To this day, I am still not sure what the concept of “21st Century Breakdown” is. I know that it includes two characters, Christian and Gloria, and I also believe that those are the same characters that are embracing on the album cover. So is it like a love story? Is it supposed to be some sort of survival of two lovers in a shitty period of time? That’s really all I can deduce from it.
“21st Century Breakdown” was somewhat the “Relapse” for Green Day. It was released in 2009 – five years after releasing “American Idiot” in 2004. It was an exciting time for Green Day fans, including myself. I wasn’t really impressed with “Know Your Enemy” though, it was a bit repetitive and it didn’t strike me as much as “American Idiot” did as a first single.
That didn’t stop me from eventually downloading the album though. It is a straight-forward punk rock album: Guitars in full force in both ears with the bass and drums in the centre, a few overdubs here and there and guitar solos. Yeah, it’s good.
“Before the Lobotomy” starts off quietly for the first minute or so, describing how people feel down and how there seems to be no signs of hope, “Laughter, there is no more laughter. Songs of yesterday now live in the underground” But the song then picks up, turning into more of a rocker in the middle alternating between 7/4 and 4/4 in time signature. I can’t remember the last time Green Day used that in a song. It’s nice though, it keeps things going quickly. The end reprises the first verses of the song though, reminding everyone that society still sucks.
I like this song. Listen to it, you may like it too.
Ah. The third single from Razorlight’s second album from 2006.
I like this song, no matter how many people may not like Johnny Borrell’s voice or as a person. The song was released as a single in December 2006, months way after the actual album was released.
I had actually heard the song before it was released as a single. In primary school, I had a friend and we were into the same music and we would talk about songs that were out and whatever. Baring in mind, we were about eleven at the time. He had this huge musical library on his computer, and I would always request songs for him to send to me through MSN. I don’t know if that annoyed him or not, because I asked for a lot of music. I will just assume that he was cool with it. He invited me around his house one time, so he probably was.
The video always confused me though. I have no idea what’s going on. It probably should have just been a perfomance video. It does feature Guy Pearce, and Scorpio from Gladiators though.
Beetlebum. What you done. She’s a guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. Now what you done. Beetlebum.
I can’t remember how I came to like this song. Blur have been around for a long time, so it’s pretty hard to pick out an exact time. It may just have been playing on MTV2, on one of the chart shows that the channel sometimes showed. I can remember being concerned about the censored Coca-Cola can, and the censored cigarette in Alex James’ hand, and then going online to see if there was an uncensored version. There isn’t one. It’s not censored for a particular reason, it’s just for effect.
It’s good listening to the song by itself, but with the video it just seems so much cooler. Damon… stares deep into your soul. Some weird kaleidoscope effects occur. He starts making out with the microphone later on, and for the last minute or so the camera starts flying around the surrounding area. It’s trippy, possibly a way of depicting the effects of drug taking. Which is what the song is about. You can see it on Wikipedia. It has references too, so it’s obviously true. Obviously.
The song is the opener from their self titled album released in 1997. It was also released as the first single, and reached number one for a week until it was knocked off the top spot by LL Cool J. That’s not too bad. Whatever LL Cool J’s song was, it’s probably better than anything in the chart today.
“Bee of the Bird of the Moth” is a track from They Might Be Giants’ twelfth album “The Else” released in 2007. I didn’t listen to it until very recently, only because I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to listen to the album or not. It was released during the period when the band had developed their children’s music albums, with “Here Come the ABCs” preceding it, and the two other “Here Comes…” coming afterward, so I had my doubts on whether the sound of the ‘adult’ album would appeal to me.
I was wrong to doubt. “This Might Be a Wiki”, the information centre dedicated to the band allows its members to rate their songs out of 10, and out of 84 ratings it has an average of 8.83/10 which isn’t band considering it’s above songs like “You Probably Get That a Lot” and “Weep Day” which are just examples of two other songs that I like. I’m thinking that that’s the actual reason why I listened to the song in the first place. It has a high rating in the TMBW song list. That sounds quite bad 😦
I don’t regret it though. If I hadn’t done that, then there’s the possibility that I may not have given “The Else” a chance. “The Else” is a great album. I’m biased though ’cause They Might Be Giants are one of my favourite artists, but it’s proudly in my iTunes library where I can listen to the songs everyday.
In John Linnell’s words: “This is a song about a hummingbird moth, which imitates another creature, which imitates yet another creature. It’s completely fucked up and can only be explained in song!”
How’s the new look? Do you like it? The whole blue and white thing was alright. But the ‘simple’ template was much more better than the ‘dynamic’ one. I hope you think it’s cool. Now you can see the posts I’ve done before, all in the two or three clicks with a mouse.
Sorry I didn’t do a post yesterday. I’ve done that about three times now. I’m on holiday, as you may or may not know. Finished exams and all that stuff. Yesterday I just went out bowling and chilled out at my friend’s house for a while. It was nice. I realised I suck at bowling without the barriers on the side to stop the ball from going into the gutter. Yesterday was the first time I’d actually done ten-pin bowling without those barriers. I came last in one game. But I did come third in the final one we did. It was all fine in the end.
OK. So, this is the first post for today. Another one will come up, this counts as yesterday’s one.
2009 was an alright year. I was in Year 9, and so really I still didn’t have any important things going on academic wise. That was the final year of Key Stage 3 before GCSE work started the next year. 2009 was also the year Eminem came back into our lives after a four year absence. Sure, he featured on “Smack That” by Akon and released the compilation album “The Re-Up” in 2006, but of course that didn’t count. That was more of a collaboration album with artists on Shady Records. The last we really heard from Eminem was in 2005, when he released “When I’m Gone” in a period when I remember that a lot of people thought he was retiring, and that was his “goodbye” song.
That all changed when he finally returned, firstly with “Crack a Bottle” and then ‘officially’ (you could say) with the single “We Made You” – the single which received the most airplay from “Relapse”, and in typical fashion he was here with his wacky Slim Shady persona, making fun out of Lindsay Lohan, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Winehouse, and all with funny accents too.
I will tell you another tale of my friends about my friends and I from school. If you read my last post you may get this. These are different friends this time, but me and two of my friends really liked Eminem and we were really happy when “Relapse” came out. Now, most people think that Relapse isn’t that great of an album. Eminem describes it himself as “Ehhhh”. But then, it was Eminem, it was Marshall, it was Slim Shady, it was a big deal. No one would have dared to say that it was bad.
It was one of those two friends who told me about “Beautiful”. I hadn’t heard the song. “Relapse” hadn’t been released yet. But somehow my friend went on all these music websites where the latest R&B and hip-hop music was uploaded. He went on about how ‘sick’ it was, and how I should listen to it and memorise the first verse with the sample so we could sing it when we weren’t paying attention in class. “Sick” is another way of saying amazing, if you don’t slang.
So I went home. Listened to it. And it was sick. It is really serious stuff. “Relapse” isn’t a very serious album at all, with lines such as “I was born with a dick in my brain, yeah fucked in the head” and “Bodies laying all over the floor, I don’t remember how they got there but I guess I must have killed ’em”. But “Beautiful” is a very introspective Eminem song. It’s quite depressing. It’s got a good message though, basically saying “Fuck whoever says you’re not worth shit. Just be yourself.” It was released as a single, as you can see the music video is above. The actual song is about 6:30 minutes, but the video cuts out a few sections for some reason.
I don’t have “Relapse”. I don’t really want it. “Beautiful” is good enough.
The Music in My Ears 