神马文学网1.英语泛读
来源：百度文库 编辑：神马文学网 时间：2024/06/13 00:09:13
1: Once upon a time the colors of the world started to quarrel.
All claimed that they were the best.
The most important.
The most useful.
The favorite.
Green said:
"Clearly I am the most important. I am the sign of life and of hope. I was chosen for grass, trees and leaves. Without me, all animals would die. Look over the countryside and you will see that I am in the majority."
Blue interrupted:
"You only think about the earth, but consider the sky and the sea. It is the water that is the basis of life and drawn up by the clouds from the deep sea. The sky gives space and peace and serenity. Without my peace, you would all be nothing."
Yellow chuckled:
"You are all so serious. I bring laughter, gaiety, and warmth into the world. The sun is yellow, the moon is yellow, the stars are yellow. Every time you look at a sunflower, the whole world starts to smile. Without me there would be no fun."
Orange started next to blow her trumpet:
"I am the color of health and strength. I may be scarce, but I am precious for I serve the needs of human life. I carry the most important vitamins. Think of carrots, pumpkins, oranges, mangoes, and papayas. I don't hang around all the time, but when I fill the sky at sunrise or sunset, my beauty is so striking that no one gives another thought to any of you."
Red could stand it no longer he shouted out:
"I am the ruler of all of you. I am blood - life's blood! I am the color of danger and of bravery. I am willing to fight for a cause. I bring fire into the blood. Without me, the earth would be as empty as the moon. I am the color of passion and of love, the red rose, the poinsettia and the poppy."
Purple rose up to his full height:
He was very tall and spoke with great pomp: "I am the color of royalty and power. Kings, chiefs, and bishops have always chosen me for I am the sign of authority and wisdom. People do not question me! They listen and obey."
Finally Indigo spoke, much more quietly than all the others, but with just as much determination:
"Think of me. I am the color of silence. You hardly notice me, but without me you all become superficial. I represent thought and reflection, twilight and deep water. You need me for balance and contrast, for prayer and inner peace."
And so the colors went on boasting, each convinced of his or her own superiority. Their quarreling became louder and louder. Suddenly there was a startling flash of bright lightening thunder rolled and boomed. Rain started to pour down relentlessly. The colors crouched down in fear, drawing close to one another for comfort.
In the midst of the clamor, rain began to speak:
"You foolish colors, fighting amongst yourselves, each trying to dominate the rest. Don't you know that you were each made for a special purpose, unique and different? Join hands with one another and come to me."
Doing as they were told, the colors united and joined hands.
The rain continued:
"From now on, when it rains, each of you will stretch across the sky in a great bow of color as a reminder that you can all live in peace. The Rainbow is a sign of hope for tomorrow." And so, whenever a good rain washes the world, and a Rainbow appears in the sky, let us remember to appreciate one another.
2: True Happiness
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The authors of the American Declaration proclaimed happiness to be one of the essential rights that make life worth living. William James, the first American psychologist, echoed this emphasis on happiness: "If we were to ask the question: 'What is human life's chief concern? One of the answers we should receive would be: 'It is happiness.'" Every philosophical and religious system has offered its pathway to happiness for the individual and the group. Happiness has been related to pleasure, refuge from pain, intellectual contemplation, union with God, friendship, children, wealth, honor, successful activity, and even state burial with statues! Today, scientists have joined the dialogue to seek answers about what contributes to happiness or, as they call it, "subjective well-being".
If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence. – Aristotle The concept of happiness--while difficult to define-- is obviously here to stay. But the desire for happiness can set up expectations that are often hard to fulfill. The right to pursue happiness was conceived of as an inalienable right; the entitlement that everyone be happy was never promised. As captured by Eric Hoffer, a misguided search we hope to provide a framework that will guide you in your personal pursuit of happiness.
3: 《微笑》是法国作家安东尼·圣艾修伯里的作品，圣艾修伯里是名飞行员，二次大战对抗纳粹时被击落身亡，之前他也曾参加西班牙内战打击法西斯分子。他根据这次经验写了一篇精彩的故事――《微笑》。他的代表作《小王子》是美国人都很熟悉的童话故事。
"I was sure that I was to be killed. I became terribly nervous. I fumbled[1] in my pockets to see if there were any cigarettes, which had escaped[2]
Their search. I found one and because of my shaking hands, I could barely get it to my lips. But I had no matches, they had taken those. "I looked through the bars at my jailer. He did not make eye contact with me. I called out to him 'Have you got a light?' He looked at me, shrugged [3]and came over to light my cigarette. "As he came close and lit the match, his eyes inadvertently locked with mine. At that moment, I smiled. I don't know why I did that. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was because, when you get very close, one to another, it is very hard not to smile. In any case, I smiled. In that instant, it was as though a spark jumped across the gap between our two hearts, our two human souls. I know he didn't want to, but my smile leaped through the bars and generated a smile on his lips, too. He lit my cigarette but stayed near, looking at me directly in the eyes and continuing to smile.
