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My iPod #147: Feeder – Burn the Bridges

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It was in the midsummer of 2006 when the advert for Feeder’s brand new compilation “The Singles” started to be shown regularly on the television. If anyone doesn’t know who Feeder are or you’ve never listened to their material, “The Singles” is a good place to start. Even though it is a compilation, it is one filled with 20 tracks of their most popular songs.

Out of the twenty, three new tracks were recorded for exclusive inclusion on the album. “Lost and Found” and “Save Us” were released as singles; “Burn the Bridges” was not, and it still amazes me that it wasn’t.

In the wake of the compilation’s release, Feeder’s official website had a major overhaul in design. It was basically changed so it had the same colour theme as the album cover, but it also let users listen to short samples of the tracks that were included. “Burn the Bridges” was the one which I jumped around to and played my air guitar to all around my living room, but before I knew it the sample was over and I had to start from the beginning all over again.

My cousin bought “The Singles” for me and gave it to me as a present on Christmas Day. I then went ahead and broke my original Playstation 2 just as I inserted the disc into it. That was a bad time for me. That’s a whole different story.

The point is “Burn the Bridges” is one of Feeder’s best. I think it’s great.

Jamie.

My iPod #139: Kings of Leon – The Bucket

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There are creepy people out there. There I was going down the escalator in Stratford’s Westfields so we could wait for a mate who needed to go to the loo, when these two guys came over to us asking if we were born again Christians. They then directed their attention to me, and told me to ‘talk to them privately’ to say the ‘prayer’ and I was like “FUCK THIS, I HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE”. So I told them a wrong phone number and made up a name for myself, and proceeded to leave the mall with my friends.

It was very scary. I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else in the world like I did during those moments. I’m really glad to be home. Typing to you.

–

Right. Kings of Leon. I’ve probably said as much as I can on what I think about them in other posts. Thinking about it now, I’m positive that I’ve only done one post. But in short, from Youth & Young Manhood to Because of the Times = good stuff, Only by the Night onwards = the bad stuff. Except “Supersoaker” and “Wait for Me” which depicts “Mechanical Bull” as something that will be a return to form. We can only hope. Well, I can only hope.

“The Bucket” was the first song to be released from the band’s second album “Aha Shake Heartbreak” in 2004, which is my favourite album they’ve done. I can’t remember when I first heard it. I’ll just say it was on MTV2. Yes, it was on MTV2.

I wonder who yells “Wooooooo!”at the start. It sounds like someone fucked up and didn’t know they were recording, but I can’t imagine the song without that exclamation. I’m just used to it after listening to the track for all these years.

The subject matter of “The Bucket” is the band’s bassist Jared Followill, who was having problems dealing with the fame of being in the band.

The thing that I’ve always liked about older Kings of Leon songs, especially those on the Aha Shake and Times albums, is Caleb’s vocals. Now he’s older he actually sings from the stomach, but I preferred those when his voice was breaking almost every time he tried to reach the high notes. There’s a bit of this in “The Bucket”.

Have fun listening to it.

Jamie.

My iPod #132: Linkin Park – Breaking the Habit

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I don’t like Linkin Park very much mow. They’ve done a Coldplay, which means they’ve changed their sound so much I don’t even know who they are anymore. “Mylo Xyloto” is pretty shitty. I’m more of a “Parachutes” man. This is very much like Linkin Park. I think the only newer song I liked was “Waiting for the End”, but I haven’t bothered with their newest albums. “Meteora” is my favourite album, which will probably polarize a lot of you readers.

“Meteora” gets a lot of crap for apparently sounding the same as “Hybrid Theory”, but I haven’t listened to that album. The singles are good enough. Meteora on the other hand, you’ve got the song seguing into each other and Chester and Mike get an equal contribution on everything. “Breaking the Habit” is the exception. That is Chester’s song. For sure. Mike doesn’t rap on it, there’s no distorted guitars. Just a lot of keyboards and synth-strings. It’s very emotional.

