Tag Archives: heard

My iPod #500: Brakes – Heard About Your Band

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500 posts. That’s crazy. I never thought this would be something I’d still have the energy and commitment to carry on two years later, and yet here we are. I’m proud. Thanks to anyone who has liked, given a comment, or simply checked the blog out. You are part of the reason I choose to do this. A big part nonetheless.

And so the band that has the privilege of having the half-thousand song that I am going to discuss is Brakes. Or BrakesBrakesBrakes, if you are situated in the USA. “Heard About Your Band” is a song from the Brighton band’s debut album Give Blood, released ten years ago in July. The album was recorded in a mere eight days in January 2005, and most of the tracks on there were recorded live and in one take. There are some cuts where the band will finish one track, and you’ll proceed to hear them tuning their guitars and sorting themselves out before going straight into the next one. Many of the songs are under 3 minutes. The shortest is seven seconds. And with a wealthy amount of sixteen tracks, Give Blood doesn’t even reach half an hour in duration. It’s very efficient. It is a belter.

“Heard About Your Band” is the fourth track in, and is about singer Eamon Hamilton’s experience of listening to this guy incessantly rabbiting on his band, and his stories of meeting all these female icons like Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and ‘the girl’ from Sleater-Kinney. Of course, Hamilton is sarcastic throughout his lyricism; he clearly doesn’t give a shit about what this person has to say, but his vocal performance with his gravely yelps and frantic ad-libs make him sound like he’s so excited about the whole ordeal. In the end, he dismisses with a pissed-off sounding “Whatever, dude” and the track comes to a close a minute and ten seconds in.

A great thing about the album is that the tracks don’t go on longer than they should do. All the good parts are crammed into maybe 1-2 minutes, which makes for some enjoyable listening. “Heard About Your Band” is no different.

That’s 500 done. Here’s to the next 500. Keep on reading.

My iPod #499: Kanye West ft. Adam Levine – Heard ’em Say

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“Uh, yeah” are the first ‘words’ we hear uttered by Kanye West on his second album Late Registration, after being ‘woken’ up by the pissed off teacher in the preceding opening skit. And after repeating those words three more times against a booming bass drum, Kanye proceeds to go straight into the first verse in which (and for the rest of the song) he raps about the blunt realities and truths of life alongside a dainty piano sample taken from ballad “Someone That I Used to Love” by Natalie Cole.

I don’t whether to feel happy or sad when listening to this. The soft and smooth instrumentation, from the sweet synthesizers and swooning keyboards are a huge contrast from the confident, joyous curb-stomper opener of “We Don’t Care” – a song released only under two years before. And the falsetto provided by Adam Levine in the choruses doesn’t help but pull on your heartstrings that bit more.

Probably one of the quietest and heartwarming productions Kanye has committed to tape, it is such a pleasant way to get an album such as Late Registration started. Then “Touch the Sky” starts, and then it all seems like it’s back to normal.

Here’s another version of a video you can see.