matt’s music blog

Apropos nothing, is ‘Alternative Rock’ far too watered down and worn out to be an effective way of describing any particular music style? I mean, if you’re talking about something like ‘Speed Metal,’ images of long hair, tight costumes, and lengthy guitar solos brimming with unearthly arpeggio and glissando fill your head.

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t been paying attention, but alt rock just doesn’t resonate with me the same way. It’s not as easy to visualize. Is it Beck? Chumbawamba? The New Pornographers? And what, exactly, is it an alternative to? Somehow it seems to get itself tangled in ‘college,’ but I don’t get that association either. Anyway, I don’t feel that any of those three examples wouldn’t be better described (both by intentional double-negative use and) by something like ‘Electro Rock.’ And when it comes down to it, I suspect my brother and I skew things far more towards being an electro rock blog than an alternative rock blog.

Many people know Men Without Hats for their very popular hit single, Safety Dance. And, unfortunately, like so many great 80’s synth-rock groups, it’s pretty much overshadowed their whole career. They’ve released a total of 8 albums all together, (the latest and final being No Hats Beyond this Point, released in 2003) and all of them are great.  Also, they’re lead singer, Ivan Doroschuk, as a cool singing voice, I think.

I picked this song because I think it’s really great. The Lyrics are kinda goofy, but the guitar part is really cool, and it’s all around just pretty good. So, shall we?

We start out with a sinple drum part, and little rock-a-billy guitar part.

Somebody told me to live is a lie
But I know better got a woman inside
Tells me things that I should understand
‘Cause I know better even though I’m a man
So many things go in so many ways
Every single moment like a judgement day
Thank goodness things are gettin better for sure
I got the message
Love is the cure
Uh Huh
Oooh Yeah

Okay. I’m not realllly sure what that means. Except for that love is the answer to everything. The guitar and drums stay constant for the second verse, with the addition of a little backing guitar, accenting the chords.

Now I ain’t stupid but I can’t understand
Why so many things are gettin so out of hand
Think we should wonder what the problem could be?
All the world over sing “I wanna be free”
Don’t really matter what you think of me now
‘Cause I got the message
The message is wow
Got everything, got nothing to hide

I got.. What?
I got a woman inside
Uh Huh
Oooh Yeah

Did you catch that? A little reference to they’re song I got the Message. Next we get into the chorus. We’re joined by our friends the soulful backing singers, an organ, and a little synth trumpet.

I said, hey men.
Quit knocking your children ’round
I say, hey-hey men.
Quit mowin your women down
‘Cause it’s all in the way
That you look at who you are
So hey hey men
Quit looking so far
Oooh Yeah

A little bit of social commentary there, about abusing your children, and girlfriends. The song stays pretty similar, and moves into the third verse.

Land of the free is a poor alibi
I learned my lesson when I learned how to fly
Sounds so silly but I think its the truth
I got the message
The message is you
Somebody told me that we live in a dream
Sounds like something that you hear on T.V.
Got everything even though I’m a guy
Feels so good
I got a woman inside
Uh Huh
Oooh Yeah

Hmmmm. Is that more social commentary? “Land of the free is a poor alibi” Like… people use it to justify they’re actions? Also, “Somebody said that we live in a dream, sounds like something you’d hear on TV” is a pretty good lyric. From here on out the song pretty much continues on as normal. There’s a little bridge part that features come cool orchestral hits, and guitar and organ solos.

I’d really encourage people to look past Safety Dance, and check out their whole discography. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

I know this is going to be a bit of a non-sequitor. Especially when you look at the other songs we’ve been talking about. It comes from the soundtrack to the movie version of Evita, a musical written by Tim Rice and Andrew Llyod Webber, based on the life of Eva Peron

This song is an intro to the musical, sung by the character Che, who is played by Antonio Banderas (who’s arguably the spirit of Che Guevara). Anyway, we start out pretty simple with a little Spanish guitar lick, and get right into the song.

