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Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, is an American singer-songwriter who dominated the folk music scene for the entirety of the 1960s and a large portion of the 70s. Dylan has released 39 studio albums and sold more than 100 million records in his lifetime. He is also the first modern musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and was awarded it in 2016 for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” His more popular albums Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, and Blood on the Tracks are deemed as eternal classics and have inspired countless artists.

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Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 61 Revisited is deemed by many to be Dylan’s most cohesive and technical album. On tracks like “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Ballad of a Thin Man, and “Desolation Row” we can see Dylan’s versatility and critically acclaimed songwriting come to light. In Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan reinvented folk music graduating from his days of acoustic guitar and utilizing the extensive range of the harmonica and slide whistle. “Like a Rolling Stone” is possibly Dylan’s most well-produced and best work to date. The song is a perfect blend of raw acoustics, Dylan’s poetic writing, and filling vocal performance.

How does it feel?
How does it feel?
To hang on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

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Blonde on Blonde

Blonde on Blonde is Dylan’s follow-up double album to Highway 61 Revisited and features lengthier ballads such as “Visions of Johanna” which Dylan is more known for. If Highway 61 Revisited is Dylan’s best clean and cohesive record, then Blonde on Blonde is Dylan’s best messy and loose record. From Dylan’s most heartfelt lovesong “I Want You” to the sporadic and long-winded “Visions of Johanna,” Blonde on Blonde features Dylan’s most creative and intricate melodies to date. Although Dylan was popular years before the release of Blonde on Blonde, this double record cemented Dylan as a popular figure much more than a singer-songwriter. Bob Dylan was a poet of the people. Becoming popular during the Cold War and the height of the Vietnam War, Dylan represented world-changing, civil rights, and American freedom.

Well, they’ll stone you when you are all alone
They’ll stone you when you are walking home
They’ll stone you and then say they’re all brave
They’ll stone you when you’re sent down in your grave

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Blood on the Tracks

Bob Dylan’s loneliest and most melancholic record is Blood on the Tracks. Released 10 years after his seminal Highway 61 Revisited and recorded during the earlier stages of Dylan’s crumbling marriage with Sara Dylan, Blood on the Tracks is the breakup album to end all breakup albums. Despite sharing similarities to Highway 61 Revisited with the grand and stellar opening song “Tangled Up in Blue,” Blood on the Tracks quickly diverges from Dylan’s previous sarcastic and romantic nature and delves into the darker side of his emotions. Dylan appears more genuine and human than his previous records on the heart-wrenching “Simple Twist of Fate” and “Shelter From the Storm.” Yet again, it feels as if Bob Dylan’s creativity never ceases to run dry with new and graceful melodies and peculiar arrangements.

Minecraft (Volume Alpha) is the first Minecraft soundtrack album and eighth album overall released by Daniel Rosenfeld, commonly known as C418. Volume Alpha is a piano-heavy ambient record with electronics and impressionism fused into it. It is a hallmark in the video game soundtrack discography.

Soundtracks are an interesting area in music because the quality of music usually declines when it is removed from the context it was initially in. For some soundtracks, a lot of their songs lose their meaning when they are removed from the game or movie because they are specifically designed to accompany that game or movie. This is not the case with Minecraft (Volume Alpha). Minecraft is currently the best-selling game of all time, sitting at roughly 200 million total sales, and some people believe the widespread success and acclaim might have been lost without the soundtrack.

When composing Volume Alpha, Rosenfeld believed that the music he was making needed to be applicable to almost every aspect of the game, while at the same time not taking up too much attention from the player. Tracks like “Sweeden” and “Subwoofer Lullaby” have these beautiful, divine, and peaceful melodies accompanied by this bass that just tiptoes around the melody which creates an extremely melancholic and meditative atmosphere. When players of the game are asked what feelings Minecraft gives them, they might respond with words like lonely, peaceful, or calm, and that is mostly due to the Volume Alpha soundtrack.

There have been many controversies surrounding the simplicity of this album, saying that the record is devoid of any complexities and lacks emotion. A lot of people making these arguments usually don’t have the context of the game to go along with the soundtrack. Minecraft is a very simple and self-explanatory game. You don’t need someone to teach it to you. You don’t need a tutorial. It feels natural. When you boot into a new world and the beginning notes of Haggstrom fade in, you begin to feel reborn.

The Minecraft soundtrack was a revolutionary piece of work that has inspired and paved a way for ambient music to come. It was one of the primary reasons why Minecraft become as popular as it did. To some people Minecraft (Volume Alpha) is simply peaceful piano ambient music that doesn’t impress, but to others it’s a masterfully crafted soundtrack that gives the game it’s meaning.

 

Day One:

We set the roles amongst us.

Scribe = Sarah and Max

Park Ranger = Mack

Goalkeeper = Shana

We brainstormed ideas and decided on same sex marriage. We then discussed different topics about it.

Amongst animals

Religious views

Societal standards

Politics

Remain in the US

In the end, we completed the topic discussion on Canvas.

 

Day Two:

We started by comparing two outlines and decided on one over the other. Our goals for day three were to do research and then toss around ideas.

 

Day Three:

Shana talked about her research. We discussed flashpoints and Ms. Taheri’s comment on our discussion responses. Mack offered to do the flashpoint. We decided the beginning of the video would be very dramatic and in the theme of a newsreel. Our entire video will be very dramatic and spicy.

 

Timeline:

Nov. 22nd to Nov. 28th – everyone does research on their respective topics, taking notes and maybe deciding on more solid visuals. We will reconvene after break.

Nov. 30th – Meet to combine research and create a solid script/outline.

Dec. 4th – Send video/audio to Max by 11:59 PM

Dec. 4th to 6th – Editing.

Dec 6 – Post video draft

Dec 9 – Video revision

Dec 14 – Final draft

Framing the Issue:

Marriage equality has been contended by religious groups and conservatives for decades. These values appear to be weighing in on the decisions made by the government even though the majority of public opinion does not agree with those values. The issue here is whether it is the government’s duty to decide what constitutes marriage. If it is the government’s duty, will they serve the greater public or their own beliefs?

Framing Questions:

• Is it the responsibility of the government to maintain the traditional definition of marriage?
• Should the government abstain from making narrow legal distinctions about what marriage is?
• Why would religious groups oppose marriage equality?
• Does public opinion coincide with religious values?
• Is it an American value to limit people’s choice to marry?
• If the government mandates a particular definition of marriage, does it restrict people’s abilities to make their own choices?