Why I like Macs - Y I ? ?

There are endless cool things about Apple’s products. One for example is that Apple was always the company using new technologies at first and by doing this achieving to be continuously innovative. It started with the very beginning of Apple: IBM thought about releasing computers for personal use, but meant computers were made to work with – noone would wanna have one in his home. Apple however brought out the “Apple I”, the first personal computer (cool slogan: “Byte into an Apple”). They were so successful with it that they released the “Apple II” and sold even more computers (altogether: two million devices). IBM got into panic and cooperated with the small company “Microsoft” (they were really small to that time), bringing out the IBM-PC and Microsoft its meteoric rise.

Then the mouse for example was used with “Apple Lisa” for the first time commercially. The desktop surface as you know it (with Trash/Recycle Bin and so on) was introduced by Apple. Microsoft copied it, was sued by Apple and had to pay a neat sum of money in an extrajudicial settlement. Drag&Drop, the Undo-function, the highlighting of text and objects, program-icons, the text-to-speech function,… all that (and even more) was introduced by Macintosh (see its Introduction in 1984 here). Some people to that time said that the Macintosh would just be an “expensive toy”. Uhm, what does some people today say about new apple products?

Another cool thing about Apple is that they constantly develop a product from its basic intention to its final shape and not the other way round. Take the iPhone for example: While cell-phone-companies were so into this standard-look of mobile phones (display above, keyboard below) and only changed some details from phone to phone, apple thought about what you need to do with your mobile phone and afterwards came up with this amazing as-simple-as-simple-can-be user interface. A Microsoft-guy one time said something like “The iPhone looks beautiful. But other phones do that, too!” Argh! He totally misses the point! This isn’t anything about conventional beauty like “Oh, look: Nice flowers”. It’s the beauty within simplicity and comfort. When you have an iPhone (I’ve got an iPod touch, that’s pretty much the same, that’s why I know what I’m talking about) everything feels so smooth – the scrolling, the zooming with two fingers, the opening of apps, the surfing with Safari and so on. “Windows mobile” isn’t able to match that.

As well as “Windows” isn’t able to match the feeling of “Mac OS”. Yep, we arrived at the Mac (or rather the old “Mac vs. Windows” fight): The smooth feeling you have with the iPhone you also have with Mac OS. I’ve been a Windows user for years, thinking it would be the best system on the market – you know it’s so prevalent and stuff, I thought it wouldn’t be if it wasn’t good. Then I had contact with Macians (enthusiastic Mac-users) and heard everywhere that Macs were so great, the iPod and iPhone also convinced me and after my PC was scrap, I bought a MacBook. The installation was probably the greatest first-time experience: While installing an internet connection on Windows had always been a horror, on the Mac I’ve finished it within five minutes. I only had to enter my WLAN password. If I had used the cable connection, I wouldn’t had to do anything at all, because the Mac finds the connection itself and installs it on its own. It’s all automated on a Mac, the user just has to enter the necessary data.
Apart from this, the cool thing is: Everything works! On Windows there were so many times when I wasn’t able to do anything – the Computer made strange noises and when I moved the mouse the cursor stood still. This doesn’t happen on a Mac: Even if a program is freezed, everything else works fine, because program and system are seperated from each other. When you see the hourglass on your Windows’ screen you don’t know if your PC is frozen or is just working very hard. On a Mac everything is animated, so if you see the waiting-cursor (a very coloured ball) spinning around its axis you know that only the program is frozen. When you use the Windows search to find something on your PC you can definitely have a cup of coffee till the search is finished. With “Spotlight” – Apple’s internal search engine – you find what you need while typing! … To come to the point: Mac OS is simpler, more comfortable and smooth, more efficient and far more user-friendly than Windows.

Actually I could fill another blog philosophising about “Why I like Macs”. But I think it’s enough now for this tyhtka-Post.

“tyhtka”? WTF!

In comparison to Max Martin, Luke is far more findable on the internet. As already mentioned he’s got a myspace-page and a website which is, uhm, “under construction” for months already. Nevertheless the person and his achievements in pop music are topics of this post, not his unfinished website. So, here we go again with the introduction of his Wikipedia-article:

Dr. Luke, also known as Doctor Luke, Luke Gottwald, Lukasz Gottwald, ([*26. September 1973, New York City] birth name Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald) is a musician, songwriter and producer who has written and produced for artists such as Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Jibbs, Lady Sovereign, Kelis, Avril Lavigne, Leona Lewis, Missy Elliott, Pink, Lil’ Mama, Katy Perry, Mos Def, the Backstreet Boys, Daughtry, The Veronicas, Carlos Santana, Vanessa Hudgens, and the Sugababes. Dr. Luke was the guitar player in the Saturday Night Live Band for ten seasons (ten years), leaving the band at the end of the 2006-2007 season.
He is known for writing heavy pop-rock songs and occasionally hints on taboo subjects.

Again, this is actually what you need to know about him. Although “Lukasz” sounds non-american, he was born and raised in NYC, yet the name is polish. He started with playing drums at the age of 12 and switched afterwards to guitar after having listened to his sister playing Ziggy Stardust. He then practiced to play guitar. His first solo was “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC. He learned punk/rock-songs from The Clash, Sex Pistols, Cars, Led Zep, Bowie, Jimmy H, Eddie V, Steve Vai… He was obsessed with it:

“I was already playing and doing sessions before I went to school.” ~Lukasz Gottwald

He then decided to go to the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) to learn jazz, although he didn’t know how to play it. So, the teachers depreciated him at first. He knew he had great guitar skills but unfortunately not the requested jazz knowledge. So he swotted till he was able to show off and “kick all their asses”.