"I kept smiling at him, now aware of him as a person and not just a jailer. And his looking at me seemed to have a new dimension[4] too. 'Do you have kids?' he asked. " 'Yes, here, here.' I took out my wallet and nervously fumbled for the pictures of my family. He, too, took out the pictures of his family and began to talk about his plans and hopes for them. My eyes filled with tears. I said that I feared that I'd never see my family again, never have the chance to see them grow up. Tears came to his eyes, too. "Suddenly, without another word, he unlocked my cell and silently led me out. Out of the jail, quietly and by back routes, out of the town. There, at the edge of town, he released me. And without another word, he turned back toward the town.
"My life was saved by a smile." Yes, the smile―the unaffected, unplanned, natural connection between people.. I really believe that if that part of you and that part of me could recognize each other, we wouldn't be enemies. We couldn't have hate or envy or fear.
My own words:Many students may have read the article .But I think it is quite useful ,so I put it in our E-box . Smailing is easy ,but it is also important .
I wish all of us a smail everyday !
4: Sandstorm shows need for eco-awareness
Source: Global Times
[22:08 March 21 2010]
Comments
A severe sandstorm hit Beijing Friday night, bringing tons of sand within it. Beijingers woke up Saturday morning to see clouds of yellow dust. Most parts of the city were battered by strong winds, and pedestrians trudged in the street with the cover of gauze masks.
This is the worst floating dust that Beijing has encountered in the last four years. The air quality was level five, the highest level of air pollution.
The metaphor of the "butterfly effect," where treading on a butterfly in Brazil causes a storm in China, shows us that a small, bad mechanism can bring about social damage without proper adjustment, and a small, good mechanism can lead to revolutionary changes with the correct guidance and development.
The sandstorm reportedly came from Mongolia and central areas of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
It took the sandstorm there about seven hours to arrive in Bejing. For many Beijingers, the desert seems as far away as the stars in the sky. However, it is actually so close to us.
Many activities in everyday life are closely related to the environment. And we need to promote harmony between human and nature through piecemeal efforts in order to prevent worse problems developing in the future.
For instance, stop driving for one day, grow one more tree, and cherish every drop of water.
Such small efforts are like thousands of butterflies. When they slowly flutter together, a benign revolution can be expected.
The Beijing News
5: A New Global Sound: Synth, Soul and Sample
By JON CARAMANICA Published: March 5, 2010
Four years ago, when Jason Derülo was a competitor in the long-running amateur-night talent competition at the Apollo Theater, one of his go-to numbers was “Love,” by Musiq Soulchild. That song from 2000, one of the first breakthrough moments of neo-soul, was slow and decorous and no-frills, the choice of a young R&B singer uninterested in testing himself.
So much for all that. Late last year Mr. Derülo’s first single, “Whatcha Say,” became a No. 1 Billboard pop hit, and it’s dizzying. Based on a robotic sample from “Hide and Seek,” by the quirky British singer Imogen Heap, the song is an orgy of digital effects. Mr. Derülo is a strong singer, though that’s the least important element of this song, which finds him stripped of any American soul signifiers and instead swimming in the world of European megaclubs.
Welcome to the new global R&B. “Whatcha Say” is one of several great songs on Mr. Derülo’s sugary self-titled debut album (on Beluga Heights/Warner Brothers), which was released this week. It’s only half an album, really — 9 songs, 31 minutes — which makes it even more impressive that Mr. Derülo has hammered a signature sound into shape with his producer and label head, J. R. Rotem.
The album’s formula — even Mr. Rotem uses the word — is ruthlessly effective: uptempo beats, excitable synths, sturdy song structures, melisma-free singing, nods to older mainstream pop songs in the melodies. “The Sky’s the Limit” is packed thick with clobbering synths, and toys with the melody of Irene Cara’s “Flashdance . . . What a Feeling.” And on “What If,” there’s a wink at Heart’s “Alone,” with a piano line that begins similarly, then veers off in a darker direction.
