Sunday 30 January 2011

When I am King



Moving back to far more serious matters from the previous post, today I wanted to talk about lyrics in a song, and how some people can put together that line or phrase that makes a song so much more than you expect it to be. It becomes the part of a song that you look forward to, it is not necessarily a shouty thing. I am not talking about a fist pumping anthem in any way. But when someone is able to actually write something that conveys the meaning succinctly and with either wit or something less wholesome.

Starting with the title of the post

When I am King
you will be first against the wall
 With your opinion
which is of no consequence


Which is from Radiohead's song Paranoid Android. There is something that combined with the music, which when I searched for a word to describe it, could only really come up with paranoid . The music sounds paranoid, and with that lyric there is an obsessive menace which is delicious in its intent. This goes through my head a lot in the office. . .The song is the second track on the OK Computer album.

I have already mentioned how much I love the lyrics to Good Night Elizabeth by the Counting Crows in my post on opening lines here so will not do so again. But listen to the song if you haven't had a chance yet.

There is deep prejudice in me
outshines all reason inside
Given dreams all ridden with pain
and projected unto the lost


I love that. The song is about staring at himself in a window pane and describing what he sees as a third person. The whole soul bearing nature of it, coupled with the amazing guitar musicianship. I have said before, but will say again, listen to the album it comes from, Damnation by Opeth. Do not be scared by the Progressive black metal nature of some of their other stuff. That is for those people that love that, this album is one of the most mellow and involving albums I have heard.It is just very worthwhile of multiple listens.

ISo let's go the the completely other way now. Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie is a creative genius. His music sits on the fringes of metal and industrial. it deals with the grotesque and the sleazy, listen to the drum beats through this track. 
(lyrics are a bit strong so if you have a weak disposition maybe not) 




I just love the lyric though

yeah I liked to get f*cked up
i like to get f*cked up too
yeah i bet you do

If you read the posts on you tube that go along with the clip you will see a number of people claiming to have stripped or likewise to this song. It has that feeling, and with the lyric above it seems to add the dimension of people just going a bit crazy, at least temporarily. Which is always appealing in a song. Any song that can transport your sense of mood to one where you might want to go just a little crazy is always a good song . .. isn't it.

You're so deluxe
You're so Divine
You're so 50 light years ahead of your time....

You're a human sacrifice to the goddess of vice
Your hairdo is full of diamonds and lice




That is so cool. it is a great song with a lot of great imagery, and that is a great sequence of lines. It reminds me so much of people I have lost touch with . .not such a bad thing it has to be said. There is only so much beautiful gargage you need in your life. It is by The Church off of the album Priest = Aura. I will be honest and say as far as things go it is definitely my favourite song off of the album, by a long way. That song though has so much going on in it.
 
I have tried to avoid the hopelessly sentimental, there are hundreds of songs which have great lyrics about love.. because how can you say it better than this?

Don't know if words can say
But darlin' I'll find a way
To let you know what you meant to me
Guess it was meant to be
I hold you in my heart
As life's most precious part



Darlin' by the Beach Boys - from the Wild Honey album

I know I have left out some simply brilliant turns of phrase and classic songs. I wanted to talk about the lesser known songs because when you are looking for gems you often find the best ones where you weren't necessarily looking for them I have always found.

Saturday 29 January 2011

I know it's rubbish . .but

As you may have gathered by now i am pretty serious about my music. There are times though when i hear a song, i know it is rubbish, you know it is rubbish, but for some reason you really like it.

Listen to this


You see what I mean. That is not a great song, it is not formed beautifully, the lyrics,  such as they are, are just a bit weird. But it is catchy isn't it. That whooo stuff just sticks in the mind. Puts you in a good mood. I am not sure if I think it is actually funny, or not? I think that perhaps the point is that it is not taking itself too seriously and so you can't either.

In a slightly different vain, there are the Avalanches. These guys had a big song. This is it.


Frontier Psychiatrist. That is not a song that it taking itself too seriously. What is going on the video? really, a midget dressed as a baby. Don't get me wrong, a midget in a video, dressed as a baby is pretty funny. The whole scratching, overlaid lyrics, is a difficult thing to do well, but it works.  One of the commentors on you tube, said it made them feel happy to be alive. I guess that is the feeling i get from it. I can listen to it repeatedly, still enjoy it , so it must be a good song. but I know it's rubbish.

Barbara Streisand 

I think the point I am trying to make, is that there is some great music , but it can be a bit tiring listening only to the serious, sometimes it is just about a bit of a laugh. i often think it is more about this for most people. Perhaps i am in the massive minority in expecting music to give me more than just entertainment.I know that I belong in the much smaller crowd of people who actually listen to the lyrics.

Ok , so here is an admission that I am still not sure if i should put out there. But well, why not. I like this song.


yes it is lady gaga. yes I know , i know. What is wrong with me? But that is a remarkably catchy song. it really is. Anyway, how can you not like a song that has the lyrics
Russian roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby if it's love then if its not rough it isn't fun

Moving swiftly on, you get bands that have made a career out of not being serious. I speak of Tenacious D

here are a couple of their songs.

And of course


those guys can really play. I would have to say that Jack Black has made a pretty big career out of a single persona. The devil in the video is played by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters fame. Again though, it is not a great song. I love hearing it though.

Babara Streisand

Tenacious D have sold a lot of albums , although like a lot of bands that are a 'in joke' band, they have run out of ideas pretty quickly. I have their latest album and to be honest. . well it lacks the edge their first album had. We have heard the joke before. I think that becomes the same for all bands like this.

I mean, where are Steel Panther going to go from here?

Sorry, about the lyrics, pretty offensive stuff. I defy you not to smile though

Anyway, it is a very cold and grey Saturday morning in the UK so i thought you might have liked some cheering up.

Barbara Streisand

Wednesday 26 January 2011

The Nineties

I was flying today. Have to love short haul flights after the ordeal that is a trip back to Australia from Europe. I had the misfortune to misplace one of the buds on my special plug earphones. So I lost the plug part that makes them noise cancelling, well at the volume I play at anyway, but could still hear the music. So all was not lost. Need new headphones me thinks. These ones have lasted a record . . .18 months. Recommendations welcome.

