Monthly Archives: May 2015

My iPod #490: Coldplay – The Hardest Part

Leave a reply

I’ve never given X&Y a proper chance. Not sure why. But there’s never been a time when I’ve ever had the sudden urge to listen to Coldplay’s third album. I’ve only listened to it the once, so maybe it was a case that the overall package wasn’t that impressive to me. I do, however, enjoy the album’s singles. Out of the six that were released, “The Hardest Part” always gains the most of my attention.

Why? Well, “What If” and “White Shadows” didn’t gain much traction commercially in the UK anyway so I wasn’t able to hear those two as much as the remaining four. “Fix You” suffered from being overplayed that it didn’t have the same effect it did upon first listen, “Talk” was alright but not one of their best, and “Speed of Sound“…… well I actually like that one despite it being hated by the group themselves. But “The Hardest Part” hit that sweet spot. An earnest track about a sense of regret, loss, and the inevitability of having to let things go every once in a while backed up by hefty piano melodies, interesting guitar lines and one of Chris Martin’s best vocal performances.

Wouldn’t be performed by the group nowadays. An underrated track for sure. The music video for it takes away from its subject matter just that bit though.

My iPod #489: Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

1 Reply

Daft Punk know how to make a track out of the smallest things. By sampling the first seven seconds of an 80s funk song, speeding it up, making the pitch a few tones higher, looping it and throwing in their own lyrics – a total of nineteen words used altogether – they created “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, the fourth track from the duo’s 2001 sophomore album Discovery and one of their most popular too.

Took me a while to find this song. Initially hearing it when I was quite young, a brief few seconds of it played on an advert on the Disney Channel. The robotic vocal sounded like nothing I’d heard before but the trouble was I had no idea what it was saying – it may not have been saying anything at all. But it remained in my head for a long time. I can’t even remember listening to the full track for the first time because it’s just been one of my favourites for a while now, but I’m glad I found it.

It’s groovy, it’s funky, it’s repetitive, but not in the way that it will bore you after many listens. It always remains fresh.

Kanye West sampled it for his own use too, but it’s not the same.

My iPod #488: The Used – Hard to Say

1 Reply

Can’t remember how it happened, but I stumbled upon The Used’s album In Love and Death and listened to it for the first time in 2009 or so. And I really liked it. I don’t listen to the band that much, I wouldn’t call myself a massive fan of them. I can guarantee that it is their probably their best album though. Written at a time when the good times were not on for singer Bert McCracken – his pregnant girlfriend had died as did his dog during the making of the album – In Love and Death is an album filled to the brim with emotion with lyrics detailing self-hatred and anger as well as joy and wonderment.

“Hard to Say” is one of the reflective and sombre tracks from the album, providing a laid-back and calmer atmosphere directly after three and a half minutes of shouting and straight-up loudness. On the song, McCracken sings about the sadness brought onto him when he remembers the moments he had with someone who has passed away and has trouble coming to terms with the fact they are no longer living. He does so with a great vocal take amidst a sound-scape soothing strings, organs, relaxing percussion and a ‘wooshing’ wind sound effect which plays throughout.

Have a listen. Quite sad.

My iPod #487: The Strokes – Hard to Explain

Leave a reply

So I may not have been the right age to realise the importance The Strokes’ debut album Is This It had for rock music when it was released in 2001. I was six. But from what I’ve read since listening to the band and just doing my research, it came out at a time when indie rock seemed to be dying. The music industry was dominated by boy-bands, pop-princesses, nu-metal and other dated musical movements. The Strokes came out with the album and showed that everything was going to be okay. It wowed everyone. And not just because they were so different, but because all the songs on there were to good to be passed on.

“Hard to Explain” was the band’s first ever single, and is a track that has remained in the hearts of many a Strokes fan for all these years. An exhilarating listen from the moment the drum-machine sounding kit provided by Fab Moretti begins pounding, the track always keeps you moving and entranced whether it be through the constant rhythm, the enjoyable interchanging guitar lines provided by Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi or simply the vocal performance of Julian Casablancas. And even when the track stops for those few brief seconds, the anticipation of when it will start up again never leaves. It is one of the band’s greatest tracks.

I’ve always tried to think about what this song may be about; I never been able to really come to a full conclusion on it. I see it as something from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know how to react in some situations, or generally feels indifferent to what goes on around them. I’m not sure. It’s hard to explain. Ha.

My iPod #486: The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night

Leave a reply

John Lennon took on the task of writing the theme song for The Beatles’ movie debut; something that grabbed the audience’s attention as soon as the first shot of the film hit appeared on the screen, would get the crowd excited for what was to come. He did so over one night. He then came up with a final lyric whilst on the way to Abbey Road Studios to record the track the next morning. Less than three hours later, “A Hard Day’s Night” was complete.

Taking its name from an accidental but witty remark by Ringo Starr, “A Hard Day’s Night” begins both the album and film of the same name with a strident, hard-to-replicate guitar chord, before launching into its first verse in which Lennon declares to us that it has been ‘a hard day’s night’ because he’s been working too much. He wants to sleep, but when he gets home to his lady all the stress goes away. Pretty standard subject matter, right? But Lennon used it to make one of the most exciting album openers of the 1960s. Paul McCartney provided some help too.

You have probably heard it already, if not, take some time now. It’s only two and a half minutes.