“It’s not as if we tried to invent some sort of genre that hadn’t been there,” Mr. Rotem said in a telephone interview. “Things were already getting very four-on-the-floor.” As in dance-oriented, that is: tempos have been creeping upward in pop music for the last few years, though the impact on black pop has only been recent. Last year, thanks to the Black Eyed Peas and others, hip-hop began to sound more and more like workout music. Now it’s R&B’s turn, with Mr. Derülo at the forefront.
But even though he and Mr. Rotem worked carefully to hone their sound, it wasn’t necessarily an easy sell. “I brought them music, and they didn’t know what to do with the music,” Mr. Derülo said in a phone interview, referring to some early meetings with record labels. “They were like, ‘You’re black, what is this kind of stuff?’ I don’t want to be pigeonholed by the color of my skin.”
Even though his early influences included earthy neo-soul stars like India.Arie and Anthony Hamilton, Mr. Derülo’s main goal was to “reach the world,” he said.
“At one point,” he continued, “I was doing straight rock, at another point I was doing Euro dance stuff. I realized I didn’t have to choose.”
He’s helped a great deal by the high-pitched, smooth, nonspecific tone in his voice. “It’s not something that’s been like that my whole life,” Mr. Derülo said. “But on this album, it’s become me. For some reason, I get all the time, ‘Man, I didn’t know you were black.’ But you can make any kind of music you want to make.”
Notably, the singers at the forefront of this style have eclectic roots, in many cases Caribbean. Mr. Derülo — his real name is Jason Desrouleaux — is Haitian-American. Another of Mr. Rotem’s artists, Iyaz, who is from the British Virgin Islands, is working a similar line with his debut single, “Replay.” (Iyaz’s debut album is scheduled for release next month.) The British-Nigerian-Brazilian singer Taio Cruz has a rising hit with “Break Your Heart,” which has the same wall-of-sound synths and heavily processed vocals as Mr. Derülo ’s album.
And last year, the French house music producer David Guetta found himself a global crossover star after releasing “One Love” (Virgin), a dance-R&B album on which he collaborated with R&B singers, including Kelly Rowland, Estelle and Akon. (Mr. Guetta also produced the ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas hit “I Gotta Feeling,” the hip-hop-specific incarnation of this trend.)
In many ways, Akon was this movement’s jumping-off point. Of Senegalese descent, Akon was a curious figure when he first emerged in the hip-hop world, singing wistful, high-pitched hooks on thug-rapper songs. Over the course of his career, his saccharine vocals became increasingly at home on pop radio, to the point where he almost had two parallel careers.
Mr. Rotem, a producer who’s worked with rappers and Britney Spears (whom he also dated), also helped solidify this template a few years ago, when he began working with the young Jamaican singer-rapper Sean Kingston — like Mr. Derülo, Mr. Kingston was discovered on MySpace by Mr. Rotem’s brother Tommy.
Mr. Kingston’s first single, “Beautiful Girls,” was an update of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” with a mild island lilt. The early years of Rihanna, who is from Barbados, also fit this mold, though she’s since been swallowed almost whole by pop.
In this music, the Caribbean element often isn’t overt but is coded in the relationship between rhythm and melody. The gestures are small yet important. (There’s a rich Jamaican tradition of re-recording American pop songs in reggae-sung versions, a spiritual-cousin phenomenon.)
This sound is partly a reflection of an increasingly global market for pop music, tied together by the Internet, but also by country- and genre-hopping artists with an ear for synthesis. And then there’s another concern: making music that’s palatable to several tastes — not in any way exclusionary — is simply good business.
“Domestic sales are not what they were,” Mr. Rotem said, “so in order to be commercially successful, you have to appeal to a global audience. That’s also going to shape the music.”
Not that Mr. Derülo had any extant aspirations of being a traditional R&B star: he may be proud of his influences, but he’s been willing to abandon them in search of something bigger.
“I got to meet Musiq Soulchild recently,” Mr. Derülo said. “I told him he’s a big influence, and he’s like, ‘Really?’ ”
6: That's credible: Oscar movies grounded in reality
LOS ANGELES - Hollywood is not exactly known for its grip on reality, but the experts have given an "A" for authenticity to the 10 contenders for the best picture Oscar on Sunday.