I ramble on , sorry, i was on the plane and listening to shuffled music and I thought I would make a mental list. What are the best albums of the nineties? I limited myself to the vaguely mainstream, as it could go on for a very long time otherwise. i then also limited myself to 5. I am not trying to say that these are the best 5 albums of the nineties, I am saying that these five are among the best albums of the nineties, in the vaguely mainstream area and i like. . .you can comment if you disagree.

The first one I think is universally accepted. Endtroducing by DJ Shadow.


That is Stem / Long Stem. This is a great album, every time it seems to lull you into a sense of complacency it takes you somewhere unexpected. It basically re-invented being a DJ. I love of the seemingly old and new sound it creates. This really was a landmark album of the mid 90's. 1996 it came out. There are few occasions it doesn't seem right for. it also has dated surprisingly well, considering the big drum beats etc.  it was followed up by The Private Press which is well worth a listen. He released another album in 2006 called The Outsider, but that was a bit of a disaster. Anyway, here is hoping that 2011 brings a new album.

Listen to Endtroducing on a rainy afternoon when you don't have much to do and immerse yourself into it a bit. it's very cool.

Another truly great album of 1996, wow good year with hindsight I didn't realise, was Aenima by Tool. Tool have won three grammys and been nominated in total for 7. They have sold something in the region of 12 million albums from only 5 releases, which I admit isn't huge, but then they are still underground which is a little


Tool are prog. They are possibly the best Prog band in the world. if only they would be a proper prog band and release huge amounts of material. I love Aenima, it is the most accessible of their albums. Which if you haven't heard them before I know will sound a bit weird. But then you should listen to their other stuff. Brilliant in the extreme, but not readily accessible. I challenge anyone to say differently. I honestly listened to this album almost exclusively in about 1998. When I was living in Sydney. Somehow it seemed to gel for me. I would say this is a great album because I can listen to every song, except for the intermission type stuff, over and over again and find something in the song I think is brilliant. Whether it is a drum breakdown, a sudden wall of sound, an amazing guitar riff. It has it all.

It would be hard to mention the nineties and not mention Radiohead. OK Computer came out in 1997. This is an album that Uncut magazine described as the truly great album to come out in the last 15 years. Obviously they forgot to mention DJ Shadow and Tool, but we will let them off, but only because they didn't say that a U2 album was ever any good.

By the time OK Computer came out Radiohead were already massive. I know a lot of people would actually claim that The Bends , their album from 1995 is their best album of the 90s, but I think that was their best attempt at being popular. OK Computer is just so startling different. I was trying to think of which song I would post here and was struggling as, quite with a lack of originality , I would say they are all great.

So I will post this one.

Exit music for a film. The reason is a bit long winded. But I had a period were I was a very bad flyer. After 9/11 I freaked out about the whole flying thing. I will not go into why as this is not a therapy session as such. But I was on a plane in Hong Kong flying somewhere. Freaking out more than a bit about my imagined impending death and this song was on the mini disc I had made. As we took off I kept the headphones on. I know, they normally take them off you, why I ask?. But well I was at the front of the pane and sometimes they just let you get on with things there. Anyway , this song calmed me down immensely , because it is so climatic I think. Anyway, you can make your own mind up. I love it.

My next album is unsurprisingly Wish by The Cure. If you have read some of my other blogs you will know that I am a huge fan of The Edge of the deep green sea. But the whole album , from 1992, is brilliant. The whole that is except for High and Friday , I'm in love. Which are the definite low points. The rest of the album though is just so amazingly bare and desolate. I could, have and will, argue about the merits of Wish as opposed to Disintegration, but that was released in 1989, so i am absolutely sure this is their best album of the 90s. Even if certain people are going to bring up Bloodflowers again . .

here is To wish impossible things.



I am unfortunately now stuck. I am having a huge amount of trouble talking about a single album. here is why

Jar of Flies - Alice in Chains
The color and the Shape - Foo Fighters
Ill communication - The Beastie Boys
Splendour Solis - The Tea Party
music for a jilted generation  The Prodigy
The Marshall Mather LP - Eminem
Angel Dust - Faith no more
Nirvana
Ten - Pearl Jam
Metallica- Metallica


So this is totally off the top of my head and as such I then need to pick something. So I am going to my beloved metal and the best metal band of the 90s, Pantera and Far Beyond Driven.

I love the strength of Pantera's music. It just simply radiates a menace and a muscle flexing aggression. This is what metal was about. There are no comparisons to Tool, it is a completely different genre of music even though a lot of people just talk about heavy Metal.

To illustrate my point, here is Becoming



Doesn't sound anything like Aenima does it. This album also has a cover of Planet Caravan by Black Sabbath, I'm broken, 5 minutes alone, Good friends and a bottle of pills, that is a cool song name, amongst others. It is a great album of hard, guitar driven metal. Well worth a listen at the gym.

There is a song from there previous album, Far Beyond Driven called This love. In it there is a lyric which goes

I would kill myself for you
I would kill you for myself

Scary huh, I mention it because Dimebag Darrell, guitar for the band, was shot onstage and died. Two guesses what he guy was listening to before he did it. Anyway, just to make it weirder, Dimebag was buried in a KISS coffin, inspired by the band, with a Eddie Van Halen guitar. I am rambling again, sorry. But what is cool about allof that is that there is a connction between musicians that you do not always see in their music , I mean KISS and Pantera . . really . . .

When writing this I actually realised there are a huge numbers of great albums of the 90s. I mean really in a decade that isn't much thought of as a golden age, there are huge numbers of brilliant albums.

Any thoughts?

Sunday 23 January 2011

Opening lines

I increasingly feel that the opening lyric to a song can set the entire mood for it. There are some truely great opening lines in all of the music I listen to.

When the artist is able to match exactly the lyric with the feel of the music, then you have something genuinely special. Listen to this by the Counting crows. Good Night Elizabeth. I have said before I am a big fan of the Counting crows, much of that admiration has to do with this song.


i was wasted in the afternoon waiting on a train
I woke up in pieces
Elizabeth was gone once again.

i love the way the guitar has that long lazy pulled out note to it. It reminds me of being wasted in the afternoon, on a sunny day and feeling a bit melancholic about it. That song also has the great line

We couldn't all be cowboys
so some of us are clowns

that is awesome, i love the imagery and the self depreciation that goes with that statement. Goes along with being wasted in the afternoon I think.

