Bloc Party
Bloc Party are a 4 piece band based in London. Bloc Party was officially a band around 2003 and have continued to grow and gain a huge fan base from then on. The band’s discography includes a few EP’s and 3 albums; including remixes. The band has a distinct, unmistakeable sound that they have carried with them through their albums, as well as expanded this sound as they changed. Each album is very different yet similar to the last; which is a huge element for their success as a band. The other elements of their success are the lyrics and the band themselves. Each of their albums is themed: Silent Alarm is slightly political mixed with love songs; A weekend in the City is as the title suggests and Intimacy again, is as the title suggests. The lyrics that front man, Kele, writes are in some cases very personal but he still keeps an element of secrecy about them and he writes them in a way that others can relate to.
The band members themselves are just genuine guys that love what they do. They started of as an honest, modest band and they have still kept that about them despite their growing fan base, media coverage and criticism from other bands. They can fill arenas if they want to, but they prefer the smaller venues where it’s intimate and they can fully engage with the crowd, because they know and are grateful to their fans as Bloc Party couldn’t work if it wasn’t for them.
Gerard Way
Gerard Way is an American musician and an artist. He is best known as being the front man of the controversial band, My Chemical Romance. He started off as an artist, drawing comic characters and studying at The School of Visual Arts in New York. A turning point for him was the September 11 attacks which he witnessed. Seeing the loss of life and how short life was he decided he needed to get away from comics and turn to music. Not long after that the band My Chemical Romance began to take form. Many of the songs written by Gerard are his emotional release from his problems with alcohol, drugs and the death of loved ones. When second album, ‘3 Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ came out, which album cover was designed and made by Way himself, it sold millions of copies and gained MCR their success. But it also caused controversy with its lyrics which were supposedly pushing teenagers to commit suicide. Way and the band over came this and continued on with the band, although they have moved in a different direction. With the success of his band, Way has moved back to comics and has created an Eisner Award winning comic series “The umbrella Academy”.
Magritte
Rene Magritte is a Belgium painter that is well known for being part of the Surrealist movement in the 1920’s. He painted not to please people but to make them think deeply about reality and what we assume to be real. As a young teenager he lost his mother when she threw herself in to a river; the most likely source for his interest in subconscious thought and reality. His early paintings were done in an Impressionistic style which he didn’t find inspiring, so he then turned to Cubism and Futurism. His first exhibition which was held in 1927 failed so he moved to Paris and discovered the Surrealists. Here he found that the Surrealists were painters that were influenced by Freud and Jung theories and their work consisted of strange juxtapositions that lacked in logic. Paris found him little success so he moved back to Belgium and continued to find success in his work. The work he produced which gained him credit was this work that made people think; images that took everyday items and turned them into something they’re not or giving them a new meaning. The most notable paintings of this theory being “The Treachery of Images”. He painted a pipe then wrote “This is not a pipe” underneath in French. Something that looks stupid at first, but when thought about it provokes all sorts of other thoughts and it gains so much more meaning.
Bloc Party are a 4 piece band based in London. Bloc Party was officially a band around 2003 and have continued to grow and gain a huge fan base from then on. The band’s discography includes a few EP’s and 3 albums; including remixes. The band has a distinct, unmistakeable sound that they have carried with them through their albums, as well as expanded this sound as they changed. Each album is very different yet similar to the last; which is a huge element for their success as a band. The other elements of their success are the lyrics and the band themselves. Each of their albums is themed: Silent Alarm is slightly political mixed with love songs; A weekend in the City is as the title suggests and Intimacy again, is as the title suggests. The lyrics that front man, Kele, writes are in some cases very personal but he still keeps an element of secrecy about them and he writes them in a way that others can relate to.
The band members themselves are just genuine guys that love what they do. They started of as an honest, modest band and they have still kept that about them despite their growing fan base, media coverage and criticism from other bands. They can fill arenas if they want to, but they prefer the smaller venues where it’s intimate and they can fully engage with the crowd, because they know and are grateful to their fans as Bloc Party couldn’t work if it wasn’t for them.
Gerard Way
Gerard Way is an American musician and an artist. He is best known as being the front man of the controversial band, My Chemical Romance. He started off as an artist, drawing comic characters and studying at The School of Visual Arts in New York. A turning point for him was the September 11 attacks which he witnessed. Seeing the loss of life and how short life was he decided he needed to get away from comics and turn to music. Not long after that the band My Chemical Romance began to take form. Many of the songs written by Gerard are his emotional release from his problems with alcohol, drugs and the death of loved ones. When second album, ‘3 Cheers for Sweet Revenge’ came out, which album cover was designed and made by Way himself, it sold millions of copies and gained MCR their success. But it also caused controversy with its lyrics which were supposedly pushing teenagers to commit suicide. Way and the band over came this and continued on with the band, although they have moved in a different direction. With the success of his band, Way has moved back to comics and has created an Eisner Award winning comic series “The umbrella Academy”.
Magritte
Rene Magritte is a Belgium painter that is well known for being part of the Surrealist movement in the 1920’s. He painted not to please people but to make them think deeply about reality and what we assume to be real. As a young teenager he lost his mother when she threw herself in to a river; the most likely source for his interest in subconscious thought and reality. His early paintings were done in an Impressionistic style which he didn’t find inspiring, so he then turned to Cubism and Futurism. His first exhibition which was held in 1927 failed so he moved to Paris and discovered the Surrealists. Here he found that the Surrealists were painters that were influenced by Freud and Jung theories and their work consisted of strange juxtapositions that lacked in logic. Paris found him little success so he moved back to Belgium and continued to find success in his work. The work he produced which gained him credit was this work that made people think; images that took everyday items and turned them into something they’re not or giving them a new meaning. The most notable paintings of this theory being “The Treachery of Images”. He painted a pipe then wrote “This is not a pipe” underneath in French. Something that looks stupid at first, but when thought about it provokes all sorts of other thoughts and it gains so much more meaning.
