Rebecka McAleer here, Web Editor for the VSU Spectator. Welcome to my music recommendation blog, Additive Noise! Here I'll be discussing snippets from the music culture that surrounds our lives. From Theory of a Deadman to Rascal Flatts to Pink!, you'll find great music here every week! Ready to get started? Just scroll down, and remember to [Listen Out].
Hello my faithful readers!
Like many of you, we at the Spectator were not really impressed with the Miley Cyrus/Robin Thicke performance at the 2013 VMA's. In retaliation (and to save the rest of our week), we have compiled a playlist of the music we remember seeing on TV as children and teens. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you our Top 20 90's/Millenium Pop Playlist! Start the countdown!
20. Hanson - "MMMBop"
19. Mandy Moore - "Candy"
18. Youngstown - "I'll Be Your Everything"
17. Backstreet Boys - "Larger Than Life"
16. 98 Degrees - "I Do (Cherish You)"
15. Britney Spears - "Stronger"
14. Atomic Kitten - "The Tide Is High"
13. 98 Degrees - "If She Only Knew"
12. Five - "Slam Dunk (Da Funk)"
11. Spice Girls - "Spice Up Your Life"
10. *NSYNC - "It's Gonna Be Me"
9. Christina Aguilera - "Genie In A Bottle"
8. B*Witched - "Mickey"
7. Britney Spears - "Oops!...I Did It Again"
6. Backstreet Boys - "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)"
5. B*Witched - "C'est La Vie"
4. Britney Spears - "...Baby One More Time"
3. Backstreet Boys - "I Want It That Way"
2. Backstreet Boys - "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"
And last but not least.....our favorite.....
1. *NSYNC - "Bye Bye Bye"
Thanks for tuning in to this week's Additive Noise! To see and enjoy the full playlist, click here.
Welcome back, students! We’re charging up for a new
semester, and we’re seeing a lot of new changes this semester. From a new Wi-Fi
system for the campus to a new title for me- Multimedia Editor now! –everything’s
getting stirred up around here. What better way to start off Fall 2013 than
with the energy to levitate?
Today’s
song is one that I just came across, though the group has been around for several years
now. It’s called “Levitate”, by the British rave/dance/pop group Hadouken!. Any
video game nerds out there? Hadouken! takes their name from a special attack
move from the Street Fighter games.
Hadouken!
started in 2006 in London, England, and has been decently busy since then. They
have released three studio albums and many, many singles, featuring techno
beats and a bit of rap thrown in. It’s really unlike anything I have ever heard
before, with such a mix of styles all rolled into one band. Some of their
songs, like “Levitate”, are clearly designed to energize. Others, like “Bliss
Out”, are a bit more trance-like and calm.
“Levitate”
was released in January of 2013, and made its way to the #2 chart slot in both
America and the UK. It was the #1 hit in Russia. The steady drum beat that
opens the song makes no mistake. That beat is ready to rock, and it wants you
to join in. It wants to send energy coursing through your blood just to
hesitate, turning the first verse into a deep breath. Then when the bass drops
in time for the second verse, if you’re really into it, it sets your veins on fire.
It’s like feeling the energy of the world touching every nerve in your body,
like electricity.
I feel both feet lift off the ground
I can levitate
With every jolt that leaves I close my eyes
And levitate
Amusingly
enough, it reminds me of the old 5 gum commercials.
Most dance/rave songs make you want
to jump up and down, rocking with the beat. While some people might want to do
that with this song, I feel like being nearly still is just as good of an
experience. If you close your eyes and just feel the music, you can feel what
Hadouken! feels. You can levitate.
So,
students, readers, and hopefully listeners- get energized for the new semester.
Be it your first, last, or just another set of classes to change up the
monotony, spend this one in the air. Levitate. And don’t forget to
Welcome back to Additive Noise. As we head into our last real month of the semester, it’s about time to start hitting those books.
Go ahead and start figuring out what exactly you missed that one day you were sick, or when you overslept and your friend forgot to take notes. It’s time to get sharp again, so we’re bringing you some “mind-sharpening” tunes to help you out. But don’t worry, because these are actually pretty funny.
