Category Archives: Music

My iPod #57: System of a Down – B.Y.O.B.

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Nannaannananannnananananananaannanaanannnanananna YOU!

That was meant to be the introduction to the song, by the way.

Hi everyone! I’m in a good mood. I am now a free man, exams are finished, nothing’s gonna change my clothes until results day. Until then, I should probably get started with this again. It is time… for the B SERIES. YES! YES! COME ON!

So System of a Down…. what can I say?

In 2005 it had been three years since the band released their third album. I didn’t follow the band so much, so I had no idea that this album was even out. However, “Chop Suey!” and “Toxicity” were two songs of the band that I saw on MTV2 and, although the former’s video was quite weird and I was quite confused by the actual song, the band really rocked and I guess I wanted to hear more from them.

“B.Y.O.B.”, acronym for ‘Bring Your Own Bombs’, was released as the first single from Mezmerize, the first half of a double album that would be out by the end of the year. It is considered to be yet another of System of a Down’s trademark songs due its fast pace, contrasts between quiet and loud in the verses and chorus, and lines that you are able to shout out at the top of your lungs.

This was also their first single where Daron Malakian had lead vocals in the part of the song. I remember seeing the video when it first came out, and again I was confused at how the song randomly changed in the middle. They were singing about “having a real good time” and “going to the party” and then it was “BLAST OFF IT’S PARTY TIME, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!!!!”. It was crazy. But it makes it that much awesome.

This is another song out of the hundreds in the world that are anti-war. I think this song depicts the message quite clearly. It is about how the government chat shite most the time and how much they suck. George Bush had been re-elected as president the year before, which I guess no one understood back then. So people were pissed. I’m thinking Serj and Daron pretty much felt the same way.

Why do they always send the poor? Why? WHY.

That was alright. It’s good to be back.

Until next time.

Jamie.

P.S. I WAS LOOKING THROUGH MY POSTS YESTERDAY AND I REALISED I MISSED TWO BLOODY SONGS IN MY ‘A’ SERIES.

How did I do that? Yeezus. I might as well do them pretty quickly, and without focus.

George Harrison – Apple Scruffs


That is not the album version, but it’s pretty close.*

Another song from ‘All Things Must Pass’. Not much to say about the song. I listened to the album back in 2011, and this song was one that caught my ear. Great harmonies in the chorus by Harrison, and a delightful tribute to the ‘Scruffs’ who would hang outside Abbey Road when The Beatles were there.

Very nice.

11/06/2020* It is now the album version.

Nine Black Alps – Along for the Ride

OK, Nine Black Alps are one of my favourite bands ever.

They released their newest album “Sirens” last October, which you can listen to here.

“Locked Out from the Inside”, the album this song is on, was released in 2009 after the second album “Love/Hate”. I was dissappointed by the second album, because their first album was so good. So good. It’s one of my favourites. “Love/Hate” was just so mellow, and indie and using acoustic guitars. It was such a bore compared to “Everything Is”.

“Locked Out from the Inside” for me was a return to form. Their crunchy, rough Nirvana-esque sound was back, no acoustic guitars in sight. It just felt like everything was back to normal.

“Along for the Ride” is the penultimate song from the album. I think it’s about wanting a relationship, or being interested in someone. I don’t know, I don’t really look deep into lyrics. Even though I typed the lyrics up for every song and got them up on the Internet.

If you don’t know Nine Black Alps, listen to their stuff. Please.

Jamie, again.

My iPod #56: George Harrison – Awaiting on You All

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Alright everyone, we’ve reached the end.

The end of the ‘A’ section that is. It’s been a good two months.

When I first came onto Blogger, I didn’t have anything in mind that I wanted to get off my chest. The first thing I had was just talking about things that were interesting to me, or events in my life that I had regrets about or whatever.

When I changed my mind and decided to focus on ‘My iPod’, I never thought I would be able to continuously talk about a song and why it meant so much to me for fifty-six days straight, and yet here I am about to post about another one.

I have exams. Those are very important, so I probably won’t be posting on here as regularly. Maybe something will pop up here and there, but for the moment ‘My iPod’ won’t be back until June.

And so, the song today is ‘Awaiting on You All’ by George Harrison, another one from his triple album, ‘All Things Must Pass’, in 1970.

Beatles fans will know that out of the four, George was the most religious. Or at least the one who most believed that there was an almighty, higher power who cared for the world and the people who inhabit it.

Any of you guys who also own ‘All Things Must Pass’ will definitely know the song, ‘My Sweet Lord‘. That song was George’s first single as a solo artist, and topped the music charts worldwide upon release in 1970. It got to number one in the UK again after his death in 2001.

‘My Sweet Lord’ is a very religious song, for obvious reasons. But for those who haven’t heard it, Harrison incorporates the use of the “Hare Krishna” mantra and chants of hallelujahs which build up as a countermelody whilst Harrison sings, building an epic climax which eventually fades out. With Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ production technique, there is this gigantic albeit very echoey atmosphere.

‘Awaiting on You All’ is quite religious too, and if ‘My Sweet Lord’ is the music that plays on the organ in church when the service is starting, everyone is sitting down and the pastor or whoever is up on the stage announcing what will take place, then the former is when the first hymn starts and everybody is up on the feet, yelling rejoice to the heavens, bellowing the lungs to the skies above and break dancing in the middle of the aisle. Maybe I’m thinking of The Blues Brothers, but that’s what it reminds me of.

‘Awaiting’ has more of a political message to it than My Sweet Lord. Harrison desires to experience spirituality directly whilst rejecting organised religion as well as political and intellectal substitutes. That is basically what it says on the song’s article on Wikipedia. He criticises the Pope, and includes jibes at John Lennon and Yoko Ono about their week in bed.