"AVATAR"
"It is extremely unlikely the life forms would be so close to those on Earth; on the other hand, I'm sure at some point in the future we will be able to use our brainwaves to drive avatars, at least in the virtual world. The next step -- to use (brainwaves) to drive actual representatives of ourselves in the real world instead -- is probably a very long way off, but you can't say it cannot be done. It's a new area of engineering and biological engineering that hasn't been explored yet."
-- Piet Hut, professor of astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University
"THE BLIND SIDE"
"If you look at success rates of staying in school, tendencies toward violence, drugs and alcohol (abuse), teen pregnancies and acting out in school, one-on-one mentoring will significantly reduce those risk behaviors. While the movie portrays a significant and deep mentoring relationship, it's a Hollywood idealized dream. The family in the movie is wealthy, but we all have to struggle every day. I also saw all the young boys who were left behind. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had more African-American male mentors?"
-- Karen Mathis, CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
"DISTRICT 9"
"The way that the MNU people are portrayed and the kind of Afrikaans English they speak (are) reminiscent of the way in which the police (in the days of apartheid) treated black South Africans. The (aliens, known as Prawns) have a language with a click element in it, which is suggestive that they are representative of Xhosa or Zulu speakers. The Prawn metaphor is very effective in confronting (the issue of race) by making that difference more radical."
-- Vivian Bickford-Smith, professor of comparative metropolitan history, University of Cape Town
"AN EDUCATION"
"What we see in the film is very much the idealism of the time, when women believed they could reach their sexual liberation without giving up all the other things that make us fully human. They could be valued for being intelligent, articulate and going off to university, as well as finding their sexuality. I'm not going to minimize the battles that have been won, but we've veered too far (in) another direction now, where girls are valued so much for being sexual beings, they're not valued as much as they should be for everything else."
-- Natasha Walter, British feminist author ("Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism") and TV commentator
"THE HURT LOCKER"
"Mark Boal is being careful in that he didn't want to compromise unnecessarily any of the techniques the U.S. servicemen are using to defeat devices. So, using a little bit of artistic license, (the filmmakers) made a very accurate, gritty representation. I'm an experienced operator and I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, sweating when I was watching the film in anticipation of what was going to happen next, reliving all my own memories."
-- Maj. Chris Hunter (ret.), former senior IED intelligence analyst for the British Ministry of Defense
"INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS"
"There was a thing called the Jewish Brigade, which was part of the British Army, and they did go around bumping off Nazis after the war. Now (in the movie) they're called the 'Real Inglourious Basterds,' as if they were walking around with their flip knives and removing people's scalps. You could make an awesome film about the Jewish Brigade and you could make it true, violent and exciting, and it would be extremely cathartic if you were a Jew."
-- Guy Walters, author of "Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice"
"PRECIOUS"
"They did an excellent job portraying the effects of sexual abuse on the victim. Every two minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. One in six women will become a victim and half the victims are under 18. This is an issue that's extremely prevalent in our society. Our telephone and online hotlines are all anonymous; we don't record transcripts of sessions or IP addresses -- however, I have heard anecdotally from some volunteers that they have spoken with people who have referenced the movie."
-- Katherine Hull, spokeswoman for RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)
"A SERIOUS MAN"
"I grew up in exactly the neighborhood (in St. Louis Park, Minn.) at exactly the time, with exactly the people the film depicts. The Coen brothers and I graduated from the same high school a few years apart. The Lebowskis lived down the street from me. Clearly, they're dealing with stereotypes to some degree, but they're based on reality. The Hebrew School was that boring. The teachers were that old. It was that stifling. The old rabbi was sort of that mysterious and scary. They got a lot right."
-- Steve Z. Leder, Senior Rabbi, Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles
"UP"
"You'd have to have about a 2 million-cubic-foot balloon to lift a house like that. There are cluster balloons that do operate with small balloons. Only a handful of people are doing it. When they want to come down, they just pull a balloon on the cord and pop it, and it starts their descent. When they start coming down close to the ground, they'll throw out a little bit of sand to even out that descent. The way they did that in the movie (by tossing off the contents of the house) was pretty realistic."
-- Don Kissack, president, Southern California Balloon Assn.
"UP IN THE AIR"
"If you get on a plane -- particularly a jet flight of the type Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) flew -- the chance you'll get killed is about 1 in 10 million, and that takes into account all kinds of hazards, including the risk of terrorism. In the movie, he tended to take short flights. But supposing it was 800 miles, which is the typical jet flight in the U.S., if there's a 1 in 10 million risk every 800 miles, the risk of dying (while) flying 10 million miles is about 1 in 800. It is very safe."