It can also go massively the other way. Placebo are a band I have not talked much about yet. There is something about Placebo which makes them just that little bit dangerous. I have always had the feeling with them that no matter how bad i have been over the years. No matter what i did, tried, even thought about, these guys were always a number of steps fiurther down, along or in front of the path i was going to. Not that i ever went anything like as far as i perceive they must have however.

This song is Black eyed


I was never faithful and i was never one to trust
boderline in schitzo and guaranteed to cause a fuss.

Very simple statements made into a great lyric, by the sheer fact of the whole unanswered nature of it. What did you do?? It sounds very much like it was a pretty honest and bare fact statement. One wonders whom it was said to if indeed anyone specific. Very cool in its lack of defference to any type of moralistic standard. 

It can also make a song very aggressive. There are a couple of examples of this. iggy and the Stooges have a song called Search and Destroy.


(video courtesy of Apocalpse Now and Full Metal Jacket -  very cool films)

The lyric is ' I am street walking Cheeta with a heart full of Napalm'

That's cool. It provides a sense of menace, it also opens the album Raw Power. the Stooges last album of their first stint together. So their last real album. It is a pretty good indication of the kind of energy they really had. Iggy pop is an interesting character. very much idolised now, his body of work isn't nearly as out there as people imagine. Really, listen to little china girl - his version, which he also wrote. Candy, even Real Wild child is actually pretty tame despite the somewhat indulgent lyrics.


Anyway, lets have a bit more fun with this.

here is some heavy Metal teen angnst from Five Finger Death Punch - song ashes


You don't understand me
and you probably never will.

Aww , sweety, come here and have a hug. it's going to be ok really. I love the parts of metal that are so panto that it is hard not too laugh. I am sure when he actually wrote the lines had tears pouring out of his head at the sheer injustice of whom ever it is he is talking about. i will give pretty good odds on it being his father though. it normally is with these guys. That is why they act so tough.

Anyway, here is the oposite end of the spectrum completely from acting tough, Mika. I like the energy in this song.


I want to talk to you
The last time we talked mr Smith you reduced me to tears
I promise you it wont happen again

That is fun. it is very 1950s movies. Which is a good reminder that music can also be fun, it doesn't have to always be serious.

On that note, I am going to leave it there. I think almost every great song has a briliant opening line. I brought some of the more obscure ones here. I have not discussed Led Zeppelin, who have multiple songs with great lines, as do many other great artists. Actually now that i think about it I want you to listen to this please.

Neil Young - Like a hurricane


Once I thought I saw you
in crowded hazy bar

I like that, because perhaps that is to the last time I saw you. or not ;-). Seriously, that line prooves my point. the song is about a person lost to the singer, which sets the whole mood of the song.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Shuffle, shuffle

I read the following article with some interest during the week.

Sitting in a room with people and listening to an album in silence doesn't sound like a bad way to spend an evening. As long as you can discuss it all afterwards. i do note though that they talk generally about classic Rock type albums. 
Now, i do not want to get into a discussion about whether or not Bowie is rock. rather one about the relative merits of the digital revolution.

Before i get there though, that guy towards the end of the article, who says he would like to save the song as a file and go in a take out all of the drum and guitar solos . . . that is not cool. Everyone is allowed to listen to what ever it is they like. You can not however go in and change the music. You just can't. By taking parts of it out you are taking away from the continuity of the song. To my mind that is about the dumbest thing you can do. Imagine taking the guitar solo out of Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin



Does it make it a better song without a guitar solo?

no no no no no no! 

What about taking the keyboard solos out of Jump by Van Halen?


(watch to see the blueprint for Hair Metal BTW)

I do get the point of the shuffle function on the ipod though. I really do. I am a very big fan of digital music. I understand the people who talk about the warmer sound of the vinyl. I had a copy of Paranoid by Black Sabbath that has all of the little noises you get from vinyl and believe when I say that Planet Caravan on that copy is still the best I have heard, and I have listened to that song a lot.

here is a digital version of it. Because well, why not


( a huge shout out to the person that posted that in vinyl online. Super phantasmically cool - apissy you rock) 

This is however greatly outweighed by being able to listen to it on the tube, car, in the park , sitting in a meeting. . no not really in a meeting, well not often anyway ;-)The digital revolution has completely changed the music industry and the way we think about music. this is hardly a relevation. It is great though it really is. You say what ever you want about it, but if you are a proper music lover, then the accessibility and availability of song much music is amazing. The playlist has replaced the mixtape it really has. 

Good riddance to the cassette while we are at it. I hated tapes. The ribbon tape getting twisted, getting damaged in the sun, the wet, the vaguely pleasant. Tapes stopping constantly, breaking. Shit when a tape broke I am sure an angel died. Was there ever a more heartbreaking event? That was it, you had lost that music from your life. When my first copy of LA Woman broke I actually shed a tear it hurt so much.

I am a little too young to remember 8 tracks. I have heard dreadful things about them though. Obviously they weren't great because they were replaced by the cassette.

CDs were definitely better. I understood a lot more about that format. Much more durable. But they still scratched and frankly weren't particularly portable. better definitely. But I used to have to travel with a bag of CDs.

I also got into the mini disc. That was great for travelling. Plus the ability to recreate the mix tape, which whilst it wasn't lost with the CD , it certainly because a lot harder with the need for re-writable discs and a cd burner.

Then digital. wow, it is so cool. I have an 80gb ipod. Which translates, with some tracks being well into the 2 hour bracket , dj sets mainly, at roughly 10,000 tracks. 10,000 different pieces of brilliance to brighten up my day , or suit what ever mood it is that I am in. 

This is my mood at the moment.



