How To Save A Life

I rarely blog about music nowadays even though I am a very avid music lover. But one day about a month ago, I was browsing BillBoard’s Top 100 to find new music that I may add up to my listening menu. I had been revolving mostly around regular faves like U2’s unforgettable Rattle and Hum double album, Bob Dylan’s old masterpieces, Bruce Springsteen “best of” album (listening to The River over and over again), and about a couple of nights ago, I thought of putting on Billy Holiday on the DVD player slash VCD player slash CD player slash karaoke system ( most entertainment electronic device nowadays are such) after renoticing an old CD of hers I kept from view inside a dusty rectangular box where I usually store cassetes and cd’s not within my regular listening list.

And high on the list of the charts is a band named The Fray which I thought has a very cool and nifty name for a musical group and wondered why nobody thought of that before. I immediately listened to the sample audio clip of it’s hit “How To Live A Life” and was easily endeared by it although not in a big way, like I did for example upon hearing for the first time U2’s “Where The Streets Have No Name” or Gun’s N Roses’ “Welcome To The Jungle” —-songs that had somehow became landmarks of my early adulthood.

But….but I have downloaded a full copy of The Fray’s “How To Live A Life”, including some of the band’s other songs and played them over and over again on lazy afternoons and that beginning part of that song (How To Save A Life) that goes “Step one you say we need to talk…” keeps ringing over and over again in my head, even until the moment of sleep, that I find myself humming its melodies often.
It must be that I liked the song so thoroughly that’s why I kept thinking about it and I suddenly realize that It has been for a long time now that I had last became so excited about a song or a band. The last time perhaps was when I first got to hear about Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Scar Tissue” and that was really a very long, long time ago—-like 5 years ago.

“How To Save A Life” is such a good modern rock song—-so good in fact that I kept humming it while I am driving along spalted downtown streets. This is one exciting band that knows its music and knows what radio-friendly means while being lyrically relevant. Rarely you see this in a band nowadays. They can be huge like Gin Blossoms when they were at the top of their years. Mystical like Stone Roses with very original melodies. Or possibly become legendary like REM for their meaningful messages.

The song ask a question and we wonder what answer does it demand. How does one really save a life? Within its lyrics is deep emotions. The songs laments on how to “…lose a friend last night” and then on “…how to save a life”; it’s a song about longing and lost, that despite it’s ear-candy melodies, it is a lonely song that spoke of lament and endearment—-of discovery and then of separation. It’s one of the featured song in the hit medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” that it is so apt to a show that presents characters in scenes where lives are either lost or saved, destroyed or rebuilt, found or lost.

Listen to “How To SAve A Life” here.

See full lyrics here.

Arcade Fire: A Neophyte Band With Veteran Moves

Arcade Fire—-seems to me like the safest name for a band, especially for a new-wave rock group. It is so gothic sounding even while gothic music is not anymore in vogue these days.

And yet Arcade Fire is making waves in the music scene like a comet on a clear evening sky; that despite of it being merely an upstart band, it had already garnered for itself a Grammy award nomination. That’s an achievement that is hard to follow for any new indie rock band. This ethereal group was formed in the middle of 2003 in Montreal, Quebec and had a debut album titled Funeral which went to become a sleeper hit and was in fact considered an internet phenomenon after getting sold sizably online, following an excellent 9.7 critic rating from Pitchfork.

The first time I had encountered the music of Arcade Fire, I had felt intense familiarity with it as if I had already known them for so long. But the truth is, Arcade Fire is just a new band even though they are playing like refined veterans—-with unparalleled intensity and attitude, and a steady no-care-what-the-critics-say rocker gait.

Their music is quite familiar in a sense that it can easily be taken in without any hint of protest from the listening side. Yet the melodies in their songs are so innovative that they are completely original. I do not know exactly if such circumstance could be possible or such combination be reasonably realistic but that’s just how I feel about them. Perhaps, this is the main reason why I had adored Arcade Fire in an instant, where aside from The Fray’s hit singles (How To Save A Life, Over My Head), it is their latest album Neon Bible that is so heavy on my rotation, especially on afternoons in the backyard, sipping smoldering coffee and reading a fresh book or tuning in to the early evening news.

I could well remember the days when the Psychedelic Furs were riding up so high, that listening to Arcade Fire has that same experience I have gotten then; as Richard Butler filled my college years with his heavenly groans singing Pretty In Pink and Ghost In You. This may just altogether be a sign that there is still hope for new wave resurrection, even if many thought that new wave is completely dead. This may also be a hint that the rock music scene could still afford to do some backward steps, to the days when music was an entirely effective form of social expression (of angst and rebellion sometimes); in order to forward whole opinions and forceful digressions; as music then was such a significant means to important aims or objectives.

Arcade Fire’s lyrics are strong and unrelenting; clearly uncompromising and that’s why listening to them for the first time is akin to meeting a long lost friend after a very long and ardous journey from afar, traveling back to the days when bands like U2 and The Smiths was still as outspoken as a dead poet or to that momentous year when a seemingly roguish upstart band from Seattle named Pearl Jam released the very strong and heavy Ten album—-a musical work that was filled with stark realism that it resembles what Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have made if he was a modern rock superstar.

In Windowsill, “Don’t wanna live in my father’s house no more
Don’t wanna fight in a holy war
Don’t want the salesmen knocking at my door
I don’t wanna live in America no more…Don’t wanna sit in the windowsill no more…; that’s how strong their opinions can become and so ultimately frank and honest.