Oh what a circus, oh what a show
Argentina has gone to town
Over the death of an actress called Eva Peron
We’ve all gone crazy
Mourning all day and mourning all night
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right

Oh what an exit, that’s how to go
When they’re ringing your curtain down
Demand to be buried like Eva Peron
It’s quite a sunset
And good for the country in a roundabout way
We’ve made the front page of all the world’s papers today

“We’ve all gone crazy, mourning all day and mourning all night, falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right” Is a really great line. It sets the sort of cynical tone that Che exhibits through out the song. It picks up a little bit, adding maybe… a harp in the background, and we move back into the verse.

But who is this Santa Evita?
Why all this howling, hysterical sorrow?
What kind of goddess has lived among us?
How will we ever get by without her?

We start to pick up instrumentation here, with the addition of some more percussion, and a string section.

She had her moments, she had some style
The best show in town was the crowd
Outside the Casa Rosada crying, “Eva Peron”
But that’s all gone now
As soon as the smoke from the funeral clears
We’re all gonna see and how, she did nothing for years

Once again it reinforces the cynical attitude of Che. Then the chorus, which is all in Latin (sung by the crowd) and based on a real chant called “Salve regina” You can look it up if you want, but I’m guessing, unless you’re very well educated, you’ll have no idea what it says. So I’ll just omit those lyrics. Then, another verse.

You let down your people Evita
You were supposed to have been immortal
That’s all they wanted, not much to ask for
But in the end you could not deliver

A timpani roll and then Bang! We’re thrown in to the awesome rock-ballad section of the song. Abandoning Spanish guitars for electric, the addition of some rockin piano, and ethnic percussion, for a trap set.

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong
Enjoy your prayers because you haven’t got long
Your queen is dead, your king is through
And she’s not coming back to you

Show business kept us all alive
Since seventeen October 1945
But the star has gone, the glamour’s worn thin
That’s a pretty bad state for a state to be in

(Notice in the background of this section, the wailing guitar that accents the other electric)

Instead of government we had a stage
Instead of ideas, a prima donna’s rage
Instead of help we were given a crowd
She didn’t say much, but she said it loud

Sing you fools, but you got it wrong
Enjoy your prayers because you haven’t got long
Your queen is dead, your king is through
She’s not coming back to you

Then, suddenly, we go back to the chorus, in Latin. And with lush sweeping strings that reprise the melody, we are taken into Eva’s section.

Don’t cry for me Argentina
For I am ordinary, unimportant
And undeserving of such attention
Unless we all are, I think we all are
So share my glory, so share my coffin
So share my glory, so share my coffin

And as the song fades out, we’re left with Che’s final words:

It’s our funeral too

Over all, I pretty much love this song. Antonio Banderas does a wonderful job singing. I’ve actually, never seen the actual movie. But I’ve listened to the Soundtrack plenty of times, and enjoyed it quite a lot. I’d recommend it to anyone that likes musicals.

And, so, in parting, I’d like to attach a youtube video to the song, so you can actually see Antonio in action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S39iFdZEiDA&feature=channel

-James out

I’m trying something new – rather than pointing out particular songs that I like, I’m going to go through my music library. Hopefully this’ll give me an excuse to post a little more regularly, instead of only when I decide that any particular track is worthy of ‘favorite’ status. Also, this’ll probably result in me reviewing stuff that I don’t actually like – maybe even things that are better off being deleted from my collection.

Myth Takes always plays first by default on my car stereo, by merit of ‘!!!’ (pronounced as making a clicking sound three times in a row, e.g. ‘chk chk chk’) being the first artist name alphabetically. The titular first track is catchy, with percussion that’s precise enough to be attention-grabbing, but there’s enough grittiness that it blends well with the rest of the instrumentation. The low whispery vocals alternating with wide guitar solo lines build anticipation, even though you could argue that the payoff never comes on this track – it’s the next one where you get a climax.

‘All My Heroes Are Weirdos’ is arguably better in the first 20 seconds then in the entire rest of the song – the guitar gets a little too crazy, I think, and it makes it tough to listen to for very long – it’s nothing like the driving intro.