Jonathan Coulton is a Yale graduate and former computer programmer who uses his witty mind to write comedy music for the smart masses. Using an acoustic guitar and a zendrum for nearly all of his work, Coulton relies on his clever lyrics more than anything. His songs are generally in-character, written from the perspective of any number of amusing fictious personalities.
A couple of the most entertaining ones include “Skullcrusher Mountain,” where Coulton portrays an evil mad scientist as he sings a love songs to the woman he has just captured, and “RE: Your Brains,” which is a musical reading of a professional email sent from a zombie horde leader to a living coworker.
Among his most well-known works are “Code Monkey,” the tale of an unlucky-in-love computer programmer, and the wildly successful pair “Still Alive” and “Want You Gone,” written specifically for the Portal video games. Coulton also writes more subdued “smart” songs about math and science such as “Mandelbrot Set.”
A man of infinite snark, Coulton feeds his sarcastic image in his choices for tour partners. He has a working partnership with comical team Paul and Storm, and they tour together fairly regularly. Coulton has also taken the stage opening for They Might Be Giants. In September 2011, Coulton released his first album featuring a full band, which included They Might Be Giants’ Marty Beller.
Perhaps Coulton’s most impressive feature is his success. His music is all released online under Creative Commons licensing, providing permission for his works to be used in noncommercial works. In fact, the internet is arguably Coulton’s path to fame. It provides more direct access to his niche audience, while also leaving plenty of room for new people to find him.
Folks who wouldn’t pay 99 cents for a song on iTunes can download “JoCo” for free on his website, www.jonathancoulton.com. He doesn’t have a record label, and you probably won’t ever hear him on America’s Top 40.
What most musicians might see as a path directly to failure, Jonathan Coulton thrives on. He doesn’t mind doing silly things like freestyling with the zendrum mid-concert or releasing albums of songs that he wrote and produced in a single week per track. Coulton is the kind of artist you can listen to for fun and still come out feeling a bit smarter.
Get ready, VSU. Turn on some JoCo and break out the books!
Welcome
back to Additive Noise, where music goes for rediscovery. Today we have a blast
from the past in the genre section. Ladies, put on your butterfly sleeves and
rayon stockings, because we are going back to the 1930s and 40s-- also known as
the Swing Era.
Swing
music really made its debut around 1935. American jazz music had taken hold and
was becoming so popular that it had its own spin-off genres. Swing blended
wonderfully with jazz, picking up tempos and populating dance halls across the
country. Popular artists like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie
Holliday experimented with swing, and helped blend jazz and swing into what we
know today as “big band.” Big Band music encompasses the upbeat tempo and style
of swing music with the heavy emphasis on horns and piano seen in jazz. Over
the years it has lost much of its popularity, but big band is certainly not
gone yet.
Big Bad
Voodoo Daddy is a swing/big band revival group from California that has been
bringing the swing back to America since the 1980s. They got their name from a
nickname signed on a poster to frontman Scotty Morris from blues guitarist
Albert Collins, calling him ‘the big bad voodoo daddy.’ Morris and his friend
Kurt Sodergren took the name and ran with it, adding five more members and
hitting the road.
One of
the band’s most popular songs is “Mr. Pinstripe Suit” released on their 1998
album, “Americana Deluxe.” It’s a high-speed dancing song, designed to get
people moving. Morris sings about a man he has dubbed “Mr. Pinstripe Suit” in
reference to his obviously expensive lifestyle. He’s “a smooth talker with an
export cigarette,” who always has “a kitten on his hand.” The song doesn’t have
a whole lot of meaningful lyrical content, but it doesn’t really need it. The
rhythm of the song makes you want to get dressed up and dance like Mr.
Pinstripe Suit.
“Mr. Pinstripe Suit” is not only
one of the band’s greatest hit singles, it also happens to be an excellent
example of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s style. True to big band form, the many
members of the band are each treated to their own solo moments, many of which
are announced or teased by the frontman. The saxophones and trumpets work
together to form some fabulous improvised bridges between verses, and they have
so much fun doing it that the stage is always in a state of motion. This is one
band that does not stand still. In fact, neither does the audience! A couple of
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s live performances have featured audience members swing
dancing in the aisles while the band plays.