All claimed that they were the best.
The most important.
The most useful.
The favorite.
Green said:
"Clearly I am the most important. I am the sign of life and of hope. I was chosen for grass, trees and leaves. Without me, all animals would die. Look over the countryside and you will see that I am in the majority."
Blue interrupted:
"You only think about the earth, but consider the sky and the sea. It is the water that is the basis of life and drawn up by the clouds from the deep sea. The sky gives space and peace and serenity. Without my peace, you would all be nothing."
Yellow chuckled:
"You are all so serious. I bring laughter, gaiety, and warmth into the world. The sun is yellow, the moon is yellow, the stars are yellow. Every time you look at a sunflower, the whole world starts to smile. Without me there would be no fun."
Orange started next to blow her trumpet:
"I am the color of health and strength. I may be scarce, but I am precious for I serve the needs of human life. I carry the most important vitamins. Think of carrots, pumpkins, oranges, mangoes, and papayas. I don't hang around all the time, but when I fill the sky at sunrise or sunset, my beauty is so striking that no one gives another thought to any of you."
Red could stand it no longer he shouted out:
"I am the ruler of all of you. I am blood - life's blood! I am the color of danger and of bravery. I am willing to fight for a cause. I bring fire into the blood. Without me, the earth would be as empty as the moon. I am the color of passion and of love, the red rose, the poinsettia and the poppy."
Purple rose up to his full height:
He was very tall and spoke with great pomp: "I am the color of royalty and power. Kings, chiefs, and bishops have always chosen me for I am the sign of authority and wisdom. People do not question me! They listen and obey."
Finally Indigo spoke, much more quietly than all the others, but with just as much determination:
"Think of me. I am the color of silence. You hardly notice me, but without me you all become superficial. I represent thought and reflection, twilight and deep water. You need me for balance and contrast, for prayer and inner peace."
And so the colors went on boasting, each convinced of his or her own superiority. Their quarreling became louder and louder. Suddenly there was a startling flash of bright lightening thunder rolled and boomed. Rain started to pour down relentlessly. The colors crouched down in fear, drawing close to one another for comfort.
In the midst of the clamor, rain began to speak:
"You foolish colors, fighting amongst yourselves, each trying to dominate the rest. Don't you know that you were each made for a special purpose, unique and different? Join hands with one another and come to me."
Doing as they were told, the colors united and joined hands.
The rain continued:
"From now on, when it rains, each of you will stretch across the sky in a great bow of color as a reminder that you can all live in peace. The Rainbow is a sign of hope for tomorrow." And so, whenever a good rain washes the world, and a Rainbow appears in the sky, let us remember to appreciate one another.
2: True Happiness
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The authors of the American Declaration proclaimed happiness to be one of the essential rights that make life worth living. William James, the first American psychologist, echoed this emphasis on happiness: "If we were to ask the question: 'What is human life's chief concern? One of the answers we should receive would be: 'It is happiness.'" Every philosophical and religious system has offered its pathway to happiness for the individual and the group. Happiness has been related to pleasure, refuge from pain, intellectual contemplation, union with God, friendship, children, wealth, honor, successful activity, and even state burial with statues! Today, scientists have joined the dialogue to seek answers about what contributes to happiness or, as they call it, "subjective well-being".
If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence. – Aristotle The concept of happiness--while difficult to define-- is obviously here to stay. But the desire for happiness can set up expectations that are often hard to fulfill. The right to pursue happiness was conceived of as an inalienable right; the entitlement that everyone be happy was never promised. As captured by Eric Hoffer, a misguided search we hope to provide a framework that will guide you in your personal pursuit of happiness.
3: 《微笑》是法国作家安东尼·圣艾修伯里的作品，圣艾修伯里是名飞行员，二次大战对抗纳粹时被击落身亡，之前他也曾参加西班牙内战打击法西斯分子。他根据这次经验写了一篇精彩的故事――《微笑》。他的代表作《小王子》是美国人都很熟悉的童话故事。
"I was sure that I was to be killed. I became terribly nervous. I fumbled[1] in my pockets to see if there were any cigarettes, which had escaped[2]
Their search. I found one and because of my shaking hands, I could barely get it to my lips. But I had no matches, they had taken those. "I looked through the bars at my jailer. He did not make eye contact with me. I called out to him 'Have you got a light?' He looked at me, shrugged [3]and came over to light my cigarette. "As he came close and lit the match, his eyes inadvertently locked with mine. At that moment, I smiled. I don't know why I did that. Perhaps it was nervousness, perhaps it was because, when you get very close, one to another, it is very hard not to smile. In any case, I smiled. In that instant, it was as though a spark jumped across the gap between our two hearts, our two human souls. I know he didn't want to, but my smile leaped through the bars and generated a smile on his lips, too. He lit my cigarette but stayed near, looking at me directly in the eyes and continuing to smile.
