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My iPod #540: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Honeybear

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ second album Show Your Bones signified a change in the the band’s style. Determined not to make a “Fever to Tell Part 2”, songs written for the then-upcoming album were scrapped and the three members decided to re-invent their sound. The result was an album with a larger sound, a bit more mystique, and one that tended to embrace the country/folk aspects of rock rather than the dirty/punk of the group’s debut.

“Honeybear” is one song on Show Your Bones which the latter part of that statement applies to. Karen O sings about her loathing for phony LA A-List parties and her plans to gate crash them against a rocking Country-Western sounding instrumental including jumpy synthesizers and sandy electric guitars. Listen to that instrumental break and try to tell me that it doesn’t sound like the music preceding the final showdown between two cowboys. That is all I can imagine, and it will be hard for you to tell me otherwise.

So yeah, I like this track. It’s a cool deep cut from a decent LP. Rock on Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

My iPod #539: Green Day – Homecoming

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Jimmy’s story comes to an epic close in the second medley on American Idiot. In “Homecoming”, the anti-hero rids himself of his ‘St. Jimmy’ alter ego and makes an effort to lead a normal life before, overcome with self-pity and loneliness, deciding to return to the home that he had left ten songs earlier. In nine minutes, the track tells this story in five separate movements (“The Death of St. Jimmy”, “East 12th St.”, “Nobody Likes You”, “Rock and Roll Girlfriend”, and “We’re Coming Home Again”), acting as the final chapter to the main storyline before the epilogue of “Whatsername“.

Mike Dirnt actually instigated work on the track, writing a ‘thirty second song’ that caught Billie Joe’s attention. He then went to write his own half-minute number with Tré Cool doing the same. Serious business grew as the three members began to try and outdo each other, but the time arrived when they began connecting their snippets together and realised that they could really start something with the method. “Homecoming” was born, and “Jesus of Suburbia” followed soon after.

“Homecoming” has always edged further than “Jesus” for me. Both are excellent compositions for sure, but the former sees the narrator in a somewhat more mature light than the latter. Instead of feeling victimized and angry with those around him, Jimmy realises that he has been in the wrong the whole time. After all the shit he has gone through, it is good to hear the steps that lead to his much needed happy ending.

My iPod #538: Sex Pistols – Holidays in the Sun

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“Holidays in the Sun” opens Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the only album the punk rock band produced during its two year stint in the late seventies. Its title is a bit misleading. It looks and sounds pleasant, but it is really about the high sense of paranoia Johnny Rotten detected when standing next to the Berlin Wall whilst on holiday with his band-mates. Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground on the Nintendo DS had this track on its soundtrack, I gained a liking to it – I am able to talk to you about it today.

The opening guitar and drums beat in time with the sound of a soldier’s march before hastily rushing into the track’s introductory chord progression, blatantly taken from The Jam’s “In the City” which was released six months prior. And all whilst this progression plays Rotten, buried under the noise, sneaks in the first line “A cheap holiday in other people’s misery” – something the band had seemed to take underneath all the controversy the members had earned themselves before the album’s release.

I always thought Rotten’s vocals were the highlights of most Pistol tracks; he doesn’t disappoint here too. He seems to match his countless exaggerations and intensity in tandem with the performance with the music. He sounds somewhat subdued during the first verse before minutes later he turns into a blubbering mess before the track’s climactic solo. He’s not a great singer. To say he sings at all is a stretch. But his delivery makes the song all that more exhilarating to listen to.

My iPod #537: Weezer – Holiday

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It is time to talk about another holiday. This one appears as the ninth and penultimate song on Weezer’s classic debut album. The Blue Album is one that I have owned and cherished for almost ten years now. Knew it was something I would take to the first time I heard the strident opening power chords of “My Name Is Jonas”; the bar is high on every track, and it is one of those albums that I can play from front to back without becoming tired of it.

Like yesterday’s “Holiday”, the one by Weezer also celebrates a new-found freedom. But whilst Green Day’s celebrates freedom from leaving one world, Rivers Cuomo sings about the joy of entering a new one. Along with “In the Garage“, “Holiday” was written in a sudden burst of excitement after Weezer had been signed by major record company Geffen Records. It differs from the former in that that feeling of excitement can be sensed by the song’s tempo, rhythm, atmosphere and execution.

Cuomo invites the narrator to ‘go away for a while’ somewhere. Not even to a specific location because that’s how much his sense has gone out the window because of this ecstasy. All four members feature on vocals too, with Brian Bell, Matt Sharp, and Patrick Wilson performing the Beach Boys influenced vocals for the bridge. If you listen carefully during the feedback that the song ends with you can hear someone in the back let out a huge scream. If it’s because of the realisation that what they had just performed was the perfect take then it’s for a good reason.

My iPod #536: Green Day – Holiday

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Green Day’s “Holiday” is the third song on their 2004 ‘punk rock opera’ American Idiot, released in 2004. Having no idea who Green Day were at the time, I didn’t know why such a big deal was being made about their so called ‘return’. After years of avid listening I know now that it was their first album since pretty much disappearing after 2000’s Warning, so the hype was understandable. Still, I wasn’t that great a fan of the title track. Nor did I pay that much attention to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” when it was out as the next single. My whole attitude toward Green Day changed upon the unveiling of “Holiday”; I liked it that much that ended up watching all of the band’s older videos. “Holiday” is the reason why I started listening to Green Day. And I have no regrets.

In terms of the album’s storyline “Holiday” arrives at the point where the main character “Jimmy” AKA “The Jesus of Suburbia” has left his shitty home and is enjoying his freedom in the big city.  Out of the album’s story, the lyrics were written by Billie Joe Armstrong as a ‘fuck you’ to George W. Bush and Republican politicians. The song has a swinging rhythm that aids the sense of swagger and reckless abandon displayed in the lyrics. What I really loved about the track way back when were the vocals of the track. Billie Joe’s yelling/singing at the top of his lungs, along with the chanting backing vocals (AMEN), gave me a feeling that I was on top of the world and nothing could touch me. It was good being ten years old.

The rest of 2005 was made up of me listening to Green Day and watching Homestar Runner. Don’t think I would have done the former if it wasn’t for “Holiday”. It has been a good ten years listening to their music.