In which, inspired by Shore’s work on the film scores, I ponder Tolkien’s masterpiece. At length. (While glossing over some of the linguistic inspiration for Tolkien’s myth.)
The triumph of Howard Shore’s score for The Lord of the Rings films is that it makes me want to reread the books. Again. Read on, intrepid explorer →
All creative arts require exercise. This is never more clear to me than when I have not been writing regularly, as in the last year. It is not so much that my writing is always bad. Rather, it is inconsistent. Wildly, annoyingly inconsistent. I can sit down and write one post that satisfies me, and then turn around and write another that leaves me deeply frustrated. Read on, intrepid explorer →
Güngör is really good. Great music, and getting better. The lead is also a good thinker and writer. In a blog post a few months ago, he really nailed contemporary Christian music to the wall. He wasn’t harsh or over the top, but he did say things that need to be said:
Do you notice that nobody really uses that word [creativity] about other types of music? I just was perusing some Itunes user reviews to see if this holds up. I checked John Mark and mine, and “creativity” is very often found. But it’s not often found in reviews of bands like Sigur Ros, Bon Iver, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens or other artists who are certainly very “creative.”
Nobody goes to an art gallery and says, “boy, that painting is so creative.” Why? Because it’s art! Of course it’s creative! Why else would it be there? It’s very nature is creativity. Or like Lisa pointed out to me today, “that would be like saying, I love your house, it’s so architectural.”
But when someone in the Christian industry actually takes their art seriously, everybody is like “holy crap, listen to how creative it is!”
It’s like a person that’s been living among zombies for years seeing an actual human being and exclaiming, “wow, look at how clean her face is! She doesn’t even have any blood on it or anything!”