Big band music is one of the
crowning accomplishments of the American musical scene, and it is amazing to
find bands such as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy keeping that alive. They are currently
on tour.
To see "Mr. Pinstripe Suit", fastforward to 47:50 in the video below.
Welcome
back to Additive Noise! We’re going to spin off in a fun direction today with
some practical application. Music is a form of communication, designed to send
messages, and today’s song sends more messages than any I’ve ever heard before.
We’re diving into the world of Broadway, with the prologue from the musical Godspell: “Tower of Babble”.
Cleverly
named after the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel, where one language was
split into the many languages of the world, “Tower of Babble” is a song
featuring eight soloists all telling different messages. The play is based on
the Biblical gospel of Matthew, and the characters sing “Tower of Babble”
before they have met Jesus. Their minds are clouded with many philosophies, and
I mean that literally. Each character sings a solo quoted straight from the works
of a famous philosopher. Over many performances and many revisions, these have
come to include Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Leonardo DaVinci, Jean-Paul Sartre,
Buckminster Fuller, Martin Luther, and many others.
Despite
the many versions, the song nearly always begins the same way, with the Apology
of Socrates. “Wherefore, o men of Athens, I say to you/ therefore, acquit me or
not, but whichever you do/I shall never alter my ways, never adjust my approach
to this maze/never reform till the end of my days, even if I have to die many
times.” As each man or woman steps forward to give their own opinion, the solos
intertwine. Sometimes they work together in counterpoint, such as with Leonardo
DaVinci and Jonathan Edwards, who sing a duet together that “sings an argument”.
Sometimes, they just plain sing over one another. By the end, no one can really
tell who’s saying what, or why.
This
song is an absolute piece of genius, because it takes great skill to create
organized chaos. There is a reason the composer, Stephen Schwartz, is a
Broadway legend. Not once do the philosophers run over each other to the point
of destruction, and the music is designed such that they can all sing on top of
one another while still sounding harmonious. This is difficult enough to do
with two singers, let alone eight.
I
highly recommend that we all listen to this song several times this week. We
live in an age where differing opinions have the power to make or ruin lives.
It is my hope that if these eight philosophers can put out all of their ideas
at once while still sounding beautiful, we can learn to do the same with ours.
It’s all about respect, folks.
Challenge
yourself this week! Look up “Tower of
Babble” and select a philosopher to learn more about. Perhaps you have more in
common with Socrates than you thought! See you next week here with Additive
Noise!
Welcome
back to Additive Noise, your #1 source for music recommendations. We’ve touched
on all varieties of cultural music recently, but now it’s time to strike a
harsher chord. Follow me to Finland, home of semi-famous power metal band
Sonata Arctica.
‘Power
metal’ as a subgenre does not come with the most respect. In fact, power metal
bands are generally viewed as the pansy-ish boy bands of the metal scene.
However, Sonata Arctica has managed to take their progressive style (for
example, their use of the keytar) and use it to brand power metal with a new
face.
When
the band first formed in 1999 from the ashes of an attempt at hard rock, it
took a little while to get some traction. They first found real fame with their
2004 album, Reckoning Night, which featured
the single “Don’t Say A Word”. Both single and album topped Finnish charts for
over a month, and even earned Sonata Arctica a place on a European tour with
popular symphonic metal band Nightwish.
“Don’t
Say A Word” is one of Sonata Arctica’s more harsh, raw pieces. It speaks of the
agony of love, how one loves and hates simultaneously, leading to the
destruction of the soul. The chorus is an upstanding voice of morals among the
chaotic, painful verses: “Mother always said, ‘My son, do the noble thing/You
have to finish what you started no matter what’”. This combination of emotional
weakness and strength makes the song one of the most relatable songs in Sonata
Arctica’s repertoire.