“THE LORD IS AWAITING ON YOU ALL TO AWAKEN AND SEE.
BY CHANTING THE NAMES… OF THE LORD…. YOU WILL BE FREE!”

HALLELUJAH, TESTIFY!

Come on, that sounds like something a guy would say in church, am I right? Or am I right?

Oh well. That’s the end for now. You won’t be hearing from me for some time. Got work to do.

‘My iPod’ will be back in June! When the ‘B’ series begins!

Until then.

Jamie.

My iPod #55: Queens of the Stone Age – Auto Pilot

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Don’t let the song title fool you. It is not about being at the controls of a plane and deciding to press a few buttons so that it flies by itself. That’s what the band wants you to believe.

‘Rated R’ is the second album by Queens of the Stone Age, but was their first to be released on Interscope Records, the label with whom the band would go on to make ‘Songs for the Deaf’, ‘Lullabies to Paralyze’ and ‘Era Vulgaris’ under.

So in 2005, when there was nothing to do, my sister and I would buy music on CDs or through the use of MSN (remember that?) would receive mp3 files from our friends. One day, I saw this song called ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ by Queens of the Stone Age. This is the opening track from the Rated R album. I had never heard of the song or the album, although I had watched the video for ‘The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret‘ on the TV.

“Feel Good Hit of the Summer, huh?” I thought to myself, “I wonder why it’s called that, must have been a really popular song.”

You can probably say that it is. Not because it was a single or anything, but because of its subject matter.

That’s how I was introduced to ‘Rated R’. 2005 was the year that I took a particular interest in QotSA, for reasons I will explain another day.

However it was 4 years later in 2009, when I decided to download Rated R. I probably thought that it couldn’t get better than ‘Songs for the Deaf’, but I didn’t have another of their albums to compare it with.

I still don’t think that ‘Rated R’ is better than ‘Deaf’, but it can vary from person to person. That’s just my opinion.

One thing that most Queens fans probablu agree on is the significant contribution of former member Nick Oliveri. He is very controversial, and apparently Josh Homme doesn’t like him too much, but the songwriting partnership between the two produced the majority of the material that makes up, what are arguably, the band’s two most popular albums.

‘Auto Pilot’ is the fourth song listed on ‘Rated R’ and contains lead vocals by Oliveri and backing by Mark Lanegan and Josh Homme. It is the only one on ‘Rated’ with Oliveri at lead vocals, that does not have him screaming his vocals at the top of his lungs. Instead, he sings very smoothly with a little gravel under his voice. The song sets you in a very relaxing mood, you could just close your eyes and let it glide past you. The bridge where Josh sings, ‘Ahhhhhhhhh….. auto pilot, no control’, emphasises this even further.

The song is very ambiguous but the whole ‘getting high in a plane’ metaphor is not unusual to those who have listened to songs about taking drugs and the ‘joys’ of it.

Don’t let that spoil it though. Listen to the song. Don’t do drugs though.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #54: They Might Be Giants – Au Contraire

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Hi everyone.

I’m a bit tired, and a little depressed at the moment. I can try and lighten up my mood in the post, and I’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow. I don’t want to get into it.

At least the post today features a song by my favourite band. Yep.

Around the time that I discovered the music of They Might Be Giants, the album ‘The Spine’ was their most recent release. As time has gone on, that album is known as one of the band’s least popular albums amongst fans. I like it though, it has some great tracks on it. This one is good too.

‘Au Contraire’ is sung by John Linnell, and makes references to David Bowie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jodie Foster and Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t know what the song is about but from what I hear, the famous people I mention ask a question or state something in the verses to which the narrator doesn’t agree to, and in reply says ‘Au contraire, mon frere.’

That is basically the whole song. There is a little dual guitar solo with a little flute part at the end of it. But, yeah, that is ‘Au Contraire’ from The Spine.

The ending is also quite random too. Random voices just start saying ‘Right on’, almost like some madness mantra. This then results in a crescendo of cheers and applause, everyone is shouting ‘Right on’. Then ‘Damn Good Times’ starts. You should listen to this song and the aforementioned one together, it’s pretty cool. I have a thing for songs which segue into one another, it seems really cool to me.

I’m feeling fine now. Thank you TMBG.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #53: 30 Seconds to Mars – Attack

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So, 30 Seconds to Mars.

I don’t like them so much, I am not a big fan.

Let me just tell you a bit about them.

In 1998 Jared Leto, known for his role as ‘Angel Face’ in Fight Club, and Harry Goldfarb in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ teamed up with his older brother Shannon. The bassist, Matt Wachter joined and the other guitarist Tomo Miličević auditioned to complete the line-up. The band released its eponymous first album in 2002, but it was the following album ‘A Beautiful Lie’ that rose the band’s popularity.

Although it was originally released in 2005, no one in England knew who they were until it was released again in 2007. ‘Attack’ was the first single, and is the opening track of the album.

My recollection of ‘Attack’ is quite hazy. I can’t remember whether I saw it in a 30 Seconds to Mars advert, or whether the music video was on MTV2 at the time. Either way, there must have been something that got me liking it otherwise I wouldn’t be typing this right now.

It’s just a really energetic song. It starts off quietly with the keyboard, but after four repeats of that melody the song explodes into life. The chorus is my favourite part of the song, filled with abrasive guitars and a passionate vocal delivered with great conviction. You get the feeling Leto really does want to attack someone, particularly when he doesn’t finish the last repeat of the phrase ‘I’ll attack’ which ends up as ‘I’ll a-WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’.

It’s one of three songs of theirs that I have.

To summarise, 30 Seconds are alright… their just not my kind of thing. They do have good songs though. Attack is one of them.

Until next time.

Jamie.