And in Crown of Love, the band’s lead-singer and songwriter Win Butler sings, “They say it fades if you let it, love was made to forget it. I carved
your name across my eyelids, you pray for rain i pray for blindness.
if you still want me, please forgive me, the crown of love is not upon me…” . The emotions gets so high towards the end of this song that in the background, one can hear a cruel violin, feint but insisting, to pursue a lost emotion.

This band has such powerful music, and so affecting lyrics.

Musically, Arcade Fire blows the listener away with crisp instrumentality; combining ethereal digital sounds with the tender sounds of classical instruments like the violin and cello. Half the time—-in their livelier pieces—-an upbeat bass sound reverberates like a war chant and puts liveliness into the air only the likes of Bruce Springsteen and the Rollingstones could provide previously.

And I could not help but be reminded of the excellent Australian band Midnight Oil , the group that had the historic Diesel And Dust album released in 1989. Win Butler vocals sounds so much like Pete Garrett of Midnight Oil and that’s a good thing since the Aussie band’s distinctive vocal have been often imitated by many bands in the 90’s but clearly never equaled. Perhaps Win Butler is Garrett’s worthy heir apparent.

Arcade Fire should by all sense be the next big thing in the rock music scene.
This Canadian band is riding high on the crest of its initial success—-both critically and financially—-and they only have their superb brand of music to thank for. They have been to the David Letterman show, they have been interviewed by BBC, and they have already appeared on Time Magazine’s front cover. Success is printed all over them in bold capital letters.

Listen to samples of Arcade Fire’s music on Last FM.

Listen now to the single “Crown of Love” from their 1994 Funeral album:

Mr. Jack Ryan Is A Comedian

What’s with Mr. Alec Baldwin? I have been seeing him for a number of times now in the weekend show “Saturday Night Live” and I thought it was merely a passing thing for him for afterall he is (or was) a serious actor first and foremost—-or even an action movie starrer as Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy’s superthriller “Hunt For Red October” (who could forget that).

Yet now he seems to be a regular already in the abovementioned show together with Steve Martin and Martin Short. Not that it is entirely unthinkable for Mr. Baldwin to be funny sometimes and be in a comedy show but it is just that I could not seem to well-absorb the idea of him being a television comedian in the likes of Jerry Seinfeld or Ray Romano. But there he was there making funny antics on that weekend comedy show and you know what, he seems to be so good at it that I wonder if I would ever be able to see him in any other light except for a very good and very funny comedian—-like he is now. He used to be a drama actor, ain’t he? The guy in “Nuremberg” and “Beetle Juice” ?

So by the way, I got so cracked up laughing at tonight’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” where Mr. Baldwin did a very good imitation of the singing super idol Tony Bennett and my oh my, he was so good at it that he could even closely imitate Mr. Bennet’s inimitable and entirely original voice—-that loud husky voice that is like no other.

I am a huge Frank Sinatra follower but whenever I hear the very unique singing prowess of Tony Bennett, I become of double-mind; who is better of the two? Who is better than whom? Although the man they call the Old Blue Eye is still best for me among male crooners.

I first got to hear about Tony Bennett about the time when I was still so fresh out of college from Ateneo de Zamboanga and got hired as a TV reporter for the ABC 5 channel affiliate here. One day, while loitering around the TV station’s premises, I got to meet a couple of very young lady DJ’s and the two had asked me (out of nowhere it had seem) where I was going or what was I up to at that time. In my mind I had thought then that they were overly friendly when I had not even been formally introduced to them previously and I was feeling so uncomfortable.

But being so gentlemanly that I was supposed to be, I smiled back at them and told them perfunctorily that I was planning to hie-off to a nearby record store and buy some music. What album (we don’t call it CD back then) am I planning to score they asked me. I told them that I have nothing particular in mind at that moment but I just see when I get there. Both ladies said that they could come with me and advise me on what to buy (being DJ’s that they were, they should know better ika nga). Not wanting to disappoint them and be misunderstood, I said why not. But in my mind I thought “geezzzz, I ain’t really comfortable with this, buying records with two people I barely know”. It used to be that buying records is some sort of a personal ritual for me, scouring around the stacks of records so slowly and being able to examine the music available in a time of my own, and not be hurried and be able to think for myself.

So to make the story short, they had egged me (more like trapped me) into buying a Tony Bennett album, an MTV unplugged record of the old crooner if I remember correctly. Back then, I was more into rock and roll or new wave kind of music that when I got home, I was feeling a little disgusted that I had to be so polite and had to buy some music of some old famous guy.

But after listening to Tony Bennett for some time, I felt that his voice was just magical and now as I remember that day when two virtual unknowns came to me and offered to become music advisers, I could perhaps thank those two young DJ’s for introducing me to the oh so wonderful sound and voice of Tony Bennet.

I know you’ll like him and his music—-it is just wonderful and sublime.

See Mr. Tony Bennett sing the song he is so famous for, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” here.

Five Songs When I Was Eighteen

Ipanema has answered this entirely original tag over there at Under The Canopy and had read through it, reminding me as a result of how the song Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross was so melancholic and affecting that even I had admitted (in my comments there) that I too was one who hadn’t had escaped it’s very sentimental tune.

So now it’s my turn to list down Five Famous Songs When I Was 18 and say something about them. I have scoured through the net and found this timely site listing the hits of the year 1990 (the year when I was about 18—-when I was still never been that and never been this). I realized that in that year, there were so many memorable songs that I could have listed even to as high as twenty but I just got to name five. So now perhaps, I may just list the five songs that I may not necessarily be most fond of (since there were lots of songs that were so popular that year) but those that I think I can say something most of. So now, let’s do this.

