Category Archives: Music

My iPod #139: Kings of Leon – The Bucket

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There are creepy people out there. There I was going down the escalator in Stratford’s Westfields so we could wait for a mate who needed to go to the loo, when these two guys came over to us asking if we were born again Christians. They then directed their attention to me, and told me to ‘talk to them privately’ to say the ‘prayer’ and I was like “FUCK THIS, I HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE”. So I told them a wrong phone number and made up a name for myself, and proceeded to leave the mall with my friends.

It was very scary. I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else in the world like I did during those moments. I’m really glad to be home. Typing to you.

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Right. Kings of Leon. I’ve probably said as much as I can on what I think about them in other posts. Thinking about it now, I’m positive that I’ve only done one post. But in short, from Youth & Young Manhood to Because of the Times = good stuff, Only by the Night onwards = the bad stuff. Except “Supersoaker” and “Wait for Me” which depicts “Mechanical Bull” as something that will be a return to form. We can only hope. Well, I can only hope.

“The Bucket” was the first song to be released from the band’s second album “Aha Shake Heartbreak” in 2004, which is my favourite album they’ve done. I can’t remember when I first heard it. I’ll just say it was on MTV2. Yes, it was on MTV2.

I wonder who yells “Wooooooo!”at the start. It sounds like someone fucked up and didn’t know they were recording, but I can’t imagine the song without that exclamation. I’m just used to it after listening to the track for all these years.

The subject matter of “The Bucket” is the band’s bassist Jared Followill, who was having problems dealing with the fame of being in the band.

The thing that I’ve always liked about older Kings of Leon songs, especially those on the Aha Shake and Times albums, is Caleb’s vocals. Now he’s older he actually sings from the stomach, but I preferred those when his voice was breaking almost every time he tried to reach the high notes. There’s a bit of this in “The Bucket”.

Have fun listening to it.

Jamie.

My iPod #138: Feeder – Buck Rogers

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One of the better songs that the early twenty-first century years brought us.

Feeder have a fantastic set of singles; “Buck Rogers” is one which many people may be familiar with. Even people who don’t know Feeder are might have heard this song in a TV show or an advert, it’s just one of those songs.

Yet again, I saw the “Buck Rogers” video on the television and was left in awe. The camera work and the special effects, the TARDIS elephant they walk into and that slow sweeping shot of the band playing the last two choruses at the end. The song itself is very catchy – it’s stays in your head for days and days, but that video…. mm-mm-mm. If you look at it, you may think I am exaggerating but for me it’s a perfect video for the song.

It was even funnier when I was in Year 6 and found out that one of my friends knew the song because of its presence in Gran Turismo 3 and we would sing it out loud during lessons (because those really didn’t matter at the time) and classmates would laugh whilst the teacher asked us to stop singing. Those were good times.

It was also one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar – albeit only on the low ‘E’ string, but I thought I’d actually done pretty well to play along with it without tabs.

Here is it’s Wikipedia page; there you will find information at length about the song. But for now, enjoy it. Comment on it if you want. Give it a chance.

Jamie.

My iPod #137: Biffy Clyro – Bubbles

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Sorry people. I know I didn’t do a post yesterday, I was busy playing FIFA and NBA at my friend’s house before he moves to university next week.

Those of you who were expecting a blog, I know I could have said something and I do apologise. It’s only good that whenever I miss a day I follow it up with two songs the next. Here’s the first.

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…”Mon’ the Biff! Mon’ the Biff! Mon’ the Biff!” It’s only bloody Biffy Clyro!

I watched them headline the Reading Festival on the BBC iPlayer two weeks ago, and it wasn’t hard to notice that there was a large decrease in reception whenever they played material pre-Puzzle and Only Revolutions. I’m not going to complain; I thought it was a bit funny, actually. I’m not saying that the people who were there weren’t Biffy Clyro fans, but it was obvious to assume when they became them. It seems the band aren’t into their past material so much, I think only two songs and a verse and chorus from tracks before 2007 were performed. But if Biffy Clyro enjoy their newer stuff that made them much more popular than they were before, who can blame ’em?

