Sunday, October 24, 2010

Nine Inch Nails : Lights in the Sky

NIN, as the kids call it, can be quite a dividing band in my experience. People either love Trent Reznor (the frontman, founder, and only permanent member) and borderline worship him or think he's arrogant, selfish, and depressed. I like him, and this will not be the last post about his music, so too bad. I'm also starting out with quite possibly his most depressing song, so everything should be uphill from here.

Live Version:



Lights in the Sky was a small track on The Slip, the last album they released (for free by the way, if you want it), and I found it by far the most powerful because of it's original orchestration with only piano and vocals. NIN is at their best, in my opinion, when they use simple musical ideas to create emotion, in situations where other bands would try and get a big and full sound to express something, NIN will use single notes, and it is just as, if not more, impactful. The main 'riff' in the song is three notes, the same three notes repeated over and over. The main soul of the song comes from Trent's singing style, which is almost spoken word. Plus, in the live version I've linked to, his voice cracks in such a perfect way that I can't quite tell if it was accidental or intentional (though I've seen his voiced give out on different shows on that tour, which is part of why I believe he chose it for his last tour).

A trait that NIN uses a lot in their music lyrically is a first person narrative that is metaphor heavy, and therefore applicable to a wide range of situations and listeners. This narrative is all about reconciling with a loss, the female counterpart in the song is drowning, and the main character is going through all of the emotions of losing a loved one at once. He wants to drown with her, can't see going on without her, trying to deal with her being gone, but not doing a good job of it ... anyone who has lost someone will find their own emotions in this song.

One warning about this song, and the band in general, they aren't afraid to take a song to a depressing place and just leave it there. There is no redemption for the character, no resolution, just a fade out. The song ends on the line "Right beside you", and where he is is drowning, just like the woman.

Man, that was depressing. I'll go over a MIKA song next.

John Legend & The Roots : I Can't Write Left Handed

It's been awhile, mostly due to school work, but after being subjected to some Lady Gaga recently I feel the need to make a couple posts, so here we go.



While my normal listening doesn't normally consist of R&B and Hip-hop, as the artists in the title would suggest, I love old style blues, which is what this song is. This is a cover that John Legend and The Roots did, and it is originally by a blues guitarist named Bill Withers. He wrote it in the wake of the Vietnam War, and it's about an American soldier coming home from the war with a wounded shoulder, making him unable to write with his right hand (and as the title suggests, he can't write with his other hand).

One of the most powerful aspects of this song is the use of volume swells, when the lyrics are docile the music is quiet and minimalistic, and when the soldier remembers getting shot the music picks up with big drum fills and distorted guitar, and it feeds the emotions of the song in a way that I think is somewhat hard to find in modern music. Especially since it isn't very hard to translate this song from Vietnam to Iraq.

Another brilliant addition by the drummer (Questlove) is that whenever the lyrics turn back to Vietnam, he starts playing the snare in a way that you would hear in a military marching band, trying to keep soldiers marching in time. In a way they're sort of the modern drums of war, and whenever the soldier thinks of getting shot he can still hear them, it really throws the listener into the a military state of mind every time the chorus ends, which I think is really clever and powerful.

The lyrics themselves set themselves apart from what most war songs and stories try to do, which is show the battlefield or what the war itself is/was like. What this song does is show the aftermath, what the soldiers do when they return, trying to go back to normal lives. It is a great example of social and political commentary. On the one hand, he can't do simple tasks because of his physical injuries, but that isn't what is the worst thing for him. It's the chorus, where he's talking about the war and the Vietnamese man that he's never seen before who shot him, that's where the music picks up and shows anger and emotion. The normal life doesn't bother him at all, but the thought of shooting strangers and getting shot at by these other people that he doesn't really have any quarrel with at all.

I think that this song is powerful because it provokes many contemporary images of the Iraq war, and I believe that this song will continue (or should continue) to pop up in mainstream music and culture as long as wars continue to be fought.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Hearing The Music

Small post here on listening to the songs I talk about. Sure, you could go Youtube it and maybe even stumble upon a music video, but that isn't what I do for music I don't have in my iTunes. Personally, I recommend Grooveshark. It's an online music player that let's you choose what is being played and lets you form playlists, with NO AUDIO ADS. Too good to be true? Go check it out, I think it's good enough to give it a free promotion.

Dream Theater - Another Day

Here's an older track from Dream Theater, which I believe at the time of it's release was somewhat mainstream (complete with music video, which I can't embed for you). I picked this song to give some contrast to my first post, which is dark and metal and all that good stuff, so this song has a lot of (somewhat) hopeful elements in it and of course James Labrie's singing style is just cheerier overall compared to James Hetfield.



