I just got the opportunity to sort of take over this blog. I transferred my posts from a different blog over to here, so that's what the previous 3 posts are.
I thought I'd start this whole new experience by uploading a song that I just recorded about 10 minutes ago.
It's quite possibly the greatest song of all time-- Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead.
I definitely didn't do it justice and I apologize to those hardcore Radiohead fans that may be offended by me "ruining" this song. But that said, I think it's at least kind of interesting.
Anyway, here it is...
Or to directly download it, right click and save as:
I decided to turn the output of my preamp way up when I was recording this to get that distorted sound. I like the guitar, but I'm not as sure about the vocals.
HAHAHA! I can't believe a music legend like Neil Diamond covered The Chanukah Song by Adam Sandler. It's not bad. Not as hilarious as the original, but not bad either. And I'm sure if I was Jewish I'd absolutely love the thing.
And for the hell of it, here's his absolutely amazing classic: Sweet Caroline.
By the way, I should get around to uploading some of my own music shortly.
Conor Oberst's voice is heard in all its nervous, wavering glory on Bright Eyes' 2000 release, Fevers and Mirrors. He seems to be at his most emotionally brittle on this, their third album. It is also their best album. Definitely in my top five favorites of all time.
It starts with a little boy reading an excerpt from Mitchell is Moving by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. The lines most representative of this album from the reading are:
"I want you to stay next door forever"
"I can't," said Mitchell, " I do not want to go wake up in the same old bed and eat breakfast in the same old kitchen. Every room in my house is the same old room, because I have lived there too long"
This story works well with "A Spindle, A Darkness, A Fever, And A Necklace," the song it is featured on. The song seems like its about someone Oberst cares deeply about. Either this person is no longer in his life, or he fears to lose this person. The lyrics suggest that even the sun might not rise without him or her.
One of Bright Eyes' biggest influences was the great Jeff Mangum. And like Jeff Mangum, Oberst is very skilled with his use of metaphor to elicit emotion. I believe that for a song to be truly great, it must have very emotional lyrics, but they cannot be bluntly stated like in emo music shit. The best lyrics, such as those heard on The Center of the World, are somewhat ambiguous, and can have very different meanings to different people.
Girls found honey to drench our hands.
Men cut marble to mark our graves.
Said well need something to remind us of
all the sweetness that has passed through us.
The honey could symbolize anything that makes someone happy. For me, I'd say the honey is music. I think the marble headstones that remind us of the sweetness represent how the meaning of life is to be happy, and at the death of a loved one, we should remember all the things that gave them joy throughout their life. That's just my interpretation.
The instrumentals perfectly complement the lyrics. This is probably best demonstrated in The Calendar Hung Itself where frantic drum and guitar patterns parallel the nearly psychotic story of an obsessive Oberst seeing one of his former lovers with a new boyfriend. His distorted use of a few lines from You Are My Sunshine in this song illustrate the seemingly co-dependent relationship he had with this girl. Another good example of this is seen in Sunrise, Sunset, a song about dealing with Bipolar Disorder. This song has a simple chord progression. But it is far from simple. It cycles between slow and quiet during the depressive parts to loud and intense during the manic parts. The normally quiet Conor Oberst is actually heard screaming (sort of) during the highest points of the song. And then it drops to a near silence immediately following that. More and more layers of instruments are added as the song nears its peaks, and are all taken off immediately after the fall.
Part of my motivation to review this particular album was because of a review of it on Pitchfork.com. Normally Pitchfork is pretty reliable in their album reviews, but Taylor M. Clark, who they paid to review Fevers and Mirrors is kind of an idiot. First of all, he claims all the emotion in Oberst's voice is artificial, which clearly is not the case. He says they struggle for originality. Really? Then why can I immediately tell that a Bright Eyes song that I've never heard before is in fact Bright Eyes? Their music is in a class of its own.
This guy wants us to believe he's smart by using long words, and phrases such as: Far be it from me to criticize... It sounds like he's writing a college senior thesis on this album.
Anyway, the whole reason I mention all this is as a segueway into my opinion of the mock interview at the end of An Attempt to Tip the Scales. Because Clark didn't understand it at all. He completely interpreted it as the opposite of its intended purpose.
I simply cannot stress enough what a maddeningly self-indulgent mass of pseudo-depth this section of the album falls into. In this sickening chunk of narcissism, Oberst makes a laughable attempt to prove to his listeners that he is of a penetratingly deep intelligence by spouting strings of stale aphorisms that pass for rich understanding amongst those reluctant to have original thought. Not only this, but the mock interviewer actually interrupts Oberst to tell him how brilliant the album is. On the actual record he says this. I hate to sound haughty, but I have honestly never witnessed such tasteless, ostentatious self-promotion on an album by anyone. It must be heard to be believed.
The whole interview was obviously meant to be a joke: comic relief from the heaviness of the rest of the record. Oberst was not even actually in the interview. One of his former bandmates, Todd Fink, from Oberst's first band, Commander Venus, was impersonating his voice.