You can now go on online and read reviews, make up your mind and get the music right then. That moment. This is where I think it gets a bit contentious. I like going to the record store. There is something very cool about it. Going through all of the different cds and records. But then what? buy it , go home, download it so i can listen to it outside of the house! Then I am left with the cd. Which will actually never ever be played again. Or extremely rarely. This is not a good use of the worlds resources. The loss though is the artwork and liner notes. 

i have had more than one or two heated discussions with a couple of you about this. i love the artwork, and I find the notes interesting. But If I get a digital copy then i get the artwork, but rarely the notes. I still think it is worth it, but I do get why people miss them and would like to have them. 


So, digital is best. vinyl possibly still sounds better, debatable , happy to debate. But nothing beats hearing a snippet of a song whilst out and about and then being able to go to the album and listen to it then and there.

more aphex twin for good measure
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrhZs6M5Z3w&feature=related

Monday 17 January 2011

Nirvana vs Pearl Jam

Who killed Hair Metal?- grunge. Grunge shot Hair metal and stomped all over the grave in a clown suit, happily whistling to itself.

It was an interesting time in Music, the end of the 1980s. At the beginning of the 80s it was pretty easy to determine what the trend was. You had the last gasps of punk, New Wave coming through - think Blondie. Disco was dead. and the whole synth pop was taking hold. Think Soft cell, Duran Duran, Echo and the Bunnymen. In the underground you had a lot more going on. Rap, Hip Hop was taking hold, Electronic music, originally driven by Kraftwerk, but later taken on by Gary Numan, 808 State, New Order. Then the alternative metal hardcore scene in the States, Black Flag, Fugazi, Husker Du etc.

here is some Husker Du, just because they are awesome


The point of the name dropping, is that by the end of the 80s most of these had developed into full on musical trends and no longer could you say that there was a kind of music that everyone listened to. Except perhaps U2 , and all should subsequently have hot pokers stuffed into their ears to take out any lasting memory of it!!! So Hair Metal , Guns and Roses dominated the charts outside of pop music, which we don't care about do we. The problem being that the scene had become so overblown, so full of itself. This was a scene that was based far more on image and style than actual musical substance anyway. So it was very predictable that a scene which was more stripped back and for want of a better word 'real'.

There are two landmark albums that will forever be associated with this rise. Nevermind by Nirvana and Ten by Pearl Jam. I will go through many of the other proponents of the , what is the right word, because it wasn't a scene, far too large for that. Let's say movement for the moment. The Grunge movement. Grunge is a terrible word for it. it as supposedly termed as the guitar sound was all grungy and the people dressed all grungy so it stuck. I don't like it, because even the major bands had very little in common musically.

Nevermind and Ten started the whole thing of. Absolutely huge in their impact not only on the music scene but also much more fundamentally as reflection of what was going on in the world. It is very obvious to say that the 80s were a decade of excess and as we went into  1990s that had to all change.  It is a little more complex than that of course. A generation of people had watched the 80s unfold and as they turned into Teenagers and young adults they wanted a music scene for their own. When Nevermind came out it was so completely different that they got into it. Once of course everyone else did.

Here is smells like teen spirit.


It is 20 years this year since that came out. Which actually makes it classic rock now. Which is scary for all of us. Anyway, I was just starting university when this came out. Followed closely by Ten by Pearl Jam. Uni is the perfect time for an anti music scene. it fit perfectly to what I was into and about at the time. The whole anti mainstream, corporate rock etc. Of course, I was being fed this by large corporates.

here is Jeremy By Pearl Jam.


Good songs both, i think it is very fair to say. , But as you can clearly see , quite different. So, I think everyone knows what happened to Nirvana. They recorded another album, it was turned down, they then released In Utero, did MTV unplugged and then Kurt topped himself. Turns out Dave Grohl was an amazing musician and we then got Foo Fighters, who are still going strong to this day

This is Everlong. This is one of the best songs I have ever heard, i love this song.

Is it wrong to say that it was worth not having Kurt around to get that song? Yes it probably is, but you get the idea. 

The best song by Nirvana to my mind is Dumb off of the in Utero album. 

To my mind that is so good because it just has the whole self loathing thing wrapped up into the deception. 
I 'm not like them , but I can pretend. That does sum up the whole outsider thing doesn't it. I think that you could make a good case for any of, Nevermind, In Utero and Unplugged being the best album by Nirvana. This is helped by the fact that there is absolutely no chance of them ever re-forming. 

The best Pearl jam song to my mind is Black. This is a great song because it is just so heartfelt. it contains the lines
I know someday you'll find a beautiful life
I know you'll be a sun
In somebodies eles's sky
But why, why, whhhyyy
can't it be , can't it be
mine

That is a good lyric. In fact, that is a great lyric isn't it. If there is a better way to express the perceived loss of a girlfriend/ boyfriend because they were just not particularly on the same wave length,or actually interested in you, then that is it.

here is the song



So there are my two favourite songs by these bands. I think that Ten , is by far the best thing Pearl Jam ever did. They have gone on to release 10 albums, and are still going. None was even as close to the level that Ten touched. Which is disappointing. I actually went and bought the next album the day it came out I was so keen to hear what else they could do. There were moments of the heights , but not many on their next album. By the third I had stopped listening. Again, by then the entire world was listening, and as I have said in other posts that is my first tip that a band has lost it's edge. 

So which band was better? That is of course very subjective and you will decide on the one you think. However this is my blog and unless you want to comment then my opinion rules. I think , and this is going back on what I said at the time, that Nirvana's music stands up a lot better than Pearl Jam's. Listening to Ten now it does seem quite dated. Nevermind and In Utero do as well. There is however an energy that still comes through them. Not so much on Ten. I guess because I only really rate Ten as opposed to any of the other albums by Pearl Jam that Nirvana were always going to win. 

On that note then I end with one of the best covers, the man who sold the world, a David Bowie song, which appears on the Unplugged album by Nirvana. 


But then for good measure, and in the interests of fairness, here is State of Love and Trust by Pearl Jam, a Neil Young cover

Thursday 13 January 2011

Guns and Roses

I would like to talk about a band that had a big impact on me.

The once mighty Guns and Roses.

