In Australia at the moment and so the question arises about music for the moment. We went to the beach yesterday and the discussion came up as to what is proper music from the beach? Now Australia is known for it's beaches and the really long hot summer and so it is probably right to start this talking about Australian music.
I will apologise to any Australian's reading this as it has been a long time since I lived in this country and as such I do not know a lot of music that has come out here that is recent.By recent I am honestly talking 10 to 12 years as that is when i last stopped paying attention to the local scene.
So it reverts back to what I thought was good music when i was younger.
So let's start with Midnight Oil. To my mind they are the most most quintessential Australian band. The music was almost always very good and had the guitars and the drums that somehow signifies a very good band in Australia. I have always had a very soft spot for the Album 'Place without a potscard' as we had a copy, on vinyl , growing up. My favourite song from that album is Basement Flat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtyErNHAx4A
It is an old album and so the only post on youtube is for three songs, so a bit of a bonus there. Go to about 2.40 in to find the song I am talking about.
The other Midnight song I like a lot is Bull Roarer off the Diesel and Dust album. this is perhaps the most complete album by Midnight oil and i would recommend it to anyone ,even if it is very old now. Not that it makes any difference to good music!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX1UGCIw0qI
After this album came out I used to come home and put this song home straight away for about 3 months. Again on vinyl and as such the record no longer works properly. Loving digital music now!! Will post more about that at another date.
So back to summer and Australian music. One band that are always very sadly overlooked, even on itunes, is The Church. i am not sure why this is. i think their early work was perhaps not that consistent. I would say though that their best of, was one of my favourite albums, until i lent it to some friends in Tokyo and didn't see it again. This is you Mike.
it is hard to say which is their best song, i am a very big fan of Reptile, and of course Under the Milky way, which appeared on the Donnie Darko soundtrack. Now that is a great soundtrack. But my all time favourite song by the Church and possibly in my all time top list is Ripple
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i_CAVQUDWM&feature=related
Listen to it all, i love the lyrics and just the lazy laconic beat. I am not sure who it reminds me off especially, but many of the women I have met over the years who are beautiful garbage, who i have no idea what happened to.The line, I would walk a million miles for one of your smiles, is great.
It is very hard to discuss Australian music, with me at least, and not include at least a mention of ACDC. I have read endless articles about the band and had many discussions about their best period, the best frontman, and of course their best song. For many years I was in favour of 'It's a long way to the top' I like the humour in it, the riff is excellent and i loved the way that they were playing whilst on a flat bed truck in Melbourne (hello stolen idea bjork!!)
However, in the more recent years, perhaps four or so i have come around to the idea, like many people, that their best song is 'Back in Black'
here is the original video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h44LIiaZhHE
lovin the fashion , or lack there of.
Here is It's a long way to the top
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy0I9WKWp44
In answer to who is the best frontman, it is Bon. Hands down. I think that he is possibly the best frontman there was, this is in no small amount to the fact that he isn't around to get fat and bloated. There is no decline and that always helps your case.
The last band i am going to talk about is Hunters and Collectors, There are a huge amount of Australian bands that deserve a mention, really, Hoodoo Gurus, You am I, Crowded House, Jet, Airborne, The Angels, Screaming Jets, the list is massive and they are all good. but it has to stop somewhere and it stops at Hunters and Collectors.
The first song that you have to mention when you talk about this Melbourne band is Throw your Arms around me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H2Dl4bfySM
This is such a beautiful song. it is about rape. Seriously. But it has a lovely melody and before anyone gets to upset, he is definitely not trying to give rape any sort of approval. This song was very much this bands calling card for many years and then they released an album called Cut. Which changed things massively for them. The album contained a large number of very good songs which got a lot of airplay. None more than 'Holy Grail' which was played to death but still sands up as a good story telling song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQI5fdVCvlU&feature=related
A shout out to Kym if you read this. Saw them live at the Flinders Uni refectory. Still a terrible song to crowd surf to mate.