The tone of the song itself is constantly keeping the listener on it's toes, switching constantly and seamlessly from major and happy to tender sadness. Add on to these switches the back-and-forth between solo piano and full band, not to mention that they throw in a a sax player just to add an extra touch of emotion (although at times I can't help but think of Kenny G, ugh). The song never wants to let you be completely content with a major key, but it will always almost give it to you, which makes complete sense with the lyrics.

This song is entirely metaphor heavy, and I'll admit that without being a huge Dream Theater nerd and reading interviews and watching the music video, I would probably have no idea what this song is about. From what I can gather though, this song is about a little girl who is diagnosed with brain cancer, and throughout the parents and doctors are trying to console and keep the girl's hopes up while simultaneously dealing with the terrible disease. Now, that is a LOT more depressing than the song sounds, because the story isn't about the little girl dying, it's about her living to see "Another Day"( I feel like James Bond dropping the title of his movie IN the movie right there). So the lyrics are full of encouragement and at times, the acceptance of death, but sort of in the sense of Carpe Diem than just lay down and die.

What separates this song from most other Dream Theater songs is the more standard structure of it, mainly that there isn't a huge instrumental section in the middle, which brings me to a point about this song. This song is an example of a progressive group writing a song that I believe was intended to be mainstream and get them public awareness, while other songs on this album are more traditionally crazy (of course, "Pull Me Under" is what actually got them fame, but I digress). My point is that these musicians are good enough to bend the framework of their genre, both restrictively and expansively, and are still able to write good music. Thus ends my justification for choosing this song on "Images and Words", instead of "Learning to Live" or something.

Here is a an awesome acoustic version. Pay special attention to the short shorts and high tops, good 'ol 90's.



Bonus Prog Blog:
http://prognotfrog.blogspot.com/2010/09/confluence-4-voyages1976.html

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Metallica - One



While I was trying to figure out the first song or album to discuss on here, I eventually came to the conclusion that I should start at the beginning, and like so many metal lovers before the first band that had a huge impact on me was Metallica. And "One" is one of the best songs off of my favorite album of theirs "...And Justice for All". For one, it begins with something that I think only prog bands have the guts to do, which is put non-musical sounds in their songs. So we open up with the sounds of a battlefield and James Hetfield shouting orders, the chopper blades start whirring and the character of the story is airlifted out of combat.

That's when the clean guitar comes in with one of the most appropriately sad riffs I've ever heard. After listening to it analytically for this blog post, I can see the images of the soldier being airlifted out of the battle and ending up in a hospital over the intro riff and solo, which was set up by the battle sounds. It's a great example of the music telling a story as much as the lyrics do.

While on the subject of the intro solos, this song has some of the most well written solos in it I think, with the context within the song taking a clear charge over the need of a lot of guitar players to have blatant shred in whatever they play. Of course the final solo gets a decent amount of shred in there, this is Metallica after all.

The lyrics in this section provide everything that the listener needs to connect to this character. It provides every inner thought of this man that can only determine that he is strapped into a machine to continue living, because all he can feel are the needles pumping in what he needs to keep breathing. It's very haunting and Hetfield walks the line between his clean and gravelly voice very expertly as the music behind him switces between clean with punches of distortion.

After all of the intro verses and choruses are played and sung, the transition into the heavy section is unbelievably well arranged. The layers that add on and peel away to eventually give us the legendary triplet riff are perfectly timed so that there is no abruptness in bringing the sorrow of the song into hatred and anger. The double bass drums alluding to the final heavy section is one of my favorite parts of the transition.

The last part is the headbanging goodness that we have all come to expect from Metallica. Heavy riff, pounding drums, James gets to yell "Heeeelllllll-awww", it's classic metal. But, being classic Metallica, it doesn't stop there. What sets this apart from all other metal is the solo, and the soli interlude right before the end.

The solo, which does start out with the shreddy tapping section, is primarily melodious. This section is the heavy balls to the wall ending, but Kirk Hammet takes the time to slow down, make some phrases and add some bluesy licks in there that FOLLOW THE RIFF (I love when that happens).

And after that, there are no more lyrics, other people would have ended it there, but no, there's more. They add harmonized guitar section that sort of brings the mood of the song up a bit, and I think that what it implies is that the character of the song is going to die. Sure, most of the time that is a sad thing, but for this character it's what he wants, he is being forced to live a life of perpetual pain and this major-y section is telling him that he will finally get release. It's a surprisingly beautiful way to end the sad and angry song, but that's what sets it apart as a truly great song.

I believe that's all I have to say analytically and philosophically about this particular song. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for me I will be reading the comments below.