Ahh… the first video by Blink-182 that I can actually remember watching on the TV.
I must have been about nine or something. You know when you’re a child you have the tendency to wake up at times of the day which would seem ridiculous to any adolescent. Getting out of bed and watching music TV at six in the morning to watch TV were some of the best times I had before my mum and my sister woke up and didn’t let me watch anything.
I don’t know how I started watching MTV2 and being interested in music, but it’s a good thing I did. It was both that and football that made up my childhood.
I’m sure that I’ve made clear how I came across Blink-182 in previous posts. So I don’t really know what else to say to you.
One thing that may be interesting is that I recently listened to the band’s self-titled album. I had read many times from various reviews that it was a change from their ‘toilet-humour stuff’ to a more personal and darker approach to their music. That is something I can definitely agree with.
Another thing that I noticed was how Tom seemed to dominate the album. Most songs are solely sung by Tom; Mark comes in with a few backing vocals here and there, and has a few songs which only have him at the lead. However from listening to their past material, you can tell that it was pretty much a tag-team thing and the albums had a much more equal contribution by the two.
It was the last single from that album, and then the band broke up a few months later in 2005.
‘I’ve been here before a few times, and I’m quite aware we’re dying.’
Supergrass was a band that was at its most prominent during the Britpop era. Although that scene quickly died out around 1997, the band still managed to stay pretty relevant and their last album ‘Diamond Hoo Ha’, released in 2008, entered at 19 in the album chart.
I miss Supergrass. 😦 They are one of my favourite bands too.
Britpop was a fine time for British music. New bands were thrust upon the scene; Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Suede and various others dominated the charts. Who could forget ‘The Battle of the Bands’, which saw Blur and Oasis go head to head for the number one spot, which Blur eventually won?
I talk as if I was 20 years old around this time, although really I had only just been born.
Supergrass were relatively new at the time. ‘Alright’ was released as the last single from their debut ‘I Should Coco’ in 1995, and became somewhat of a youth anthem here and in America too after being featured in the film ‘Clueless’.
You can’t be sad to this song. The intro is unforgettable, as soon as you hear that piano tune you know that you won’t be disappointed. The band was young at the time of writing the song and so the youth of the time were able to empathise with what the band was feeling. I guess it wouldn’t have been so popular if it was some old man singing about being young when he clearly wasn’t.
And watch that video too! It’s all so happy. Oh man. Why do you need a video with a concept when you could just be messing around on a beach, or fooling about with bicycles? Steven Spielberg even wanted to do some sort of ‘Monkees’ documentary based on them, but they declined in order to start work on their second album. That’s dedication.
This is considered to be Supergrass’ signature song. It’s not my favourite, probably because it’s the one that will always be played on a holiday advert, or the one Supergrass video that will always be played on a music channel. Supergrass have many other great songs. Not just this one. Find them.
Yeah. Said it’s all right. I won’t forget. All the times I’ve waited patiently for you. And you’ll do, just what, you choose to do. And I will be alone again tonight my dear.Those are the first words of album ‘Forever Changes’ by Love.
I’m a great fan of music. Any type. You may have guessed that already. I got to a point last year, when I really couldn’t think of any albums to download. I had a large amount stuffed into my iTunes library, but still I couldn’t think of anymore.
That was until I took the initiative to search ‘best albums ever’ into Google, and surprise surprise there’s a site which had all I could hope for.
besteveralbums.com compiles the albums by the amount of times they’ve been placed in a ‘best of’ chart in magazines as well as allow users to rate their favourite albums. I would have no idea who ‘Love’ is if it wasn’t for the site, I probably wouldn’t have listened to any of the albums that are shown on there too.
I listened to ‘Forever Changes’, for the first time last year on Spotify. ‘Alone Again Or’ was the one that got my attention straight away. Yes, it is the first track of the album so that’s obviously going to happen. It’s quite a simple song, it has two verses with one of them repeated as the final verse, but it is backed up with lush orchestration. Violins, various strings, the trumpets in the middle which reminds me of the stereotypical background music that’s played in a cartoon when a character goes to Mexico, or some other South American country. To put it frank, it sets the mood for the whole album.
And yet still, ‘Forever Changes’ isn’t one of my favourite albums. I don’t know what it is, I don’t really know how to say why it isn’t. I think it’s just that it’s sounds very different to what I normally listen to. There’s something very sophisticated about it that just puts me off it. I’d probably have to listen to it again and see if I change my mind.
