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My iPod #355: Cloud Nothings – Fall In

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After hearing Cloud Nothings for the first time via their most recent album released earlier this year, I was interested in what other stuff the band did. Originally Cloud Nothings was a one man band made of main member Dylan Baldi performing power-pop, happy-go-lucky songs. But I didn’t listen to those. Instead I went straight to “Attack on Memory“, the first album where he expressed his anger and raw feelings into his music, this time with three other people, in order to make us and himself forget about that past.

That’s the album “Fall In” is on. Lyrically, I am not sure what I can say about it. Sure, there are lyrics in it but whether there is real meaning behind them is debatable. Baldi has stated that he doesn’t care for lyrics, and normally writes them the day before recording, which more or less means that the music is the important thing to take note on in this case.

Musically, it’s very fast. And loud. Cloud Nothings has a superb drummer if you didn’t know. Seems to hit them harder and at a more furious pace than any other band I’ve heard of late. It’s the same on this track too. Would think the guy has an extra limb or something. The music during the choruses confuses me a bit too. I can’t count along to it. It sounds like the vocals and guitars are going at a completely different time to the drums. It’s all in 4/4 though, listen to the drums closely enough and you’ll be able to get it soon enough.

Sorry for the late post too, caught got up in some reading.

My iPod #339: Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place

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“Everything in Its Right Place” is the opening track on Radiohead’s “Kid A” album, one where the band completely diverted away from their heavy guitar-driven music to warmer, electronic material. Fans waited for three years after “OK Computer”, full of anticipation with what Radiohead could deliver. Apparently, “Kid A” polarized many. Either people loved it ‘cos of the new musical direction, or hated because of the same reason. Whether the band made the change to make people not like it as much, I’m not sure. The members, especially Thom Yorke, were burnt out from the success that “OK Computer” gained. “Kid A” made them a lot more successful anyway.

I was five when the album was released, and so have no recollection of anything Radiohead did. Who were Radiohead? I didn’t know; I was in Year 1. But I eventually got round to listening to “Kid A” (and “Amnesiac” for the hell of it) in 2012. Why did it take me so long? Well…. I think I used to label those years as the period where Radiohead went a bit weird. The first song I remember liking from them was on “Hail to the Thief”, and their singles I usually saw on the TV were “Creep – OK Computer” era. It wasn’t until I actually researched that both albums were very much appreciated, that I thought I would listen to them.

And so “Everything in Its Right Place” started playing, and it was then that I realised I might have been missing out on something. Everything about it is just so peaceful, calm and tranquil even though the lyrics are from the perspective of a person going through some problems of their own. Got a steady 4/4 beat playing against a 10/4 time signature, unconventional yet wouldn’t sound out of place in any dance/house party. And the song’s only made up of four phrases which are repeated in many different and memorable ways, that when you think one will be repeated again the track begins to fade out. And then it’s gone.

I’ve seen comments from people saying that Radiohead should start playing guitars again but they did do this song, cut them some slack.

My iPod #294: Oasis – Don’t Look Back in Anger

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I don’t even like Oasis that much. I am, however, looking forward to the “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” reissue that should be coming out later this year. “Definitely Maybe” isn’t my thing. I’ve never listened to “Morning Glory” before; I’ve never been a great a fan of Oasis to actually buy it or even download it without paying, but I know that it contains some of Oasis’ best songs and the reissue will probably include the great B-Sides that were recorded during the making of the album. I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

“Don’t Look Back in Anger” is a song from “Morning Glory”. It was released as the album’s fifth single, the band’s first to have Noel Gallagher on lead vocals, and got to number one in the charts.

Nothing much else I can say. Well, there’s nothing much I can be bothered to say. Whatever I would say has most likely been said before. The song’s good. You’ve all heard it before. It’s only like…. one of the biggest anthems out of Britain from the nineties.

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My iPod #268: Billy Talent – Devil in a Midnight Mass

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The opening track to Billy Talent’s second album was built upon an ‘evil guitar riff’ that guitarist Ian D’Sa started playing one day. Lead singer Benjamin Kowalewicz wondered what kind of evil would suit that riff, and found it one day when he read an article about a Catholic priest who was molested 150 children in the 90s and was then stabbed to death during his time in prison. As a result, one of Billy Talent’s darkest songs was created. A song which gets the blood racing and sends shivers down my spine each time it plays.

The thing is – I wasn’t so enthused by it when I first heard the song via its video all those years ago in 2006. Thinking about it now I am not so sure why. It was very quick, and was finished before I could absorb anything that was happening. The first time I really understood it was when I actually listened to it through my headphones – that’s when it hit me.

Starting with Ian’s lone menacing riff – the song explodes when the drums kick in along with an almighty “YEEEAAAAHH” from Ben. The verses describe the priest – the ‘devil in a midnight mass’ – whilst the pre-chorus and choruses depict the scene when the priest is killed in jail who will now sing ‘silent night for the rest of [his] life.’

That is all well and… good, but the most threatening part is the last forty-five seconds of the song when the riff repeats on and on as Ben says what could possibly be the priest’s last words before he dies, “Whisper, whisper, don’t make a sound/Your bed is made, it’s in the ground”. That comes to a halt for a split second before those two phrases are ceaselessly screamed at you by Ben, Ian and the bassist Jon before climaxing with an astonishing shriek which echoes right into the next track.

This song is scary. This song is awesome. The best Billy Talent album opener. Hands down. I look at another one tomorrow though.

This is the band’s impression of it when they heard the album mix for the first time.

My iPod #248: The Beatles – A Day in the Life

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“A Day in the Life” is the grand finale of The Beatles influential 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Many consider this to be the greatest song the group did, and see it as the pinnacle of the experimentation the four guys had been undertaking during the mid 60s.

2007 was its 40th anniversary, and it was of an immense deal that the cast of Eastenders did a cringeworthy tribute of it for Comic Relief (take some time to think before you go to this) and a whole bunch of other bands (from Stereophonics to The Fray) got together to do a cover album as a tribute too. But it was two years later in 2009, when I first listened to the album and therefore the song. I did not think that it was worth all that fuss. I found out that it was. It’s still not my favourite of theirs though.

In terms of the track… I think I was looked at its article on Wikipedia one time (God knows why) and the overwhelming detail it listed about “A Day” – its background, the dates it was recorded on, the crescendos of the brass, the combination of Lennon and McCartney’s separate song ideas, the almighty piano chord at the end – it made me think I was missing out on a song of epic proportions. I had to listen to it.

Funnily enough, I didn’t care for it so much the first time. I was thirteen. This opinion has changed. It is one of the greatest album closers ever.