In no particular order:

1. It Must Have Been Love by Roxette—-Who could forget this very sentimental lament of a brokenhearted individual. This is one love song has a very famous movie that goes with it (Pretty Woman remember?). Before I saw Richard Gere riding virtually on top of his limousine, with roses in hand, I have already heard this song played—-either on the radio or on a record I had bought then. The first few lines of this song told everything about it, “Lay a whisper, on my shoulder”, of how melodramatic it was and was in fact so sad and lonely; where a love had apparently gone awry when in the first place “It should have been love, but it’s over now. It’s all that I wanted but I am living without.” How tragic can love and affection become? This song’s lyrics remind the listener that love or relationship could really be gone like whispers in the wind—-very fragile and fleeting; like feeling so near and yet so far; like a free ride when you already paid. Or rain in your wedding day.








2. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You by Heart—-This one got me thinking if at all, reasonable censorship do occur in our country, or in America (where the song emanated from) for that matter. Aside from its very catchy hooks, the one that had really occupied my mind whenever I was listening to this song that fateful year was it’s unusual lyrics.
   
   

   I had thought then that it was not really normal that one should hear on a very public manner about “ all I wanna do is to make love to you”. We all know what that means. It means that the singer merely wants to have carnal knowledge (as we law students refer to it back then) with some guy with handsome blue eyes. I don’t mean to be so tight-assed here but at that time, I just found this music’s message to be so unusual and blatant for comfort that I thought the government should have kept it away from the kids, or else they would gain some dangerous ideas you know. Of course, I am aware that Air Supply had been singing about “making love” previously in a so very popular way yet I just could not help but think when Heart’s song went on to say “please, please understand I am in love with another man. And all that he couldn’t give, is the one thing that you have.” What the hell did that line mean? It escapes me.









3. Don’t Know Much by Linda Rondstadt and Aaron Neville—-This is one song that I thought had came from the 70’s when I got to hear it initially back then, and even just hours ago if not for this tag that had gotten me researching about music. It has that very old-fashion feel and sound and I mean this in a very good way. It is so simple and relax as Neville’s icy voice floats into the ears like a popular eucalyptus candy, so soothing and calming. The song says, “I don’t know much, but I know I love you. Let me be all you need to love”. If love and loving could be so simple and uncomplicated like this love song, then I believe the world would be a better place by now.








4. I Don’t Have The Heart by James Ingram—-Mr. Ingram is one of my most favoritest singer of the modern times (as aside from the era of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennet), along with Peabo Bryson and Lionel Ritchie. And when he had this unexpected hit in 1990(he recorded this when his popularity had already been waning from his peak in the 80’s), you could say I was pleasantly surprised and felt so good that James Ingram has still something good going on with him.
   
   

   Yet, despite the breezy voice of Mr. Ingram and the beautifully unique melodies of this song, the message it got was of despair and tragedy in love where he sang “I don’t have the heart to love you; but I don’t have the heart to hurt you; It’s the last thing I wanna do.” Gee, I wonder to whom downtrodden woman did he sang or made this song for. It just breaks my heart. Sigh.







5. Another Day In Paradise by Phil Collins—-I should not be forgetting about this one because it has very distinctive and catchy intro—-beating drums with killer keyboards. This song had been so captivating that during that time, and even through years ahead, I just couldn’t seem to pull it out of my system. The tune was so very fresh and excitable that it felt like Phil Collins was a genius scientist who had invented a new way of making music. It was really one good tune. A classic, I dare say.
   
   

   Although later on, I had a discussion about the song with a friend and he had informed me that the song was about poverty and hunger among the street people in America, that it was in fact a very socially-relevant tune from the former drummer and singer of the legendary British band Genesis. As I read through the lyrics (albums mostly already had inserts of lyrics at that time), I did realize that it was really a song about the hardships felt by the marginalized sector in America. It had taken me aback a little upon knowing what the song really had meant and wondered how an ultimately radio-friendly song—-one with so very catchy melodies—-can be about a very serious social problem.

So there goes the five songs that got so popular in the year that I was 18. In return, I’d be naming five other bloggers to list five songs when they were that young and say something about each one of them.

1. Snglguy—-I am so well-aware how he loves music that I am so anticipating his kind of list.








2. Eric of Wish You Were Here—-He was once a music industry executive and I am so certain he knows his list all too well.








3. Buffwings—-I would be so curious about the songs in his lists.








4. Myepinoy—-He is also music savvy and I am sure we’d enjoy his retelling of five memorable songs when he was young.








5. Abaniko—-He has done lots of cool tags before except a musically-inclined one. It’s time that he must let the world know the music of his younger days.

Typecast--Embracing A New Level of Musicality

Despite their band name—Typecast is never a stereotype except if one thinks and associates it with a very famous rock band like The Sex Pistols or Greenday, then that would be alright because the first time I got to encounter their music, I thought it was from some popular punk band from America or perhaps, Australia. And that should be a compliment.

Music critics often lauded local bands such as Hale and Cueshe to be so foreign-sounding, in a positive tone. Usually it was entirely virtuous to propel high originality in the local music scene like for example in that of The Dawn and The Eraserheads, two bands that had navigated success so well while being so Filipino in musicianship. To be so well-rooted into the nativeland’s culture is one good element for every Filipino rock band most especially.

However, in another sense of virtousity is the desire to be world-class and by this, to sound just like every successful band flying high in the international scene. For by the way, un-American bands like INXS and Coldplay was able to embrace global stardom by sounding so well like the standard rock stuff that are so patronized in America at their respective times. So why not a Filipino band to be sounding just like any other famous American rock band and be famous for it so well? Who could blame Typecast for being that?