"I kept smiling at him, now aware of him as a person and not just a jailer. And his looking at me seemed to have a new dimension[4] too. 'Do you have kids?' he asked. " 'Yes, here, here.' I took out my wallet and nervously fumbled for the pictures of my family. He, too, took out the pictures of his family and began to talk about his plans and hopes for them. My eyes filled with tears. I said that I feared that I'd never see my family again, never have the chance to see them grow up. Tears came to his eyes, too. "Suddenly, without another word, he unlocked my cell and silently led me out. Out of the jail, quietly and by back routes, out of the town. There, at the edge of town, he released me. And without another word, he turned back toward the town.
"My life was saved by a smile." Yes, the smile―the unaffected, unplanned, natural connection between people.. I really believe that if that part of you and that part of me could recognize each other, we wouldn't be enemies. We couldn't have hate or envy or fear.
My own words:Many students may have read the article .But I think it is quite useful ,so I put it in our E-box . Smailing is easy ,but it is also important .
I wish all of us a smail everyday !
4: Sandstorm shows need for eco-awareness
Source: Global Times
[22:08 March 21 2010]
Comments
A severe sandstorm hit Beijing Friday night, bringing tons of sand within it. Beijingers woke up Saturday morning to see clouds of yellow dust. Most parts of the city were battered by strong winds, and pedestrians trudged in the street with the cover of gauze masks.
This is the worst floating dust that Beijing has encountered in the last four years. The air quality was level five, the highest level of air pollution.
The metaphor of the "butterfly effect," where treading on a butterfly in Brazil causes a storm in China, shows us that a small, bad mechanism can bring about social damage without proper adjustment, and a small, good mechanism can lead to revolutionary changes with the correct guidance and development.
The sandstorm reportedly came from Mongolia and central areas of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
It took the sandstorm there about seven hours to arrive in Bejing. For many Beijingers, the desert seems as far away as the stars in the sky. However, it is actually so close to us.
Many activities in everyday life are closely related to the environment. And we need to promote harmony between human and nature through piecemeal efforts in order to prevent worse problems developing in the future.
For instance, stop driving for one day, grow one more tree, and cherish every drop of water.
Such small efforts are like thousands of butterflies. When they slowly flutter together, a benign revolution can be expected.
The Beijing News
5: A New Global Sound: Synth, Soul and Sample
By JON CARAMANICA Published: March 5, 2010
Four years ago, when Jason Derülo was a competitor in the long-running amateur-night talent competition at the Apollo Theater, one of his go-to numbers was “Love,” by Musiq Soulchild. That song from 2000, one of the first breakthrough moments of neo-soul, was slow and decorous and no-frills, the choice of a young R&B singer uninterested in testing himself.
So much for all that. Late last year Mr. Derülo’s first single, “Whatcha Say,” became a No. 1 Billboard pop hit, and it’s dizzying. Based on a robotic sample from “Hide and Seek,” by the quirky British singer Imogen Heap, the song is an orgy of digital effects. Mr. Derülo is a strong singer, though that’s the least important element of this song, which finds him stripped of any American soul signifiers and instead swimming in the world of European megaclubs.
Welcome to the new global R&B. “Whatcha Say” is one of several great songs on Mr. Derülo’s sugary self-titled debut album (on Beluga Heights/Warner Brothers), which was released this week. It’s only half an album, really — 9 songs, 31 minutes — which makes it even more impressive that Mr. Derülo has hammered a signature sound into shape with his producer and label head, J. R. Rotem.
The album’s formula — even Mr. Rotem uses the word — is ruthlessly effective: uptempo beats, excitable synths, sturdy song structures, melisma-free singing, nods to older mainstream pop songs in the melodies. “The Sky’s the Limit” is packed thick with clobbering synths, and toys with the melody of Irene Cara’s “Flashdance . . . What a Feeling.” And on “What If,” there’s a wink at Heart’s “Alone,” with a piano line that begins similarly, then veers off in a darker direction.
