Why KMart is foolish for axing DVDs and CDs

You may or may not be aware that KMart has decided to stop selling DVDs and CDs. Basically as soon as the existing stock is gone they're exiting out of that market. I'm not someone who shops at KMart myself so this won't affect me, but there was quite a bit of outrage online following their announcement. I couldn't tell you if VHS videos and cassette tapes were phased out or if there was a big deal made when stores stopped selling them. I do recall when I started buying CDs and DVDs though. It would have been around the year 2000 and it was because it was the shiny new technology and I wanted to be on trend.

Well the thing is, the alternatives to DVDs and CDs are as follows:

• Streaming through Spotify, Netflix, Stan or other streaming services.
• iTunes 
• Google Play

I want to talk about the faults with each of those, but before I do I'll start by saying that I never actually stopped buying DVDs. I have bought some digital versions of TV shows though, but typically I've always bought DVDs and still buy the odd CD. Incidentally I have actually started buying them more frequently.

Streaming services

Everyone seems to think that "Netflix and chill" is awesome and that you can download a show whenever you want. That's true, you can. But the big issue is that you're forced to pay a monthly subscription fee which is subject to change at any time. The fee itself could change or the stock could change. Often Netflix only has current shows. They don't bother with a back catalogue and nor do other providers. This means you may want to watch something more than once but find it's suddenly not there. Spotify can do the same thing and it happened with Taylor Swift's catalogue. She refused to release it on Spotify though now it's on the service. Netflix has also removed TV shows so if you want to watch something, sorry, you're fresh out of luck.

iTunes

I must be one of the only people around who actually likes iTunes and would be gutted if it ceased to exist. iTunes is great and like DVDs and CDs you own the product. There's no redownloading or being subjected to silly subscription fees at whim of the company. It's yours once it's on your device. The downside though is that like the other services, there's a limited catalogue so you may not be able to get what you want.

Google Play

This is similar to iTunes and has problems for the same reason. The catalogue is limited and could change at anytime.

When you own a CD or DVD you own it. It's yours forever and so long as you keep your DVD player you ca play it whenever you want. People may prefer things on their devices but each device has limited storage and though you can back it up to the cloud, it does still require redownloading so potentially you could lose it.

I am in favour of new technologies but axing DVDs and CDs is a very dumb move and not helpful for consumers who want to know that their music, TV and movie library won't change at whim of some programming executive.

I hope that CDs and DVDs are around for many years to come and I bought two DVDs today as a matter of fact. I collect music tour DVDs and old TV shows. I don't want to be forced to pay a subscription fee and told what I can and can't watch. It reduces my freedom.

KMart has made a mistake and they are alienating a portion of their market but luckily there are still other retailers like JB Hi Fi and Sanity Music (I favour Sanity Music).

The Voice Australia 2018 winner is crowned and it's brilliant

As you know from my blog, I'm a huge music fan. Between writing, singing and listening to music, it pretty much consumes me. It has since I was a kid.

I'm gonna cut straight to the chase and talk about tonight's The Voice Australia finale. Before I do though I want to draw attention to the fact that now I'm going to have nothing to do on Sunday nights until the next season:-(

I'm gonna miss the show. I've been tweeting about it every week and I've written other blogs about it as well. That first blog was written a few months ago after episode 4 when Australia was introduced to vocal looper, Sam Perry. He was very controversial originally and I was incredibly opposed to his entry in the competition. A direct quote from the blog is below:

There was a contestant called Sam Perry who bought DJ equipment and did what's known as vocal looping or beat boxing. The judges loved it, with all four turning around and he ended up choosing to go on Kelly's team.

So should the guy have been allowed on The Voice Australia's seventh season? Some would say yes, and that the show's rigged anyway so who cares?! I disagree and would say that no he shouldn't have been allowed on the show.

There was nothing wrong with what he did, in fact he is talented, but as a DJ, not as a singer, and his performance had absolutely no place on The Voice. The show is supposed to focus on singing, not how well someone can mix a track. That's not what the competition is about. Again, just to reiterate, there was nothing wrong with what Sam Perry did. He is a talented DJ and definitely has skill but he should have entered a contest like Australia's Got Talent, or even X Factor Australia, rather than The Voice.

 You can read the rest of the blog here.

Well, tonight it was the season finale and Sam Perry took out the title of The Voice winner for 2018 and I want to be the first commentator to say, I am happy I was proven wrong. I switched to Sam's team a few episodes ago. It would have been when I started monitoring how he was doing in the Australian iTunes charts. I started to see that he was actually the only one who was charting and that's when he started to gain credibility in my mind and I came around to his music style.

I realised that vocal looping actually does take talent and that it's not easy. He does everything himself, and the show is actually called, "The VOICE". It's not called, "The SINGER" or "SINGERS ONLY". Anyone who has watched Sam knows that he uses his voice.

Anyway, tonight's episode was fairly tense and after Sheldon and Aydan were eliminated early on that left only Sam Perry and Bella Paige (who had come second in The Voice Kids 2014 so it might have been deja vu for her). It was fairly obvious that Sam was going to be crowned the winner, which also means that coach Kelly Rowland won the show as well.

The end of the show was fairly rushed so we didn't actually get a performance from Sam of the winner's single. The song was soon released on iTunes and is titled Trust Yourself. He is the only winner to have written his own single, and let me say, it's fantastic and so incredibly catchy.

Each week he has been improving, and although nobody's focused on his looks, he is HOOOOOOOOOT! That aside though, he's connected with the Australian public week after week after week and offered something new. The coaches said in his audition he would win, and whether or not that means the competition was rigged is another issue, but even if it is rigged, Mr Perry is incredibly popular and musically/artistically so talented.