Typecast is to me the local rock band that could might as well be the one to be described so aptly as so foreign-sounding that it becomes entirely a compliment. Like hey, “I didn’t know “Will You Ever Learn” is a song by a local band. It sounded so good I thought a foreign band sang it”.

Being foreign-sounding is not only the sole virtue of this great new Filipino band; Typecast exudes great musicianship and inflects enormous confidence; with an attitude that states out loud how they are in the scene not merely for fame and fortune but are here to rock and shake the local music scene, to wake up and instill an unknown virtue in musicality, to bring local rock music towards another level.

Typecast has great attitude and lots and lots of confidence in their music. Spunky and brave, they are.

Watch this well-made music video of Typecast’s “Will You Ever Learn“.

Note: I have reservations however about their photo take (with a semi-naked woman in the middle) in the cover of PULP magazine. I don’t subscribe to this form of imagery, I must be clear. I hope as a band they would skirt away from such outlandishness. It would be just unideal.

When The Music Is Over

“When the music’s over…Turn out the lights.”

—Jim Morrison, The Doors, in the song “When The Music’s Over”

When Prince teamed-up last June with UK’s The Mail newspaper in releasing his Planet Earth album for free to millions of fans, Time Magazine considered it a very good ploy. Good to whom or to what, it is not exactly clear. For certain, record companies were not happy with the Prince move and in fact, one record company executive was so pissed off that he had warned (and perhaps wished) that one day, Prince might just end up being known as “The Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores”, referring in half-jest to the American rockstar’s all too all-too-well-known ploy in the past of not using his known screen name in referring to himself but merely by a symbol he had designed himself and thence was referred only to as “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” for some time about a decade ago.

Now comes Radiohead with it’s new album release “In Rainbows” being made available online before copies of it would hit record stores shelves (if it would ever will), and guess what, digital version of it could be downloaded starting tomorrow, for everyone to get for “an open price”, where the online customer r customers could decide for themselves on what price to pay. So it’s not so free like that of Prince’s Planet Earth, you might want to ask. It is not. But you got to choose the price, which could be as low as two cents. And that’s virtually free, if you ask me.

Why would a big rock band like Radiohead would do such a thing?

They are a very popular band and have become so rich for that. This perhaps where the answer lies. They could be so rich already that they could afford to do such thing just for fun or for some experimentation. Or perhaps, they just want to thank their fans for making them so rich in the past.

But in general truth, I feel that popular musicians releasing free music online (or virtually free music such as this Radiohead “In Rainbows” album) has become such a gradually descending phenomenon in the international music scene, as a general reaction to the overpowering flow of music file-sharing schemes, which goes on so strongly up to this time despite rigid legal battles that had been waged by big record companies against online file-sharing companies as well as against individuals caught illegally downloading copyrighted materials into their personal computers. Days ago, a Minnesota single-mother was adjudged $220,000 for having been caught with illegal downloads in her PC.

The onset of the digital music, especially in easily downloadable MP3 and MP4 formats has completely changed how music is being sold nowadays, and maybe one day, how music will be made. Perhaps, the days of the CD format music record will be one day gone, sooner than we can ever think, and every music that we ever want and would ever need would be gotten merely from online stores. In our city——small but highly urbanized—-almost all record shops here have closed down, and every music section in department stores and shopping malls has already been scrapped. Such is how music retail has changed so radically in this town as downloading and CD-burning services have started to sprout all over the city. When one wants the latest music, all one has got to do is get to the nearest DSL Internet café and get all the music one wants for a very reasonable price. It is like a buffet table over there. You can eat all you can for one regular price.

Is this good? Is this bad?

For a music lover like me, I like the very salacious idea of having a lot of music in one burned CD for a price so much lower than what I would have gotten if I bought them at record stores. But it’s bad since it would have negative effects for the record music industry, with record stores going bankrupt and becoming a thing of the past, like ice cream parlors and sarsaparilla.

And besides it’s illegal. I do not mean to be hypocritical here and I could not deny that I might have downloaded some of the music I had without paying for it. But what gives. Even if I wanted to pay for it, the record stores here don’t have any new music anymore. Not everyone has a credit card to buy all the music online or a DSL connection to get it through the PC at home.

So where’s music going to in this digital age? I have a feeling that online file sharing schemes would always be an Internet age reality and may not go away completely anymore despite how much the huge record companies are spending in millions to combat and prosecute them. There would always be new ways to download that illegal music copy.

Maybe music artists of today are meant to adjust to the new digital environment anyway. The days of selling millions and millions of albums or CDs through record stores would soon be over. Future record artists would have to find some other way to make real good money. Maybe they need to stage more and more concerts in order to get more and more out of their work. Live concerts or tickets could not in any way be illegally downloaded that’s for sure and they won’t have to worry about Limewire or Bit Torrent putting the ticket concerts for online sharing.

Maybe, music was really like that even in the beginning. Before the phonograph was invented in 1870, one would only be finding music if one gets to the concert or an open field exhibition. No vinyl then, no record tapes, no CDs and for certain, no MP3 players.

Maybe, music is just returning to where it once belongs.

Live and in concert.

The National and It’s Fake Empire

I had heard once before how Sting had sang so evocatively—-with all the drama and eloquence—-about an ‘empire’ or ‘kingdom’, how there was such madness in passion—-and great melancholy too.

But I’ve never heard even once before that there could possibly be an ‘empire’ that is not real, a fake empire that is.

The National is one band that I’ve been listening too most recently and what I’ve read about them did not prove wrong and I could say, their latest album titled “Boxer” is one great listening pleasure that one could play it over and over again and never get tired of it.

