Monthly Archives: April 2013

My iPod #46: Dananananaykroyd – Apostrophe

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I have nothing much to say about this song, I didn’t come with anything prepared.

Most of what I said about the album this song is on, can be found if you click here.

So…. it’s a shame about Margaret Thatcher, eh?

I can’t really say anything about her, I wasn’t born when she was Prime Minister. From what I witness, a lot of people liked her and a lot of people hated her. She’s Marmite.

Whatever though, she’s still dead. She will always go down as being Britain’s first female Prime Minister, and that’s something. I think it would be a long time before another female was elected to be PM. You’ve got to respect the dead… surely…. right?

OK. This is boring.

‘Apostrophe’ is the eighth track on Danananananaykroyd’s second album. It’s actually one of the more slower songs at 140bpm. That sounds fast doesn’t it? Not for Danana…. it isn’t.

It’s a pretty standard song for the band, it follows the verse-chorus-verse-bridge stuff that you would get in regular pop songs today, and for me it’s one of the most radio-friendly songs that the band have ever done.

The duo lead vocals work off together perfectly yet again and it’s hard not to sing along to the melodies. They are Scottish mind you, so it may be hard to understand what they are saying at first. It’s all good though, you can figure it out.

The key changes during the instrumental break, adding a bit of change to the track. It makes you wonder where the song will end up next. Then the last section starts, the lyrics are belted out at the top of the two pairs of lungs, the overall tracks just picks up. It’s one of those things where a crowd could just been seen shouting everything right back at them at a festival. Then the song finishes in a fade out of feedback, except for one guitar that just goes on and on, and leads into the next track ‘Seven Days Late’. That song is crazy. I’ll tell you about it soon.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #45: George Harrison – Any Road

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Another George Harrison song.

‘Any Road’ was released on George Harrison’s posthumous album ‘Brainwashed’ almost a year after his death from cancer.

It was written during the making of the video for his song ‘This Is Love‘ from ‘Cloud Nine’ in 1988, and continued to work on songs over the next decade.

On 30 December 1999, Harrison and his wife were attacked in their home. Harrison had to be hospitalized after being stabbed multiple times, and underwent treatment for his first bout of cancer in 2001. It was rough times for him. The cancer in his liver then spread to his brain, and after learning that it would be fatal he dedicated more time towards completing the album with his son Dhani and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra.

He passed away whilst the album was still being made, but had left enough information for Jeff and Dhani to finish the job.

However bleak the history behind the album may seem, ‘Any Road’ provides a shining light in the tunnel. After a three second introduction by George, (Give me, uh, plenty of that guitar), the song bursts into life with a joyful ukelele and slide guitar licks that pop up here and there after the chorus.

The song is basically Harrison telling us his life story, the things he’s witnessed before him, places he’s been to and how he got there, and of course having such a life to the full like Harrison did you would have no idea whether you were coming or going. It has an ‘Amazing Grace’ type of message, I once was lost but now am found kind of thing, but it’s no preachy thing. In fact, you can tell that Harrison wanted to make this a fun song whilst maintaining a serious and reflective message. Listen to those ‘Arribas’ during the last minute or so, it’s quite heartwarming once you listen to it all.

Rest in peace George Harrison, you were a cool guy.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #44: Pink Floyd – Any Colour You Like

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In 2009, I became a Pink Floyd fan.

I don’t particularly know why or how. As a child I saw the video for ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)’ on the TV. The band wasn’t in it, and it only showed clips of children running around in a playground interspersed with the walking hammers that are seen in the film. Of course I had no idea what I had just witnessed, and was left quite confused by the whole thing.

I watched the movie for ‘The Wall’ when I was 13, and I guess I was just hooked from then. Bob Geldof was actually a good actor, the concept behind the album was enthralling and obviously the music played a big part. I ended up getting the double album for my fourteenth birthday.

‘The Wall’ is up there for being one of Pink Floyd’s most popular albums. However, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ is the one that most people agree on for being their finest piece of work and one of the greatest albums ever.

‘Any Colour You Like’ starts rather abruptly; the song before it named ‘Us and Them’ segues right into it. There are no lyrics as it is an instrumental, but it’s really funky and upbeat. David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright wrote the song, making it one out of three tracks that Waters did not contribute on.