‘Must Be The Moon’ settles into a nice almost disco-y groove as soon as it starts, and holds onto the kick/snare/tambourine pattern throughout the rest of the track – and it’s good stuff. The vocals are interesting too – there’s just enough there to keep things interesting, but they know when to pull back and let the instruments have their turn. The electronic stuff that elbows its way in towards the end of the track is also much appreciated.

‘A New Name’ has some interest growly bass and what might be some bells, as well as occasionally cool  percussive elements, and a neat establishing guitar line, and sort of reminds me of Damon Albarn’s vocal stylings at some points.

I almost feel like ‘Heart Of Hearts’ is sort of a bridge song, I don’t want to say ‘filler’ because that sounds negative, but it just doesn’t work for me out of the context of the album – but within that context, its inclusion was fairly insightful, since it feels like it really ‘fits’ there between the first and second half.

‘Sweet Life’ isn’t all that exciting either, and I guess it kind of continues the ‘bridge’ section.

‘Yadnus’ on the other hand, starts out with a nice ragged synth lead, and one of my favorite percussion patterns – ‘Like It Or Not’ off of Confession On A Dance Floor by Madonna, for instance, sports the same 3/4 rhythm. Something about that sort of swaggering configuration always sounds really good to me. The rest of the song sort of swings around between staccato falsetto and guitar, then back to nice sparse guitar picks, and has a pretty neat finale ending.

‘Bend Over Beethoven’ is like 8 minutes, which is crazy, and it’s pretty standard !!! stuff – it does a good job of exploring all the possibilities that the song’s time affords it. I’ll bet it’d be fun to watch this song performed live.

Not a whole lot happens (apart from some interesting horns and synths) in ‘Break In Case Of Anything’, and I almost wonder if the song’s title is a reference to this track acting as a ‘break’ after the previous one.

‘Infinifold’ is the final track – and it fits in the last slot nicely. The eerie grungy guitar echoing around behind the piano and hushed vocals sound like an ending. Finally, things start to build back up at the end, about three and a half minutes into the song… but it never peaks again, it just fades out. A good way to end things.

It’s tough to pick my favorite song, but I’m gonna say that all three of the first tracks (Myth Takes, All My Heroes Are Weirdos, and Must Be The Moon) plus Yadnus are probably tied for first – Must Be The Moon might be slightly ahead, though, so here it is, for your listening pleasure:

As I’ve mentioned before, as much as I like The Decemberists’ singing, playing, and portland-local-band status, it’s easy for me to pick out my favorite track from each album, and Yankee Bayonet (also known as ‘I Will Be Home Then’) is the one I like the most from The Crane Wife.

This song tells a story – and while I hate to disregard the music, that story is so attractive to me that I almost don’t care what they’re playing behind it.

Heart-carved tree trunk, Yankee bayonet
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas
That’s where my true love lies

So the stage has been set – civil-war era Carolina, a girl pining after her soldier love who has gone off to war after carving their names in a heart on a tree. The first two lines describe the scene of this screenplay, and the third and forth are lines of dialog from the sweetheart.

The next two lines begin a conversation between the dead soldier and the sweetheart – delineated by Colin Meloy and Laura Veirs

Look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bough high
But you are in the ground with the voles and the weevils
All a’chew upon your bones so dry

She’s remembering his promise to her – that he’ll be back when the birds are singing, in the spring time, when the sun comes out, but she’s lamenting that he’s dead, and rotting under the dirt.

But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then

I want ‘battle creek’ to be ‘battlecry’, pronounced like ‘mimicry’, as in, the art or practice of battle. But apparently that’s not what the real words are.

When I was a girl how the hills of Oconee
Made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin

The story of how they met – she lived isolated in her community, and met a boy on the fairgrounds. Also, check out the consistency of metaphor in the second line – ’seam’ and ‘hem’ are both sewing terms, it could’ve just as easily been to ‘keep’ her in, or a ‘fence’ instead of a ’seam’, but since girls were expected to sew, that’s what’s used for this verse.