When Appetite for Destruction was released in 1987 it changed music for a lot of people, myself included. The metal scene at the time was dominated by Hair Metal bands. See my previous post about the ballads they released. Bands like Metallica, Slayer etc were much more underground than a lot of people will have you believe now. The point being there was Hair Metal and Thrash metal. So there was the quite obviously fake and all about having a good time, and the very earnestly real and hardcore.

Then came Appetite. It was huge, it eventually went on the sell 28 million copies and is considered by a great many people to be the best debut album of all time. People will also argue for Ten by Pearl Jam , but we will get to that in another post at some stage.

This album opens with Welcome To the Jungle. If ever there was the intent shown in the first song, then that has to be it. From the first , echo enhanced chords, is screams menace and you have to contrast it with what was around in 1987. Seriously, Bad by Michael Jackson, Who's that Girl by Madonna, Where the Streets have no Name by U2, Livin on a prayer by Bon Jovi. You can see how different it was. it is interesting that the teased hair and the clothes were all very 1987 hair metal, but that label somehow that didn't stick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_gQOfF0Ymo&feature=fvw

There was definitely something about them that made them authentic as well as just a bit glam. The album holds up very well.

My favourite song from the album now is Rocket queen, i think mainly because it is a song of two distinct parts and the second part is about a mans love for a prostitute. Now, i have never been in this situation I am very pleased to say That must be a complete mind fuck. But it appeals to my sense of hopeless love which i must have got from all those French and Russian novels i read about this time.

 Anyway, there isn't  a bad song on this album. Really, every song has something to say for it.

So , every single person I knew would at least say that Guns were their favorite band at this time. Except for one guy who said Whitesnake - but I don't talk to him anymore. Since about 1988 in fact.

So we consumed everything Gunners that we could. Every bit of news, every time they were played on TV. Looking back on it we were no better than the teenage girls we mocked for liking Bros etc. To fill this gap the record company released GnR Lies. Which was basically a re-release of a four track EP called Live like a Suicide, and four acoustic tracks. The four tracks had been released in the US in 1986, but nothing had really taken off and it wasn't released anywhere else. The four acoustic tracks were quite funny. However one of the them was Patience. Which come to think of it now was much more a metal ballad than Sweet Child of mine. However, this was played on mainstream radio to death. it is a good song. it really is. But man did we get sick of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc&ob=av2el

It does show off what a good guitarist duff is though. So it meant that everyone who thought that Appetite was too metal for them, were able to get into Patience. So, now pretty much the entire world was a guns and roses fan.

Except perhaps now for me. I was sick of everyone, who clearly didn't know anything about music, saying how good they were. How much better than other bands whose albums they had never heard. I got into Anthrax and Metallica around this time. I was late to that party, but some of the guys at school had their tapes and so we all traded etc.

Anyway, in 1991 we finally got the next real Guns and Roses Album. To top it off we got two albums released on the same day. Use your Illusion I and II. They were very good albums, but , and I have had this conversation a lot, it would have been a great single album. So what happened is that everyone who was more than used to putting their own tapes together, made it into a single album, cut out the lower lights and just had the good stuff.

By now Gunners were properly huge. Easily the biggest band in the world. Their music seemed to reflect this though. it was far more grandiose and orchestrated. Not bad, but it had lost that dangerous rock and roll metal edge which had made it so appealing. Take November rain, it is as bad as the worst travails of 1970s prog. And what is the film clip about really? Slash leaves the church, which is very obviously mis sized, and goes outside to play a bit of guitar outside in a desert??? I mean really. Here it is for a bit of a laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbUC-UaAxE&ob=av3el

Please do not misunderstand, it is a very good song. But not as good as anything on Appetite.

There is are some good songs on these albums, none better than You could be mine. This was the theme song to Terminator 2 , which was a great film, and this still had that Guns and Roses edge. it is great and still gets the blood pumping to this day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzB5hFINC_k



By this time the original band was falling apart. The original drummer Steve Adler had been kicked out prior to the recording of the Use Your illusions, purportedly for heroin use, but seriously , what did you have to do really to get kicked out of the band? the mind boggles. Gunners released the albums and then went on a massive world tour. Huge, arena's everywhere they went.

it all got too much for Izzy Stadlin, rhythm guitar. Who walked out, then the tour finished. And that was it. Grunge came along and Nirvana ridiculed Axl Rose at the MTV Music awards and the spell was broken. Gunners were nowhere anymore and it was incredibly uncool to still like them. To say they were then in the wilderness is a little of an understatement. in 1993 they released The Spaghetti Incident, which is an album of covers recorded at various times and isn't really that bad.

officially it says that Slash left in 1996, but to put it into perspective, that is five years after the last album of new songs was done. So the reality must have been different. You could get by with a new drummer, rythym guitar, even bass. But when Slash left it wasn't Guns and Roses anymore.

Chinese democracy came out last year. Do not bother with that. really. it is rubbish. It is an Axl Rose project, who owns the name. It took around 10 years plus to make. And it shows. it is so over produced. So much going on and so little real direction that it loses itself up its own ass. Instead get Slash's solo album, that is good. Even if it is a collection of every music style.

me? i will always remember the gunners as the coolest guys on the planet, making the coolest music and being about as dangerous as I could imagine. In 1988 me and my family were staying in a pub in the Yorkshire dales. One my dad had seen on TV, seriously, anyway, it was properly country English pub. Tiny . They had Welcome to the Jungle on the juke box and so my brother and I played it a few times. i seem to remember they actually turned it off because people weren't happy.

that's cool.

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Hair metal - the Balads

One of the guilty pleasures i have always enjoyed is the hair metal Ballad.

For people of my age who grew up during the 80s, Hair metal was basically it. For whatever reason hair Metal was very much the mainstream during the years 1984 ish to about 1989, when it imploded horribly. We should all be thankful. It is something that is looked back upon now as very strange and  is a large source of mirth. But at the time, bands like Maiden , Slayer, Anthrax etc were considered to be a long way out there. Punk had died a death and the new Wave was never quite upto much. There was Snyth pop, whoever laughs at hair metal also laughs at this, at least the metal guys didn't cry at a nice sunset chaps. Pop music was dreadful, it was the age of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, think early Kylie and Rick Astley.

