Monthly Archives: April 2013

My iPod #56: George Harrison – Awaiting on You All

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Alright everyone, we’ve reached the end.

The end of the ‘A’ section that is. It’s been a good two months.

When I first came onto Blogger, I didn’t have anything in mind that I wanted to get off my chest. The first thing I had was just talking about things that were interesting to me, or events in my life that I had regrets about or whatever.

When I changed my mind and decided to focus on ‘My iPod’, I never thought I would be able to continuously talk about a song and why it meant so much to me for fifty-six days straight, and yet here I am about to post about another one.

I have exams. Those are very important, so I probably won’t be posting on here as regularly. Maybe something will pop up here and there, but for the moment ‘My iPod’ won’t be back until June.

And so, the song today is ‘Awaiting on You All’ by George Harrison, another one from his triple album, ‘All Things Must Pass’, in 1970.

Beatles fans will know that out of the four, George was the most religious. Or at least the one who most believed that there was an almighty, higher power who cared for the world and the people who inhabit it.

Any of you guys who also own ‘All Things Must Pass’ will definitely know the song, ‘My Sweet Lord‘. That song was George’s first single as a solo artist, and topped the music charts worldwide upon release in 1970. It got to number one in the UK again after his death in 2001.

‘My Sweet Lord’ is a very religious song, for obvious reasons. But for those who haven’t heard it, Harrison incorporates the use of the “Hare Krishna” mantra and chants of hallelujahs which build up as a countermelody whilst Harrison sings, building an epic climax which eventually fades out. With Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ production technique, there is this gigantic albeit very echoey atmosphere.

‘Awaiting on You All’ is quite religious too, and if ‘My Sweet Lord’ is the music that plays on the organ in church when the service is starting, everyone is sitting down and the pastor or whoever is up on the stage announcing what will take place, then the former is when the first hymn starts and everybody is up on the feet, yelling rejoice to the heavens, bellowing the lungs to the skies above and break dancing in the middle of the aisle. Maybe I’m thinking of The Blues Brothers, but that’s what it reminds me of.

‘Awaiting’ has more of a political message to it than My Sweet Lord. Harrison desires to experience spirituality directly whilst rejecting organised religion as well as political and intellectal substitutes. That is basically what it says on the song’s article on Wikipedia. He criticises the Pope, and includes jibes at John Lennon and Yoko Ono about their week in bed.

“THE LORD IS AWAITING ON YOU ALL TO AWAKEN AND SEE.
BY CHANTING THE NAMES… OF THE LORD…. YOU WILL BE FREE!”

HALLELUJAH, TESTIFY!

Come on, that sounds like something a guy would say in church, am I right? Or am I right?

Oh well. That’s the end for now. You won’t be hearing from me for some time. Got work to do.

‘My iPod’ will be back in June! When the ‘B’ series begins!

Until then.

Jamie.

My iPod #55: Queens of the Stone Age – Auto Pilot

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Don’t let the song title fool you. It is not about being at the controls of a plane and deciding to press a few buttons so that it flies by itself. That’s what the band wants you to believe.

‘Rated R’ is the second album by Queens of the Stone Age, but was their first to be released on Interscope Records, the label with whom the band would go on to make ‘Songs for the Deaf’, ‘Lullabies to Paralyze’ and ‘Era Vulgaris’ under.

So in 2005, when there was nothing to do, my sister and I would buy music on CDs or through the use of MSN (remember that?) would receive mp3 files from our friends. One day, I saw this song called ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ by Queens of the Stone Age. This is the opening track from the Rated R album. I had never heard of the song or the album, although I had watched the video for ‘The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret‘ on the TV.

“Feel Good Hit of the Summer, huh?” I thought to myself, “I wonder why it’s called that, must have been a really popular song.”

You can probably say that it is. Not because it was a single or anything, but because of its subject matter.

That’s how I was introduced to ‘Rated R’. 2005 was the year that I took a particular interest in QotSA, for reasons I will explain another day.

However it was 4 years later in 2009, when I decided to download Rated R. I probably thought that it couldn’t get better than ‘Songs for the Deaf’, but I didn’t have another of their albums to compare it with.

I still don’t think that ‘Rated R’ is better than ‘Deaf’, but it can vary from person to person. That’s just my opinion.

One thing that most Queens fans probablu agree on is the significant contribution of former member Nick Oliveri. He is very controversial, and apparently Josh Homme doesn’t like him too much, but the songwriting partnership between the two produced the majority of the material that makes up, what are arguably, the band’s two most popular albums.