But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
No, I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with child

Manassas, Virginia was where one of the first big battles of the civil war took place – and it was fought mostly by young unexperienced soldiers – the first two lines reflect the soldier’s horror of the situation. The girl reveals helplessly that while she wasn’t watching her friends die around her on the battlefield, she was at home, pregnant with the soldier’s child. The blankets are barren – they devote a whole line to that statement, and it emphasizes the physical component of her longing for him. Also, the first two lines deal with death amongst others, while the second two deal with life alone.

Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
Skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you

Even though he’s dead, and she knows it, they can’t bear to apart…

But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind

So she can’t help feeling that his spirit returns to her in the spring, even though his body has died – and perhaps his body literally comes back, to be buried, as suggested by ‘then will you make a grave?’ in the chorus – although it could as easily be an empty grave, a hero’s grave, a nameless white cross in a field of identical monuments.

Basicly, this song is incredibly sad, lonely, and heartbreaking, but it’s also a song about love. This stuff always gets me.

Though I generally like The Decemberists, I’ve found that it’s easy to pick my favorite track off of each of their past three albums – and The Rake’s Song  definitly qualifies on The Hazards Of Love.

First off, as in most good Decemberist songs, there’s a story to be told:

I had entered into a marriage
In the summer of my twenty-first year
And the bells rang for our wedding
Only now do I remember it clear
Alright, alright, alright

The song builds really well – there’s this super catchy instrumental progression that sort of accomnies the progression of the song’s plot. It starts with simple acoustic guitar, no chords even, just some strumming. Then on the first ‘alright, alright, alright’, some electric bass jumps in, along with guitar chords, and finally a hint of percussion accentuating the next verse.

No more a rake and no more a bachelor
I was wedded and it whetted my thirst
Until her womb start spilling out babies
Only then did I reckon my curse

The percussion comes in full, along with that electric bass, expertly distorted as the song gets a little more twisted:

First came Eziah with his crinkled little fingers
Then came Charlotte and that wretched girl Dawn
Ugly Myfanwy died on delivery
Mercifully taking her mother along

What can one do when one is widower
Shamefully saddled with three little pests
All that I wanted was the freedom of a new life
So my burden I began to divest

The breath of air during the murder verse is perfect, and the growing screaming in the background of the ‘alright!’ sections is another nice touch:

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove
Dawn was easy, she was drowned in the bath
Eziah fought but was easily bested
Burned his body for incurring my wrath

And at the end, there’s no moral to the story, which I like – the narrator gets away with the vicious murder of his own unwanted children. The line “her womb starting spilling out babies” is perfect for expressing his disgust with the situation.

And that’s how I came your humble narrator
To be living so easy and free
Expect you think that I should be haunted
But it never really bothers me
Alright, alright, alright
Alright, alright, alright

Watch the music video on youtube.

A little bit of ska right up front in the beginning with that snare, some bass guitar, some spacey effect synth, and then the real song at 0:11. “Whoaaa”, ha ha. Right away you know how the groove goes – the fairly simple rock percussion, the bass and lead guitars, and the the shouty-yet-in-tune vocals. The distinctive distorted high guitar line helps tie everything together.

See them creep out to nightlife
You see them walk the streets
These children of the undead look dressed for the endless Halloweens
And this horror like production,
Takes total dedication
Of black clothes and pale complexions
Rock jet black hair and monster makeup

Listen for the zombie vocal accompniment at the end of each chorus line…

And who can blame them?
They walk through asphalt cemeteries
Zombie fashions—
They must have been born that way
So can you hear me?
Can you get hip to what I’m saying?
These fashion zombies don’t walk this world alone…

The instrumentation is solid, but doesn’t do much to distract from the lyrics, which are the real treat. And once you’ve seen the music video, you can’t get the ‘fight’ or ‘performance’ scenes out of your head. The song barrels onwards, past numerous explicit ‘Thriller’ references, until the ending bar, which cuts off after the bendy sci-fi synth.

The whole song doesn’t evolve much throughout, but I’d argue that it doesn’t need to – it comes it fast, says what it needs to say, and then leaves – and it’s fun. That’s what really matters – isn’t that right, kids?

