Vox videos on music

Vox does these really great videos on YouTube about music - thought you all might enjoy a link. Here’s a really cool one on the structures and patterns in rap. Worth a watch!

There’s also a link to a Spotify playlist with a ton of great stuff on it (link). If you love The Roots’ late 90s stuff like I do, you’ll dig this list probably.

Also, check out Vox’s Earworm series for a bunch of other videos on music - why we like repetition, the tonal variety of national anthems, the graphic design of jazz album covers, etc et cetera &c: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5fyqfIwGjH2fYC5fFLfdwW4

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Vox is one of my favorite online pubs!

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I thought you were talking about OUR Vox ._.

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I’ve seen that rap video before. It’s not my personal taste in music, but it was so cool to see it dissected and learn a little bit about the history of it.

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I love all their content- just except the political ones.

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Yeah, same - I love stuff like this. Really helps you appreciate different art forms.

Oh, that’s interesting. Is it because you avoid politics in general? Or is it more about how they present things? Or with their interpretations themselves? Not trying to have a political convo, just interested because I do some work on explainer videos/documents, so I like to know why people respond the way they do to content like this.

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Yeah I avoid politics in general just because I know I’m too uninformed to form an actual opinion, followed by laziness in educating myself (where do I even start?). Lastly, I honestly don’t even know which resources I can and should trust. Even the “trustworthy” publications in my country are known to have some sort of political bias, so there’s that.

(Also, I really enjoyed Vox’s video on repititive music and why it sounds appealing. It’s so good haha)

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That’s understandable! It takes a lot of effort and maintenance to feel like you’re qualified to know anything really. At least for me it does.

The only thing I’d say is that ‘bias’ itself is kind of misunderstood as a term, and isn’t necessarily bad, so don’t avoid politics or think you can’t have an opinion because of it. Bias shows up in lots of different ways - from making up information because of pre-conceived agendas, to publishing facts while using emotionally charged words to lead readers to certain conclusions, to covering certain stories and not others, to all sorts of things in between. All sources will have a bias (it’s inescapable), but if you can tell the difference between fact and opinion, and selective presentation of facts, you’re fine, for the most part. Best practice is to read critically from multiple sources and ask yourself what information they might be leaving out.

I’m not sure what the best sources would be for your local news - but generally, maybe Reuters/AP for reporting of events, and a mixture of Vox, The Economist, and BBC World Service for left/right balance?

(And yeah, the repetitive music vid is awesome! I also really like the one on the most feared song in jazz)

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Will take note of that for sure. Now in the legal age of voting, I’m kind of “forced” to vote (peer-pressure). So I definitely have to do some research instead of just going by with “the majority vote.” Honestly it’s all so overwhelming and mentally draining :sweat_smile: but I’ll do my best.

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