Category Archives: Music

My iPod #39: Green Day – Android

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One for the hardcore Green Days fans out there.
Those fans who see the album artwork and think “Ooh, what’s this?’ Well, it’s a song from Green Day’s second album, Kerplunk.
“Kerplunk? That sounds stupid, I don’t want to listen.”
Yes, I felt the same way. American Idiot was my first Green Day album, I really liked ‘Holiday’ when I was younger, I thought it was one of the best songs around. And Dookie, well that’s breakthrough album isn’t it? The major label debut, the dogs in the planes and the monkey with the poop in its hand thinking ‘Throw?’, Basket Case.
“Exactly! What makes Kerplunk so good, or even… 39/Smooth?’
I can’t really answer that. They were recorded when the band were on the independent label ‘Lookout! Records.’ Nobody knew who they were at the scale that they are recognised now, but people still ‘knew’ about them, you know? Like, people heard they were good stuff so they wanted to find out more about them.
“…. OK. I’ll have a listen.”
Away from that scenario, Kerplunk was one of the last Green Day albums I downloaded. Only for the reason that Green Day: Rock Band came out, and I thought I should download all their stuff for the hell of it. I got 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours’ in 2004/05 but after getting it I realised that I had no clue about the songs on the compilation.
Kerplunk has grown on me as time has gone by, and this song is one of the reasons why. It’s just a really punk, four chord sequence song with great playing by all three members.

Another song by them about time and ageing, Billie Joe asks the questions that we all want to know about our lives:“Will I grow that old, will I still be around?

The world will carry on, I’ll end up six feet underground.
Waste away.”

The song carries on at this fast pace for the first few verses and choruses, then it all slows down (with a weird sample placed in, I don’t know where it’s from), everything starts to sound quite sad and introspective especially when Billie Joe is backed up with the child-like sounding vocal during the bridge:“It seems so frightening, time passes by like lightning.
Before you know it you’re struck down.”

But then the music picks up again, and you’re head banging to the instruments again.It’s pretty much a sad lyrics but confident music song, and it’s executed brilliantly.

So check out the first two albums by GD, and I don’t mean Dookie and Insomniac.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #38: The Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing

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1966 was a good year for England. The football team won the World Cup, Tony Adams was born, and The Beatles unveiled their seventh album to the world. Except for the USA, who wouldn’t hear the album in its original form until the remastered CD in 1987.

Revolver. My favourite album by The Beatles. One of my favourite albums by any band.

Where can I start? I think that everything I would say about it has been said by almost every reviewer there is. I’ll leave it to you lot to find out what they say.

Upon seeing the Beatles light in 2009, I went on any site where I could download their whole discography. ‘Revolver’ was one of their first albums I downloaded, and then I didn’t know what to think of it. I’ve said many times that it takes a few listens to appreciate each song individually, resulting in an accumulated appreciation for the album as a whole. This was another of those times.

I think the fact that the songs were so short was something that made the album seem really quick to me. I would be listening to a song, and then it would finish and it was onto the next one. It was hard to get into something when the last chord faded out before your ears.

‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ was one example. Barely over two minutes, it’s one of the shortest songs.

Listening to it again and again though, I finally understood why the song was so sick. Sick is good. Now, it’s come to a point that when I see the cover, I either think of the fake countdown at the beginning of ‘Taxman’ or the introduction of this song.

It’s actually one of the more ‘basic?’ pieces of the album. A straight-forward rocker written by Lennon, with dual-guitar solos by both George Harrison AND Paul McCartney, Ringo doing his stuff on the drums. It;s just a really cheerful song, with hubris at its finest in the lyrics:

‘You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is
And your bird can swing, but you can’t hear me
You can’t hear- MEEEEEEE.’

It’s just a huge ‘You suck. I’m great’ message. It’s brilliant. It’s everything you want musically and lyrically, and it’s only done in a short amount of time.

Then ‘For No One’ starts. Then you need to get the tissues. For drying your eyes.

It was clear that the band was a world away from their mop-top mania stage and had already embraced their dive into the unknown. That’s why they’re so great you know? They changed their sound on every album and they still sounded good! JESUS.

Revolver forever.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #37: Beastie Boys – And Me

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2012 was a sad year for all Beastie Boys fans. Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch passed away with salivary gland cancer, since then the hip-hop trio have gone on hiatus but it is hard to imagine that Ad-Rock and Mike D could perform under the ‘Beastie Boys’ moniker without that trademark low and raspy vocal.