I am going to write another blog about how music doesn't change but taste does and if you follow that then only you can decide what is relevant, but listening to some of these songs for the first time in a few years I am struck by the way that good music endures and although it doesn't have the latest sounds , it still stands up very well.
Wednesday 29 December 2010
Sunday 12 December 2010
Hungover Music
As today I have a hang over , thanks to a very fine party thrown by some friends, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about the times when you need music to suit your mood.
Specifically that mood where you cant decide on anything and you swing between feeling quite good and quite quite horrible. A hang over. My Hang over today is what I would call a category two hangover. I know I went out last night, but my lovely wife let me sleep in. So i feel like I had a big night, slightly runny nose but I would be alright to operate heavy machinery, just. i could work basically. But certainly wouldn't enjoy it. Although as a side point, for some reason I am a brilliant manager in this mood. Must have something to do with caring less I think
Anyway, the best music to listen to when you are hung over is good music
Wow holy relevation batman
It is an obvious thing to say , because obviously there is never a good time to listen to bad music is there. What I actually mean is when you are hung over it is not a good time to listen to new music, or re-try something you heard before but weren't sure about.
You have to listen to the stuff you like the most. It generally helps if it is also not at the hard fast edge of metal, death metal. The head can not take the pounding. I recommend listening to Prog. Prog you like, and the best of it.
To my mind the best Prog is on Damnation by Opeth. Do not be put off by the title, this is an amazing album of sound scape's and up and down shifts that leave the hung over mind soothed and interested at the same time. it is like taking a bath in milk and honey with your mind. If that sounds like a complete load of bollocks, to you, it is actually, a mind bath?? anyway, listen to the opening track and see what I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzLDT73bkk
Hopefully that shows up a bit better than last time. learning here folks.
Anyway, the other good thing about Prog is that the songs go on forever and as you have a mind that can not concentrate for more than 10 seconds it means you can drift away and come back.
The next Prog album i would strongly recommend to the hung over mind is Lateralus by Tool. I heart Tool, I really do. I like Lateralus for the hang over because it is a bit softer (if there is such a thing in a Tool album) than Aneima and a bit more coherent than 10 000 days. By the way Tool, where is the next album please? We are waiting guys, we miss you , very badly
Here is The Patient
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtHAKEZzrl8
How good is that? When looking at the album listing , i see that as an album Lateralus went to number 1 in the US and Australia and Austria but only to 11 in Finland? What's all that about? That means that there were 10 albums that people preferred to buy that week than Tool. In Finland! Which is very much a metal country and , speaking from person experience, the people like their metal to the point of it being a religion. Oh well.
The other way to go with the hang over is in the realms of electronica. As I have posted before , I love ambient electronica. I love the sound scape's that can be created. One of the albums I have spent a lot of time listening to this year is The Campfire headphase by the very excellent Boards of Canada. Who are a Scottish duo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqD5b75ye14
If you have time watch the film clip which is very appropriate for the music. I think that is a great song , it has very deep emotional attachment to it somehow. I think you need to be a certain age, i.e. a young kid in the late 70s to really understand why. I think the breakdown part is taken from a science show from that time. I do not know that for a fact but it rings somewhere in the back of my mind. it is always good to remember that sort of stuff when you are hung over. Gives a warm and comfortable feeling.
The last artist I am going to talk about is MC 900 Ft Jesus. This guy is very much in the underground around the early to mid 90s. The music is what I would call artistic electonica. the lyrics are very clever in many respects and the underlying beats are very well put together. If you are after a song that tells the story and also makes you feel the ambiance, then it is hard to go past ' The City sleeps.
here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KB54p8_wh8
This track is off the album ' welcome to my dream' which isn't the best album by this guy. The best album is One Step ahead of the spider. Particularly the first track which is very much a short story at 9 mins or so long. And track 3, If i only had a brain. Which is just funny. I used to listen to this album a to while driving across southern Australia with a mate and his dad going to car race meetings. It was cool to listen to this in the dead of night and watch the scrub and small towns go by.
