p14nd4's blog is the best blog ever.

I’m not going to claim to have great musical taste, or very much exposure to new music, or exposure to many bands outside of mainstream music (so all you zomg indie music! freaks can just stop reading now :-P), but I’m going to try something new in my blog, and it relates to music. It’s possible this is even more for my own benefit than yours (so I can go read my blog in a few years to remember what I was listening to back then), but I’m going to try to post [a list of] some music that I’m digging at the moment. I’d really love to post mp3s of some of this music too, since I think that’s really what music is really about, but the RIAA disagrees, and since they have more money than me, they’re obviously right (who am I to argue?). (Actually, I love arguing, but I don’t have the time or money to get into a [legal] argument with the RIAA at the moment, so I’ll play the safe side and stick with links to the artists’ sites, some of which post the songs or samples.) It should also be noted that I’m not necessarily posting these in any particular order of how much I like them, or how similar they are to the song above or below it in the list, or how likely you are to enjoy the songs … they’re just in whatever order I think of them.

Before you start tearing into me for things like <whiny voice>But p111144nnnd4, you’re such a hypocrite for liking the band ‘blah,’ since you said you didn’t like ‘blah’ type of music!</whiny> or I can’t believe you like such crappy music like the band ‘blah,’ please, just bite your tongue, and lie to me if necessary, and tell me how impressed you are that I took the time to type these all up. I really don’t care if you don’t like any or all of these bands. I’m not going to get into big discussions about the quality or merit of their music, or the people themselves (believe me, I don’t know about any of the actual band members or artists, I’ve just heard their music). These are some of the things I like, and you don’t have to like them, but I wanted to give you a `base reading’ of some stuff I’m into.

Anyway, now that I’ve wasted most of my time with the preparation, the rest of this seems rather insubstantial in comparison :-/. I think I probably could have come up with more good music for these `songs I think are cool right now’ section if I hadn’t just wasted so much time with the first half of this post. Sorry. Hopefully I’ll remember this, and edit it as other songs occur to me.

• Howie Day – [Stop All the World Now #03] Collide [4:09]
  • Beginning with warm, clean acoustic guitar occasionally accented by light violin accompaniment, the song is soon joined by Howie’s mid-range vocals marked by a very slight/soft rasp (drawn out ‘h’ kind of) kind of characteristic of a ‘west coast’ voice, despite Day hailing from Maine. (I’d actually be kind of interested to hear an acoustic-only version of this song continuing in the style of the intro. That said…) The rest of the backup enters including a simple electric bass line, simple closed hi-hat/snare/bass, smooth mid-range violin moving harmony (and perhaps other elements of the 25-piece orchestra I’ve neglected to pinpoint), and admittedly kind of obnoxious ‘do-do-do-do’ backup vocals during the chorus, around 0:41. While the verses of the song (per normal) feature less intrusive background music, there are moments (such as the transition from a verse to the chorus) with either backup or over-dubbed vocal harmonizing as well as what I think is either harp or maybe steel guitar (1:57 and 2:00 respectively, for example). While the ‘do-do-do-do’ vocal background, a few of the prominent violin phrases, and some of the lyrics do give the song a little bit of a pop/big-studio feel, it remains a very catchy song featuring sections of simple acoustic guitar, full orchestral backing, and offers a sound that a variety of individuals should be able to appreciate.
• Brent Palmer – [Stabilize #02] Asleep In The Back [3:36]
  • This song also begins with an acoustic guitar intro, though with a slightly ‘rougher’ feel than `Collide,’ with clearly audible fret/chord transition slides on the strings. While I think there’s also a single continuous soft cello note accompanying the first few measures, it does carry a more prominent harmony throughout several other stanzas of the song. That said, these are the only two instruments featured in this song. Brent’s voice is very smooth, and is accented by what is either stereo microphones during recording, re-voicing over the track a second time with very good precision but dividing between left and right channels, or maybe just using a single mono voice channel, but just marginally time-skewing them between the left and right channels for a unique effect. The stereo mixing of this track is particularly good for both the instruments and vocals, in my opinion, adding credit to the song (do yourself a favor and listen on speakers first, then headphones, if you have the means). Overall, I feel this is a very simple, but elegant song that has the potential to appeal to anyone from teens to their parents. Plus, Palmer was kind enough to post the mp3 on his site, so you really have no excuse not to give it a try.
• Pink Floyd performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra – [Us and Them: Symphonic Pink Floyd #06] Money [6:46]
  • As you might have guessed by the name, this album consists of several Pink Floyd ‘hits’ being performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I’m amazed that someone came up with the idea, and took the time to so wonderfully translate these Floyd songs into full orchestral scores. The detail is really quite amazing. As a[n ex-]percussionist, I really appreciate the prominent bells and xylophone featured during the first half of the song, too. Don’t take my short description of this song to mean anything other than it’s 3 AM and I want to go to bed, so I’m cutting this short.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 03:05 and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.