“Fake Empire” is one song that could exemplify the greatness of this album along with very evocative lyrics that get ultimately immersed into the melodies, as the song rises to it’s climactic end, with the surprising entrance and reverberation of strings and saxophone, as The National main vocalist Matt Beringer goes on repeating how he has to “hide away in a fake empire”.

How does one hides in an empire that is unreal? It escapes me the most. But with a cool band like The National, it might just as well be possible—-a possibly eloquent hideaway.

Watch and listen to The National singing “Fake Empire” at The David Letterman Show.

Katy Perry Sings Best

I am looking through several videos on the current nowadays. Of course, I would be at You Tube for that. Thanks mostly to the newly installed DSL broadband service that we have just gotten. It’s just a paradigm shift that I wonder where I’ve been before broadband came to us—-perhaps in the dark ages.

Now, I hear Katy Perry lamenting how a “Mannequin” is not a man, but “just a mannequin”, and I could almost hear her voice quiver and get exasperated about this fact. And her voice is just superb, just like in her archetypal and brilliant first single “I Kissed A Girl” that took her to worldwide fame in virtually seconds time. Now that’s success in the most instantaneous way.

Katy Perry has such great musicality that in her debut album “One of the Boys”, she belts out a great collection of ear-candy ditties, ones that are also so heavy in emotion and sentiment, and passion of course. I never heard a girl sang with this kind of passion since Ann Wilson of Heart did her thing in the late 80’s, singing “Alone” and “These Dreams”. Ms. Perry sang so well like that. She could similarly be as awesomely haunting as Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette and Sinead O’ Connor, and also like Fiona Apple in the way she writes and sang her songs. Wonder why I mentioned all these great female artists in reference to Katy Perry? Perhaps it’s because I have enjoyed her music so much that it’s one of the most original works that I have digged in lately. “One of the Boys” could be just the best release for this year except if something better comes up from now till December. And do not be surprised if she would garner all the music awards that’s gonna be out there come awards season early next year.

In “Mannequin”, I could almost feel the desperation of her longings, seeking an artificial person, wanting it to be a person, when we are so full of real persons all around. Or is it? Isn’t it somehow beguiling how Katy Perry could be so true in how “real persons” could be so unreal and plastic, that she’d rather have a mannequin on her side. Mannequins don’t complain. Don’t cheat. Don’t lie. Don’t steal. But like Ms. Perry said, “…he’s just a mannequin…and not a man”. Consider this line:

“How do I get

Closer to you

When you keep

It all on mute

How will I know

The right way

To love you”

Isn’t that tragic and romantic, both at the same time?

Katy Perry is just not excellent in “Mannequin” alone. “One of the Boys” is magically lively. “Ur So Gay” soothing yet controversial and in “Lost”, real emotions take the high-note like never before asking “have you ever been so lost…is there a light at the end of the road?” And in “I’m Still Breathing”, the song is just so exceptionally haunting and carries a very catchy slow melody that it should be the best song I’ve ever heard this year, toe to toe with “Mannequin”.

Now you might ask: “I am in consonance with her messages?” Some say she is very radical and controversial for “kissing a girl” or saying something like “ur so gay”, they say she’s homophobic (fear and cautiousness or homosexuals) and some say she’s misandric (irrational hate of boys). But I guess, Ms. Katy Perry is just being brave to tackle the issues that confront the new form of society today, the confusion of gender that hugs the headline news ever so often, the religious and moral issues that heatedly goes with it.

I may not agree with all her dispositions and that’s for sure. But she opens up these questions for us so that we may tackle it ourselves; and observes how these new things are occurring within and without us.

Above all, Katy Perry has really awesome music.

RATINGS: 7.5 out of 10.

Kings of Leon: Melancholia and Bruce Springsteen

There’s something very edgy about King of Leon’s new album.
To be sure, there’s a deep melancholy about the songs consisting this 4th major outing for the up-and-about rock band from Tennessee, one that is so reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen while in his peak during the 80’s; so terse and forceful, like a radiant harmony from an ancient kingdom, one that’s been lost and had gotten away from the wayward hands of man.

In “Use Somebody”, Caleb Followill (King of Leon’s main man), belches out and self-promotes with an insistent voice so steep that even if I could not use a man right now, I feel like wanting to be in Tennessee any minute now and see if I could actually “use somebody like him”.

He sings “I’ve been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see, painting faces, building places I can’t reach” and that is just like in Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia”, evoking melancholy in narrow streets, across a cacophony of nuances, of desertion and yearning and along sad highways.

Who’s using who? It is as real a question as could possibly be, because more often than not, a man is either being used by somebody or is using somebody—- depending on what end each of us would find ourselves in. Such and such things.

In the end, Followill keeps on belching “somebody like me”, over and over again, seeking attention and affirmation, like a crying child; and that’s where the music becomes glorious in its melancholy, to the point of being salvific.

Overall, the album is such a fresh release, imbibing a rock renewal that brings forth the spirit that had carried rock music to the extremes in the 1980’s, along the path of New Wave and Glam Rock, and mostly to the he no-frills southern tinged work from such legends as Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp. You could say, it’s very eclectic this way; but that is just so fine with me.

RATING: 7 out of 10.

Where The Wild Roses Grow

There’s a good song and then there’s a good song. What I mean is that, some song is just so good that I just feel triumphant about it. Like Nick Cave’s “Where the Wild Roses Grow” which he sang with Australian pop diva Kylie Minogue, a song I’ve heard on TV, in a music video some years ago and never heard about till now. The thing is Nick Cave is so popular worldwide but he ain’t as such in our territory that not even a shadow of any of his albums was seen in any local music store. That way, I forgot about Mr. Cave, even if I liked him the first time I’ve heard his voice, singing “There Is A Light” in the soundtrack of Batman Forever movie.

