Comparing two items involved with music

I am going to be comparing two items involved with music, and discussing the different styles of these items. One of these items is an article by Sydney J. Harris giving his views on modern day music and the people who listen to it. The other one of these items is a poster, advertising a new album for a band called Suede. The article by Sydney J. Harris is called ‘Blasting out Music to Drown out Reality’. This title has been written in formal standard English in big bold writing so it stands out.

The beginning of the article starts off with a box of questions that the writer wants the reader to analyse their views on what they really think about music. This box stands out immediately and is used to isolate the readers thinking before they start reading. The article itself has a textbook layout. The article begins with the line ” The contractor sent around two, sullen, slack-jawed young assistants. ” Already this shows the writers prejudice and an abnormal image is given to the reader with the use of these two words. The writer straight away seems to be judgemental.

The writer then goes on to say ‘they brought with them inevitably as standard equipment for the job, a powerful portable radio which kept blasting away for the full afternoon’. The word inevitably stands out when the writer sees what the repair assistants are carrying. The writer in a way is putting these two men into a category of being people who would have something like loud music with them. This word in a way makes the two men sounds like they’ve done something bad. The writer then goes on to use formal English with a very ironic almost bitter tone of writing in the second paragraph.

He gives his opinion of people who listen to loud music as being ‘as close to the moronic line as possible’. The writer is saying call me a person who despises other people’s tastes but in opinion will not change about this type of person being foolish. With those words the writer insults these people and this is a horrible statement for people who’s family and friends are tennis court repairers and so these people are categorised. The writer does not know how people can listen to loud music and still function in their jobs and social lives.

In the next paragraph Sydney J. Harris writes in a way in which he is trying to appease the reader, explains what he thinks are acceptable reasons for music. He then gives his reason for the need of so-called ”elevator music. ” Perhaps the only reason he is writing in a positive form on the subject is that his children listen to elevator music and then they would be known to be as close to the moronic line as possible if he did not write like this. Straight away after this paragraph the writer goes back to insulting the people who listen to loud music.

He gives his reason why he thinks that these people doing repair work do not need to listen to this music. He talks about the beautiful atmosphere surrounding the people as they work and he cant understand why this isn’t enough for them as they are working. The writer claims the music to be the ‘junkiest of junk music’. These words show that the writer cannot accept the fact that different people like different types of music and he uses extremely complex sentencing in this paragraph to emphasize his complaint. At the end of this paragraph he describes the day as a ”God-given afternoon in a serenely sylvan setting. ‘

The writer’s literation is extremely well written. The writers descriptive words are well used as he is trying to draw the reader into thinking how he does and it has worked or else you wouldn’t keep reading. He has also been biased and prejudice which is very convincing but he still cannot seem to see the two sides of music. Sydney J. Harris thinks that people only listen to music to shut out the real world. The writer, later on in the article, talks about loud music accounting for the incessant use of drugs and booze.

The word ”booze” is written informally which is the first informal word he has used. Then the writer talks about music being the celebration of nature and an exploration of the human spirit. He then talks about past famous music artists and says ‘Bach elevates us, Mozart delights us, Beethoven deepens us’. These are written in present tense which shows that the writer listens to this type of music and shows that these are opinions not facts because not everyone listens to Beethoven or Bach and because people don’t listen to the music the writer does, so he is annoyed.

This shows that the writer definitely cannot see the different sides of music. He says that the types of music he likes bring us all closer to the wellsprings of life. This is not true this is only true if the reader likes classical music. In the last few lines of the article the writer talks about the new modern music as a cacophony to dull and deaden and dehumanise the soil. These d words are all negative. It seems that in the in the article ‘Blasting out Music To Drown Out Reality’ the writer is taking big sweeps at things that aren’t true.

This is an article which has been well written about popular music. The writers constant use of descriptive words are very effective into annoying people who listen to loud music, but the article is not successful in the sense that people are not convinced by his writing. The writer is very biased and prejudice this is shown in his use of words to convey his prejudice like ‘slack jawed’. The next item is a poster advertising a new album for a band called Suede. The tittle, Suede, is written in trendy and informal writing in lower case letters and this stands out.

The name Suede means good quality and expensive material, so when the name stands out this is the visual image given to the reader and an expensive theme to the poster is given. At the bottom of the page is big trendy writing which stands out and says Head music. This item is a lot different to the previous item by being colourful and vibrant. This is a very attractive looking poster with beautiful vibrant colours that immediately attract the readers attention, to the picture of someone listenning to music with headphones on.

A description of the band’s new album is given underneath the tittle. It says ‘the no. 1album’. This is informal and trendy again as the one is written as a 1. Then underneath the description there is opinions by News papers and magazines which have reviewed the album. The Guardian has written ‘bloody great tunes. buy! ‘ this slang terminology immediately strikes the reader as a cool way of writing, and all lower case letters have been used. The Guardian is a well respected newspaper and it is uncommon for these words to be used in normal news reporting.

Melody Maker, again very well respected, have said the band to be ‘still undoubtedly the best band in Britain . This is biased towards the album which is similar in a way to the other item as the writing is biased towards the subject it is describing. However this is promoting blasting music that the other leaflet is so against. The famous, magazine Q has described the new album as ‘easily their best and most wholly realised album’. This is again a very well respected magazine and again is biased. However this is an advertisement so is deliberately biased or else people wouldn’t buy the product.

There isn’t much written on this item but it is aimed at music fans this is shown by its cool and trendy appearance. A website is given at the bottom showing how modern this item is and how ‘trendy’ and ‘cool’ it is. This is a very good use of ideas to promote the item by using vibrant colours to attract the reader’s attention whereas the other item just had the layout of a textbook with no pictures at all. This item also uses very little writing and the writing used is in a form that appeals to it’s readers. This item is more effective in it’s technique of convincing the reader of the points being made.