“It’s not as if we tried to invent some sort of genre that hadn’t been there,” Mr. Rotem said in a telephone interview. “Things were already getting very four-on-the-floor.” As in dance-oriented, that is: tempos have been creeping upward in pop music for the last few years, though the impact on black pop has only been recent. Last year, thanks to the Black Eyed Peas and others, hip-hop began to sound more and more like workout music. Now it’s R&B’s turn, with Mr. Derülo at the forefront.
But even though he and Mr. Rotem worked carefully to hone their sound, it wasn’t necessarily an easy sell. “I brought them music, and they didn’t know what to do with the music,” Mr. Derülo said in a phone interview, referring to some early meetings with record labels. “They were like, ‘You’re black, what is this kind of stuff?’ I don’t want to be pigeonholed by the color of my skin.”
Even though his early influences included earthy neo-soul stars like India.Arie and Anthony Hamilton, Mr. Derülo’s main goal was to “reach the world,” he said.
“At one point,” he continued, “I was doing straight rock, at another point I was doing Euro dance stuff. I realized I didn’t have to choose.”
He’s helped a great deal by the high-pitched, smooth, nonspecific tone in his voice. “It’s not something that’s been like that my whole life,” Mr. Derülo said. “But on this album, it’s become me. For some reason, I get all the time, ‘Man, I didn’t know you were black.’ But you can make any kind of music you want to make.”
Notably, the singers at the forefront of this style have eclectic roots, in many cases Caribbean. Mr. Derülo — his real name is Jason Desrouleaux — is Haitian-American. Another of Mr. Rotem’s artists, Iyaz, who is from the British Virgin Islands, is working a similar line with his debut single, “Replay.” (Iyaz’s debut album is scheduled for release next month.) The British-Nigerian-Brazilian singer Taio Cruz has a rising hit with “Break Your Heart,” which has the same wall-of-sound synths and heavily processed vocals as Mr. Derülo ’s album.
And last year, the French house music producer David Guetta found himself a global crossover star after releasing “One Love” (Virgin), a dance-R&B album on which he collaborated with R&B singers, including Kelly Rowland, Estelle and Akon. (Mr. Guetta also produced the ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas hit “I Gotta Feeling,” the hip-hop-specific incarnation of this trend.)
In many ways, Akon was this movement’s jumping-off point. Of Senegalese descent, Akon was a curious figure when he first emerged in the hip-hop world, singing wistful, high-pitched hooks on thug-rapper songs. Over the course of his career, his saccharine vocals became increasingly at home on pop radio, to the point where he almost had two parallel careers.
Mr. Rotem, a producer who’s worked with rappers and Britney Spears (whom he also dated), also helped solidify this template a few years ago, when he began working with the young Jamaican singer-rapper Sean Kingston — like Mr. Derülo, Mr. Kingston was discovered on MySpace by Mr. Rotem’s brother Tommy.
Mr. Kingston’s first single, “Beautiful Girls,” was an update of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” with a mild island lilt. The early years of Rihanna, who is from Barbados, also fit this mold, though she’s since been swallowed almost whole by pop.
In this music, the Caribbean element often isn’t overt but is coded in the relationship between rhythm and melody. The gestures are small yet important. (There’s a rich Jamaican tradition of re-recording American pop songs in reggae-sung versions, a spiritual-cousin phenomenon.)
This sound is partly a reflection of an increasingly global market for pop music, tied together by the Internet, but also by country- and genre-hopping artists with an ear for synthesis. And then there’s another concern: making music that’s palatable to several tastes — not in any way exclusionary — is simply good business.
“Domestic sales are not what they were,” Mr. Rotem said, “so in order to be commercially successful, you have to appeal to a global audience. That’s also going to shape the music.”
Not that Mr. Derülo had any extant aspirations of being a traditional R&B star: he may be proud of his influences, but he’s been willing to abandon them in search of something bigger.
“I got to meet Musiq Soulchild recently,” Mr. Derülo said. “I told him he’s a big influence, and he’s like, ‘Really?’ ”
6: That's credible: Oscar movies grounded in reality
LOS ANGELES - Hollywood is not exactly known for its grip on reality, but the experts have given an "A" for authenticity to the 10 contenders for the best picture Oscar on Sunday.
"AVATAR"
"It is extremely unlikely the life forms would be so close to those on Earth; on the other hand, I'm sure at some point in the future we will be able to use our brainwaves to drive avatars, at least in the virtual world. The next step -- to use (brainwaves) to drive actual representatives of ourselves in the real world instead -- is probably a very long way off, but you can't say it cannot be done. It's a new area of engineering and biological engineering that hasn't been explored yet."