Specifically that mood where you cant decide on anything and you swing between feeling quite good and quite quite horrible. A hang over. My Hang over today is what I would call a category two hangover. I know I went out last night, but my lovely wife let me sleep in. So i feel like I had a big night, slightly runny nose but I would be alright to operate heavy machinery, just. i could work basically. But certainly wouldn't enjoy it. Although as a side point, for some reason I am a brilliant manager in this mood. Must have something to do with caring less I think
Anyway, the best music to listen to when you are hung over is good music
Wow holy relevation batman
It is an obvious thing to say , because obviously there is never a good time to listen to bad music is there. What I actually mean is when you are hung over it is not a good time to listen to new music, or re-try something you heard before but weren't sure about.
You have to listen to the stuff you like the most. It generally helps if it is also not at the hard fast edge of metal, death metal. The head can not take the pounding. I recommend listening to Prog. Prog you like, and the best of it.
To my mind the best Prog is on Damnation by Opeth. Do not be put off by the title, this is an amazing album of sound scape's and up and down shifts that leave the hung over mind soothed and interested at the same time. it is like taking a bath in milk and honey with your mind. If that sounds like a complete load of bollocks, to you, it is actually, a mind bath?? anyway, listen to the opening track and see what I mean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzLDT73bkk
Hopefully that shows up a bit better than last time. learning here folks.
Anyway, the other good thing about Prog is that the songs go on forever and as you have a mind that can not concentrate for more than 10 seconds it means you can drift away and come back.
The next Prog album i would strongly recommend to the hung over mind is Lateralus by Tool. I heart Tool, I really do. I like Lateralus for the hang over because it is a bit softer (if there is such a thing in a Tool album) than Aneima and a bit more coherent than 10 000 days. By the way Tool, where is the next album please? We are waiting guys, we miss you , very badly
Here is The Patient
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtHAKEZzrl8
How good is that? When looking at the album listing , i see that as an album Lateralus went to number 1 in the US and Australia and Austria but only to 11 in Finland? What's all that about? That means that there were 10 albums that people preferred to buy that week than Tool. In Finland! Which is very much a metal country and , speaking from person experience, the people like their metal to the point of it being a religion. Oh well.
The other way to go with the hang over is in the realms of electronica. As I have posted before , I love ambient electronica. I love the sound scape's that can be created. One of the albums I have spent a lot of time listening to this year is The Campfire headphase by the very excellent Boards of Canada. Who are a Scottish duo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqD5b75ye14
If you have time watch the film clip which is very appropriate for the music. I think that is a great song , it has very deep emotional attachment to it somehow. I think you need to be a certain age, i.e. a young kid in the late 70s to really understand why. I think the breakdown part is taken from a science show from that time. I do not know that for a fact but it rings somewhere in the back of my mind. it is always good to remember that sort of stuff when you are hung over. Gives a warm and comfortable feeling.
The last artist I am going to talk about is MC 900 Ft Jesus. This guy is very much in the underground around the early to mid 90s. The music is what I would call artistic electonica. the lyrics are very clever in many respects and the underlying beats are very well put together. If you are after a song that tells the story and also makes you feel the ambiance, then it is hard to go past ' The City sleeps.
here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KB54p8_wh8
This track is off the album ' welcome to my dream' which isn't the best album by this guy. The best album is One Step ahead of the spider. Particularly the first track which is very much a short story at 9 mins or so long. And track 3, If i only had a brain. Which is just funny. I used to listen to this album a to while driving across southern Australia with a mate and his dad going to car race meetings. It was cool to listen to this in the dead of night and watch the scrub and small towns go by.
Saturday 11 December 2010
Artistic Decline
I wanted to talk about artistic decline and whether or not it is inevitable.
