Friday, September 16, 2011

Vol. 2 Episode 39


Here is a set from the 00's. Some really good stuff!

This is the initial released from the band Coldplay. It was released in 2000. This is a very moody and atmospheric album with happy lyrics. This album shows that music is just as important as the words are in a piece of music. This album became popular during the 9/11 crisis here in the US. It was the perfect time for the album to gain recognition. The third single being the most linked to 9/11 from this album. The first single is called Shiver. The band has said in the past that one of their biggest influences in their music writing has been Jeff Buckley. With this song in particular it shows that he was a big influence in their music writing. This song is simple and good but was a failure in the US. The video is just as boring. It is the group in a white room playing the song around a circle as if they were practicing the song. The next single was called Yellow. This was the song that introduced me to the band. There is something magical about this song for me. I think that it is a combination of the lyrics, the ease of sing ability and the music that puts this song in my top list of music that I love. The video adds to this idea for me. The video is yet another simple video for the band. It was shot in one continuous take. The video was shot at 50 frames per second so that it would appear in slow motion when played back at 24 frames per second. The video took place on Studland Bay in England. It is merely Chris Martin, the lead singer, walking on the beach at sun rise. About half way through the song the sun starts coming out. It had just rained before shooting began for the video and adds to the moodiness of the song. Chris is actually wearing a rain coat and his hair is wet through out the video too. Chris had to sing the song in double time while walking on the beach so that they words would match the music when they matched the music up in the mixing room. The third single is called trouble. This is one of the two songs that I remember the most from the 9/11 crisis in 2000. The video for the song was very interesting. It made use of two dimensional animations overlaid on each other. One could see the overlay of each animation square while watching the video. This was done as an artful point for the video. The band is traveling on a horse drawn carriage through out the video. There is a woman in a house watering the floor that is made of grass. There is also a crow that travels between the band and the woman. After visiting the woman the crow becomes bigger and more menacing until it becomes a giant black rain cloud and rains down on this world. Everything suddenly has black feathers sprouting from it. At the end of the video there is a tornado that picks up the house and takes it over the rainbow to be dropped in a suburban neighborhood. It is an interesting video that fit the time that it was made. There was also a video made for the UK and Europe. I have never seen that video though. The last single from this album is called Don’t Panic. This is a rework of a song that the band had been playing for a long time. This is a good song from the band but not a great song. They were actually undecided as to what song should be released as the next single and settled on this track. The video for this song uses the same two dimensional video as the previous single, Trouble. The video starts off with an animated diagram of the water cycle. It then shows the band doing chores. The rest of the video shows what could happen in a city if it were flooded, a volcano erupted and earth quakes were to occur. It is interesting but to do the two dimensional video animation again was kind of lame in my opinion. I think that this is a good album if you can handle the sad tones in the music.

This is the second album from Hot Chip. It was released in 2006. Hot Chip is an electronic indie pop band with soul influences. I found out about this band when Yahoo music was just getting popular. It was also during a time when the internet was not monitored at work and I could get away with streaming music for hours at a time. It was only a few years later that I was not allowed to stream music while at work. I later got a warning letter for using the internet at work for the not intended uses. That was the end of music through the internet at work. I later started bringing in my iPod and running it through the onboard speakers in the computers. Then I later used my iPhone since I was moved to a completely different position and did not have access to computers any more. I was not sure about this band when I first heard the couple of song from Yahoo music. I searched the internet to find a copy of the album. After I found a copy I started to listen to the whole album. I fell in love with it. I had never heard an electronic band use soul influences. I think that it helped that one of their big influences was Prince. I like a lot of Princes’ work so of course I was going to like what they were putting out. Yes I did actually buy a physical copy of this album. The first single from the album is called Over and Over. This song is a fun sparkly song with fun wavy keyboards leading the way. The lyrics on this song are very easy to sing along with too. The next single is called Boy From School. The title of the song on the album is slightly different. On the album it is labeled as And I Was A Boy From School. This song is a little bit sadder sounding in the music. The keyboards are just a little bit modulated on this song. I think that this adds to the song and keeps the listener interested in the music. The chorus uses fun harmonies that I just love. I was infatuated with a girl at the church that I went to at the time. I actually made her a mix CD and included one of the tracks from this album. The track is called Colours. She is a comic book artist and to me this song fit the bill perfectly. This song was the third single to be released from the album too. The song starts off slow and then after the introduction it picks up the pace a little bit. The song is all about the colours of things in this world. What really got me with this song was the guitar. It is so simple, it is a distorted guitar but the notes that are played are short staccato notes and the guitar does not even play through out the song. It is mainly played in the chorus only. This is a great album and would recommend to everyone to listen to at least once before saying that you don’t listen to electronic music.


This is the third album from the group Beach House. It was released in 2010. The group is a duo of French and American lineage. They write dream pop or indie pop music depending on who you talk to. There was a special edition CD that included a DVD or an LP that automatically came with the DVD. I purchased the LP and was surprised to find that there was a DVD that came with the package. The DVD contains a video for each track on the album directed by a different director for each track. I am not sure what order the singles were released with this album because of the DVD. I get just a little confused. I know that the song Norway was a single for sure. This is a great song but I get a bit of a head ache listening to it because the key board part has an automatic sign wave detuning that happens. I think that the song Zebra was also a single released from the album. It is a simple song with focus on the guitar and vocals. This album is a little bit on the moody side with the music. It is a very good album that I would recommend to anybody interested in where music is going currently. Although it is a year old it still follows what is currently happening in music today.

 
This is the first release from the group MuteMath, stylized as MUTEMATH. This EP was released in 2004. It is a seven track EP with one track being released as a single. The track is called Control. A friend of mine told me about this band in 2007 but I did not take notice then. He also told me to look into this band a couple years later, 2009ish, and I still did not take heed. It was not until the soundtrack for the movie Twilight came out that I finely took notice of the band. They had a song on the sound track from their second album called Armistice. The song is called Spotlight and it is an amazing song to hear. It is very inspiring. I think that is an important aspect about this band. They were originally a Christian rock group under a different name but decided to go down a different avenue regarding music to try to influence a wider audience. I think that this has been a positive direction especially with the addition of Spotlight to the Twilight soundtrack. I am also excited about this band, they will have a new album coming out in the middle of October this year. New fall music is always a great thing. I have quite a few albums that I am looking forward to coming up in the next couple months. I hope to review them before this volume is up this year.

That is all for now...

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