The “Breaking the Habit” video is the first of Linkin Park’s that I can actually remember watching on the TV when it was released. It freaked me out. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that when I was seven, my uncle got me this “Animatrix” DVD which is supposed to link in with “The Matrix” film series. It is also rated fifteen by the way. That DVD was so confusing and fucked up – I think I can remember a person’s head being squashed or something – and the animation for “Breaking the Habit” reminded me of it. So I didn’t want to watch the music video for a while. I got over it though.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #131: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Breaking the Girl

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I’m very happy. Today marks the first time I make a blog from my new laptop.

No more will I have to suffer with the forever slow and freezing mess that is the family desktop. If you guys want a laptop, ASUS is the way to go. Forget Dell. My sister has a Dell laptop that’s basically falling apart. Whether that’s due to the manufacturer or if my sister abused it I’m not sure. I know that I’m not messing this mine up though.

Now with that intro out of the way, is this my first Red Hot Chili Peppers post? Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t touched upon one song of theirs. They probably don’t have a lot of songs beginning with the letter ‘A’ that I know of. Except for “Aeroplane” of course.

So… Red Hot Chili Peppers….. Ah! “Fight Like a Brave”. That was the first song I’d ever heard by them, thanks to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3. When they released “By the Way” in 2002, I had no idea that it was the band who wrote that song until I actually looked at the in-game menu.

In 2002, I wasn’t really into music. Being six/seven at the time, I was either incessantly up at early hours in the morning to watch Cartoon Network or Thomas the Tank Engine videos. 2006 was the year that I can actually remember the build up towards a Red Hot Chili Peppers album, which we all know is the double album “Stadium Arcadium”.

I can remember it now, the video for “Dani California” premiered at midnight on Channel 4. It was then played every hour on MTV2 the next day. My sister and I liked it. She had a friend who liked the band, who then gave her the “Greatest Hits” album. This is where “Breaking the Girl”comes in.

The song became a favourite of my sister’s. I recall not liking the song as much as the others though. I thin it was the fact that amongst the others on the compilation, this was a tune that I had actually never heard before. Even when I did listen to it, I found it… boring.

However when I downloaded “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” a few months ago, I found myself wailing along to the chorus and air drumming to the trash-can percussion in the instrumental break. I loved it. “Breaking the Girl” isn’t boring at all. The eleven-year old me was a silly child. If you are going to write a song about a meaningful relationship that went wrong and you feel as if you are to blame, you probably wouldn’t want to make it a funky jam as the Peppers normally did around that time. Something more melodic will do. This is that song you want to write. Yes.

Well, until tomorrow you guys.

Jamie.

My iPod #128: Mystery Jets – The Boy Who Ran Away

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“The Boy Who Ran Away” was Mystery Jets’ third official single in 2006. Their first album “Making Dens” was out, and they were played a minority of the time on MTV2. Most of their airtime came in the NME Chart, before NME up and went to go and have their own channel.

At first, “The Boy Who Ran Away” wasn’t to my liking. I would always skip the channel everytime the video came on. I take that back – it’s not that it wasn’t to my liking, it was just that I barely gave it a chance.

I did like their other songs though. “Alas Agnes” was a good one, as was “You Can’t Fool Me Dennis” which weirded me out because the lead singer looked very similar to a friend I had in primary school. “The Boy Who Ran Away” must be alright then, shouldn’t it?

Well, yes it is. I wouldn’t be wasting my time on writing about a song I didn’t like. The majority of people in the UK liked the song too; it reached #23 over here and remains to be the band’s highest charting single.

The song tells a story about… a boy who runs away. From home apparently. But he ends up in a rubbish place, and goes home back to his parents even though he knows they don’t like him. Pretty miserable. It’s an upbeat song, so you probably wouldn’t realise the tragedy.

Look out for the ‘lo-lo-lo’ bridge singalong too. That’s catchy as hell.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.