The interview starts out sounding real. Conor (well Fink actually), comes in talking about how its raining outside, and then begins to describe the concept of the album. As it goes on, his responses to the questions become increasingly more bizarre. I first started getting suspicious when the interviewer says:
...Interviewer: It is, it is. Uh, how bout this Arienette? How does she fit into all of this?
Conor: I prefer not to talk about it, in case shes listening.
Interviewer: Oh, Im sorry, I didnt realize shes a real person.
Conor: Shes not. I made her up.
Interviewer: Oh, so shes not real.
Conor: Just as real as you or I...
And my suspicions were all but confirmed by these lines
...Interviewer: Thats interesting. Now, you mentioned your depression.
Conor: No I didnt.
Interviewer: Youre from Nebraska right?
Conor: Yeah so...
At this point, I had started laughing hysterically because it was so random and weird. Some more funny lines:
...Conor: Well, I did have a brother that died in a bathtub. Drowned. Actually, I had five brothers that died that way.
Interviewer: (Laughs)
Conor: No, Im serious. My mother drowned one every year for five consecutive years. They were all named Padraic, so that's why they all got one song...
...Conor: Nevermind. How long have you worked at this station?
Interviewer: Oh, just a few minutes...
...Interviewer: Really, youre telling me youre doing all this for attention?
Conor: No, I hate it when people look at me. I get nauseous. In fact, I could care less what people think about me. Do you feel alright? Do you wanna dance?
Interviewer: No, Im feeling sick...
The album as a whole is deeply personal. I've never heard songs that go so far in revealing all the insecurities of their writer as the songs on Fevers and Mirrors. It's like Conor Oberst looked into a mirror, and described exactly what he saw. And I think the mirror on the cover of the album is his way of challenging us to do the same: to not be afraid to be genuinely introspective for a change.
I highly recommend buying this album. You can get it here.
Not surprisingly, Britney Spears was caught lip synching again. She's been doing this for 10 years people, stop acting like your surprised. At her Perth, Australia "concert," hundreds of enraged fans stormed out after only the first three songs. Honestly, I don't understand why they left. Why would they buy the tickets in the first place? It was common knowledge that she'd be lip synching. She'd done if for the entire first six months of the tour. I'm definitely not saying it was wrong to walk out. What they did makes a lot more sense than the thousands of fans that stayed in the arena. But I still just can't even begin to wrap my head around the motivation people have to go to popstars' concerts. Their music is terrible. They don't even write it. They usually lip sync their concerts. Even if they do actually sing, the focus is on the show stage. All the dancing and shit. If you want to see dancing, go to a ballet. Or a strip club. Or whatever floats your boat. If you want to see Britney doing a bunch of circus shit, might I suggest the incredibly talented Cirque du Soleil. Tickets for their shows are between 25.00$USD to 95.00$USD. Versus the up to $1500AUD ($1300USD) you'd pay for premium Britney seats. And to see Britney perform, you'd have to get the best seats because they disabled the big screens to hide the fact that she was lip synching. "You couldn't tell if it was Britney or not," said Mel McGuigan, 25, who paid about $150AUD for her ticket. How is listening to a recording of a "singer" that is supposedly there, but you can't really see, worth anywhere near the ridiculous prices charged to go to this concert?
This is actually the same image I used on my Beats Review post, Britney Spears' New Single Makes Me Want To Puke
Hi, My Orble Name is Mr. Bean II. My real name is Matt. I chose Mr. Bean II because that's what some of my friends call me because they think I look like Mr. Bean. I don't really see it, but whatever. Anyway, I already have a music blog called Beats Review. The original purpose of this blog was to review music, as you might have been able to tell by the title. But recently I've mostly just been going on rants about Britney Spears, Guantanamo Bay, etc. I decided that this was drawing my focus off of actually reviewing the music. So I figured my best option was to make a new blog where I could go on all kinds of tirades. And for the hell of it, I'm also going to upload some of my own personal recordings. Mostly there going to be covers, but I'll try to put some original stuff up as well. It should be tons of fun!
On February 28th 2009, Sublime reunited to play a show in Nevada with Rome Ramirez taking Bradley Nowell's spot on vocals. (Nowell, of course, died of a heroin overdose in 1996.) It was later announced that the newly reformed Sublime would play Cypress Hill's October 24th Smokeout Festival with several other amazing bands. The day before the concert, Nowell's estate attempted to file a temporary lawsuit to prevent the band from using the Sublime moniker. They were unsuccessful, and Sublime performed what was, according to fans, an incredible show. Stephanie, some lady that Rolling Stone interviewed said she was afraid that they would replace Brad with someone who wasn't worthy. I had heard good things about Rome, but I didnt want to listen. Then today, I was blown away.
