My iPod #5: Lostprophets - AC Ricochet

So here we go again. Another time but it feels the same. Got sick of waiting heeeeeeeere.

Hey guys, how's it going?

Just want to say thanks to whoever has found this blog and had a look at it. I only have 235 pageviews, but it's nice to know that people are actually seeing it.

Lostprophets...... I don't know what I can really say about them. One minute they'll have a really solid album, i.e. Start Something, and then come up with something that was quite below par for me. That would be Liberation Transmission. I haven't listened to Weapons, but I heard 'Bring 'em Down' and 'We'll Bring an Arsenal', and I wasn't very impressed by them. So I may just give it a pass. Too many 'gang vocals' for me.

So in late 2009 when I was reading all this news about how the band was gonna sound harsher, darker and edgier than before, I was really looking foward to it. The name 'The Betrayed' sounded very bold. And the artwork..... Well, nothing said 'this is a dark album' more than that album cover.

I download it from mp3boo.com, begin listening to it on iTunes.... and it was like Start Something Lostprophets never left. The guitars were all over the place, noodling solos everywhere with a bit of ballad here and there. Choruses to sing at the top of your lungs. Even the interludes were back! The interludes! SHIT.

The best thing was that I downloaded before the link went down, I think, and it was the Japanese edition which had this song, 'Sunshine' and the hidden instrumental, 'The Storm Is Coming...' on there too.

AC Ricochet is one of my favourite songs from that version of the album. It's a great contrast when you listen to this and 'A Better Nothing' comes on straight after with the piano. A very good listening experience. I think it was crazy that it was left off the UK edition.

Was 'The Betrayed' even released in the US? If it hasn't, just get the Japanese version. It's really the best one.

I'm not so sure about Lostprophets now... after all that stuff with Ian... and.... well you know.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #4: Pezz (Billy Talent) - Absorbed

Hey hey hey heeeeeey.

Billy Talent is one of my favourite bands too. They/it is a band that, again, I could dedicate a whole blog to. Just because all of their albums are of a very high standard, and their songs are brilliant.

I am very bias, I've been listening to them for years. But..... they're just so good.

"Watoosh!" was their actual first album. I know, I know what you may be thinking..... "A band called Billy Talent. That's a pretty slick name...... But what the fuck is 'Watoosh!' What the fuck does that even mean?"

I don't know what it means either. But I know that before Billy Talent were called Billy Talent, they went by the name of 'Pezz'. See, that kind of makes it a bit better now right?

I got my sister to download 'Watoosh!' back in 2009 on Amazon, using my aunt's credit card. It's fine. My aunt's pretty loaded.

I had heard the first three songs, and their cover of 'New Orleans Is Sinking' by The Tragically Hip waaaaay back when I was younger, and I knew that Pezz's sound was very different from Billy Talent's sound..... but it still rocked. So I thought why the hell not?

This song is pretty much the last actual song of the album, even if it is followed up by an instrumental and the aforementioned cover.

I feel a lot of emotions from listening to the song. The first two minutes and a half are quite upbeat, the lyrics in the chorus give off a sense of optimism - looking foward to the future: 'I tried, I lied, but through the waves I'll find, yeah through the waves I'll fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind.' Very happy. It makes me feel all warm, deep inssiiidde.

And then things take a turn, not for the worst, but the whole song just changes. The singer starts whispering words under his breath, as the rest of the instruments take a break... to ease things up a bit. And from then on, layers and layers of guitar just build on and on, until the band is just rocking and the last lyrics 'I'LL RIDE YOU OOUUUUUUTTTTTT' are repeated and belted out with sheer determination. It's awesome! It's good stuff.

'Watoosh!' is a good album. Very good. I realised that most of the songs all go by the same structure. If you listen to it, you may realise this too. But's that's not bad! The structure works. The songs are all different, however similar they may be. If that makes sense. And I like all of the songs, some more than others, but...... yeah. 'Sall good.

It's probably for the best that there was another band at the time called 'Pezz'. Then they wouldn't have had to change their name and I wouldn't have 'TRY HONESTY, TRY HONESTY!' in my life.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #3: They Might Be Giants - Absolutely Bill's Mood

Yo.

I don't know where to start. I could have a whole blog entry dedicated to They Might Be Giants, they are one of, if not, my favourite band ever. They've released fifteen albums, their sixteenth one coming soon, and I haven't been disappointed by any of them. I don't want to force them onto you, but if you've never heard of them and you are into the same music that I have posted so far, please I beg you to listen to one of their albums. Just one. That's all I ask.

I normally listen to an album twice before the songs really sink in. The first time I probably just nod my head to the rhythm of a particular track or try and hum to a chorus if it repeats over and over again. And this song was probably stuck in my head by the second or third time of hearing it.

I had already listened to, and really liked 'Don't Let's Start' and 'Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head', both of which are on 'They Might Be Giants' or 'The Pink Album'; when I downloaded the album back in September 2010, I was pretty excited because I didn't know what to expect.

'Absolutely Bill's Mood', the fourteenth track on the debut album isn't my favourite song on the album. I think some fans will probably agree whilst some may be like WTF, but that's just my opinion OK?

