It's been far too long since I've written anything. Who's up for another random thingy?
Baroness - Wailing Wintry Wind
I must admit I haven't listened to much Baroness. On paper, they sound like a band I should enjoy.
This song, from their Red Album, is either an instrumental or has a very long intro. It's nice and mid-tempo with some flashy-in-a-good-way drumming and some nice guitar work. Kinda spacey, kinda now, kinda wow.
AH! Here come the vocals. He sounds upset. I was feeling a little lulled by that mellow intro, but now things have gotten a bit more urgent.
Atmospheric intro, a bit of yelling, then some frantic guitaring, then a really good little somewhat airy solo underpinned by some staccato, jagged chords.
Not knowing much about the Red Album, this song makes me wonder if it might be a concept piece. What I mean is, it sounds like it's part of a greater whole. That would suit me just fine and Wailing Wintry Wind is intriguing enough to make me want to listen to the entire album.
It's 7AM and I've been up most of the night, so guess what? Let's have a song.
"World's Greatest Lover" by Cheap Trick "You're the world's greatest lover...in my world..."
This song is from the Trick's 1980 album All Shook Up. Here we have a straightforward love song from Rick, Robin, Tom and Bun E. Not normally my thing, if I'm honest, but this is CHEAP TRICK. Even at their worst, they're better than most. Not saying this is their worst, and it's infinitely better than that fucking "Don't Want To Miss A Thing" garbage where Aerosmith finally gave up trying to bring the rock and decided to let themselves sink into Schmaltzville completely and cater to the housewives and aging jocks who need something to play in the car when they want to try and impress some empty-headed bimbeaux with how sensitive and romantic they can be.
It's a well-known and accepted fact that Robin Zander is one of THE greatest voices ever in this music we call rock 'n roll, and Cheap Trick are THE masters of twisted, catchy rock/pop-rock/whatever you want to call it...they rule the roost, Chickie.
And listen, if you're going to have something as stupid as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cheap Trick needs to be in there. Green Day before Cheap Trick? This is one reason I don't want to live in this world. I'm fucking serious. Fuck you, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
And you know what else?
FUCK YOU, Aerosmith. But most of all, FUCK YOU, GREEN DAY.
You know those songs that seem to sneak up on you from out of nowhere, thwack you over the head, pummel your heart and leave you wondering where they've been all your life?
Dire Straits' "Romeo And Juliet" is the stand-out musical mugger for me.
The album that contains this meisterwerk, Making Movies, is one of my all-time favorite discs, due in no small part to the aforementioned track. I'm talking pre-"Money For Nothing" Dire Straits. You know, before they turned a bit shit. (Sorry, Dire Straits, but the tunes on Making Movies wail all over almost everything that came after and you fucking KNOW it.)
This is a GREAT record, people.
Trying to articulate exactly why "Romeo And Juliet" gets me every time is what I'm going to do.
Firstly, the music is beautifully played. Mark Knopfler is one of the most underrated guitar players around. There's no one else like him. He's not the greatest singer, but he's a marvelously expressive vocalist and a damn good songwriter to boot.
But I'm a Lyrics Man, and although every word of this song contributes to its perfection, there are a couple of lines that really grab me by the throat and choke me up whenever I hear them.
At its heart, "Romeo And Juliet" is the tale of two kids who are madly in love. In the end, though, we find out that Romeo had a lot more invested in the relationship. At this point I was going to quote the lines that hurt my heart every time, but quickly realized that every line is necessary, the way each line is sung - vital.
If you haven't heard this song before, please treat yourself. No words could do it justice. I will warn you though: DO NOT seek out the official music video for this song, for it is almost enough to ruin the whole damn thing. ALMOST, I said.
Try this, instead. I apologize that it's a cheesy lyric video (and I'm not even going to get started on how some of the words shown are wrong), but every live version I could find has Knopfler singing like he's bored to tears and THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO SING IT, KNOPFLER. It's fun to say "Knopfler". Yeah. Knopfler. Plus, there's NO way I'm subjecting anyone to that freakish "official" video. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.
And here's that abominable piece of crap, because I know you were going to seek it out in spite of my warnings:
"Dance 4 U" by Charli XCX
I like Charli XCX. I don't take as hard a line these days about the types of music I'll check out and this is indicative of that.
This song, however, is not so good, Efrem. To be fair, though, it's from a mixtape, which are not always chock-full of an artist's best material.
Basically, when it comes to pop music I'm in the "The Stupider, The Better" camp almost all of the time and this song, believe it or not, is not stupid enough. If you know what I mean.
"Child Activist" by Guided By Voices
I like GBV very much. This is sorta what you'd expect from this gang of lo-fi lotharios. Eighty-two savory seconds of catchy mud.
If you're not too familiar with this band, leader Robert Pollard writes way more songs than probably anyone else in the world. He seems to release all of them, too. This isn't a bad thing, because the majority of his work is really nice.
The first album I heard by GBV was Bee Thousand. It was getting loads of good write-ups upon its release and I was swayed enough to fork out the cash for a CD. It's a marvelous record and I always have a lot of time for Guided By Voices.