Everyone knows (or at least I assume they do) that the CIA implemented music from various artists to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay. They would force an inmate to listen to a song at a high decibel level for several hours to several days. One released detainee claims he was forced to listen "The Real Slim Shady" for twenty days straight. After a ton of negative publicity, and being "reminded" that using music as torture directly violates the U.N.'s Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, they finally halted the practice of using music as an instrument (no pun intended) of torture.
Detainee's daily 'outside' period
But some artists are still pissed that, without permission or even notification, they may have been on the Guantanamo playlist. Trent Reznor, David Byrne, the Roots, R.E.M., and Pearl Jam are among a group of over a dozen artists demanding, under the Freedom of Information Act, that the records be released showing which songs were played. They filed a suit, headed by former Rep. Tom Andrews, to finally know for certain which songs were played. As it stands now, a total of 35 bands/songs are known to have been implemented by the CIA for use as an "enhanced interrogation technique." They were confirmed through a 2005 investigation, and by interviews with released prisoners. They are
I wish I were Keith McDougall, the former author of this blog. He is such an eloquent writer. I mean, I believe I am proficient, but he made the words sing. Reading the blog was like actually listening to the music he wrote about. I started a blog a couple weeks ago, and then had the opportunity to take over this one. I transferred my posts over to this page (my posts start from "Just Starting A Blog") and now I'm going to attempt to fill the shoes of a great opinionist of music. First of all, I am from Chicago, not Gothenburg, Sweden, so most of the music I know comes from the windy city, which is not nearly as exotic. But there are a lot of absolutely incredible bands from my home-state. I love the Chicago music scene.
I'm also more into just straight indie than indie-pop. And there is a HUGE difference between the two. Or at least there is a huge difference between most of the bands Keith and I label as these two separate genres. Not that I don't like his music. Its good. Just not what I normally listen to. But I guess that doesn't matter much. All that really matters is that I write meaningful, interesting shit, regardless of genre. Which is exactly what I intend to do.
This isn't really breaking news. It happened May 30, 2007. But on that day, Q101 (the only good radio station in Chicago) played the new White Stripes album, Icky Thump, in it's entirety. The album was scheduled to be released Jun 19th. Jack White found out that they played it before the release date, and a few hours later, he called the station from Spain to yell at the DJ who played it.
If you Google "Jack White" and "Q101," the first several results are all people blogging about what an idiot Electra, the DJ, is for doing this. And about how much they hate Q101. I felt obligated to make this post to defend Electra and Q101 because no one else is. I don't think anyone that shits on Electra really knows what they are talking about. I read the blogs. Most of them got the facts totally wrong or omitted key bits of information. I just want to clear up all the misconceptions surrounding this event
I just found out that Britney Spears' new single, "3", debuted number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first song not by an "American Idol" to do so since 1998. I haven't heard the song, and have no intention of ever listening to it, but I looked up the lyrics, and they are absolutely horrible in so many ways. I can't even comprehend how so many people could possibly like this song. It was downloaded over 255,000 times in it's first week. This song is about having a threesome. How the hell does anyone fantasize about having sex with a woman that used to look like this
Whoa, that is so sweet.
I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like these pictures.
I find the picture of the sumo wrestlers very interesting because I never pictured sumo wrestlers to look like that.
=[ Pitchfork just reported today that the album will be released on Nov. 16 in New Zealand, and Feb. 2010 in the U.S. They also reported that my fears were confirmed. "Reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel leader Jeff Mangum, who was previously slated to participate, did not contribute."
I'm always one to look on the bright side of things, so maybe this means Mangum is so focused on writing his own new album that he didn't have time to record a song for Chris Knox. I can dream...
Anyway, last night the Colbert Report did a whole segment on this exact same topic. So I guess you could say I'm more cutting edge than Steven Colbert.
Haha thank you so much Keith. I'm glad I have your blessing.
By the way, if you ever happen to read this, I absolutely loved the Tough Alliance post. Especially the parts about piano vamps. I might try to incorporate some of that sound into my music (when my band actually starts legitimately practicing). I wonder if I could vamp a melodica...
Yeah, i totally agree. It's just the media that made everyone believe we are all screwed. Who wants to see breaking news saying that everything is fine. They had to jump on anything to get people scared into watching the news. I mean, according to Wikipedia, the budget for inconvenient truth was just over US$1,000,000, while the gross revenue was US$49,047,567. And Al Gore gets a Nobel prize just for his fear-mongering? Maybe global warming is real. Maybe it's not. There's just not enough evidence yet to be sure either way.
Dammit. Someone changed the Wikipedia page back because I "removed information with no explanation." I re-deleted the sentence and gave an explanation this time.
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It's clearly all just exaggerated by the media because it makes a good news story.
Hopefully now people will actually start questioning whether or not manmade global warming is real.
Can we repeal Al Gore's Nobel prize. Seriously, he won a nobel prize for making a film that wasn't accurately fact-checked, and made millions on it.