“57” was the first song I heard by them when its video played on MTV2. They look so young, and very clean. They’re all wearing clothes, and Simon Neil has hair like Frodo. But for a band that looked so innocent, the song was very different from anything I’d listened to before. The song is good, but at the time I didn’t think it was something that made me interested in the band. Later on, “Questions and Answers” came on the TV. That’s nice too. It’s very calm by Biff standards. That was pretty much everything I’d heard by them. But it was in year seven (2006/07) that Biffy Clyro became… mainstream. *gasp* oh my god.

I’m only joking. I feel I should save that for another time, ’cause I’ll be babbling on for ages about nothing that has to do with the song for today. Bubbles! It’s the third song from the band’s fifth album “Only Revolutions”, and was eventually as its penultimate single in spring 2010. It was a song of theirs that I couldn’t stop singing to myself. It begins with a tickling lick on the guitar which is interrupted as the band begin to play. They’ve got that quiet verse/loud chorus dynamic going on too, just like Pixies and Nirvana, which can never go wrong if you know what you’re doing. And then, just when you think the song should finishes, the band rocks out for a minute and in steps Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age to finish everything off with a guitar solo. It’s crazy. It’s brilliant.

Next song’s coming soon.

Jamie.

My iPod #136: They Might Be Giants – Broke in Two

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Afternoon everyone.

I thought that preparing for university would be more of a strenuous task, but it appears that already I have most of the stuff I need. I have bought a few things here and there, just now I’ve chosen two pairs of new shoes and new socks, but it hasn’t been as tiresome as I thought it would be. Life is good.

That was an unrelated introduction. I just wanted to tell you how things are going.

… I’ve never had an account on last.fm but without one four years ago, somehow, I was able to listen to “The Spine” by They Might Be Giants in full without any adverts. I’m very sure that I can’t do that now, so it was surprising that I was able to pull it off. “Broke in Two” is the third from last track about a relationship which comes to an end. You have that situation in so many other songs; the list is endless, I know. The narrator also wants to make things better, but is very forgetful and a bit dim too. “I’m gonna run you down” does not sound like “I’m an orangutan” does it? The narrator takes this into account and admits that even though he would try to fix everything, the breakup would still happen just because of his behaviour. It’s quite tragic. But it’s so upbeat.

The instrumentation in the music is really good too. The opening riff was a bit of an ear-piercer, that really high note sounds like it’s played wrong. But it’s fine. It works. I don’t know whether it’s a keyboard or a guitar or both played simultaneously during the break, but how it ascends from low notes and finishes at the top is mesmerising. The song also glitches and disintegrates into silence at the end, which is intentional. It is one of my favourite songs on “The Spine”, I hope you listen and like it too.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #135: Noisettes – Bridge to Canada

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Noisettes are a band who came along near the end of the ‘indie rock/post-punk’ revival that was happening in the mid-noughties. Their first video that they made for “Scratch Your Name” came on MTV2 one day, but it was one of those really rubbish ones that bands do before they become loaded. So it didn’t really do the song justice. “Scratch Your Name” is a proper rocker though, with a cool riff and a lot of effort put into the vocal delivery by the lead singer. It shouldn’t be a big deal but Noisettes were also one of the few indie bands with a black member in it too, which was a cool thing to see.

“What’s the Time Mr. Wolf?” was the band’s debut album released in 2007. The album was exclusively streamed on NME’s website, and that was the first time I heard “Bridge to Canada”. I’ve never actually paid attention to the lyrics but looking at them as I type to you now, the song appears to be about missing a loved one whilst being on tour. I always thought that there was some weird irregular time signatures used in the chorus, but it’s all 4/4. It’s just the way the chords are played. I can’t explain it properly to you, if you listen to it you’ll know what I mean.

Noisettes aren’t very good anymore. At least to me. They had an indie rock sound with their debut which they could have expanded upon and added more depth, but instead they went in a totally different direction. THE POP ROUTE. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed “Don’t Upset the Rhythm” and “Never Forget You” when they were about… but it wasn’t the same. Shingai didn’t even play the bass in the music videos anymore. The drummer left, probably because he couldn’t take it anymore, and the band remain to be a two-piece. The band have three albums to their name, but I’ll stick with the first.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.