I liked Beastie Boys, but I had never listened to any of their albums. It sounds bad that I only decided to after MCA’s death, and as I type I do feel quite shitty for not listening to one earlier.

Upon release the album received mostly positive reviews. The majority of them mentioning how the trio were branching out with their sound, gaining influence from an eclectic range of genres and successfully stepping forward in progress from previous releases. This is understandable, compare this album with their debut ‘Licensed to Ill’ for example.

‘And Me’ was one of the songs that caught my attention upon my first listen. To my knowledge, it was the first time that Beastie Boys had ever had such a calm and mellow vibe in a song. No one raps, it’s just Ad-Rock (though I am not sure) singing accompanied by synthesizers and a steady drum beat. I had never heard something like that by them before.

Sure the song is a bit repetitive, the melody is the same for every verse. Maybe it’s because they’re better at rapping, but I don’t know. It’s a very under rated song, so listen to it and see what you think about it.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #36: Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK

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Sorry for being late.

Mate.”Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” is one of the best punk albums of all time.

Made up of Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock (who then left and was replaced by Sid Vicious) were the voice of a generation who didn’t give a shit. About anything. They only released one official album of original material, but the legacy they left on the punk genre and Britain overall still goes on to this day.

The first time I heard the song was around 9 or 8 years ago. I was watching this football show, something along the lines of the top ten controversial moments in the Premier League, and the incident where Eric Cantona kung-fu kicked a fan in the stands was shown. Of course it was one of those countdown things where the producers recruited these random celebrities to talk about these ‘controversial moments’ even if they didn’t give a shit about football.

Cantona got in a lot of trouble for that in ’95. The whole ‘I AM AN ANTICHRIST, I AM AN ANARCHIST’ seemed to fit the clip exactly, and seeing Cantona go crazy and hearing the song for the first time freaked me out a bit. I was eight years old at that time so… you know. It was scary.

Again, I would thank Yahoo’s Launch for helping me find the song. I was listening to my specific radio station when ‘L’Anarchie Pour Le UK‘ from ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’ played. I thought that the song sounded familiar, even if it was sung in French, and one thing led to another and I found ‘Anarchy in the UK’.

I thought it was the best song I’d ever heard. It was just so punchy and raw, that trademark whiney vocal by Rotten and just the whole ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude that the song gave off.

‘GET PISSED, DESTROOOOOOOYYAAAAAAAAAH.’

A great message for all the children.

Until next time.

Jamie.

Check out my new video on YouTube.

And Happy Easter too!

My iPod #35: They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng

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:’) Another great song.

One of the best They Might Be Giants songs ever. It’s got everything you want. A great chorus, an edgy guitar riff in the verses, and their typical trait of being able to write a melody that gets stuck in your head and never leaves.

The video of this song was one of the first of theirs I saw. I’ve told you guys about the Launchcast site Yahoo had, and how it basically introduced to what is my favourite band. When I saw it, I didn’t know who was singing. Neither John was lip-syncing to the song. The video just gave me everything I needed to know about them. They were synchronising in everything, their pounding on the table, their ‘dancing’, their general (I don’t want to say it) quirkiness just attracted me to them.

I had a good friend in primary school, and I was ten when I watched the video. So seeing that just made me want to force him to watch it so we could mimic the things they did during lunchtime or whatever. Everything is fun when you’re in year five.

Then primary school finished, and it was the summer holidays before I would start year seven. From being the oldest in the school, back to the youngest. I couldn’t handle it. I went out with my sister to Woolworths to buy stationery (pens, pencils, all the stuff) to prepare, and I saw one of my good friends from primary school there. I saw her, but I don’t think she saw me. I realised that’s how it would be from then on. I would never have the same relationship I had with my friends once I moved to my new school. The fact that I was the only person from my school to get into the one I did only emphasised that. I barely saw any of them, when I did it was a small exchange of:

“Hi! How are you?”
“I’m good.”
“Haven’t seen you for aaaaaaages!”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, see ya then! :)”
“See ya. :)”

😦 It was never the same.

I remember getting on the bus with my sister after finishing at the shop, ‘Ana Ng’ came into my head and I just kept on humming it and singing it quietly to myself whilst looking out the window feeling the time go by.

‘Ana Ng’ is a really important song for me. It reminds of me of the good times.

Until next time.

Jamie.