Is it better to burn out or fade away? Interestingly the person that put that into a song, Neil Youngs, My My Hey Hey (Out of the blue) , is still going very strong and pointedly refuses to fade away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrsWUY9HA-Y
Neil Young is perhaps a good place to start. his early work in Buffalo Springfiield is good, lets be honest , Stephen Sills was in the same band so it was a pretty good band. But you would be hard pressed to argue that Neils youngs best work, certainly album wise is the End of the Gold Rush, Harvest phase, has been in the last 10 years. Has he been in decline in this time? Well yes probably, because a few songs aside there isn't a lot as good as that phase. Can anyone every repeat that sort of achievement though?
Is that inevitable? Well yes. i think there is only so many places people can go. Some people seem to have a bigger well to draw from than others. This is not always evident either. Look at the Beastie Boys, I defy anyone to actually say the thought the beasties were going to still be relevant 25 years later when they first heard you've got ta fight for your right
If you look at some of the bands that have huge volumes of work then few of them have released their acknowledged masterpiece at the end of their careers, except of course when the careers were ended prematurely.
Metallica are a good example. I love metallica, i honestly think that if you do not have a favourite metallica song then you have missed out on a large chunk of music. But is their best album Death Magnetic? No, purely and simply it isn't. I quite like it. It is certainly a lot better than St Anger or Re Load, which i could barely listen to. It doesn't really touch Master of Puppets or And Justice for All.
Here is Master of Puppets, listen to the whole thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-hEyVQDRA
I do want to point out though, that i am not saying bands first albums are better than albums that come later. there is so much evidence to disprove this. The Cure for example. Most Cure fans will say that either Disintegration or Wish are the Cure's best albums. (some might even say head on the door, but they are very much in the minority) These albums came 11 and 14 years after they released their first albums and are simply brilliant. Personally i like Wish better, mainly cause it has this song. The edge of the Deep Green sea - wow what a song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l4q-zUgJTo&feature=fvsr
But after Wish, was what there? I have a few friends who claim that Bloodflowers is a great album. they are wrong obviously, but only when it is compared with Wish and Disintegration. I am personally very sad about this because having always loved The Cure I would like them to continue to make brilliant music for ever. But it isn't possible it seems.
Is it to do with pressure of repeating something? This is something that seems to be brought out quite alot in the music press. That the pressure to not repeat yourself but do something as equally brilliant but different is too much for people. Which is perhaps why those bands that have not deviated from their original plan seem to continue on unabated. Think The Rolling Stones, ACDC, Iron Maiden (just ) They knew seemingly from the outset that they had a sound and have stuck to that almost without deviation.That said, certainly in the Rolling Stones case there has been almost a majestic decline in quality. bridges to babylon anyone. Wow that sucked. I did like Black Ice, but no one, even my esteemed ACDC loving brethren will ever claim that it is a match for Back In Black or TNT. is the final Frontier as good as Number of the Beast or Seveth Son of a Seventh son. No, but perhaps better in comparison than Black ice to Back in Black.
So as the blog title says this is about ruminations, i realise there isn't a lot of structure to this post, but it is really the first and i will get better and it is to start discussion anyway.
write tell me what you think and we can take it from there.
Is it better to burn out or fade away? Interestingly the person that put that into a song, Neil Youngs, My My Hey Hey (Out of the blue) , is still going very strong and pointedly refuses to fade away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrsWUY9HA-Y
Neil Young is perhaps a good place to start. his early work in Buffalo Springfiield is good, lets be honest , Stephen Sills was in the same band so it was a pretty good band. But you would be hard pressed to argue that Neils youngs best work, certainly album wise is the End of the Gold Rush, Harvest phase, has been in the last 10 years. Has he been in decline in this time? Well yes probably, because a few songs aside there isn't a lot as good as that phase. Can anyone every repeat that sort of achievement though?