Maybe Nick Cave sounded so much like Jim Morrison of The Doors that I could not help but feel so enamored by his voice as Jim remains the most iconic of all musicians for me, just like Bono and Bob Dylan, and since he is now gone, Nick Cave and his songs just felt so fulfilling to me, so in time, truly wondrous and celebratory.

I don’t know specifically, but I thought this song “Where the Wild Roses Grow” is just a very good song, while Nick Cave is just a very clever musician. And mind you, the music video that goes with the song is classic to the sight, like a critically-acclaimed movie from Akira Kurosawa, such as “Dreams” and reminds me so much of a dream I had some years back, one that was so vivid and most memorable of all, to which I have written about as “The Pond” and truly, if I could picture that very memorable dream in a movie, it would most probably have this kind of look and feel, so meaningful and yet so silent, like words have no meaning at all, for no words is necessary, and everything is animated and heavy with meaningful thoughts.

At the beginning of the song, there’s the entrance of violins, and then came the piano, and I thought if Mozart were alive today, this was his own masterpiece. And the lyrics is pure poetry, such as Shakespeare or Dickinson, and Nick Cave should have won a Nobel Prize for this. Sadly, they don’t give that damn award to rock musicians.

Without further adieu, this is Nick Cave’s “Where The Wild Roses Grow”:

Keane’s Spiralling Success

Keane is back with a reverberating album in “Perfect Symmetry” now topping the Billboards Album Chart at No. 7 and I expect it to remain somewhere within that sphere for many weeks to come.

In 2004, this English band gained worldwide accolade for the catchy and ultra-melodic “Everybody’s Changing” and from that moment on, the band never looked back and gained more and more success.

Honestly, I thought so little at first about this band from East Sussex, relegating them merely and probably as one of those one-hit wonders that had just got lucky with one very inspired composition. I even thought then that Tom Chaplin’s voice was just one of those Bono wanna-be’s that tries to imitate the inimitable voice of the U2 frontman.

But lately, things have changed. I am greatly engrossed by Keane and the music they permeate, sounding so proficient and deep like they’ve been out there for decades among the great rock bands of all time. And Tom Chaplin’s exudes that forceful confidence that’s definitive throughout “Perfect Symmetry”, a kind of feel-good exuberance that becomes imbibing to the listeners, especially when most of the songs in the album embark upon the subject of love and emotion, piano-driven love songs as they are called, and probably Keane could be forgiven for being silly almost all the time, as they could be just among a few modern rock bands that is able to extrapolate on those silly topics so extraneously and then be excused afterwards.

In “The Lovers Are Losing”, Keane sings a winning melody that could rack up admiration all over again, just like it did in “Everybody’s Changing”, serenading the listeners with a wicked keyboards intro that’s leaves a very good mark. Another promising song is “Better Than This’, very catchy and inspiring.

And listening to the whole album is like being in one very enjoyable ride, through desert highways and immaculate interstate avenues, as the wind kisses the sunlit horizon so silently.

I just thought Keane’s new album is just perfect for the car stereo, when I never really thought before that there is some kind of music that is just perfect while one is driving or riding in a car.

In the latest single “Spiralling”, Keane introduces itself so loudly and so eloquently and the song itself has just that, a very enticing intro that make the heart stomp and the feet move in lively rhythm.

Listen to Keane’s “Spiralling”:

Keane’s Album : “Perfect Symmetry” -
Rating: 8 out of 1o.

Hercules and Love Affair

When I was just new to being a music lover, like really being into music, sometime just after my high school days, I had a thought then that I didn’t have much interest in dance music. Not that I were just being typical of most rock music lovers, who shows no restraint at all in showing (off) their contempt for “dance” music, like it was only for sissies and phonies. In fact I could like them so well in the past. When I was a very young kid, like somewhere between 8 or 10 years old, I had often jibed and feel the beat of songs like “Brother Louie” or “Tarzan Boy” being played in game arcades that I had frequented then.

Perhaps, it was my great leaning to New Wave that had somehow made Petshop Boys reasonably chic and modish.

Or perhaps, Depeche Mode was really a dance band when they started making music in the mid-80’s that we countless millions of soul who had loved them in their early days really and actually had loved dance music, without us knowing it.

One day, about several months ago, I passed by my favorite video rental store and got hold of the tribute concert video to Leonard Cohen titled “I’m Your Man” , and I just got blown by it. It was a very good concert video/musical, and could be just second to U2’s “Rattle and Hum”. There was this fat guy in that show who just appeared on stage and sang Cohen’s “If It Be Your Will” and I thought it was a fabulous number, the way the fat guy sang it was so terrifyingly haunting that I kept on watching that part of the concert over and over again.

The thing is – I never knew the name of the fat guy even if I had gotten so interested with his so enchanting voice. But I tried searching in the net and I later found out that his name was in fact Antony Hegarty. I thought that I liked to hear most of his song and wondered if ever he had some works before and truth to be told, indeed he was in a band, two of them in fact, Antony Johnson and the Aeons and Hercules and Love Affair.

This was how I discovered the sumptuous and wonderfully-crafted album Hercules and Love Affair, the self-titled debut album from the band with the same name.

The album is a dance album that’s why I was having some soliloquy about dance music in the beginning part of this post.
Now I wonder if finally, dance music is just as pleasurable as rock music. I wonder even if dance music is finally making a huge comeback, back to its heydays in the 80’s.

And for a dance band, Hercules and Love Affair’s album is so seriously wonderful and lyrically emotional that it was not like any other dance album that I’ve got ever known of.