‘Auto Pilot’ is the fourth song listed on ‘Rated R’ and contains lead vocals by Oliveri and backing by Mark Lanegan and Josh Homme. It is the only one on ‘Rated’ with Oliveri at lead vocals, that does not have him screaming his vocals at the top of his lungs. Instead, he sings very smoothly with a little gravel under his voice. The song sets you in a very relaxing mood, you could just close your eyes and let it glide past you. The bridge where Josh sings, ‘Ahhhhhhhhh….. auto pilot, no control’, emphasises this even further.

The song is very ambiguous but the whole ‘getting high in a plane’ metaphor is not unusual to those who have listened to songs about taking drugs and the ‘joys’ of it.

Don’t let that spoil it though. Listen to the song. Don’t do drugs though.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #54: They Might Be Giants – Au Contraire

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Hi everyone.

I’m a bit tired, and a little depressed at the moment. I can try and lighten up my mood in the post, and I’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow. I don’t want to get into it.

At least the post today features a song by my favourite band. Yep.

Around the time that I discovered the music of They Might Be Giants, the album ‘The Spine’ was their most recent release. As time has gone on, that album is known as one of the band’s least popular albums amongst fans. I like it though, it has some great tracks on it. This one is good too.

‘Au Contraire’ is sung by John Linnell, and makes references to David Bowie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jodie Foster and Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t know what the song is about but from what I hear, the famous people I mention ask a question or state something in the verses to which the narrator doesn’t agree to, and in reply says ‘Au contraire, mon frere.’

That is basically the whole song. There is a little dual guitar solo with a little flute part at the end of it. But, yeah, that is ‘Au Contraire’ from The Spine.

The ending is also quite random too. Random voices just start saying ‘Right on’, almost like some madness mantra. This then results in a crescendo of cheers and applause, everyone is shouting ‘Right on’. Then ‘Damn Good Times’ starts. You should listen to this song and the aforementioned one together, it’s pretty cool. I have a thing for songs which segue into one another, it seems really cool to me.

I’m feeling fine now. Thank you TMBG.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #53: 30 Seconds to Mars – Attack

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So, 30 Seconds to Mars.

I don’t like them so much, I am not a big fan.

Let me just tell you a bit about them.

In 1998 Jared Leto, known for his role as ‘Angel Face’ in Fight Club, and Harry Goldfarb in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ teamed up with his older brother Shannon. The bassist, Matt Wachter joined and the other guitarist Tomo Miličević auditioned to complete the line-up. The band released its eponymous first album in 2002, but it was the following album ‘A Beautiful Lie’ that rose the band’s popularity.

Although it was originally released in 2005, no one in England knew who they were until it was released again in 2007. ‘Attack’ was the first single, and is the opening track of the album.

My recollection of ‘Attack’ is quite hazy. I can’t remember whether I saw it in a 30 Seconds to Mars advert, or whether the music video was on MTV2 at the time. Either way, there must have been something that got me liking it otherwise I wouldn’t be typing this right now.

It’s just a really energetic song. It starts off quietly with the keyboard, but after four repeats of that melody the song explodes into life. The chorus is my favourite part of the song, filled with abrasive guitars and a passionate vocal delivered with great conviction. You get the feeling Leto really does want to attack someone, particularly when he doesn’t finish the last repeat of the phrase ‘I’ll attack’ which ends up as ‘I’ll a-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’.

It’s one of three songs of theirs that I have.

To summarise, 30 Seconds are alright… their just not my kind of thing. They do have good songs though. Attack is one of them.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #52: Klaxons – Atlantis to Interzone

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If Arctic Monkeys were the newest and biggest thing in 2006, then Klaxons can definitely take that title for 2007.

The band was immensely hyped up during the latter stages of the former year, and arguably the one that started the ‘new rave’ genre which a whole load of other bands were soon labelled as. That whole thing died out around 2008.

The video for ‘Atlantis to Interzone’ first appeared on MTV2 in 2006. It was released as the band’s official single in June, and it was one of the reasons why I got excited over them, and understood what is was that made the NME express so much praise about them.

The flashing lights, the use of the samples from a standard Casio keyboard that I’ve used when I was doing music in Key Stage 3 and the calm, singalong verses that are contrasted with the shouted out chorus. The video is almost seizure-inducing, especially watching it with all the lights off in the house.

But that just made it so much cooler. My sister and I watched it whenever it came on, and she loved it too. You just want to dance and bust out the robot during the verses, and then when the chorus comes just start doing whatever the fuck you want to do. It’s great stuff.

The album it’s on, ‘Myths of the Near Future’, was released in the first month of 2007, and loads of people liked it. I have it, so I can agree with them.

Until next time.

Jamie.