The first minute or so is a synthesizer played by Wright, panning and echoing from one channel to the other. That then segues into a guitar solo, and the whole band joins in with additional scat singing.

I would think that most people would skip this song, but please reconsider. If you have this album, where the songs segue into each other (except one time), and you don’t have this song… Well then, that just messes everything up doesn’t it? It’s also very important in the album’s overall concept. Pink Floyd had a thing for concept albums.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #43: Hyper – Ant Music

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Oh my god. Year 8 was one of the best school years of my life.

You didn’t care about anything, I wasn’t in the youngest year anymore, we had no real exams to worry about, I turned thirteen years old. I have so many things I could list; I wouldn’t want to bore you with all my sentimental crap though. It was good times. Some gooood times.

Another thing that was great around the time was the freedom I had to play my PS2 for hours on end. I am a FIFA fanatic, I’m not like KSI or any of those gamers online, but I’ve been buying EA Sports’ yearly release since I was seven.

In 2005 EA Sports BIG, known for SSX, released its own FIFA game, ‘FIFA Street’. It was nothing like I ever played before. You could make your own team in the ‘career mode’ and recruit professional players to be on your team. This was when people like Zidane, the original Ronaldo…. All those legends were still playing. It was the best.

In fact it was so good that they released the sequel two years later, ‘FIFA Street 2’. The sequel had improved vastly from the first. The first game wasn’t even that bad, but the second was out of this world. The locations, the players, the music! The music!

That’s where this song comes in. ‘Ant Music’ is a cover of the song by Adam and the Ants. I have no idea what else I can say to you about Hyper. I probably won’t like their stuff, but this song became one of my favourites from the game.

The best thing was some of my friends also owned FIFA Street 2, so we would start bursting into song in lessons, at break, at lunch, when we were going home. All the time.

FIFA Street 2, I love you. Thank you for those memories.

Whatever you do, don’t buy FIFA Street 3 or the one that came out last year because those flopped like hell. Seriously. Don’t.

The playlist on this game has real quality, so I’m going to list my favourites. Me and my friends sang these everyday.

Highlights
The Flaming Lips – The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Lethal Bizzle – Kickback
The Subways – Rock and Roll Queen
Coldcut ft. Roots Manuva – True Skool
Sway – Flo Fashion
Killa Kela (I think that’s right) – Jawbreaker
Art Brut – Formed a Band
Pendulum – Hold Your Colour (Bi-Polar Mix)
End of Fashion – O Yeah
Editors – Munich
British Beef – Without Me
Swingfly – Something’s Got Me Started

Yep, that’s about it. Have fun listening to them!

Until next time.

Jamie.

My Post #42: The Who – Another Tricky Day

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The Whooooooooooooo.

Oh man. Summer 2010 was the moment when I began to actually start listening to the band. Best decision I’ve made.

I could start a whole story about how I started listening to them and everything, but ‘Another Tricky Day’; doesn’t really fit in with that, so I’ll leave that for another day.

Firstly, my new found love for The Who made me want to search for music videos on the YouTubes, and after coming across songs like ‘Happy Jack’ and ‘Substitute’ I realised that they were experts at everything they did. Townshend is a great guitar player, Moon, well, you know he’s crazy but a beast on the drums, Entwistle the best bass player of all time and Daltrey with his soaring vocals combined produced a wall of melodic noise to great effect.

Then I watched the video for this song; initially I didn’t think much of it. Keith wasn’t there, he had passed away, and it all sounded very tame. All the energy was lost, but Entwistle made it up with his bass. Townshend was still recuperating after Keith’s death, he was drinking and thinking he was going to go next, his family had left him. Life got hard.

It’s a pretty sad song. I feel sad listening to it sometimes. I was going to school recently with my iPod playing in my ears. It was raining, this song started playing, and I began to feel useless. The weather was bad, I didn’t want to go in, everything was just so boring and repetitive. I don’t feel like working anymore, I will for my exams but school is just so pointless.

“It’s just another tricky day for you.”

Yeah, I know Roger thank you.

All in all, I never feel really happy when I hear this song. Thoughts of dread and despair build up, and it isn’t great.

We shall have a happier post tomorrow.

Until next time.

Jamie.