In the beginning song “Time Will”, Antony Hegarty sang “Don’t Lie to me. Don’t Make it Up… I cannot hold half a life.” Now that’s just an emotional outbreak that just got me so wedged with this album.

In “Blind”, the band showed exceptional liveliness with a very jibing bass intro that makes the body move effortlessly and being so caught up by the ever so melodic vocals of Antony, making it one of the most original pieces of music that I have heard so recently.

And as if this wasn’t enough, the album moves on to higher ground in the extremely vigorous “Raise Me Up” with meandering lyrics that sang “They put you down. They pushed your face down. You kissed the ground.”

Naomi Ruiz also maintain vocal duties in this band and she is sometimes called “Fabulous Naomi” and the first time you hear her sing, it would be no surprise why she is called that way. Her voice is smooth and flowing like a crystal afloat an ice field, that in “Iris” and “Athene” she just turned the songs into full bloom naturally. She immediately reminds the listener of EBTG’s Tracy Thorn, so confident in voice and one who needs no vocal acrobatics whatsoever.

Almost every song in the album is as catchy as a fresh rainbow, almost all. It’s a being rare that way. Every song in it could actually be played on FM radio and that’s ultimate radio-friendliness that doesn’t happen every day.

Rating : 9/10

Closing Time : A Leonard Cohen Sampler

Leonard Cohen – New Music – More Music Videos

Nobody really knows Leonard Cohen except those who are music diggers to the core. Even I myself would have thought just about a couple of years ago that he had been the Soft Cell vocalists all along, having name-sound similarity with Marc Almond. Almond, Cohen…probably the same new wave guy.

But a tribute CD had caught my attention one day and after listening or watching it, I had a thought about to where have I been to all these years. If you throw me a Bob Dylan record, some days I would surely prefer to play Leonard Cohen on my cellphone-cum-mp3 player-cum alarm clock. 

One thing is for sure, he is Canadian. Now that I know.

And he’d been playing music since Dylan did in his 60’s heydays. I wonder now why he’d been so widely-unknown, really amazes me, what with the silvery folksy music that he croons to, its unimaginable to a great extent.

Mr. Cohen in fact had to change his music style a bit just to garner interest in popular music, and one of them song is "Closing Time", featuring vibrant and dancy beat, complete with a polished and ultra-sleek music video released along with it. And the result, same gem music he often produces, telling and poetic, for he is also a published poet, and novelist as well as essayist.

So listen to this, "Closing Time"; Although I assure you, his best work does not make you dance at all.

 

 

The Chris Daughtry Irony

I stopped playing online poker for an hour tonight so I can watch “American Idol” on cable television and that’s a sign how I am such a huge American Idol patron. As a matter of fact, I am often glued to the singing competition show every time it’s on, perhaps five years in the running now.

I just loved how talented these amateur participants are that I often have doubts if ever they are really real contestants and not just been hand-picked by the show’s producer. And especially the early parts of the season, the one’s they held on stadiums, where lots of goofy things happened, and lots of crazies wanting to have their 15 seconds of fame. I had guffaws most especially when these so out-of-sync contestants really thought they were shoo-ins and even spew bitter and stinging words for the judges, most especially at Mr. Cowell. The episodes are so much funnier than any spoof one could ever snatch on TV, really.

But this year, I haven’t got to watched lots of American Idol episodes due perhaps to my busy work schedule as a University teacher. Or perhaps, I just got tired of it. So I watched AI sparingly now. I don’t even know the names of the current season’s finalists, unlike in previous years.

But hey, this year’s version of American Idol really has stupendous talents, like now it’s so true, as what Randy Jackson have always been saying every time, that this year (like every year he says), the show has the most talented group of contestants than any other year, and the most tight of competition at that. Like he always says that, and it sounds so patronizing doesn’t it?

So now it’s down to the top 3 and next week would be final night. That’s great excitement for AI lovers. The cute girl with the rocking voice was booted out and it was a misjudgment. But hey, I ain’t got no vote privilege to ever complain, being far from the American coast.

And Chris Daughtry appeared with a new single. To date, he had sold 5 million copies of his debut album and had won a Grammy or two to boot. Probably Chris is the most successful Idol graduate to date. Except perhaps that Carrie Underwood could challenge this status, being so huge now in country music world.

Now I wonder, if this would be such a patent irony. We all know that Chris Daughtry did not win the AI the year he was a participant and was a far fourth actually, losing to Taylor Hicks and Ms. Katherine McPhee.

This must be what we can call the Chris Daughtry Irony. He is the reason why perhaps I could surmise why some contestants probably want to go home early and do a daughtry, having some kind of a sweet revenge, or a stunning comeback, proving all of em wrong.

Radio Playtime Pupil’s Teacher’s Pet

Ely Buendia is riding high so once again with Pupil’s “Teacher’s Pet” garnering massive playtime on primetime radio. It’s on KLITE Manila; they’ve been playing it all so often and that makes it tops of the charts, years after it was officially released .

Just when we thought we can count Pupil as just another Eraserhead spin-off, the band lurches back with this ditty that has got not only great sound and melody, but really, really clever lyrics, one that only Ely Buendia could spew out and no one else, at least in the local music scene. It’s so original that way.

Consider how Ely sang in “Teacher’s Pet”: “You are a natural selection, a full-proof rule without exception. Let me indoctrinate you, while you indoctrinate me.”

That’s really awesome lyric making.

And the song itself sound so much like a Billboard charter, only if we don’t easily recognize that it’s Ely singing a catchy ditty all along.

Maybe I’ll just publish the entire lyrics for you to browse. Hope I won’t go copyright violating for this.