You don’t have to take my bullshit though, listen to it and make up your own decision.
All You Need Is Blood! Get it? It’s almost like that Beatles song.
Test Icicles certainly weren’t the band who sounded like they were influenced by The Beatles. Again, they were a band, but unfortunately the music that made was not the music that they were particularly interested in. They formed in 2004, and later split two years later in 2006.
The album this track was released on ‘For Screening Purposes Only’, was released to positive praise on Halloween 2005. Test Icicles were the next biggest thing in dance-punk indie rock terms. Considered to be ‘bigger than The Beatles’ by NME and ‘all cobra’ by Pitchfork Media, the album indeed is very eccentric and filled to the brim with bursting energy, backed up with crazy guitars and a booming, yet pre-recorded, rhythm section.
My sister went through a period around 2005/06 when she started borrowing various albums from her friends. She borrowed this one.
Test Icicles had three main vocalists who all brought their own sound to the table. The main vocalist on this song is Devonte Hynes, though you may know him better as Lightspeed Champion. In fact, Hynes only sings this song and the mindfuck that is ‘Catch It!‘ Sam Mehran sings part of the chorus and pre-chorus too.
I don’t know what this song is about to be honest. You would have to listen to it for yourself to try and get something, but you don’t have to understand a song to enjoy it.
Look out for the backwards rap at the end of the song, also done by Sam Mehran.
If you want to know how the rap sounds like forwards, click here. That’s my video 😀
The song ends. Then, out of nowhere, a bass riff starts. Reminds you of Jaws doesn’t it? It hypnotises you, sets you in a real mysterious, foreboding mood. It leads right into the next song. That’s for another post.
So I’ve spent almost a month bleeding my heart out into these blogs, hoping that you like them and share them and whatever. It’s been quite fun.
If you are regularly viewing these posts and taking an interest in what I say, then I thank you very much. It would be silly to say that I expected more than 100 views a day. But that is what I thought I would be getting. The blog with the highest views is my third one, and that only has about 30.
I should probably understand that it takes a slow process to become popular. This isn’t like YouTube where you can just upload one thing and then suddenly get millions of views. I believe that blog sites are much more respectable, and certainly more peaceful. I would be happy with one sensible comment than with a tirade of those which don’t make any sense or annoy me to no end.
So, about the song. ‘All Us Authors’ is the second track of the band Danananananaykroyd’s second album, ‘There Is a Way’. That album was their last. Released in June 2011, they split up a few months after in November.
I was like a deer caught in headlights when it came to ‘There Is a Way’. I think it was the day after I had finished my last exam for my GCSEs. A year of highs and hard work, I could forget everything that I had revised. I could stay in bed for ages, and not worry about anything until August. It was a good time to be alive.
I woke up about seven in the morning to tune into Channel 4 and watch the daily music programme ‘Freshly Squeezed’. That show’s not on anymore and understandably so, it got incredibly dull and I doubt that anyone really watched it at that time of day after The Hoobs had just finished.
Anyway, it was then that the show played the band’s new single, ‘Muscle Memory’, which led me to think “Shit! They have a new album, no way. Huh! I have to download it.”
I was already a fan of the band after listening to their debut “Hey Everyone!”. I’ll probably go into more depth on that in another post.
So, I downloaded it and listened to it the whole way through. Initially, this song was one that stuck in my mind. Maybe it was because of the unorthodox time signature in the verses, (10/4 I think), and the chorus, “Just when you got comfy”, which is firstly sung in the song, and then repeatedly yelled at the ending. It’s the second shortest song on the album, and for me was the first that sounded like a song that could have been released on their first album.
I can remember listening to the album and thinking that the band sounded much more fuller. Originally, the band made use of two drumkits in the songs on their first album, but the co-lead singer (who played one of those drums) broke his arm in two places during a gig and had to retire from that post. Also, they had a female bassist who left during the years between the two releases and was eventually replaced. The ‘fuller sound’ might have also been a result of their use of producer Ross Robinson, who has worked with bands ranging from The Cure to Korn.
‘There Is a Way’ is one of my favourite albums, and it’s a shame that the band split when they did. I feel that they could have achieved so much more, with just one more release! Ohhhhhh. People say the third album’s always the best right? Or third time’s a charm? Whatever. It’s just so energetic, the only time that there is time for a rest is in a minute long recording of a street after the song ‘Time Capsule’. That will also come in another blog. That’s won’t be on here anytime soon.
The Music in My Ears 