Monthly Archives: July 2013

My iPod #91: Radiohead – The Bends

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Something I didn’t mention in my last post is that I am currently in my cousin’s house for a barbecue. The charcoal is not warming up at all however, and it may be a long time before I get anything to eat. I have only eaten breakfast, and I am quite hungry so something better be put in my belly soon.

Now to the song. A live performance of “The Bends” by Radiohead played on vh2 when I was younger. I can’t remember if I liked the song at that moment, but the album (that takes its name from the song) contains some of Radiohead’s most popular songs, including “My Iron Lung”, “Just” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and I liked those songs when I saw their music videos on the TV. For that reason I asked for “The Bends” for one of my previous birthdays – I can’t remember which one.

The song starts quietly with a thirteen second sample of a guy training some kids outside of a hotel where the band were staying. The song is also about ‘knowing who you real friends are’. My favourite part is the last section when the instruments seem to raise in volume, an great guitar solo occurs and Thom starts wailing ‘I wanna be part of the human race.’ It sounds so uplifting.

I’m edging nearer to my hundredth post. Quite weird. I never thought I could keep this up for so long.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #90: They Might Be Giants – The Bells Are Ringing

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Hey everyone.

Again, I didn’t have time to make a post yesterday. Well I did, but I was too tired. I went paintballing you see. ‘Twas my first time too. I knew it would be painful, and it was my first experience of being shot at with something. It wasn’t too bad. It was much better than I thought it would be. The paint balls do sting upon contact, and I’ve got a few bruises here and there. I’m fine though. It was all good fun.

This is the first of the two I’ll do today. So here’s another by a favourite band of mine. Yeah, TMBG.

“The Bells Are Ringing” is the final track on the band’s last album from Elektra Records. “Factory Showroom” is the album’s name.

I first heard the song due to the LAUNCHcast radio/website that Yahoo! owned years ago, it came up randomly one of the genre-assorted radios that were available. I heard it that one time, and so forgot about it pretty quickly. YouTube didn’t exist that time, so to listen to a song in full for free on the Internet was a pretty hard thing to do.

I’m not a Malcolm in the Middle fan – I’ve never really watched the show before – but this song also featured in one episode called ‘Christmas’. For that, I just assumed that the song was a Christmas tune, but that’s only because of the mentioning of bells. Bells are something that are common at Christmas time, right? It’s doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas though. The subject of the song, in my opinion, is about this fad that’s caught on by everyone, with the fad being represented as the bells in the song. The bridge brings light upon ‘a girl with cotton in her ears’ who is oblivious to it, but people go on about it and then begins to appreciate it. It’s got a real ‘1984’ theme about it.

At the end of the song, everybody’s happy and those ‘bells’ (which are sung) keep on ringing amongst an increasing volume in marching drums.

I think it’s a happy song, but with They Might Be Giants I can never really be sure.

Coming back soon.

Jamie.

My iPod #89: The Who – Bell Boy

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Nice. A song by “The Who” that’s not on “Who’s Next” for me to talk about.

“Quadrophenia” was the first Who album I downloaded in 2010. It was that year when I randomly started to listen to them when I started watching videos on YouTube.

I had briefly heard of it before when I was 13, when a member on YouTube – ‘sxewill2’ I think was the name of the channel – uploaded the album in sepearate parts. I can remember listening to “The Real Me” for a few seconds, but at that time I was a naive and foolish boy and went onto a different video. That person’s account was later terminated from the website later that year.

“Quadrophenia” is another concept album written by Pete Townshend. The story of the album follows the protagonist “Jimmy”, a Mod with multiple personality disorder. It’s not just two personalities, or three, but four, with each one representing the personality of one member of “The Who”. Now you see where the “Quad” comes in the album title.

In regards to the story, “Bell Boy” comes in after Jimmy goes to Brighton to remember the good old fights between the Mods and Rockers and sees a notable Mod that he looked up to back in the day. However, this Mod now works as a… you might have a guessed, a bell boy, and Jimmy is pissed off and dissappointed. What does he do next? You have to listen to the album.

Townshend also incoporates all these musical ‘leitmotifs’ which occur at different points during the album, depicting the clashes between the personalities. “Bell Boy” is Keith’s theme, noted for being ‘a bloody lunatic’ in the liner notes of the album. “Bell Boy” was the first song I really got into when I listened to the album for the first time. I think the fact that it contained lead vocals by Keith himself played a large part, but also because for me, it was the easiest one to memorise and it’s just got this thumping beat to it that doesn’t quit. Especially in the verses and the instrumental breaks.