With hindsight there was obviously a lot of great music being produced, but it was not like now when you could get access to almost everything. Then if it was played on the radio and the record store had it , then you could get it. Otherwise you had to borrow and tape other peoples copies. We didn't really have alternative radio in Adelaide, country Australia,  and so what you heard was what you got.

So hair metal being the mainstream meant that was what we got. Within the somewhat ridiculous posing and guys saying how tough they were and how many chicks they were sleeping with whilst wearing mascara, lace and having more time spent on their hair than teenage girls , there was the hair Metal Ballad. Every single band from this time produced at least one Ballad.

Name the bands and you can name the ballad

Poison - every Rose has it's thorn
Skid Row - I remember you
Whitesnake - Here I go again (ok only just a ballad) , Is this Love
Warrant - Heaven
Pursuit of Happiness - Pressing Lips
Motley Crue - Home Sweet Home
Extreme - More than Words
Bon Jovi - well almost every song - but let's go with Wanted Dead or Alive
Def Leppard - Love Bites
Even Guns and Roses who aren't really considered hair metal - although look at Axl in Welcome to the Jungle - released Sweet Child of mine , which is a ballad, sorry but it is.

Interestingly, this somewhat strange musical trend was started by Motley Crue, with Home Sweet Home. Now, I was a Crue fan, i still am to a certain extent, in so far as i like the pantomime aspect to them. When I was 13 ,14 though, i thought these guys were cool. The fact they had anything to do with a music trend is something not many people would actually expect. Home sweet home, was actually written by Tommy lee, who actually comes across as a pretty interesting type of guy.

Here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBiETZFOrFc&feature=related

It isn't  bad song, and is quite poignant in many respects. it is the song that started it all.

Now i am going to talk about a couple of the less well known songs, i mean if you haven't heard Sweet Child of Mine, then please stop reading and go and listen to every song and album I have mentioned then come back and we will start from the beginning. I think love Bites is pretty poor and haven't ever had much time from Whitesnake.

So you may have noticed i put The pursuit of happiness into the list. Now , the more observant of you will have noticed that these guys don't really belong on the list. They weren't really Hair metal, and I am sure that if they found out they were on the same list as Motely Crue they would be pretty upset. They were a band from Ontario Canada who actually released a few albums , their most famous song was I am and adult now. Anyway, they also released a song called pressing lips.

here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVvQmYHWJd8

So as you can see they are much more slacker rock than hair Metal. But this song came out around this time. It is a beautiful song, and as you can see from the you tube clip only 13, 000 people have viewed it. That is just criminal . To give you a comparison, 9 million have viewed Wouldn't it be nice!
I love the sentiment of this song, the whole, well this is me, take it or leave it. i will do my best but you know what you are signing up for.

Any way back to the fun.

Poison - every Rose has its thorn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c56vEgA4fjU

That is what Hair Metal looked like. That is a really weird video as well. It seems to cut from shots of the band having a great time, to a sort of a video story about a couple breaking up , and the band looking a little despondent. Anyway, the lyrics are actually pretty good. it is a massive cliche, not helped by Bill and Ted in their bogus journey. But actually, and I know i open myself to much ridicule here, the lyrics, chorus aside are pretty strong.

Here is a copy from Warrant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR-hkBGMrG8

I feel a bit for Warrant. That is not a bad song. Seriously, if that was sung by Garth Brooks it would have been an American classic. I saw an interview with the lead singer about Warrants career, Jani Lane. Jani said he was aksed to write a catchy song for their second album. So he came up with Cherry Pie. Suddenly the album became Cherry pie, the tour became the Cherry Pie tour, he was entered into Cherry pie eating contests , warrant became the Cherry Pie band and he became the Cherry Pie guy. he then said 'I want to shoot myself in the face for writning that song'

That's not so good. So here is a salute to one of the other great songs you wrote Jani. heaven is a good song and deserves a mention in my little hall of fame here.

You know you anted it and so it it is Extreme's More than words

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY

That clip has more than 11 million hits on you tube. Compare that to Pressing Lips. Where oh where is the justice in that I ask you? More than words is not a great song , really, it isn't. What is it about? That there is something more to a relationship than just talking? And you just can't fix things by saying words. Well there you go, big news flash. I am getting wound up thinking about this , so am going to leave it.

There are a lot more Ballads, seriously there are so many that you forget. That said, there aren't a lot of good ones. Most are sentimental pieces of potted emotion designed to capture your mind with a catchy chorus and not much else. it was however a great time for these songs, one that was replaced by the earnestness of grunge , where everything was so serious and real, man.

Hair metal has a place, it doesn't belong in the greatest songs of all time lists. But it deserves more than a giggle and a footnote in the annals of music history.

quick apology

So it seems there are some of you reading this - quick apology about the formatting, seems to have a bit of a mind of its own. If you think something should be there, but cant see it, please drag the mouse over it and something should appear.

Sorry for the hassle, but thanks very much for reading.

cheers

H

The greatest song ever ! part 2

So as promised, here is the second part of the greatest song ever.

I am going to mention The Beatles at this juncture. A lot, and i do mean a lot of people rate The Beatles extremely highly when taking about the best bands of all time. They then go on to say that A day in the Life is one of the best songs of all time. The whole Sargent Peppers thing, i don't really get. it isn't a bad album, but the people who claim it to be so fantastic clearly also think U2 are awesome. The Beatles were very good at pop songs and appealed to the masses, a day in the life is what exactly? a good pop song - no not really, reasonably poor melody , a acerbic piece of political satire set to music - err no. it is as far as i can see an interesting piece of music which now acts as a time capsule for what people were listening to at the time.


let's go somewhere far darker and by extension much more interesting. Three or four songs which should make most peoples top lists when they think about it.

The Cure - Love Song.


Love the film clip. set in the cave like that, gives a weird sense of detachment. i always imagine robert smith walking around Paris in a black and white film when I hear that song. it is a great song and it means a huge amount to a lot of people. I don't think it is so much about unrequited love as about impossible love. I had to think long and hard to put that song above the Edge of the Deep Green Sea which is perhaps my favourite Cure song. Which isn't so much about love but not being able to resist temptations associated loosely with love and not liking ones self at the end of it.