Teacher’s Pet by Pupil

You could be making the grade

You could be making the grade

Don’t let your memory fade

Stop cramming when the meter starts running

[Chorus]

Here kitty, kitty

You’re looking so pretty

But I ain’t got time to know

Who’s coming tonight

I repeat, complete the equation

You plus me is a sure bet

Don’t you know it’s good to be the

Teacher’s pet

When I saw you lurching

Like a sea urchin

I knew I had to make good

Like a good boy should

‘Cause you got me thinkin’

You got me thinkin’

You are a natural selection

A full-proof rule without exception

Let me indoctrinate you

While you indoctrinate me

On the ways of the world

You are my favorite girl

(Repeat Chorus)

Teacher’s pet

Teacher’s pet

You could be making the grade

We’re jamming

Gonna hit the ground running

Here kitty, kitty

You’re looking so pretty

But I ain’t got time to know

Who’s coming tonight

I repeat, complete the equation

You plus me is a sure bet

Don’t you know it’s good to be the

Here kitty, kitty

You’re looking so pretty

But I ain’t got time to know

Who’s coming tonight

I repeat, complete the equation

You plus me is a sure bet

Don’t you know

Don’t you know

Who’s coming (6x)

Don’t you know it’s good to be the

Teacher’s pet

Teacher’s pet

Teacher’s pet

Teacher’s pet

David Cook's Star Shines All The More With New Hit Single

When David Cook’s new single came on FM radio, I thought “Come Back to Me” was such a catchy rock ditty that I wanted to play it over and over again. I was even thinking of calling the FM radio and talk to the DJ. But nah, that was something we don’t do anymore, making song request over the phone—- or do we still do that?

In fact, I liked the song first before I knew it was a David Cook song. Maybe it’s true that David’s voice is not so unique after all.

So, “Come Back to Me” is a number with a very strong come-on, and to be sure it would further reinforced David Cook’s stranglehold on his new-found fame, making his star shine all the more.

Maybe I won’t talk about this very catchy song anymore, maybe you just have to hear it playing.

Indonesia Culture/Malaysia Culture

There’s an interesting issue brimming between the two Southeast Asian neighbors – Indonesia and Malaysia – one that has caught the news world just today. It’s in fact a broiling issue that threatens to overflow—- amounting even to a call for war.

Just lately, Indonesia has accused Malaysia of plagiarizing its culture when the latter used a Balinese dance—- the Balinese Pendet Dance —- to promote a TV Program aimed at imbibing tourism.

Malaysia has since apologized and had canceled the use of the disputed dance. Yet, tempers remain high as Indonesian protesters trooped to the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta and pelted it with unlikely missiles, from rotten eggs to ninja bladed stars—- mind you. And some of them thought war could ensue. Now that’s really a serious consequence just for a mix-up on a cultural dance, getting overboard somehow.

But there’s a positive thing I see in this brewing controversy for it only shows how these two countries feel so much passionately about their culture.

Contrary perhaps to the fact that some of us do not even think about it anymore, not in this ultra-high speed, modern age that we are living right now.

Still, I must say that Indonesia and Malaysia should hold their horses and refrain from going to war (pun intended) based on the misuse of a Balinese Pendet Dance. Historically, speaking the two countries share so much in terms of culture and civilizing influence, a fusion that goes back to so many centuries ago, even as far back as the empiric age of Sri Vijaya and Majapahit (7th to 13th Century). And even with the Philippines, cultural affiances are myriad and overwhelming.

In this age, the Hindu culture from across the ocean had made very deep inroads into the Malay Archipelago and into the vast Indonesian islands. This had happened in a time long before the Arabs and Chinese came, for trade or religious duty.

In this manner, mix-ups or confusion with cultural items or matters would surely ensue, and could not actually be negated completely. To this, there should be understanding and indulgence between the two Southeast Asian countries, two nations that are often at odds with each other, even going to war in the 1960’s in dispute of Borneo(Konfrontasi).

And besides, it’s time that Southeast Asian countries should band together culturally and not be so mindful of minor cultural differences. Culture is best apprehended and appreciated when it is shared especially to the ones that are near and adjacent.

By the way, as an upshot of this controversy, some Indonesians started to point out that the Malaysian national anthem, Negaraku (My Country) , was merely a copycat of an Indonesian song Terang Bulang (Bright Moon). This is true in some point since the two songs, Negaraku and Terang Bulan are adaptations of an old French melody that was so popular in the entire Malay peninsula in the 17th century.

Now this one could actually inflame and flare-up nationalistic and patriotic feelings and sentiments since we are already speaking of a national anthem here, and not merely a cultural dance.

I hope the leaders of Indonesia and Malaysia would be wise enough to calm the fierce debate at the soonest time possible and be able to resolve it in the most reasonable of manner.

U2's Live Magnificience

U2’s last studio album “No Line on the Horizon” did not do so well in the charts but the band is the biggest live act this year as its 360º world tour has now garnered top spot earning $ 130 Million.

This merely consolidates their status as the ‘biggest band in the world’ today, surpassing legendary AC/DC and Bruce Springsteen for concert patronage.

This is probably not merely due to the great musicianship of U2 but also the unequalled conceptualization of their shows, clever use of lightning and video backgrounds and excellent arrangements of numbers.

Only shows that hardwork and dedication in the music industry remains the only thing that could make a band or musical act as great as U2. Bono and the guys from Ireland certainly show great patience in honing and practicing their skills as rarely you would see them out of sorts every time they hit the stage. This is what the fans are looking for, that for every night they paid pricey concert tickets, they expect excellent performances such as what U2 give their fans night in night out.