A Memo

To: University of Denver ASEM Faculty

Hi, my name is Jacob Good and welcome to my portfolio for all thing’s music. This portfolio consists of three assignments for Brad Benz’s ASEM course, “Writing About Music in the 21^st Century”. Each one of these assignments takes a unique approach of addressing a different aspect of music criticism for the modern day. The first assignment was to select an artist and create an annotated playlist that consisted of 8-10 songs that best represented said artist’s career. I chose to create a playlist for the recently deceased artists Mac Miller as he has been one the most influential artists throughout my adolescence to now. My annotated playlist addressed chronologically his music and career. Talking about how Mac Miller transitioned from a young high-school kid rising to fame to struggling with drug addiction up until the very end of his career. I chose to revise this piece as I believed it was truly one of the stronger pieces I have written during my time at DU and wanted to polish it to the level that I thought did it justice as Mac Miller has had such a large impact on me. The second assignment was our desert-island disc which prompted us to select an album that we would bring along if we were stranded on a desert island. For this, I selected Childish Gambino’s album “Because of the Internet”. I chose this album because it was my introduction into the hip hop/rap genre and the reason I expanded my music taste beyond just rock n roll. It largely is responsible for my passion for music and turning me into a “music nerd”. Our final assignment was a live concert review in which we were to attend a live performance and review it. For this assignment I decided to go out and travel around my hometown of Dallas, TX bar hoping to find some new music from some local artists. Here I found and reviewed a small band known as Do We All Agree. I revised this piece as I wanted to highlight the band earlier on and add some additional resources about music in the Dallas area.

How does your portfolio reflect your personal experiences with music, and with writing about music to public audiences?

It’s no mystery that everyone’s experience and taste in music varies person to person and I think it’s these personal experience’s that form the basis for reviewing and critiquing music. It’s because of this we see varying reviews of the same album and can discuss and debate about what is “good” music. For this reason, throughout each of my assignments I made sure to include my experiences, biases, and passion in every piece of writing as they drove the narrative for each one. Throughout my annotated playlist I talk about my favorite verses and how some songs personally impact me. For the Desert Island Disc, the very prompt itself asks the author to rationalize their selection of album. For me, a large part of that was my personal experience with the album and I discuss how it was an eye-opening album for me.

How does your portfolio’s content reflect how you will approach music and music writing (your own and by others) in the future?

When you read my portfolio, you’ll discover someone who enjoys analyzing songs and albums on a deeper level and tries to piece together the larger puzzle that is the narrative or creative edge of music. Being a business student I often dread writing long essays, but this was one of the few courses I found myself discussing topics I was so passionate about that I actually struggled to cut my work down to the recommended length. I found myself so enthralled in breaking down and analyzing my favorite music that I realized my favorite thing about music was there is so much more that goes beyond just the music and songs. This changed my approach to music and writing for the future by always looking beyond just the sound of the music and whether its catchy or pleasing to the ear. Music is more than that, and I want to always look for that extra edge that makes music an art form.

What does your portfolio reveal about your understanding of how music and music writing connect with and influence the broader culture?

Music has always had deep rooted connections to culture and has this unique way of being influenced by culture while also influencing culture at the same time. My live concert was largely driven by this changing culture in music of discovering new artists. Artists nowadays are primarily discovered and gain their popularity through means of online platforms such as Soundcloud, Youtube, and many others. But it used to be before the internet that musicians were only discovered through playing local bars or small venues in their hometown. I believe that in today’s age of technology the art of intentionally seeking out and discovering small artists live has really died off and it was because of this I chose to seek out a small unknown artist playing in an unknown venue. This goes to show how music is influenced by the broader culture and is constantly changing with the world around it.

There is something in music that creates a greater sense of oneself. Something that we are always looking for a way to describe what it is that music makes us feel and why were so enamored about it. For some music is an art, for others an outlet, and for many a passion. What ever it is, writing about music will always exist for us to attempt to describe just why it’s so special.