I think that unlike other artists he will actually go far and have a long term career in the industry. I don't know about you but I can't wait for his album and I cannot wait for his tour.

The haters can say what they want, but Sam has shown more talent than all the other contestants put together and he is an all rounder with the charisma and personality to go far. Haters are just jealous that he's doing what they aren't or can't.

He won the competition because all through it, there was one thing he never forgot to do, and that was to "trust myself".

If more people did that they too, like Sam Perry would achieve great things.

Music review: Christina Aguilera Liberation

As a long time Christina Aguilera fan I'd begun wondering when she was going to release her next album. She'd had a six year break. This was back at the beginning of May, so you can imagine my delight when the lead single, Accelerate was released on the third of May and an album, Liberation was announced at the same time.

The second single, Twice, which is clearly about making tough decisions was released the following week, and then the third single, Fall in Line, featuring Demi Lovato and about how people should stand up for themselves was released.

The initial single was met with mixed reactions because of its hip hop sound. To give some context, the track was produced by singer/songwriter/future politician Kanye West. Long time Christina Aguilera fans will disagree with the sentiment that it wasn't true of Christina Aguilera's sound. Back in 2002 she collaborated with L'il Kim for Can't Hold Us Down off her album Stripped, and she's previously dabbled in other genres like Jazz on Back to Basics.

As with the cover of the album, Liberation is an album about stripping back the layers, finding yourself and doing what you believe in. It's somewhat political with songs about women being empowered and one track, Dreamers, containing statements by little girls about what they want to achieve in the future.

Christina Aguilera Liberation album cover

The album opens with the song, Maria, which is an upbeat sassy song about finding Maria. It could be about an alter ego that's strong and feisty. Speaking of feisty, another song that stands out is Sick of sittin' which is about Christina being sick of sitting, saying nothing and just taking what's dished out to her.

Right Moves, Deserve and Unless it's with you depart from the political theme of the album and are about relationships. In Deserve, Christina questions whether or not the person she's with should be with her and sings that she's always picking a fight.

Despite Christina taking six years to release the new album, it's her best piece of work, and as another reviewer wrote, it's very much like her early work in Stripped and her self titled album.

I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

The sparkle that made Prince Harry fall in love is going

Some have said that Prince Harry has mummy issues and that's why he married Meghan Markle. Some have said that he never truly got over his mother, Princess Diana's death. I am too young to remember Princess Diana. My only memory is the day her car crash was announced. It was before school and my mum said Princess Diana has died in a car crash. As I was only 10 I didn't even know who she was, but I do vaguely recall Prince Harry and Prince William growing up and the media being fascinated with Prince William. Prince Harry was always ignored.

Well fast forward 21 years and it seems that Prince Harry found the woman who can fill a void that no other woman has been able to. That woman of course is Meghan Markle. She was this vibrant actress who was outspoken and opinionated. She let the world know what she thought and was known as a feminist.

It's said that Princess Diana shared that sentiment and tried to do things her way rather than the way the Royals were supposed to behave. For one thing, rather than home schooling her sons, she sent them to regular school so that they'd have some idea of a normal life. That's a tradition that Prince William and his wife, Duchess Kate have continued.

A couple of images show that Princess Diana liked to challenge the status quo.

Source: https://people.com/royals/princess-dianas-stunning-swan-lake-necklace-goes-on-sale-for-12-million/

Source: https://people.com/royals/princess-dianas-stunning-swan-lake-necklace-goes-on-sale-for-12-million/

She wasn't afraid to wear low cut dresses despite most members of the Royal Family being forbidden from doing so, and she also broke the rule of hemlines needing to be below the knee, with dresses above the knee.

There was talk before they got married that Meghan Markle would bring some light into the Royal Family and would bring it into the 21st century, but after only two weeks, she's completely lost her individuality and has completely lost her personal style.

Since she married Prince Harry she has only worn beige dresses.

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/901204/prince-harry-meghan-markle-queen-elizabeth-royal-wedding-royal-family-news

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/974011/Meghan-Markle-being-coached-in-Royal-protocol-by-the-most-prestigious-of-teachers

Source: https://people.com/royals/meghan-markle-duchess-transformation-queen-elizabeth/

As you can see from Meghan's outfits, she has only worn beige since she married Prince Harry. She hasn't been seen in anything else.

I'm big on clothes being used as art and a form of expression and the fact is that Meghan is now being told what to wear. She's not allowed to be herself anymore. Her clothes aren't the only part of herself she's been forced to change. She also has to act a certain way (this isn't really a big deal given she's been an actress in the past) and is getting royal coaching.

All of this leads me to ask the question, why would Prince Harry marry her if she has to become somebody else? This isn't an acting role. This is 24/7 and even I as an actress and performer would really struggle with what the Queen is demanding of her.

I understand that the Royal Family have a code of conduct to abide by but crushing someone's personality, the very thing that drew in their husband, Prince Harry makes no sense. It doesn't seem right to me at all. All it does is show that the Royal Family has such an old fashioned outdated approach to life.

I don't wish harm to the Queen, but I'm certain that once Prince Charles is on the throne things will be relaxed and the Royal Family members will have more freedom to express their personalities. Doing Royal duties and showing your personality shouldn't be mutually exclusive, unless of course, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex actually is beige, and given her new clothing choices it honestly wouldn't surprise me.

While I am jealous that she's married to Prince Harry I feel sorry for her in so many ways. She has given up everything to be with him. No matter how much you love someone you should never have to change who you are for them. The same goes for both men and women. And even though the Royal Family has an image to maintain, they need to modernise it because right now it looks like it belongs in the 1930s and ironically Princess Diana was more fashionable than what Meghan is.