{"id":40166,"date":"2015-02-12T22:32:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T02:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40166"},"modified":"2020-07-14T22:32:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T02:32:33","slug":"why-cant-atlanta-have-a-decent-city-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40166","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t Atlanta have a decent city song?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4F2BWBJ_Snk?controls=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I was running on the treadmill, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8\">Jay-Z\/Alicia Keys\u2019 <em>Empire State of Mind<\/em><\/a> came on my iTunes. It\u2019s a song that I particularly like, but I also think it\u2019s cool that it\u2019s a song that\u2019s basically also a soliloquy to the city of New York, and how much Jay-Z thinks it\u2019s a great place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Somewhere along the line, I thought about Frank Sinatra\u2019s <em>New York, New York<\/em>, and how it was such a classic, iconic song, and that it could probably never be replaced. I\u2019m not saying Empire State of Mind replaced New York, New York as the anthem of the city, but it says something when it\u2019s played at some point during every single Yankees home game at Yankee Stadium, in addition to Sinatra.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">The bottom line is that Empire State of Mind is a song that, sure lyrically rap, which tends to make some people nervous, but has what I think is a catchy melody, beat, and is overall harmonically pleasing to listen to. Clearly, I\u2019m not the only person who thinks this, and it\u2019s a song that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Empire_State_of_Mind#Critical_reception\">has done pretty well for itself<\/a> in the grand spectrum of things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">If you haven\u2019t already clicked the YouTube video, and don\u2019t mind listening to shitty music, go ahead and click it now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Long story short, <em>The ATL<\/em> is a song that was produced and made in like 2005, because the City of Atlanta wanted to brand itself, and in their words, \u201c<em>like New York.<\/em>\u201d The entire branding campaign cost Atlanta taxpayers somewhere in the ballpark of $5 million dollars, with $3 million of that going to \u201cproducer\u201d Dallas Austin, to make this abomination of a \u201csong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Conclusively, the entire campaign fell flat on its face, the city has an official logo that nobody recognizes, couldn\u2019t even get \u201cAtlanta.com,\u201d having to settle with \u201cAtlanta.net,\u201d and was basically a complete and utter waste of taxpayer dollars. The city\u2019s bonehead officials forgot that you can\u2019t forcefully brand a city, and that a city\u2019s branding often times comes unofficially and at the voice of people collectively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">As for the song itself, it pigeon-holed the entire city to what people already perceive of Atlanta: as a black people-dominated city, with its R&amp;B crooning, bass-heavy, drumline beat and gospel-like background chorus that screams \u201cWe belong on BET only\u201d instead of having any remote attempt to reach out to a broader, more top-40 like audience. White people don\u2019t want to listen to this crap. Hispanics or Asians don\u2019t want to listen to this either. Hell, there are probably black people that don\u2019t want to listen to it either.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Basically, I consider this song to be one of the city\u2019s more notable failures and embarrassments, and it makes me pine for someone(s) else to step forth and try and make something that isn\u2019t quite so exclusive, and might actually be enjoyable to a broader audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Contrary to popular belief, sure, Atlanta is crawling with a thousand rappers, notable as well as pretenders, but there\u2019s more to the musical history than just rap music. Especially if the guidelines expanded a little bit to include the neighborhoods of sprawl that feeds workers into Atlanta on a daily basis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">If it were up to me, I\u2019d employ Ludacris to be the guy to spearhead this entire collaborative effort, because he\u2019s a guy that has been proud and not the least bit reluctant to shout out to Atlanta throughout his whole career. I also think he\u2019s a more cerebral and intelligent individual than people give him credit for. And frankly, with Atlanta\u2019s population being majority black, without him, it would be hard to get that portion of the populous to be on board.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">And if not Luda, then fuck it, get Outkast. They\u2019ve successfully crossed genres before, there\u2019s no reason to think they couldn\u2019t do it again, especially with collaborators.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But performers I have in mind, when I think of Atlanta (area) musicians (that aren\u2019t exclusive to rap) are names like the Black Crowes, the Indigo Girls and Butch Walker.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">I know it\u2019s all wishful thinking, but I want to be more proud of where I live, and it\u2019s sometimes difficult to do when there are tons of preexisting reputations and stereotypes that are reinforced frequently. But a cool song that actually praises Atlanta, that doesn\u2019t sound like it should only be played in an 88\u2019 Caprice Classic with 30\u201d rims would be a great start.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff I was running on the treadmill, and Jay-Z\/Alicia Keys\u2019 Empire State of Mind came on my iTunes. It\u2019s a song that I particularly like, but I also think it\u2019s cool that it\u2019s a song that\u2019s basically also a soliloquy to the city of New York, and how much Jay-Z thinks it\u2019s a great place. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40166\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why can\u2019t Atlanta have a decent city song?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,15,143,49],"class_list":["post-40166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-fail","tag-og","tag-ohatlanta","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40167,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40166\/revisions\/40167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}