Lukasz Dr. Luke Gottwald at SNL - Copyright by SNL; I don't own the picture - no Copyright-infringement

“So I guess Manhattan School was good and bad: Good because I learned to play music I didn’t know how to play, bad because they didn’t respect any other kind of music and were super close-minded.” ~Lukasz Gottwald

I couldn’t find anything about how he got to SNL, yet I noticed while researching (“researching”=”googling”) that Google also googles for “Saturday Night Life” when you just enter “SNL” and it googles for “New York” when you enter “NYC”! Apparently Google is getting intelligent.
Nevertheless I found articles on gossip sites which accuse Luke of having stolen from songs for Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”, but read Jig’s comment on this at first: She (or he?) has very conclusive arguments that this gossip is nothing more than gossip!

“tyhtka” – WTF!

UPDATE: In Jig’s other comment you can read how he got to Saturday Night Life: “He got onto SNL by being auditioned, like anybody else would. He was recommended by some of his former teachers as a prospect. He was surprised that he was chosen since he knew most of the NYC guitar players and there were some that he thought were technically superior to him. He asked why he was chosen and they said that it was because he was photogenic, had a stage presence, and was also qualified musically.”

Martin Karl “Max Martin” Sandberg (born February 26, 1971) is an ASCAP-awarded and Grammy-nominated, Swedish music producer and songwriter. He was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and is best known by his pen name Max Martin. Breaking through as a producer and songwriter in the mid 1990s, he has crafted a string of worldwide hits for pop artists like the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, and Pink among many others.
His trademark during the second half of the 1990s was a danceable, piano/synth-laden pop sound that blended music styles such as funk, heavy metal and europop. However, with Kelly Clarkson’s hits “Since U Been Gone” and “Behind These Hazel Eyes”, which propelled Max back into the spotlight in 2004, he reinvented himself with a new pop rock sound.

That’s actually already most of what you have to know. He has written and produced all those hits like “As long as you love me”, “Everybody” (together with his mentor Denniz Pop), “Shape of my heart” and so on for the Backstreet Boys; “It’s my life”, Bon Jovi’s come-back-hit; “Baby One More Time”, “You Drive Me Crazy”, “Oops… I did it again”, “Lucky”, “Stronger” and so on for Britney; “I Kissed A Girl”, “Hot N Cold” for Katy Perry; “Since U Been Gone”, “Behind This Hazel Eyes”, “My Life Would Suck Without You” for Kelly Clarkson, “I Will Be” with Avril Lavigne, later covered by Leona Lewis; “U + Ur Hand”, “So What!” for P!nk;… This list is quite endless! He has written hits for everyone!

He began his career in the Funk-Metal-Band “It’s Alive”. Denniz PoP, a successful music-producer and founder of the Cheiron Studios, discovered Martin’s talent for pop music, engaged him and taught him everything he had to know about music-production within three years. In 1995 they produced the Rednex Song “Wish You Were Here” together. It became a huge hit, being #1 in many countries. Yet, Martin’s actual breakthrough was in 1996: Zomba looked for a producer-team for their newly minted Band “Backstreet Boys” and hired the Cheiron Studios. Many of the debut album’s songs were written and produced by the Cheiron staffers like Max Martin. In song’s like “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” the typical Max-Martin-Sound already dominated. Then, in 1998, a new singer saw the light of day: Britney Spears! Unfortunately in that same year his mentor Denniz Pop died of cancer. Martin saw himself compelled to take charge of the Cheiron Studios and abandoned himself to producing Britney’s debut album. The first single he had written and produced together with his new co-producer Rami and the same-named Album “…Baby One More Time” ascended to #1 in the US-Charts at once and made Britney the youngest artist ever to having accomplished that.  The song became such a big hit that other artist wanted to have the same sounds or even tried to copy them. In 1999, 2000 and 2001 Martin got the ASCAP’s award “Songwriter of the year”. ASCAP is the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, but Martin is their only award-winner who got the award three years in a row. Yet he definitively earned it: 

“I want to be part of every note, every single moment going on in the studio. I want nothing forgotten, I want nothing missed. I’m a perfectionist. The producer should decide what kind of music is being made, what it’s going to sound like–all of it, the why, when and how.” Max Martin in the LA Times, 6/05/00

Unexpectedly, at the end of the year 2000 he closed down the Cheiron Studio. He said, the success was so big that pressure was put onto his work and the fun-factor had vanished. After closing the studio and selling his custom-built-and-biggest-in-europe-mixer-unit he began to go back to his rock-music-roots. Together with Rami and afterwards even Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald he wrote Kelly Clarkson’s debut songs “Since U Been Gone” and “Behind These Hazel Eyes” which became immediately successful. Thenceforce (whoa, this word is cool) he produced Pop-Rock Songs for pretty much everyone. The youngest hits are Katy Perry’s Number 1 singles “I Kissed A Girl” and “Hot N Cold”, Pink’s Number 1 single “So What” and now Kelly Clarkson’s newest song “My Life Would Suck Without You”.

Max Martin: The Hit Man - Copyright by TIME Europe, no copyright infringement

Cheiron staff:

• Denniz PoP (1992-1998)
• Max Martin
• Kristian Lundin
• Andreas Carlsson
• Jörgen Elofsson
• Per Magnusson
• David Kreuger
• Rami Yacoub
• Alexander Kronlund
• Alexandra Talomaa
• Jake Schulze
• Herbie Crichlow
• Douglas Carr
• John Amatiello

“tyhtka” WTF?!