LOG ENTRY #19 - "Be Heard. Be Strong. Be Proud" Why I loved Lemonade Mouth.

Yes, I know. It's been a very long time since Disney aired their made-for-TV movie - Lemonade Mouth. But stuff kept cropping up, and somehow or other I never got to write about this movie.
Which is weird, considering one of the many reasons I started blogging - was this movie. Not that it inspired me or anything, Haha - no. But I found this movie so enjoyable, that I wanted to blog about it. And thus.

Anyway, when I first watched this movie, I had been super-busy and was rushing about doing things, when I suddenly remembered it was the premier date for the movie. I had already missed about 15 minutes of it, but what the heck.

I arrived upon the detention scene. And to utmost surprise, I was hooked. It's not common (or easy) to be hooked to a Disney made-for-TV movie nowadays, primarily because most of them revolve around the same old themes and storylines and after a while, it gets daunting,
Lemonade Mouth had themes similar to many movies, i.e. music, teen angst, rebellion, wanting to be heard etc..
I guess even the story wasn't that unique. Or maybe it was. I don't know.
There was something about the movie that just got me. I've noticed that in movies dating back maybe 10 years ago or 7 years ago, in movies where the final scenes involved some sort of showdown, the team/people about whom the movie is, usually won. But then lead characters' winnings became predictable and slowly, gradually the main teams started losing. Like in Camp Rock 2, like in Spectacular, like in the GLEE regional episode...
And now, at this moment in time, even the losing has become predictable!

*reaching end of movie*

          Random Person: dude, it's the ending. I bet they're gonna lose! Nobody wins..
          Random Person's friend: Yeah, they can't make the leads win. The movie would be too      predictable.  

  My point is, now the era of losing is predictable, hence a new strategy was needed. The film-makers kept making them lose, but now - the losing holds another message for the audience. There is more to life than winning or losing... blah blah blah.
Back to square one - Lemonade Mouth did just that. They didn't win, and I especially liked the part where all of them were in super bad health conditions, and there were no miraculous recoveries right before the show. Everybody was sick, and they sounded sick. No cover-ups, no auto-tunings,. no nothing!
Apart from all the technical reasons why Lemonade Mouth was an absolute favorite of mine, the songs were super catchy and not cheesy!

Till next time..
x :)

                   




                                                   

LOG ENTRY #14 - Pakistani Music-2011

   When it comes to the amount of music produced in Pakistan this year, some may say automatically say "Nil." I would have said something of the same sort.. until now. I've actually made an effort to get to know the latest and greatest in Pakistani Music. And let me tell you.. there was only one HUGE disappointment.. ;)

                         

   Yep. I honestly don't get that woman. According to me, the only attractive thing in that video were the pair of silver sequinned headphones she was stroking her hair with. After seeing this, I was.. disturbed. And then some months later I saw another video, and believe me, if it hadn't been for the extremely familiar piano notes keeping my hand steady, I would have changed the channel then and there.

                          

   I failed to understand how the lyrics did justice to the song, and I failed to understand why on earth this song was called an 'adaptation' of "Someone Like You", so I wouldn't blame you if you were extremely confused right now.
  Moving onto bigger and better things, the major platforms in Pakistan for promoting music are either Coke Studio and Uth Records (which, by the way, was also introduced this year), or the Internet and YouTube. Coke Studio has been churning out alot of good songs for quite some time now and this year was an equally successful year. It may have been because of the fresh talent that Coke Studio was avidly followed by the younger lot as well as the classical-loving adult party, this year. Fresh talent, namely Bilal Khan, The Sketches, Mole, and Kaavish. These were instant hits with me. Bilal Khan, obviously, got his fame from his debut single "Bachana", which was a fantastic song to jumpstart one's career as well as boost Pakistani Music to a bit of a higher, more evolutionised level. "Bachana"'s success was amazingly fast and widespread.

                         

  Bilal's successful streak didn't end there. He went onto make appearances in this year's Coke Studio. The originals he performed there were just.. too good. My favorite was "To Kia Hua". Must have listened to this song about 20 times everyday for a month!

                        

  Bilal was also roped in by Levis, along with Zoe Viccaji, an extremely talented backing vocalist from Coke Studio, to do covers of classic Strings songs. Now we all know Strings are a legend. They are probably one of those bands that have contributed alot to the music scene over the years. Levis launched the campaign, "The Originals - Inspire" as (as I understood it to be) a sort of tribute to the Strings; them being the "orginals". I thought the campaign was a very good way to show our appreciation of the great work Bilal Maqsood and Faisal Kapadia have done. With posters of Zoe, Faisal and both Bilals gracing the interiors of Park Towers and Levis outlets, the whole affair was very nicely handled, and made aware about. As for the songs, I thought Bilal and Zoe formed a great duo, as their covers were really good and fresh.

                          

 

                         

   Strings also released a nice, motivational song this year, which had a alot of weight in the lyrics. Now if only all this could happen.. That would really make my New Year's Eve special. Here's to hoping 2012 has alot of good in store for our dear, young country.

Happy New Year, everybody! :-)

                         

LOG ENTRY #13 - "Hit 'Our' Lights"!!

   As much as I love Selena Gomez, I can't make myself like her singing all that much, since I've heard her singing live, on a YouTube video. Her voice sounds pretty strained. But the truth of the matter is that nowadays being an entertainer is more important than being a good and able singer. I mean, look at Lady Gaga! All her songs make her sound like a singing robot. And by old time standards she's not much as a singer. Yet she's got Twitter followers equal in number only to the great Bieber i.e about 17 million followers?  As a performer and entertainer there can't be anyone more tactful or crazier. She's got the guts to wear dresses made out of God-knows-what, and she has the confidence to make it work.
  Coming back to Selena; her voice isn't all that good, but she's popular because she's pretty, has a size zero-like figure, is stylish, successful, a movie star, a singer and whatnot. She's everything little girls look upto. And the last time I checked - there are ALOT of little girls in the world.
   However, despite the fact that her voice isn't all that good, her songs are. They're fun, catchy, upbeat and fresh. The melodies, the beats and especially the lyrics are slightly.. "hatke" as one would say here in Paki-Land.
  And then comes Taylor Swift. To put it in a nutshell - She's Perfect. And she's one of my greatest heroes (the other one is Patrick Star from "Spongebob.."). Her songs may seem like run-of-the-mill stuff, since they're nearly all about the same thing. But she portrays the same story differently and creatively in each song, and frankly I just like her smile and curls, so there's no point going on and on..