That’s about it, guys. Hope you liked the post. Give me feedback, tell me whether you like the song, whether you like the blog or not. Anything really.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #88: The Beatles – Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!

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John Lennon bought a poster one day in 1967, from an antiques shop whilst filming the video for “Strawberry Fields Forever” with the other three guys. This is a picture of the poster. This is a picture of John standing next to the poster which is the real deal and not edited by Photoshop at all. It actually isn’t.

To put it simply, everything in the song is from the poster. The horse’s name wasn’t Henry though. It was actually “Zanthus”. I don’t think “Zanthus the horse dances the waltz” would have been as good of a lyric though. Mind you, if they had used that lyric it wouldn’t have been banned on the BBC for supposed “drug references”. Silly BBC.

If you own the vinyl version of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, this song closes the first side of the album. To emphasise the circus theme of the song, their renowned producer George Martin asked the engineer to chop up recordings of various faiground organs and calliope music, throw them in the air and reassemble them at random. These are the noises used for the instrumental break, and also during the outro of the song. It took five days for the band to make this, and is regarded to be one of the more complex songs on the album.

It’s used in this epic mix on the LOVE album from 2006 too.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

Kings of Leon – “Supersoaker”

Alright! So Kings of Leon are back, and this is their new single “Supersoaker”. There’s the audio-video right up there.

It premiered yesterday on Zane Lowe’s radio show on BBC Radio 1. I missed the first time it played.

But then it played again later….. and I was quite pleased! Only a few posts ago was I talking about how I didn’t like the new sound that they were going for now and how I was dissappointed that they had sold out or whatever. But this song is like a mix of that sound and their “Aha Shake Heartbreak” material. Reminds me of “Taper Jean Girl” in particular. This is what I wanted. They’ve gone back to where they once belonged. You can hear their roots in the song. The only recent song I can think of when they have done this is “Back Down South”, and that’s not even a bad song. I find myself singing that from time to time. Stick to your roots, KOL.

It’s a thumping four-on-the-floor western rocker with Caleb’s crooning vocals over the relentless guitars and jumpy bassline in the verses and everything. Yeah… I can dig this. This is a good first single.

Their new album “Mechanical Bull” is released in September.

Bye!

My iPod #87: Nine Black Alps – Behind Your Eyes

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Hmmm….. so Nine Black Alps. I briefly touched upon them on a previous post – one that was quite rushed, seeing as I had forgotten to do a post on it in the ‘A’ series.

I always go on about my favourite bands on here. There’s They Might Be Giants, and Billy Talent too. Well, Nine Black Alps are another. Let me tell you why.

Why, I must have been ten years old or something when I first saw their video for “Unsatisfied” on MTV2. I always changed the channel when it came on, because the introduction sounded so depressing….. and the lead singer never smiled or anything. He just looked bored all the time. I didn’t wanna watch that. They then released “Just Friends” as a single, and that was a song I didn’t care for much either. For me, it was a much better song but it’s 2 and a bit minutes long, and it goes by quickly. Nope. Nine Black Alps weren’t the band for me

That was until the advert for their album “Everything Is” started airing on the television. It showed a few seconds of the two music videos for the songs I already mentioned. But it was the one for “Not Everyone” which really caught my attention. That’s for another blog. Then their songs started showing up on every EA Sports releases. First, “Cosmopolitan” was part of the EA Trax in FIFA 06, and then another of their songs, “Shot Down” appeared on Burnout Revenge.

Long story short, I got the album as a present for my eleventh birthday. It’s one of my favourites. “Behind Your Eyes” is a song from there.

“Behind Your Eyes” is one of the two acoustic songs on “Everything Is”. It comes after five songs full to the brim with hard-hitting riffs, loud guitars and various lyrics about dying, obtaining weapons and other morbid subjects. The album as a whole has quite a war-like concept to it. I’m not sure whether it’s a concept album or not. It could be.

Anyway, “Behind Your Eyes” introduces a sense of hope. A light, not quite at the end of the tunnel, but one  that shines for a few minutes until it flickers out. But you still manage to find a way through the darkness. That is until the light goes and then everything is dark again. I say that because as soon as “Behind Your Eyes” finishes, it’s back to the guitars and dark lyrics.

Yeah, it’s a pretty song amongst the madness.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.