But it is still great! Once you listen to the lyrics, I think it is very clear that the song is about a crazy person. Lyrics include:
"My room is comfortably small with rubber lining the walls"
"I know monkey see, but monkey's dead for you it would be wrong"

And the total giveaway:
"I'm insane, I'm insane, I'm insane, I'm insane"

'Bill's Mood' is quite a dark song in comparison with the others, with a strange guitar in the introduction, apparently recorded over the phone, and ominous brrrrrrrrs (keyboard noises) but it lightens the mood with  pretty funny lyrics, a great vocal by John Flansburgh and great conga-sounding drums in the bridge. Nice.

Dig They Might Be Giants.

Until next time.

Jamie.

P.S. THEIR NEW ALBUM 'NANOBOTS' IS BEING STREAMED HERE!

LISTEN TO IT!

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Edit: OK, so it seems like you can't listen to it on the site. Not on my computer anyway.

BUT PRE-ORDER IT!

NOW!

EDIT 2: THE ALBUM IS ACTUALLY HERE!

OK?!

My iPod #2: Grandaddy - A.M. 180

Hi everyone.

This is the second song of the 'A' section of the music on my iPod. It's called A.M. 180 by the band Grandaddy.

I heard this song for the first time a while back in 2005/06 when I was 10/11 on an advert BBC One showed about xFM, a radio station which at the time was hosted by Alex Zane.

The opening 'riff', if you could call it that, played on that certain advert; at the time I had never come across it before. But BBC just kept on repeating it over and over again, so I had to search it on the internet.

I went onto Google, searched it up, found out the name of the song and who it was by, listened to it once on Myspace, didn't think much of it and eventually forgot about it....

Until I remembered the beginning of the song last year. 5 bloody years later.

Would I ever be able to find the song again? What is my life? Why always me?

Using Google again, I found a site where you could hum or sing a part of a song into your microphone and the song you wanted came up as a result.

Somehow it worked. So I went onto we7, played that song whilst using Freecorder and put that shit right on my iPod.

I'm sorry to say that this may be a (hopefully rare) occasion where I don't have a lot to say about this band, because I haven't heard anything else by them except for this song. Maybe I should one day. According to Wikipedia, the members got back together last year so.... hooray! I guess.

Until next time.

Jamie

P.S. I'm not one to encourage illegal downloading even though I have been for many years now, but if you don't want to buy anything, Freecorder is the greatest shit ever.

P.S.S. Google saves lives.

Bye!

Predicament solved. New blog series!

Fuck it.

That is my decision for yesterday's post. As the saying goes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

But on the topic of my iPod, I was wondering what I could do to bring some consistency to my new blog.

I don't just want to come on here one day with nothing to write about. I've been looking through the songs that I have on my 'portable device' and wondering... 'damn, this is the music that I've enjoyed throughout my life.... where does the time go? blah blah blah nostalgia'.

So I'm going to guide you, in alphabetical order, through the songs I have, how I discovered them and whatever.

So number one.....

The Futureheads - A to B

OK. The Futureheads are a four piece band from Sunderland, consisting of two brothers and two other guys. I've listened to them for about... nine years now, ever since their debut album came out in 2004.

I think the first song I heard by them was 'Decent Days and Nights', when I was watching good old MTV2, when it actually played a wider variety of better music. It is now called MTV Rocks, but it doesn't rock at all. Not. at. all.

But anyway, I liked that song and I remember I went shopping with my mum in Tesco one day, and we were in the CD aisle and I saw the front cover of The Futureheads album. I saw it, and the conversation as I recall went a little something like:

Mum: "What's that?"
Me: "It's an album by a band I listen to."
Mum: "Do you like them?"
Me: "Yeah, sure."
Mum: "Alright, well then put it in [the trolley]."

And I've never looked back since.

I wouldn't say that The Futureheads are one of my all time favourite bands, but they have really good, catchy songs with great vocals and punchy instrumentation.

Check out some other stuff by them if you want. Their latest album 'Rant' was released last year, but is only acapella.... so get that if you're into that kind of stuff.

Did you like this blog entry? Comment on it, and I'll try and make these as daily as I can.

Until next time.

Jamie       

iPod predicament.

Hey peeps!

It's really cold in my house at the moment, but that doesn't mean that I don't have time to update this.

I live in the South East of England, Essex to be a bit more precise, and according to my iPod Touch it is.... 1 degree Celsius, jesus.

Which reminds me, everytime I plug my iPod into my computer it is telling me that there is a new update that has to be installed. This is fine. But the last time I did, all of my music was erased and I had to put it on all over again.

It says that there has to be a minimum of 994 MB or something of space available in order to do this, but I don't want to delete any apps or any music.

Should I just leave it then, or risk having my music erased again and just do it?

Answers in the comments please? Thank you (^_^)

Until next time.

Jamie

Hi :)

Well, here I go. My first blog.

I don't really know what to say, 'Hello' is a good place to start.

My name is Jamie, and I want to start this just to share my interests with you and maybe get to know stuff  about you as well.

I don't wanna bore you with a long, droll post. There should be more time for that soon.

Pfff.... this was a horrible first start. But it should hopefully get better in the future.

While I decide what to do for my next post, enjoy a song from one of my favourite bands :)

Until next time.

Oh yeah.