Category Archives: Music

My iPod #134: Arctic Monkeys – Brick by Brick

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Are all you Arctic Monkeys fans out there excited? Well, I can’t blame you if you’re waiting in anticipation for their new album “AM” which comes out next week! Yes, it is another Arctic Monkeys song. This wasn’t deliberate, “Brick by Brick” just happened to be after “Brianstorm”.

Can you remember when you were waiting for “Suck It and See” to be released? I do. It wasn’t a very exciting time. GCSEs were going on and everything. Furthermore, the thought of a new Arctic Monkeys album just didn’t matter to me anymore. “Humbug” was alriiight. It was a bit moody, darker and very mature compared to their first two albums. So when ‘their new song called “Brick by Brick” appeared on the front page of the NME website, I was curious but wasn’t expecting anything amazing.

It was the first song to be revealed from “Suck It and See” but was more of a teaser than anything. It has its own video too, which you can obviously see above. I didn’t pay much attention to it, because nothing much happens in it. Personally, “Brick by Brick” is my favourite song from the album. It’s a standard 3 minute rock song, the lyrics are easy to remember and the lead vocals are shared between Alex and Matt. I remember doing my Spanish GCSE in 2011, finishing it and knowing that I aced it and “Brick by Brick” just came into my head on the bus home. I felt so good.

I did end up downloading “Suck It and See”, but wasn’t very impressed by it. “Brick by Brick” is the only song from it that I have on my iPod. Oh, well. “AM” should be better. Right?

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #133: Arctic Monkeys – Brianstorm

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I’ve said enough about “Favourite Worst Nightmare”, I talked about it in previous posts. This was the Arctic Monkeys’ burst back into the limelight, even though they really hadn’t been far from it for any long period of time.

They had released “Leave Before the Lights Come On” in early 2006, they played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals too and everyone ranging from the public to the NME were so excited about the band from Sheffield that they didn’t stop talking about them. “Oh, that Alex Turner is some lyricist.” “That band is so cool”. It never ended.

Then came 2007 and the news that the band’s next album would be ready. Would they sound the same? Would their songs still be about nights out and drinking at the weekend? “Brianstorm” answered both questions with a firm ‘no’. The band sounded bolder, it packed more of punch, the drumming during the introduction was crazy and the guitars delivered at full force but it was still those same four guys who gave us “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” a year before. Except the big-boned bassist who left, he was replaced.

“Brianstorm” is not a misspelling of the word ‘brainstorm’. The guys actually wrote the song about a person called Brian, who they met on tour one time and didn’t really like. It’s not my favourite song on “Favourite Worst Nightmare”, but that’s only because I’d heard it and seen the video so many times before the album was released to the public that it wasn’t as exciting anymore. However, it was the perfect song to get pumped up to as the release date came closer.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #132: Linkin Park – Breaking the Habit

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I don’t like Linkin Park very much mow. They’ve done a Coldplay, which means they’ve changed their sound so much I don’t even know who they are anymore. “Mylo Xyloto” is pretty shitty. I’m more of a “Parachutes” man. This is very much like Linkin Park. I think the only newer song I liked was “Waiting for the End”, but I haven’t bothered with their newest albums. “Meteora” is my favourite album, which will probably polarize a lot of you readers.

“Meteora” gets a lot of crap for apparently sounding the same as “Hybrid Theory”, but I haven’t listened to that album. The singles are good enough. Meteora on the other hand, you’ve got the song seguing into each other and Chester and Mike get an equal contribution on everything. “Breaking the Habit” is the exception. That is Chester’s song. For sure. Mike doesn’t rap on it, there’s no distorted guitars. Just a lot of keyboards and synth-strings. It’s very emotional.

The “Breaking the Habit” video is the first of Linkin Park’s that I can actually remember watching on the TV when it was released. It freaked me out. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that when I was seven, my uncle got me this “Animatrix” DVD which is supposed to link in with “The Matrix” film series. It is also rated fifteen by the way. That DVD was so confusing and fucked up – I think I can remember a person’s head being squashed or something – and the animation for “Breaking the Habit” reminded me of it. So I didn’t want to watch the music video for a while. I got over it though.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #131: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Breaking the Girl

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I’m very happy. Today marks the first time I make a blog from my new laptop.

No more will I have to suffer with the forever slow and freezing mess that is the family desktop. If you guys want a laptop, ASUS is the way to go. Forget Dell. My sister has a Dell laptop that’s basically falling apart. Whether that’s due to the manufacturer or if my sister abused it I’m not sure. I know that I’m not messing this mine up though.

Now with that intro out of the way, is this my first Red Hot Chili Peppers post? Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t touched upon one song of theirs. They probably don’t have a lot of songs beginning with the letter ‘A’ that I know of. Except for “Aeroplane” of course.

So… Red Hot Chili Peppers….. Ah! “Fight Like a Brave”. That was the first song I’d ever heard by them, thanks to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. When they released “By the Way” in 2002, I had no idea that it was the band who wrote that song until I actually looked at the in-game menu.

In 2002, I wasn’t really into music. Being six/seven at the time, I was either incessantly up at early hours in the morning to watch Cartoon Network or Thomas the Tank Engine videos. 2006 was the year that I can actually remember the build up towards a Red Hot Chili Peppers album, which we all know is the double album “Stadium Arcadium”.

I can remember it now, the video for “Dani California” premiered at midnight on Channel 4. It was then played every hour on MTV2 the next day. My sister and I liked it. She had a friend who liked the band, who then gave her the “Greatest Hits” album. This is where “Breaking the Girl”comes in.

The song became a favourite of my sister’s. I recall not liking the song as much as the others though. I thin it was the fact that amongst the others on the compilation, this was a tune that I had actually never heard before. Even when I did listen to it, I found it… boring.

However when I downloaded “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” a few months ago, I found myself wailing along to the chorus and air drumming to the trash-can percussion in the instrumental break. I loved it. “Breaking the Girl” isn’t boring at all. The eleven-year old me was a silly child. If you are going to write a song about a meaningful relationship that went wrong and you feel as if you are to blame, you probably wouldn’t want to make it a funky jam as the Peppers normally did around that time. Something more melodic will do. This is that song you want to write. Yes.

Well, until tomorrow you guys.

Jamie.

My iPod #130: Green Day – Brain Stew

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Wha-hey. Another Green Day song in a matter of days. What a song too. Let me tell you alllll about it.

So the year is 2005. I get “American Idiot” for my birthday, I look at every Green Day fan site to gather as much information as I can about the three guys and their music. Green Day were my favourite band ever. What better place to find stuff about them then their offical website?

Circa 2005, the Green Day website had an “American Idiot” theme about it. Colours of red, black and white, with a lot of heart-hand grenades too. The website also put up all of their official music videos. YouTube was just about just getting started, so the only way to watch them was through RealPlayer and Windows Media Player; it was a real pain if you didn’t have the top speed needed to let the videos play at maximum quality. They always needed to buffer and all that nonsense. Being a single, “Brain Stew” was able to be viewed.

“Brain Stew” was released from the band’s fourth album “Insomniac”. Not just by itself, but with its companion “Jaded” which comes right after it.

The song is the ravings of a man who cannot get to sleep at night. One who suffers from insomnia, if you will. Although I can’t remember a time where I’ve felt so restless that I thought my eyes were going to be bleed whilst they were bulging out of my skull. I felt nervous during the night before my exam results day, and I had a bit of a tummy problem. That was about it though.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.