THE DIVERSITY OF MY THOUGHTS
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THIS IS ENGLAND
“PUNK, SKA, REGGAE, DOC MARTEN, TROUBLED YOUTH”
This film directed by Shane Meadows really blew me away. Set in England in the early 80s, not only was this very interesting but also believable especially if you look at historical events that occurred at that time, the separation of races as well as the development of reggae and ska into a musical culture that is quite dominant.
“This Is England” tells the story of a child struggles in adapting to the surrounding environment. Shaun, a teenage boy with a growing sense of resentment towards the environment and the world, at a young age, he must swallow a bitter pill when his father died during the Falklands War and in his search for identity, Shaun joined the group of a local Skinheads of which he thought in accordance with his vengeful nature and also realizing that his new family concentrated on nothing but music, away from politics.
I will not discuss further the story because there are some important things that much more interesting to discuss, namely how the Meadows in great detail trying to describe the situation of Britain in the Thatcher in a somewhat fascinating semi-documentary style film, scene by scene presented in authentic colors that correspond to the current time, I also admire the way Meadows in managing the neighborhood to make it look real with the existing buildings and graffiti-decorated walls.
This movie is worth watching and I recommend that you not waste time because every minute in this movie is worth it, especially if you want to know more about the dark side of England, which at that time was regarded in the golden period of the modern era.
THE POLICE
As the major contributor who revived the so called New Wave music (a unique blend of punk, pop mixed with reggae), these trio of Stewart Copeland, Sting and Andy Summers rocked the 80’s era, creating a mass hysteria to music audience worldwide. Sting’s extraordinary high-pitched voice, brilliant songwriting skills, Andy Summers’ thrilling and melodious guitar expertise plus Stewart Copeland exceptional drumming skills have made The Police a Godfather among all other music bands in that era. With such a brilliant music, lovely beats, catchy lyrics, they brought a message to the world, “Punk is not dead”. They successfully beat other bands’ popularity thanks to their guts in experimenting with all kinds of music styles, punk, rock, pop, jazz, reggae, you name it. They soon harvested their hard work by becoming the most popular and reputable rock band in England, Europe and finally all over the world through “Roxanne” and “Message in the Bottle”
The Police was named the Best British Group at the first Brit Awards and won three Grammy Festival Awards in the period of 1980 and 1981. From all of Their best-selling albums, The Police Achieved success in world music chart through Their ultimate Such hits as Roxanne and So Lonely (Outlandos D’Amour). Their success was soon Followed by the release of Reggatta de Blanc with its hits Message in a Bottle and Walking On The Moon, as well as Zenyatta Mondatta, the which gave them the first Grammy. In 1980, two years prior to Their vacuum, The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta released, an album That gave them two Grammy Awards for Such songs as “Do not Stand So Close To Me” and “De Do Do, De Da Da Da”. Next, in 1981, They released “Ghost In The Machine”, giving them double platinum with Their singles “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and “Spirits in the Material World”.
The band returned to record the next album, Synchronicity, after a full year of hiatus. Considered successful, Synchronicity gave them three Grammy awards. However, “Every Breath You Take” has been an enormous success for it received BMI Award 2005 for the song, entitled the same, that has been played 8 million times on the radio. The song also becomes the most remembered rock ballad throughout 1980s.
The success ofthe album Reggatta de Blanc (fall 1979) with its”Message In the Bottle” successfully dominated the UK charts for four consecutive weeks. Miles Copeland, after releasing the album, proposed the trio to perform concerts in several countries that are rarely visited by foreign artists, including Thailand, India, Mexico, Greece, and Egypt. In addition, “Walking on the Moon” also took part in contributing to the success for The Police. Furthermore, this group also received a Grammy Award for one of the songs, titled the same, namely Reggatta de Blanc.
Despite the successful album of Synchronicity, which stayed at the first position in the UK and then respectively in the United States for a total of 17 weeks due to the popularity of “Every Breath You Take”, ”King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger” (major hits in America throughout 1983 that gained them the platinum award); nevertheless, they still decided to try their luck in their respective solo-career.
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