I like the lyrical comparison of sleep/dreaming to death and the afterlife, but that’s about all I like about this piece. The keyboards are lazy even by '80s New Wave standards, and the vocals are nearly incomprehensible without looking them up.
A rather work-a-day tune to underpin Townshend’s spiritual statement. He bounces various strands of his inner life - ambition, interpersonal competition and meditative pursuits, calling up his experience following eastern mysticism by employing the most common metaphor for samadhi.
Despite these various meditations on the inner life, his phoney American accenting demonstrates that the whole thing is really about American cultural hegemony. Soften them up by getting your cultural leaders to sing in American accents, and we can stick our missile bases all over your beautiful island. You thought we hadn’t figured you out, but your cultural infiltration has been rumbled, prepare to be boarded.
Pretty typical of the KLF - loud and grandiose without taking itself too seriously. The vocal intro sounds like the exact kind of thing Spinal Tap was making fun of. I think I heard a sample of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” in the horn section.
Gods below, that song.
Whenever I see it REFERENCED, it gets stuck in my head for ages. Probably not the catchiest song I have in my collection about cannibalism, but close. (I have an interesting music collection…) Shia Labeouf Live is funnier than the shorter version, not least because of the video, where Shia’s an surprisingly good sport. (The silk performers!) But even musically, I think Live is better. The whole, you know, live thing, and the extended story (‘Shia surprise!’ is by far my favourite lyric in the song.)
It’s an interesting cover, but I don’t like it as much as the original. I feel like this tune almost loses something by going for the stripped-down approach, as opposed to the heavy string arrangements in the original. The gender flip doesn’t really work for me either - it still comes off as being a guy singing about a girl, but with the pronouns changed so it doesn’t sound gay. The musicianship is solid, though, and the singer’s vocals are expressive without being too heavy on the melismatics.
Not exactly a standout song from the movie. I like it and all, but it’s… Eh. Leaving the lyrics alone lends ‘let me be your man’ an interesting (if somewhat unfortunately stereotypical) twist, but, that’s the most actual interest I can muster about it.
I love her voice, so it’s got that going for it, but I’ve got plenty of other tracks by her that show it off better.
I wouldn’t have thought that this song would work as a big band number with vocals by a big-lunged jazz queen, but it does. The vague imitation of Slash’s famed guitar riff that the band performs during the solo is both clever and amusing.
That’s certainly Joey (RIP) singing that song. Does it more justice than I would have credited him with, honestly (I say this as a Ramones fan). Ends a little weak, but a good effort. Not the most ‘heartfelt’ version of the song ever, but…that’s just Joey being Joey.
Speaking of worlds…
It’s J-pop. If you’re into J-pop, you’d probably be into this. The guitar is good, and the music is nice and peppy overall, but the vocals are near incomprehensible to my ear - I honestly thought she was singing in Japanese until I looked up the lyrics. The lyrics themselves have kind of a “Call Me Maybe”-ish feel to them, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Oh dear, it’s Dragonforce. They’ve got maybe one or two original songs, which have been copied and re-hashed ad infinitum. Ironically, this particular song originally came from a “joke” side project called Shadow Warriors, and the “joke” is that it sounds exactly like Dragonforce singing about ninjas instead of dragons. Oh, my head…
So yeah, gotta respond with some REAL classic Euro-speed-power-neoclassical metal:
The opening rendition of “London Bridge Is Falling Down” is clever. The vocals are powerful and Dio-esque. I like the message of self-determination the lyrics carry. The solo is pretty good.
Bit harder than I generally associate with Motorhead (who I generally like, but haven’t heard a LOT from them). Not overly fond of the screachiness that it opens with, but once the actual song starts it’s good. Nice, driving instrumentals. Can’t make head nor tails of what Lemmy’s singing, but his vocals are good aesthetically if not his enunciation. The bass line, particularly pleases me. Surprised me, upon searching, that it’s from '86. Feels more recent.
Lightening things up a bit… Or a lot, actually.
I wanted to like, but I just blanked. These are no doubt clever boys but there wasn’t anything there that grabbed me. It just lacks original tune and a bit of bite, and didn’t hit the soulful note it was meant to. I think maybe a few more years of severe depression might add the undertones this music needs, but it just sounds too suburban and comfortable.
Kraftwerk are the Stone Age ancestors (relatively speaking, of course) of today’s EDM producers, and this track shows it. If this were a little faster and a little more embellished, I could easily imagine it getting spins in any dance club today. The lyrics hurt the danceability a little, but I like the way they embrace the artificiality of the music they’re creating.
It gels when they get to the “A slave” chorus. Not sure whether the blueseyness works, but I guess it’s appropriate in many ways - origins of blues and all that, so I think yes it does work. Plus I’d never heard of them and it seems they have some cool stuff. Approved.
This one’s my favorite Gary Numan song, love that catchy-as-hell hook that substitutes as a chorus. I really gained an appreciation for this song after Numan admitted he had a “mild form of Asperger’s Syndrome”, which accounts for the lyrics – hard to explain, but I totally get that.
So much Eighties. Which is odd since Wikipedia informs me this is from 1979. This is right there on the line where punk was transforming into New Wave, and it definitely sounds ahead of its time. It almost feels like a cyberpunk anthem - the title seems to recall “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, and the lyrics seem to speak of introversion and alienation in a world where one’s best friends can be nothing more than ones and zeroes. I’d be surprised if at some point, someone hadn’t written a Shadowrun campaign based on this tune.
And now, for something completely different - a song for Labor Day.
Tom Morello - Solidarity Forever.
PS since I got ninja’d; “Where’s the Walrus” is pretty typical for a Parsons instrumental - tightly arranged, good balance of rock and proto-techno, not really too far out there, but definitely on the boundary. It’s good background music.
Has he ever had a proper job or did he go straight from Harvard to R ‘n’ R ?
O-o-only joking. Blech, but a great drinking song for the union hall, so i think he knows what he’s doing. None of his trademark RAM mega riffing, but there’s a time and a place for everything.
I actually have crossed a picket line in a professional context. I work for an employee-owned grocery store. We’re not part of the union; however, we have a collective bargaining agreement based on the union’s, and we have a contract which guarantees us wages, benefits, paid leave, grieveance rights, and employment protection comparable to (and in some cases better than) the union’s. Nonetheless, for about six months after we opened for business, the union had people in front of our store from morning 'til night protesting our presence. (They eventually moved their protests when a non-union IGA opened up a few miles away.) I respect the union, and I’m fully aware that they’re responsible for many of the benefits I enjoy, but I feel that in this case they’re directing their power in the wrong direction.
That being said; I fully endorse this song. Workers need to stand up for each others’ good, and I wouldn’t cross a picket line in most situations. It’s interesting that he mentions San Diego in this song; my father was a machinist for General Dynamics when they struck in the '80s, in the same strike that I believe he’s referencing here, and I remember posing for a photo with my father while he was holding up a picket sign.
The tune definitely reminded me of"The Ballad of Jesse James" but hey, Woody Guthrie. The arrangement was sparse but I think that works in the song’s favour as it forces you to listen to the lyrics a little bit more. I never really thought about the idea that Jesus would be labelled a terrorist (at the very least be on a lot of watch lists) for doing what he did today, but that would likely be the case. That gives me pause.
OK, Dance time!