The next song is actually the most covered song of all time. hallelujah in this case by Jeff Buckley. Which to mine is the definitive version, as it somewhere in between the cloyingly sweet side and desperately trying to be dark side. It is a great song , which stands up to most people covering it because it was written so well in the first place. Hats off to Leonard Cohen. For comparison here is Leonard's version

It is a little too gospel for me.

Here is Jeff Buckley's version


I am still on that version. It seems to bring out the exasperation of the realisation that perhaps love isn't the walk in the flowers we can expect it to be. Which is the sort of stuff that appeals to me massively. 

The next song is seemingly completely different. it is perhaps the most perfect pop song written Wouldn't it be Nice, by The Beach Boys and specifically Brian Wilson off of the Pet Sounds album. The beach Boys was the first album I had that was properly mine. it was 20 Golden greats, and for the first few years, i was 7, i listened mainly to the a side which was a whole lot of Beach Boys surfing and girl songs, i get Around, Little Deuce Coupe, fun fun fun. etc. Then I turned the LP over and finally listened to the other side and it started with Wouldn't it be nice and God only knows. I played and played those two songs.

I loved Wouldn't it be nice for a couple of reasons. Firstly it is a beautiful song. Really, listen to not only the effortless shifts in the rhythm but also the multi part harmonies going through it. I also liked it because it seeming was about a young guy who had found a girl and he wanted to spend a lot of time with her. i was just discovering girls and this appealed in some way


Anyway it turns out this isn't what the song is about at all. The song was written after a dinner party that Brian and his then wife attend where he fell in love with his friends wife. man, I found this out a few years ago, and was properly upset. it seriously hit me like a punch in the stomach about the truer nature of love and losing the naivety of youth. . . I am still not completely over it. Not sure I will ever be. Strange how that can happen when you build something up yourself. 

So which of those four is the best? honestly, i would have to say Hallelujah, it isn't the best melodically or even imagery wise, but it is so heart felt and an expression of the should that it hard to how how it can be topped. 





 

Saturday 8 January 2011

The greatest song ever! part 1

So what is the greatest song ever?

I love this question because it is simply so ridiculous. There is no way that there can ever be a consensus about the greatest song ever, there are far too many genres and music tastes for this. Interestingly a lot of the radio friendly song stations put classic Rock type songs in this category. So you usually end up with Stairway to heaven or Bohemian rhapsody or the like. Very rarely is it a song of the last 10 years. i am guessing , but i would say that this is down to people liking songs when they were younger, or before they were born and they all being basically sheep!


So, let's start with classic rock. Why not give the people what they want. The three songs in this category are Stairway to heaven, Bohemian Rhapsody and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I have over time received a bit of grief for my love of Born to Run. but it is a brilliant song. it really is. Here is a live version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWZUm1ETNo

I have watched a lot of music documentaries, i mean a lot. In all of the ones that talk about the music scene in the late 1970s all of the people from the time mention that Bruce saved Rock and Roll. Cool people, Tom Petty, Ozzy, even Joey Ramone. I would say listen to his albums before Born in the USA, which as a side point , is not at all a fist pumping yay America anthem at all. it is actually a dark song about the American dream gone wrong. Born to run is so good because it tells a story about the youthful desire to get out and do something more interesting, love and incredibly anthemic. It has that you and me against everything we can find and know at the moment feel to it.

Don't misunderstand my love for Zep either though. I was and will always remain a massive Zep fan. It is just that I am sick and have been for quite some time , of people talking about Stairway as their greatest song. It is great, but from a band who produced, Kashmir, Ten years gone, Battle of Evermore, Rain Song, Rock and Roll, Ramble on etc. Stairway isn't even their best song. That said this version by Rodrigo e Gabriella is pretty amazing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0

Ok enough about Classic rock. This could go on for days

Metal. What is the best Metal song? Well, metal is a genre inhabited by the music geeks, the obsessive, and pedantic and as such there are an enormous amount of sub genres and using an all-encompassing term like the greatest metal song is going to upset these people. So I will do two of the genres, hard rock and mainstream metal.

Hard rock. I have two main candidates for you. AC DC Back in Black. I have posted about this song before. It is a great song, it rocks, it jives and it has got rhythm. I actually have this song as my morning wake up on the alarm. I think it is almost impossible to hear this song and not to be put into a good mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkkL_aDrIyU

See what i mean? That makes it a great song, also a great song to put on before you go out. More another time.

The other song I am going to put forward into this category is by one of my favourite all time bands Jane's Addicition. Three days off of the ritual de la Habitual album. Everything about this song is different from Back in Black. Check out the official video, it is only the introduction of the song,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K0lobxNoEc

That girl in the shower is dead by the way. How messed up is that?? That clip comes from a video Jane's put out called three days which is a short film, about 60 mins about how Perry's , the lead singer, girlfriend dies and he builds a shrine to her before anyone finds out she is dead. Man it is messed up. Anyway, the cool thing is that they actually filmed the recording of the song. Done in one take.

Listen to the whole song, minus the messed up visuals and tell me what a stroke of genius it is to be able to do this in one take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmvG2GZ3S7o

damn. Not strictly a hard rock song, but when that comes out of a hard rock band who cares.

Mainstream metal. i think there are again three candidates for this.Metallica, Master of Puppets,Slayer- Disciple and System of a Down - Chop Suey

Here is System of a Down Chop Suey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3voawEb6Xgw&feature=channel

This is a great song because of the sheer intensity of it. the almost soaring difference in the different parts of the song. Which is about suicide and the anger felt by the person. Sums it all up pretty well i imagine. It depends of course what you want from a metal song.

Here is Slayer - Disciple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0mQ25ezq4



Then there is Metallica and their best work - best work without any questions (OK!) master of Puppets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYzgQUTgpXs&feature=fvsr

Check out the link,

It is actually a little bit on the prog side that song. It lacks for nothing because of it though. It is a brilliant song about cocaine. Of course the evils of it. It is a great metal song because it is so powerful, master of puppets i'm pulling your strings. What else do you want.