The nearly minute-long intro for this track sort of makes sense to me – it’s like a bridge from the previous album ‘We Are Pilots’ to this next one. The staccato bass line is joined by occasional bursts of vocal samples and spacey synth sound effects until a short burst of kicks at 1:09 heralds the arrival of the Muse-esque male vocals: ”Call my name, answer me where I stand.”

In the background of this plea, trance pads warm up, until – boom! angry female vocals at 1:34!

Here’s a story of the way I wasn’t meant to be raised,
bright yellow sun that fades away to black and blue every place
There’s a bottle in the shape of your love for me

A little more reasonably, she continues: “Now the clouds are racing higher, blinding arrows away. There’s in darkness off the streets that my electricitay,” before getting angry again:

Gold ( or God?) shatters the sky,
this is the first day of the rest of our lives,
’cause no one really lives or dies.

You can’t help getting caught up in the epic 3/3/2 drum line, the heavy pads and guitar, and the reverbed vocals – the next few minutes go by quickly, droning requests to “call my name, where I stand” are interrupted only once more by the angry girl from before:

Every night you drink the money left to pay all the bills.
No room for us, but there’s another fucking bottle of pills.
Here’s your trophy on my face, it’s just an eye anyway..

Now the clouds are racing higher, blinding arrows away.
There’s in darkness off the streets that my elec-tricity

This will go no further, I swear it dies today.
Your nights will stay forever if you dare once more touch me.

The ‘plot’ is fairly familiar – a girl with an abusive alcoholic of a lover/father finally getting the balls to stand up for herself. But the lyrics go so well with the vocal style, and the whole thing works incredibly well as an introduction to Shiny Toy Gun’s new musical direction on their new album. The track ends with a school bell, but it’s only there to set up the next song. Unfortunately the majority of the other tracks don’t live up to the expectations that this one suggests, with the exception of ‘Ghost Town’, and possibly ‘Ricochet’, both of which are in the same vein.

How can you go wrong with a track that opens juxtaposing quotes from George Bush and the Daleks?

Either you’re with those who love freedom or you’re with those who hate innocent life
All inferior creatures are to be considered the enemy of the Daleks and destroyed
Either you’re with us, or you’re with the enemy
We obey no one, we are the superior beings

This song is a mashup of ‘Doctorin the Tardis‘ by the KLF, and ‘Holiday‘ by Green Day (links included to highlight the interesting similarities between their respective music videos), and it’s a near-perfect fit – the rolling percussion from the KLF track is too catchy to ignore, and its sparse guitar interlocks nicely with Green Day’s own instrumentation.

Unfortunately, it kind of loses momentum around 3:15 – what once was arguably the coolest part of the Green Day song (“Sieg Heil to the president Gasman … Kill all the fags that don’t agree”) is relegated to being the least complexly mashed up phrase of the Dran Gray track, which is pretty disapointing. The guitar in the background is what’s killing it, I think, it’s repetitive, and panned way left so it’s impossible to ignore.

Dean Gray’s American Edit is pretty good overall as a mashup album, much better then Dangermouse’s The Grey Album. You can’t buy it, since that would be illegal, but it doesn’t take much creative searching (I found this one in like 5 seconds) to get yourself a copy. Enjoy!

Do you think you can tell a wolf not to be a wolf?
Do you think he’ll spare your flocks, do you think that is enough?
Will a thousand years of instinct simply pass you by?
Can you live without your sweetmeats on those long winter nights?
Well, until we find a better way, it’s *blam blam blam* ’til we figure it out… 

This song basicly covers verse 23, chapter 13, from the book of Jeremiah: ”Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” The answer is, of course, “no”, and this song lays out three situations where you can’t expect someone to change what they fundamentally are: A wolf, a child, and a man. It’s not neccesaily a philosophy that I agree with, but the lyrics do an excellent job of stating the issue: kids will be kids, wolves will be wolves, and men will be men. Wolves eat sheep, kids want to have sex, and men fight each other. Finally, the last verse accuses the subject of having not-entirely-selfless motives for trying to change people: “Does the knowledge that you tried help you sleep at night?”

Well, until we find a better way, it’s *buy the album* ’til we figure it out…