-- Piet Hut, professor of astrophysics, Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University
"THE BLIND SIDE"
"If you look at success rates of staying in school, tendencies toward violence, drugs and alcohol (abuse), teen pregnancies and acting out in school, one-on-one mentoring will significantly reduce those risk behaviors. While the movie portrays a significant and deep mentoring relationship, it's a Hollywood idealized dream. The family in the movie is wealthy, but we all have to struggle every day. I also saw all the young boys who were left behind. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had more African-American male mentors?"
-- Karen Mathis, CEO, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
"DISTRICT 9"
"The way that the MNU people are portrayed and the kind of Afrikaans English they speak (are) reminiscent of the way in which the police (in the days of apartheid) treated black South Africans. The (aliens, known as Prawns) have a language with a click element in it, which is suggestive that they are representative of Xhosa or Zulu speakers. The Prawn metaphor is very effective in confronting (the issue of race) by making that difference more radical."
-- Vivian Bickford-Smith, professor of comparative metropolitan history, University of Cape Town
"AN EDUCATION"
"What we see in the film is very much the idealism of the time, when women believed they could reach their sexual liberation without giving up all the other things that make us fully human. They could be valued for being intelligent, articulate and going off to university, as well as finding their sexuality. I'm not going to minimize the battles that have been won, but we've veered too far (in) another direction now, where girls are valued so much for being sexual beings, they're not valued as much as they should be for everything else."
-- Natasha Walter, British feminist author ("Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism") and TV commentator
"THE HURT LOCKER"
"Mark Boal is being careful in that he didn't want to compromise unnecessarily any of the techniques the U.S. servicemen are using to defeat devices. So, using a little bit of artistic license, (the filmmakers) made a very accurate, gritty representation. I'm an experienced operator and I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, sweating when I was watching the film in anticipation of what was going to happen next, reliving all my own memories."
-- Maj. Chris Hunter (ret.), former senior IED intelligence analyst for the British Ministry of Defense
"INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS"
"There was a thing called the Jewish Brigade, which was part of the British Army, and they did go around bumping off Nazis after the war. Now (in the movie) they're called the 'Real Inglourious Basterds,' as if they were walking around with their flip knives and removing people's scalps. You could make an awesome film about the Jewish Brigade and you could make it true, violent and exciting, and it would be extremely cathartic if you were a Jew."
-- Guy Walters, author of "Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice"
"PRECIOUS"
"They did an excellent job portraying the effects of sexual abuse on the victim. Every two minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. One in six women will become a victim and half the victims are under 18. This is an issue that's extremely prevalent in our society. Our telephone and online hotlines are all anonymous; we don't record transcripts of sessions or IP addresses -- however, I have heard anecdotally from some volunteers that they have spoken with people who have referenced the movie."
-- Katherine Hull, spokeswoman for RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)
"A SERIOUS MAN"
"I grew up in exactly the neighborhood (in St. Louis Park, Minn.) at exactly the time, with exactly the people the film depicts. The Coen brothers and I graduated from the same high school a few years apart. The Lebowskis lived down the street from me. Clearly, they're dealing with stereotypes to some degree, but they're based on reality. The Hebrew School was that boring. The teachers were that old. It was that stifling. The old rabbi was sort of that mysterious and scary. They got a lot right."
-- Steve Z. Leder, Senior Rabbi, Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles
"UP"
"You'd have to have about a 2 million-cubic-foot balloon to lift a house like that. There are cluster balloons that do operate with small balloons. Only a handful of people are doing it. When they want to come down, they just pull a balloon on the cord and pop it, and it starts their descent. When they start coming down close to the ground, they'll throw out a little bit of sand to even out that descent. The way they did that in the movie (by tossing off the contents of the house) was pretty realistic."
-- Don Kissack, president, Southern California Balloon Assn.
"UP IN THE AIR"
"If you get on a plane -- particularly a jet flight of the type Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) flew -- the chance you'll get killed is about 1 in 10 million, and that takes into account all kinds of hazards, including the risk of terrorism. In the movie, he tended to take short flights. But supposing it was 800 miles, which is the typical jet flight in the U.S., if there's a 1 in 10 million risk every 800 miles, the risk of dying (while) flying 10 million miles is about 1 in 800. It is very safe."