Honory mentions in the metal category go to Iron Maiden, Hallowed be your name and Pantera for Mouth for War and yesterday don't mean shot. great metal songs


ok, because you have been nice here is the proper version of Master of Puppets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-hEyVQDRA

I am going to leave it there for this post. As the title says it is part one, expect part two and maybe even three. as we still have prog, pop, rap, electric and dark pop to go.

any comments are greatly appreciated, would like this to be a forum rather than a monologue of a increasingly demented music geek.!!!

Wednesday 5 January 2011

pop - the bitter sweetness

Here is a news flash - jet lag sucks. I left Adelaide Australia in January 1996 and since then I have been flying around the world quite a lot , and I am still yet to come up with a fail safe way to deal with it. I am back in the UK, my home for nearly 8 years during that time away , it is cold, it is dark and my body clock has no appreciation of what time it actually is. i feels like it could be a very small hour, but the clock says it is around 7 pm.

I don't need much sleep, although i am much better with it, and so i do like this times as it gives me a quiet house and I can listen to some music and now with this outlet write about it and try to order some of my thoughts on it. People often tell me when I say that i don't sleep much that it must be great to have all that time. I often feel that i waste a lot of it. i should be investing more wisely, should have re-written that book that I wrote a few years back, should have could have but didn't . Is listening to music wasting time? Well yes, in very practical terms if there are things you should be doing, then it is wasting time, but when I think about what it is a now know, and the amount of pleasure it gives me then no, most definitely not a waste of time.

So where are we on this worst of jet lag days?


I am listening to Fosbury by Tahiti 80. Tahiti 80 are  french band with a large back catalogue that no one has heard of. i came across them when i ws living in japan as an unemployed but professional shop wanderer. it wasn't a bad life, apart from the lack of available cash. i would get up exercise , spend some time looking for a job and then go out and wander around. Inevitably I would gravitate towards a music shop. Tokyo is pretty good for this as there is a massive music culture based around everything from really far out there elctronica, see mad capsule markets, who are frankly mainstream, to what is a very interesting vinyl based second hand industry.

Anyway, in the larger stores there are a huge amount of listening posts for albums and as a westerner they are just pretty happy that you are in the store and let you listen to music for hours on end. One of the bands I came across during this time was quite obviously Tahiti 80. Specifically what was their latest release, Pieces of Sunshine and extra pieces of sunshine. I have always and probably always will love the way some people are able to write incredibly sweet pop songs about their misery. i refer specifically to aftermath on the Pieces of Sunshine album. Unfortunately, this is apparently so obscure that it isn't on the Internet at all. So here is another song, perhaps not quite as bitter sweet , but excellent none the less. Better Days will come

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTexQ2bp_s

Why haven't more people heard about his band? This is just a brilliantly written and executed piece of pop sorrow. Much of their work is like this, although it is also a little more electronic based, which perhaps has some sort of leaning towards other Frenchies such as Air and Daft Punk. This has got me to think though.

Why are some albums so popular and others seemingly at least as good largely ignored by all except those of us music geeks? or hipsters if it makes you feel better . .

Why are Air huge? despite only one really great album? but Tahiti 80 not despite what i see as a couple of very good albums?

Compare the above song, Better days will come by Tahiti 80, to this , All I need by Air (extended version)


I realise that Moon Safari is by far the better selling album and I can see why, it is a better album. But is it that much better? I think rather what happened is that the ordinary people got wind of it and it became an album that a lot of people then went out and bought, played a few times and have subsequently forgotten about. i think this happens a lot. There will be an album produced that us geeks (hipsters ) rave about , that somehow gets some traction and as such becomes a huge seller. Air, have not come close to anything as good as Moon Safari subsequently, I challenge you to come up with another album title without looking it up. But they entered the mainstream and as such more peoples lives because of it. Doesn't make them better.

So , there are two pieces of beautiful sadness. I describe them as pop, I am not sure this is the correct pigeon hole, but I am not sure there is anything more appropriate.

With that in mind I am going to go to a weird place. i am going to show you a very brief glimpse of J-pop. What a weird and very very frightening place j-pop is. I speak from a metal head perspective here. Give me pentagrams and images of an imagined devil any day over j-pop sugar sweetness. That said listen to this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muh3fW4y06I

That is Utada Hikaru, Automatic set to an Anime video for those of you who love that stuff  (i do) . Although most of the lyrics are in Japanese , you get the general sentiment I am sure. Isn't that a piece of great bitter sweetness? Now I am not really recommending that you take this as an endorsement of j-pop. As far as things go, that is about the best of it. But Utada is a good place to start if you are interested.

it does raise a point though, particularly if we are talking about pop bitter sweetness, do women do it better than men? I think there is something in this. And to prove it we have to go way back in time to a completely different place to where we have just been. We have to go to the Folk pop scene of the early 70s and compare Carole King and James Taylor. Lovers and two extremely gifted songwriters in this genre (any genre really)

here is So far away by Carole king, with James Taylor on Guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urt2cy7AqFs

That is all done live and shows what it is like to be an actual musician. What a voice and what a beautifully sad song.

And so as not to bias it, from the same year with Carole King on piano, here is  You've got a friend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7RPCFfudmU

I will let you make up your own mind on that one. When it comes to the bitter sweetness of pop, then that is about as good as it gets. I am not sure which song I prefer, they are just great songs. i don't think it matters if a woman or a man sing about it, as long as it is good.


So, in a final example which perhaps shows the sheer versatility of pop. The Pet Shop Boys. I have always liked the Pet Shop Boys, and have always received a lot of grief for it. yes I get it, they are gay, and are also gay icons. They write pop music and as such you can imagine that the metal heads, and electronicans i hang out with don't really see it. However, listen to their album Introspective. here is my favourite song off the album im not scared


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dj3ymyCl3s

That is a good song, and has that lovely dark tinge to the lyrics that pushes it into pop sweetness.

I am going to leave it there. I think i will write about this topic again at some stage. there is so much good material out there in this area. this is the only area of pop I am really interested in if I am honest. people jumping around telling everyone what a good party they are having doesn't appeal and is generally so fake it is galling. But when it comes to the darker side of it, it is clear that there are a lot of very talented song writers out there , who perhaps weren't having a great time and where able to wrap it sweetness.