Written Task #2

Emily Ambach

Mr. Willsey

A.P. Language and Composition, Period 3

5 June, 2012

Written Task 2 Rough Draft

            Album art. Is it really such a big deal? Do people actually pay attention to the art of an album cover, or only buy the music because it is a band they like? I know that when I am buying my music, I look at the cover art of the album, and that does have a huge impact on my decision to buy the album. If I don’t like the art, I won’t buy the album. I automatically assume I will not like the music or the artist if I don’t like the art, so I could be missing out on really good music, but I judge the quality of the music based on the album art. People always say not to judge a book by its cover, but in some cases, I judge. Everybody judges. I especially judge when choosing my music. This isn’t always how I choose my music, but this is what I normally do when I am looking for new music to listen to. And most of the time it is very effective for me.

            One of my favorite album covers is the cover art for Demon Days by the Gorillaz. Gorillaz is one of my favorite bands, so the fact that I love their music played a big role in my decision to get this album, but I just love how simple yet effective the album art is. The band members of Gorillaz are all facing sideways, but their eyes are turned toward you, glaring at you with their eyes half shut, like they are glaring at you, which gives it the more negative and evil feel, really living up to the “Demon” sense of Demon Days.

            I also generally like album covers that have a lot of color in them. Another one of my favorite covers that fits that description is the cover of Aim and Ignite by fun. The cover is very colorful and lively, and really catches your eye. If you were to pass by this album in a record store, you would stop and take a second to look over the cover. There are many colors, and that gives the album the feeling of being lively and fun, which really makes the band live up to their name. 

            I asked a few of my friends this question, and about 75% said yes, it did impact their decision. Bringing up my previous point, every one judges in some form or another. Even if someone says they don’t judge, every one judges. Whether it be people, books, music, movies, etc.

            I am not very particular with my music, but having an album with cool cover art definitely makes the experience better for me. When someone introduces me to a new band, the first thing I will do is look at the album art. If I like it enough, I will keep listening. If I don’t like it, then I figure there is no point in listening to the band. In my personal experience, I have found that it is generally the album covers of metal or hard rock bands that I seem to dislike the most. That also has reasoning in why I don’t like that specific genre of music.

I also tend to not like country music and rap music, and I think it is because I think the album covers for most country albums are very plain and not very exciting, and rap album covers can sometimes be very crude. Alternative and rock album covers, for example, generally draw me in more and make me more attracted to the music genres. So my taste in specific music genres also greatly has to do with the album art.

            Another album cover that I particularly like is the cover of Prepare the Preparations by Ludo. This cover depicts the band members as robots and gives it a fun feel, rather than if it was just the faces of the four band members on the cover. The robots match the color of the background they are in front of, which also gives it a more playful feel, and the first robot, in the top left corner, which is supposed to be the robot of the lead singer, Andrew Volpe, has a bow tie.  This depicts the playful and goofy nature of Volpe, as that is very much his personality.

Though they are robots, if you know the band, you can still figure out which robot is supposed to belong to which person because they do depict the actual band member in a certain way. For instance, the robot on the bottom left is supposed to be the back up vocalist, moog, and synth player, Tim Convoy. You can tell this because this robot looks taller than the others, and Convoy is the tallest band member. This album cover very much depicts the playful nature of the band.

           Album art has a huge impact on whether or not a person will like that particular band, singer, or genre of music. In turn, it also had an impact in the decision of whether or not a person is willing to invest in the music and support a particular band. People judge the quality of the music or the band on the album cover, and though some may deny it, every one is guilty of doing that at some point. People are attracted to art in general, so album art has a big impact on choice in music.

NASA

Emily Ambach

Mr. Willsey

A.P. Language and Composition, Period 3

22 March 2012

The Continuation of Space Exploration-A Blog

            Recently, all shuttle programs from NASA have been shut down. NASA claims they have done this because there is not enough money to continue to fund these explorations anymore. Though this tragedy has occurred, NASA is still finding other ways to continue space exploration. However, the people working at NASA have directed their attention to continuing space exploration by attempting to search for extra-terrestrial life, which is not the most practical thing they could be doing, and it is certainly not the smartest. If NASA truly seizes all other space exploration and only focuses on trying to find other life forms, which means no more searching for ways to have people be able to live on other planets or galaxies in space, which is far more important than finding other life besides us out there in the universe, this could have terrible outcomes for humans in the next few hundred years.

            The continuation of space exploration.  Not to find other life forms, but to find livable conditions for humans. To search for a way to bring humans into space. This is what should be top priority for NASA. British Physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking argues in his lecture series “Why We should Go Into Space” foe the 50^th anniversary of NASA that “spreading out into space… will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have a future at all”. Some people may argue that we should be spending all of our money on ways to better the environmental status of the earth. However, humans have already done so many things to the environment, that it seems past the point of really being fixed. This is exactly why we should be focusing all of our efforts and money into space exploration. In a few hundred years, humans will have ruined the earth so much to the point that it will no longer be inhabitable. If, by then, scientists haven’t found other planets for humans to inhabit, the entire human race could die out. At that point, nothing will matter. It won’t matter who had been president a hundred years earlier, or when gas prices were incredible high, or when America was going through the recession it is currently in. History of the world would no longer matter. In order to keep the human race around for a while, we need to make an attempt to create places for it to go, in case something does happen to the earth where people could no longer inhabit it.

            So, contrary to popular belief of the general public, President Obama has not shut down the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Instead, it is NASA itself that has shut down their space shuttle programs, due mainly to lack of funds, and taken a new direction in their exploration of space. A lot of people do not see this as that big of a deal, because, after all, I’m sure people generally find the idea of someday finding extraterrestrial life exciting, yet this is the human race that is at stake. If the human race lost in the end and did become extinct in the end, it would be a huge loss. Though I suppose it would not be a big problem, seeing as we would all be dead, but I’m sure all the other life that is somewhere out there would grieve for us because we would have tried very hard to find them by then.

            I am not saying that the idea of possibly finding other life is not exciting, it just shouldn’t be out top priority. Perhaps NASA could double-task and, while they are looking for aliens, see if they can find any places that us humans could live if something were to ever happen to us. Sure, NASA till puts satellites up into space and onto Mars and such places to gather more about the living conditions, however I do not believe it is enough. NASA should, once again, be sending people into space to investigate things first hand, while others who are working on earth can still try to find their aliens. And hey, who knows? Maybe the aliens will be friendly and guide us to areas we could someday inhabit when the time comes.

            Shutting down the space shuttle system was probably the worst decision ever made regarding the exploration of space. Searching the galaxy for other signs of life is not going to help us nearly as much as searching the galaxy and others for planets similar to earth that can be inhabited by human beings. We are slowly destroying the earth, and eventually, most likely within the next few hundred years, it is going to get so bad and inhabitable to the point that human beings will be forced to leave. In order to prevent that from happening, all the money that is given to NASA by the government should toward finding habitable places for humans.