PunBB

I don't know how to explain this without sounding completely out of my mind, so I'm not going to try. Let's just assume I'm crazy. Above is a photo of what I have taken to calling a "songmap," containing the titles of all official Hip songs (including bonus tracks, but nothing unreleased) grouped and linked... wordily? Linguistically? Thematically?

I was taking that quiz where you try to name all the Hip's songs, and it occurred to me that I have this mental map. You know, songs about water --> songs about animals that live in the water --> songs about animals that don't live in the water --> songs about places animals live. Etc etc. So I drew that mental map, found the way it played out fascinating, and thought some of you guys might be interested in the result. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with this thing, though; for a long time I couldn't decide if it was crazy or cool, but I've had some time away from it (I stopped drawing these in February) and am leaning toward cool. Anyway. It's marker on CP watercolour paper.

Here's the full thing (this one isn't the Really Final Version, actually; I think this is take 3 of 5, but it's the one I've got vaguely decent photos of right now). Click for the giant version:

totally cool.

thank you.

ct

I'd buy that if the price was right...

Looks Good.

Reminds me of a previous post.
http://hipbase.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15013

its my computer desktop... i would buy it...

First, I'm glad you guys like them! I certainly have no perspective, so it's hard for me to tell how my weird projects are going to go over.

Second... it hadn't actually occurred to me to sell them. I'm still thinking about it, but my impulse right now is to say that yes, I will, but only for the price of materials and shipping (which is still going be around $50, depending on where you are (they are pretty big)). I'm not comfortable making any kind of profit from this. It feels like selling tapes or something, I don't know. At any rate, pm me if you want one, and we can talk. I do have a few of them, and I'm not against making more.

Note that my internet access is spotty this week, though, so it might take me a while to get back to you. I have a new job where the first week involves working on the floor of a warehouse, and let me tell you how much my computer-programmer ass is cut out for that job. So I get home at like 6.30 and pass out. Except today, because today there is hockey. But I can hardly be expected to be online and also watching the finals. On the plus side, this warehouse worker thing involves picking out music for everyone to listen to while we work, and my plan is to get some Hip in there when it's my turn.

pretty coool.
the font is killer too

Thats awesome! i cant stopp looking at it!

tigerthelion88 Wrote:pretty coool.
the font is killer too

The font? No fonts; this is hand-drawn, so you're just looking at my regular handwriting. Though I have always wanted to turn it into a font. Glad you like it!

That's a really great piece of Art/Work catechiem. It would be an interesting tool to use for set lists or play lists at home. Cheers for sharing that.

Amazing. It was fun reading through the chart and seeing all the connections made. I don't think something like this would work so well with any other band, there are so many core similarities in the song titles. You obviously have a fascinating mind as well, being able to map out all this information.

Love it :thumb:

I was looking at this thinking how interesting it would be using lyrics instead of song titles. Kind of like word association. Start with the central theme, work outwards then start new themes from connecting thoughts/words. Think brainstorming like we did back in elementary school.

Now only dilemma is trying to make it even half as good as this..... :thumb:

HandsInTheRiver41 Wrote:Amazing. It was fun reading through the chart and seeing all the connections made. I don't think something like this would work so well with any other band, there are so many core similarities in the song titles. You obviously have a fascinating mind as well, being able to map out all this information.

Ahahaha, a fascinating mind. That's very diplomatic, thank you! But yeah, I also wondered how well this would work with other bands, and so I spent a few hours with the song lists of U2, REM, and Pearl Jam, just to see what I could see. It was pretty interesting. Parts of it were really obvious -- different bands sing about different things, news at 11! -- but it was clear that they all spent time exploring and developing certain themes over the course of their careers. They all have songs about leaving home and coming back. REM and the Hip both have animal songs, but REM's are mostly bird songs, and songs about flying instead of songs about swimming. They all have number songs, but U2's songs are mostly the number "one." (I laughed, I admit it.) Pearl Jam's map is, as far as I can tell, not possible to do -- too many one-word song names, which are really difficult to place, or words they made up. U2's would be sprawling and loosely connected, with a lot of discrete chunks all over the place. REM's would be very tightly knit and interconnected and would probably only be possible if I had an entire wall to draw it on. But I do think they'd be possible, given enough time and space. I think my criteria for one of these things is that I have to know the catalog well enough to make connections that aren't just titular; they have to have enough albums for the connections to show up but not so many I can't keep it all in my head (I figure 4-15, give or take); and, like I said, not too many one-word song names. I'm tempted to try one for Gord's solo work, but I don't know if I know it well enough. Worth a shot, maybe.

let_me_out Wrote:I was looking at this thinking how interesting it would be using lyrics instead of song titles. Kind of like word association. Start with the central theme, work outwards then start new themes from connecting thoughts/words. Think brainstorming like we did back in elementary school.

I did something... sort of like that, but I haven't got around to doing anything with the data. Actually, I don't think I'm quite finished even coming up with the data. But I took the lyrics for DFN and started counting words and syllables and phrases and parsing things out into types of speech and writing on index cards and moving stuff around, just to see what happened, and basically all I've got at the moment is that "Grace, Too," looked at that way, is about war. Which he's announced on stage, so again I have spent too much time to learn things we already knew, but it was cool to see it come out. I'd definitely be interested to see someone else's take on this, though!

If I look at it for too long, I see the outline of a duck smoking a cigarette. Probably not what you were going for, but it's a back-handed compliment in that I keep looking at this thing. Cool work. :thumb: