attractive to you anymore, if there’s nothing behind it, i e soul beauty.

Some artists strip down when they don’t need to, because they are blessed with some talent and people will still go and buy their cd’s or concert tickets if they don’t do that. Come on, guys, it should be all about music? then in many commercial hiphop videos (I’m talking about MTV, but that’s what the kids are gettin their hands on) you see naked or almost naked girls surrounding one not always cute dude, shakin their naked booties into the cameras and doin whateva ... I mean, it’s great if you can shake your booty and it’s beautiful if you are actually dancing and doing it well especially to certain types of music, and I do shake my booty in the clubs (dancing!), but there is a difference between a dance and a strip tease or porno. A whole bunch of artists singin and rappin about girls who are strippers and prostitutes as if it’s a normal job for a woman after hundred years of women’s struggle to be accepted equal to men in their rights such as getting education, persue a career in anything just like any man would, voting etc. Why? then when I saw Kanye West video for "Flashin Lights", I was shocked by this strange conception of this weird girl taking her clothes of and then murdering a guy in the car, this is not healthy, I mean we have that in life, just watch any Russian TV channel news programe (if you speak Russian) and you will see this violance as an everyday life. Lack of love, violance and then somebody’s still asking why there are guns and knives in the hands of kids in the streets these days? If the kids see all these strippers and most successful artists rappin about women as "b$tches and hoes" and relationships built on money, HOW KIDS ARE GOING TO FIND OUT ABOUT LOVE? And if you are actually singin about love, you don’t need to do it while undressing yourself, there other creative ways of expressing an idea of L.O.V.E. whatever it is, strippin down or prostitution, it’s just about business based on men’s weekness when lookin at a naked girl. And at the same time these type of men (not all men) who are actually talking about cash-relationships are the greediest ones. I have been told so many times "you should go and do what everybody does now, sex sells!" Well, I think, sex sells for a short period of time and LOVE sells FOREVER. I have never seen Lauryn Hill do dirty things, but her album "Miseducation ..." is a classic and I have never seen it on the shelves in charity shops for 50p like some other "successful at a time" artists’ cd’s, because most people would keep it in their collection. Real music stays forever. Bob Marley’s music is known at least a little bit to almost everyone in the world, unless you have lived in a fishtank for your whole life.

Sex is good and important, but not when it sells. Sex is a form of showing love to somebody, getting to know that person you like. Even if you have sex on a first date (don’t get me wrong, but anything can happen), if a girl agreed to it becuase she liked the guy that much, she’s not a prostitute or a whore. When you actually do it because of your feelings, that’s natural and we’re all human. But if you do it with intention to squeeze a bit of cash out of it, that’s a different story. Ok, there have always been people doing this and prostitution is one of the most ancient proffessions, but it should not be raised to a normal way of life. It should stay where it is in it’s own place not promoted by "every day new pop idols" to the new generation.
But after all, today, when women are absolutely equal to men in most parts of the world by law, girls forget about it and misuse their beauty for temporary satisfaction of men’s ego. When you can go, get a Degree, choose any proffession and persue a career, and yes, make your own money by working hard and achieving your dreams. And when you get older you would not be ashamed to look into your kids’ eyes and tell them what you’ve been doing. But who needs this promotion of women acting like stupid sex machines designed to work until you’re broke? All I’m asking is for a little R.E.S.P.E.C.T.!

Sunday 6 April 2008

The weather's gone crazy in London

I woke up today, looked outside my bedroom window and couldn't believe my eyes: SNOW everywhere! In April! In England! and yesterday it was like +16 C! I have never seen such a huge temprature shift in my life! I am from Moscow where we have four seasons with -25 C in winter and + 30 in summer, but when the weather changes within two days, it can't be explained, especially in the country of a mild climate. By evening it melted away though. This is scary... Winter in Moscow in 2005/2006 was the coldest in the past 30 years with -40 C throughout all February, it was like walking on Mars, seriously, once you come out on the street in one minute your hair got covered with ice. Winter 2006/2007 was the warmest ever in Moscow when there was only one month of winter and through all other time it was above 0 C and polluted air gets stuck in your lungs toxicating your body even more severely ... After that you start believing a bit in various theories like "the end of the world in 2012" and stuff like that. I wrote a song recently called "So here comes the light now", so watch out, it has links with what I'm walking about here.