“Do Me a Favour” is a song from Arctic Monkeys’ second album “Favourite Worst Nightmare”. Have I mentioned that this my favourite album of theirs? I may have done before. I’ll assume that I’ve stated why that is my opinion, so I won’t go into that again.
Placed after the mellowest track on the album, “Do Me a Favour” starts off the second half of “Nightmare” with a minor-key track about the end of a relationship from the point of view of a man who has cheated on his girlfriend and feeling so guilty about it eventually tells her.
The track begins with ominous rolls on the tom-toms, followed by ascending bass line and Alex Turner’s vocals. It continues to slowly build brick by brick (hehe), as the guitars are introduced later on. The majority of “Favour” is calmly delivered, before launching into the explosion near the end where Turner sings the last verse and everything comes to a close.
As it is only an album track, there is not much extra information I am able to provide. Sorry. The point is, it’s a decent one. If you haven’t heard it, spare a few minutes.
Fall Out Boy time. I listened to “Save Rock and Roll“. Wasn’t too great. And it was their first one after a four year hiatus. Disappointing. Everything sounded so manufactured and poppy, ironically. For me, “Folie à Deux” is the band’s best album. It’s their worst-selling one, which I don’t understand. If you haven’t listened to it, I suggest you should.
The album opens with this track “Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes”, a song about imperfection with a title that is a reference to The Flintstones. I don’t get it either, but a lot of Fall Out Boy song titles are weird in that way. I’m not liking the way I’m sounding, I’ll get serious from now on.
The song is another great album opener out of all the ones I have on my iPod. It does use the same chord progression as “Baba O’Riley” albeit in a different key – that’s a random point I chose to throw in there. What I like about the track is how it never slows down or takes a breather for a bit. The track mostly revolves around the drums, played by Andy Hurley, changing in dynamics at various points like in the second pre-chorus where Patrick Stump continues to sing with sporadic multi-tracked vocals along with a noodling electric guitar, or near the ending when the “detox just to retox” refrain is chanted continuously. Plus, Patrick Stump absolutely kills it on the vocals. It seems like all the singing on the previous ones were all leading up to this particular one because here he is at his peak on every track.
“Water Buffaloes” is hard to describe if you couldn’t tell from my convoluted ‘summary’. It’s one of those that I knew was good on first listen. You can’t listen to it by itself though, it doesn’t have a proper ending. Listen to it along with the twelve other tracks that follow. That’s the best way to hear it.
Maybe I should have tweeted that there wasn’t going to be a post yesterday. It would save time in having to explain why. I was out, and for anyone that was desperately waiting for that usual update in their Twitter feed…. I am sorry. Dreadfully sorry. But it’s here now, and will be followed by another one soon.
Here’s one random question I want to ask….. Is it wrong to be young and really like The Who? This randomly came up as a thought when I was listening to The Who on shuffle, when I was on the train back to university from Liverpool. I think The Who are amazing (or were); “My Generation” through to “Who Are You” speak for themselves. But I’ve never met in person or seen on the internet anyone my age who feels the same way. I feel as if The Who’s the kind of band who are only listened to by middle-aged men trying to make their name in the rock music business or something. You see, hear or research about new bands who say that they are influenced by The Beatles…. or material that the members went on to produce in their solo careers. But you never really see any new and talented vocalist say they are inspired by Roger Daltrey, or a bass player inspired by John Entwistle. I stress that this is new bands that I’m talking about here. There are loads of bands I listen to who admire each and every member. But…. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a generation thing….. That pun wasn’t intentional.
That’s something you guys can think upon.
But enough of that. Today’s track is “The Dirty Jobs”, a song from the band’s second ‘rock opera’ “Quadrophenia“. At this point in the album’s ‘plot’, the narrator has left home and meets these workers who do ‘the dirty jobs’, such as looking after pigs and driving the miner bus. The narrator criticises them for not sticking the middle finger up to ‘the man’. That sums the song up lyrically.
It’s astonishing how though in this song – hell, through the whole album – it is the four members of The Who who play every instrument you hear. Except for the piano part that’s played a session musician. I brick-walled the track using Audacity (something I still have polarizing feelings about now). It’s very loud, mostly thanks to the constant cymbal thrashing and drum pounding from Keith Moon, but I can’t listen to it any other way. Just everything about the song is brilliant. Awesome. Great. Fantastic. Can’t think of superlatives to emphasise how good the track is.
Actually, just listen to “Quadrophenia”. You must. You won’t forgive yourself if you don’t. Arguably The Who’s creative peak as a group.
Woop woop, hi everyone. Can you tell I am in a good mood? Only because the football team I’ve supported for about twelve years has made it to the final of a tournament, and actually have a chance of winning their first piece of silverware in nine years. It has been a long wait, but it has never stopped me dreaming.
Still, I have a song to write about. It’s “Dirty Harry”, another reference to Clint Eastwood, the song and third single from “Demon Days” by the cartoon group Gorillaz. The video for the track was another that premiered in the very early hours of a morning in 2005; I watched it, but I had a very hard time remembering the melody because I was almost half asleep whilst viewing it. It got its airtime on every music channel but failed to reach number one in the charts like “Feel Good Inc.” or “DARE“, and peaked at number six. That’s not that bad either, considering interest for “Demon Days” had not diminished in any way at the time.
Simply it is a funky and upbeat song about a very serious matter, which ends with maniacal laughter and segues into the next track…. you all know that one.
Being a great fan of “Colour It In“, I was a bit disappointed with “Wall of Arms“. “Love You Better” was the album’s first single. I thought it was…. alright. But it wasn’t as fun as “About Your Dress” or “First Love” for example. Then I bought the album from HMV, listened and realised….. The Maccabees were trying to achieve a larger sound with more of an atmospheric production and an expansive sound scape with their second album. The album’s producer Markus Dravs worked on otheralbums which set out to do the same thing. But, unlike The Horrors did at about the same time, it didn’t leave that much of an impact on me….. except for “Dinosaurs”. If I haven’t listened to the album enough, then “Dinosaurs” is a reason why I should “Wall of Arms” another go.
Beginning with quiet guitars with a steady drum roll, “Dinosaurs” kicks into gear when the horns (yes, horns) start blaring out the melody simultaneously with the lead guitar. The brass instruments really make this song shine, making it sound very bright and triumphant. Things quieten down for the verses where Orlando Week’s signature whimpering vocals come in, and then slowly build in volume until the main line “Restore this cracked soul” is yelled and the melody from the intro is played again. The song has no real chorus and only a small reference to the song title is made, but that’s pretty irrelevant. “Dinosaurs” is very nice. It comes to a climax with the guitar solo in the last 20 seconds, which apparently contains the first string bend in a Maccabees song, bringing the track to an exciting finish.
Still not sure about “Wall of Arms”…. I’ll see how it goes.
The Music in My Ears 