Two
albums and much success later, Sonata Arctica smashed through the charts once
more with their single “Flag in the Ground”, from the album The Days of Grays. Unlike “Don’t Say A
Word”, “Flag in the Ground” is a smoother listen, designed to tell a story
rather than invoke emotions. It tells the tale of a couple from the days of
exploration and settlement, torn apart as he sails across the sea to find land
for them to live on. He leaves behind his wife and unborn child. The lyrics
come straight from the letters they share: “Please let me know everything’s
alright/thinking about you though you’re out of sight.” It is a much more
melancholy album in general, but earned the band great praise for their
willingness to try something new.
After
the success of “Flag in the Ground”, it appears that Sonata Arctica became even
more different. Their most recent album, “Stones Grow Her Name”, was described
by frontman and lead vocalist Tony Kakko as “melodic heavy rock” with “Less
parts per song, smaller and better arranged songs with strong lead melodies so
the backing harmonies would remain just that: backing harmonies” (from an
interview with Metal Temple, June 2012).
The
leading single from “Stones Grow Her Name” is called “I Have A Right”. It
speaks with the voice of a child, declaring children’s rights “to be heard, to
be seen, to be loved, to be free, to be everything I need to be me, to be safe,
to believe in something”. While it may not be the band’s most complex piece, it
brings to light an important issue, reinforcing it with strength and
repetition.
These
three featured songs are, of course, only the tip of the Sonata Arctica
iceberg. Whether you’re a diehard heavy metal fan or have never heard a metal
song in your life, Sonata Arctica is definitely worth a listen.
No foray through the realm of music is complete without a bit of cultural variety. Where do we find cultural music in a world of crazy college students?
Anyone who has ever raised a bottle will tell you that many college students get their culture in the form of classic Irish drinking music. Today, we’ll be going through a medley of Irish tunes from the Additive Noise library.
We begin with an old classic that many of us already know. If you’ve ever seen a movie with Irish movie, chances are you’ve heard some variation of “I’ll Tell Me Ma.”
It’s a children’s song from the British Isles, and happens to have a game that goes along with it. Children stand in a circle and sing the song, which speaks of a beautiful young lady, dubbed “the belle of Belfast city,” and asking for her name.
To play the game, one child stands in the center of the circle, and every time they sing “Please, won’t you tell me who is she?” the person in the center calls out the name of someone in the circle.
They trade places, and continue singing. The song is a classic at Irish dances and wedding receptions, because it is easy to dance to and it gives the audience a sense of merriment.
Another classic follows right behind it, but this one is a bit farther off the map. “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” is a native song of Scotland that spread quickly through Britain and Ireland.
It tells the tale of a nobleman chasing after his wife, who has run away with a gypsy lover. The song has held many names over the years: “Seven Yellow Gypsies,” “Black Jack Davy,” and “The Draggletail Gypsies” to name a few.
It was even published in a book of songs compiled by Scottish poet Robert Burns. The most popular recording of “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” in current times is that by popular Irish band The Chieftains, featuring the American bluegrass group Nickel Creek.
I highly recommend this recording, as it features multiple voices in a ‘call and response’ fashion, making it fun to sing along with.
Last but not least, we’ll follow up two classics with a more modern ditty. If you’ve seen the movie Titanic, then you’ve heard of Gaelic Storm (the Irish dance in 3rd class scene –sound familiar?)
Gaelic Storm is actually one of the most prominent Celtic bands in existence, and is the essence of world music. Their members come from England, Ireland, The United States and even Canada.
Though it’s not one of their many billboard top hits, the song that speaks most to me from their repertoire is “Lover’s Wreck,” from their smash 2008 hit “What’s The Rumpus?” “Lover’s Wreck” is the lament of a sailor, presumably for a lost lover.
He describes his life as “A hundred days at sea, a retch away from misery,” while pining for his lover, “a siren, dripping with desire.”
He hints that she was stolen away from him by a ‘thieving band’, and vows that he’ll never sin again if only God will bring her back to him. It’s not a classic, but it sure does sound like one.
Now with these three tracks to build on, it is my hope that the Celtic playlists across campus will grow this week. Embrace your inner Irishman, and play on!