Is that inevitable? Well yes. i think there is only so many places people can go. Some people seem to have a bigger well to draw from than others. This is not always evident either. Look at the Beastie Boys, I defy anyone to actually say the thought the beasties were going to still be relevant 25 years later when they first heard you've got ta fight for your right
If you look at some of the bands that have huge volumes of work then few of them have released their acknowledged masterpiece at the end of their careers, except of course when the careers were ended prematurely.
Metallica are a good example. I love metallica, i honestly think that if you do not have a favourite metallica song then you have missed out on a large chunk of music. But is their best album Death Magnetic? No, purely and simply it isn't. I quite like it. It is certainly a lot better than St Anger or Re Load, which i could barely listen to. It doesn't really touch Master of Puppets or And Justice for All.
Here is Master of Puppets, listen to the whole thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-hEyVQDRA
I do want to point out though, that i am not saying bands first albums are better than albums that come later. there is so much evidence to disprove this. The Cure for example. Most Cure fans will say that either Disintegration or Wish are the Cure's best albums. (some might even say head on the door, but they are very much in the minority) These albums came 11 and 14 years after they released their first albums and are simply brilliant. Personally i like Wish better, mainly cause it has this song. The edge of the Deep Green sea - wow what a song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l4q-zUgJTo&feature=fvsr
But after Wish, was what there? I have a few friends who claim that Bloodflowers is a great album. they are wrong obviously, but only when it is compared with Wish and Disintegration. I am personally very sad about this because having always loved The Cure I would like them to continue to make brilliant music for ever. But it isn't possible it seems.
Is it to do with pressure of repeating something? This is something that seems to be brought out quite alot in the music press. That the pressure to not repeat yourself but do something as equally brilliant but different is too much for people. Which is perhaps why those bands that have not deviated from their original plan seem to continue on unabated. Think The Rolling Stones, ACDC, Iron Maiden (just ) They knew seemingly from the outset that they had a sound and have stuck to that almost without deviation.That said, certainly in the Rolling Stones case there has been almost a majestic decline in quality. bridges to babylon anyone. Wow that sucked. I did like Black Ice, but no one, even my esteemed ACDC loving brethren will ever claim that it is a match for Back In Black or TNT. is the final Frontier as good as Number of the Beast or Seveth Son of a Seventh son. No, but perhaps better in comparison than Black ice to Back in Black.
So as the blog title says this is about ruminations, i realise there isn't a lot of structure to this post, but it is really the first and i will get better and it is to start discussion anyway.
write tell me what you think and we can take it from there.
first post
so I have decided to start a blog to see if anyone wants to talk about music out there.
a couple of things i need to get straight first. I am a music fan, I can not really play an instrument and am in awe of all of those that can. When I criticise the people that do make music it is only my opinion and everything is debatable. Which means, if you disagree with what I have said then i am happy to discuss it.
My music taste is towards the harder end of the music spectrum. Sort of, i love metal. I mean who doesn't really. But i am also a big fan of ambient electronica, think Aphex twin, Boards of Canada, Brian Eno, am a big fan of the more artistically leaning darker alternative, big fan of The Cure, Radiohead, The Smiths, and like 70s rock a lot as well as havng a secret like of 80s synth pop, which i guess isn't so secret anymore.
This will all become clear as i progress through writing down some of my ruminations on what I think about various topics.
a couple of things i need to get straight first. I am a music fan, I can not really play an instrument and am in awe of all of those that can. When I criticise the people that do make music it is only my opinion and everything is debatable. Which means, if you disagree with what I have said then i am happy to discuss it.
My music taste is towards the harder end of the music spectrum. Sort of, i love metal. I mean who doesn't really. But i am also a big fan of ambient electronica, think Aphex twin, Boards of Canada, Brian Eno, am a big fan of the more artistically leaning darker alternative, big fan of The Cure, Radiohead, The Smiths, and like 70s rock a lot as well as havng a secret like of 80s synth pop, which i guess isn't so secret anymore.
This will all become clear as i progress through writing down some of my ruminations on what I think about various topics.
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