Tag Archives: easy

#1229: Röyksopp – So Easy

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When I was a young boy back in the 2000s, the British mobile network operator T-Mobile – now known to you and me as EE – used to run an advert on TV that was backed by a really cool piece of music. I didn’t know what the people were singing. To me, it sounded like “Ooh, ung, ooh/Haanay, hun, haanay/Ooh, ung, ooh/Da-da, day-da, doo”. I would sing it like that, anyway. I can’t remember exactly what age I would have been at the time. I’m sure it was under ten, though. And I just thought it was one of those songs where the people were singing gibberish on purpose. People do that in songs all the time, so it didn’t seem that strange to me. That melody would stick around in my head for a long while.

Fast forward to my second year in university, late 2014. I’d known about Röyksopp for a good five years by that time. ‘Happy Up Here’ was my song for a good few months in 2009. I was sat in front of my laptop, looking for some electronic music to listen to get me away from the guitar-oriented stuff for a change. The duo’s debut Melody A.M. appeared to have been well-received by critics around its release, according to the sources on Wikipedia. Maybe it would have made more sense to listen to the album ‘Happy Up Here’ was on. But Melody it was. So, I got to searching on Spotify. The first song on there was ‘So Easy’, and holy moly, this was the track that was in that advert all those years ago. Röyksopp made that tune. Well, this album was getting off to a fantastic start.

Searching up ‘So Easy’ on Google upon inadvertently finding answered the question I guess I had about the song for all of those years. Turned out, whatever vocals were on there weren’t gibberish at all and were in fact a sample of a song from the ’60s – one that very much had actual lyrics. “Blue on blue/Heartache on heartache/Blue on blue/Now that we are through” were the actual words. Swedish vocal group Gals & Pals sang them. And it’s these vocal samples taken from this performance that ‘So Easy’ is built around. Well, Röyksopp also lift the source material’s pizzicato string introduction, over which a funky little bassline is laid out. The song ends early, closing out with this little interlude that leads into the next song on the album, ‘Eple’. That’s one I would have written about, but things didn’t line up. But it’s not the last of Röyksopp on here.

#1075: The Who – Pure and Easy

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Look at that. Another Who song. So, the consensual opinion is that Who’s Next is their best album, right? I mean, I’d agree it’s an outstanding piece of work. I think Quadrophenia‘s better, but we’ve been through all of this already. But did you know that Who’s Next started off as a completely different monster altogether? There’s a whole Wikipedia section dedicated to the Lifehouse project, envisioned by Pete Townshend to be another rock opera, following on from Tommy, this time with a more science-fiction take to it and accompanied with this thought-out live show performance experience. At least I think it was something along those lines. But because no one apart from him could understand the opera’s plot line, and so the whole thing was laid to the wayside except for eight of the nine songs that became the album we know today.

‘Pure and Easy’ was one of the tracks recorded during the Lifehouse/Who’s Next sessions. As part of the Lifehouse story, it was meant to act as something of the theme song for the opera’s protagonist and also introduced the concept of music/rock and roll being able to save the world – or something along that effect – that the opera’s plot was based on. Townshend has gone on record to state his great disappointment that the song wasn’t included on the final cut. It did however make a small appearance on there, with Daltrey singing a different take of the song’s first lines during the ending of ‘The Song Is Over’. Two versions of ‘Pure’ have been commercially released. There’s the take of the track that appeared on a Who’s Next reissue. It’s faster, and a lot of people like it for that reason alone. But the version that trumps that by many a mile in my eyes is the one that appeared in the band’s Odds & Sods compilation. It’s the one you can see up there. It’s slower, but the performance sounds massive in comparison.

Think it’s saying something about Townshend’s writing at the time that the band decided to leave this song in storage for so long. ‘Cause a track like this could be any other band’s greatest ever achievement. Lyrics aren’t my thing usually, but even here when I hear the words and read them, there’s a definite beauty and poetic feeling to them. “I listened and I heard music in a word/And words when you played your guitar/The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering/And a child flew past me riding in a star”. I mean, that’s a pretty cool set of lines, I think. And Daltrey sings ’em really nicely too. Track’s filled with these uplifting key changes and guitar hooks, there’s a massive change to a minor for the bridge, before switching back and finishing off with a rocking finale as Pete Townshend takes over the microphone, telling the listener to listen out for the note. Poorly typed out words can only do this one so much justice. Would suggest taking the time to hear it, really.

My iPod #437: Mac DeMarco – Go Easy

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Salad Days, the second album by Canadian goofball musician man Mac DeMarco, was easily one of my favourite albums of last year. I wrote a separate post dedicated to how much I was enjoying it at the time. If you’re in a hurry and can’t read it, I basically said the melodies were great, every song is memorable, the sound he gets on his guitar is a thing of gleaming beauty, and the album’s overall chill and casual vibe makes for some very easy listening. I certainly became a DeMarco fan thanks to it and I hope to see him, God willing, in Manchester in the summer when he plays at the Parklife Festival.

“Go Easy” is the last ‘song’ on the album, in that it is the last one in which Mac actually sings in before the album’s closing instrumental track “Jonny’s Odyssey”. It carries on the trend established by the nine tracks before it of consisting of a steady beat bathed with DeMarco’s shiny guitar licks and fills. The track also concerns DeMarco’s feelings on the pressures of his girlfriend moving to a new place, a subject which is also referred to in other songs on the album. And again, like almost all of the other tracks, it follows the simple structure of a verse, a chorus, a verse and a few reiterations of the chorus before it comes to a close. May not sound very interesting, but you have to hear it order to believe for yourself. Salad Days is too good to miss out on.

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day.