My iPod #44: Pink Floyd - Any Colour You Like

In 2009, I became a Pink Floyd fan.

I don't particularly know why or how. As a child I saw the video for 'Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)' on the TV. The band wasn't in it, and it only showed clips of children running around in a playground interspersed with the walking hammers that are seen in the film. Of course I had no idea what I had just witnessed, and was left quite confused by the whole thing.

I watched the movie for 'The Wall' when I was 13, and I guess I was just hooked from then. Bob Geldof was actually a good actor, the concept behind the album was enthralling and obviously the music played a big part. I ended up getting the double album for my fourteenth birthday.

'The Wall' is up there for being one of Pink Floyd's most popular albums. However, 'The Dark Side of the Moon' is the one that most people agree on for being their finest piece of work and one of the greatest albums ever.

'Any Colour You Like' starts rather abruptly; the song before it named 'Us and Them' segues right into it. There are no lyrics as it is an instrumental, but it's really funky and upbeat. David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright wrote the song, making it one out of three tracks that Waters did not contribute on.

The first minute or so is a synthesiser played by Wright, panning and echoing from one channel to the other. That then segues into a guitar solo, and the whole band joins in with additional scat singing.

I would think that most people would skip this song, but please reconsider. If you have this album, where the songs segue into each other (except one time), and you don't have this song... Well then, that just messes everything up doesn't it? It's also very important in the album's overall concept. Pink Floyd had a thing for concept albums.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #43: Hyper - Ant Music

Oh my god. Year 8 was one of the best school years of my life.

You didn't care about anything, I wasn't in the youngest year anymore, we had no real exams to worry about, I turned thirteen years old. I have so many things I could list; I wouldn't want to bore you with all my sentimental crap though. It was good times. Some gooood times.

Another thing that was great around the time was the freedom I had to play my PS2 for hours on end. I am a FIFA fanatic, I'm not like KSI or any of those gamers online, but I've been buying EA Sports' yearly release since I was seven.

In 2005 EA Sports BIG, known for SSX, released its own FIFA game, 'FIFA Street'. It was nothing like I ever played before. You could make your own team in the 'career mode' and recruit professional players to be on your team. This was when people like Zidane, the original Ronaldo.... All those legends were still playing. It was the best.

In fact it was so good that they released the sequel two years later, 'FIFA Street 2'. The sequel had improved vastly from the first. The first game wasn't even that bad, but the second was out of this world. The locations, the players, the music! The music!

That's where this song comes in. 'Ant Music' is a cover of the song by Adam and the Ants. I have no idea what else I can say to you about Hyper. I probably won't like their stuff, but this song became one of my favourites from the game.

The best thing was some of my friends also owned FIFA Street 2, so we would start bursting into song in lessons, at break, at lunch, when we were going home. All the time.

FIFA Street 2, I love you. Thank you for those memories.

Whatever you do, don't buy FIFA Street 3 or the one that came out last year because those flopped like hell. Seriously. Don't.

The playlist on this game has real quality, so I'm going to list my favourites. Me and my friends sang these everyday.

Highlights
The Flaming Lips - The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Lethal Bizzle - Kickback
The Subways - Rock and Roll Queen
Coldcut ft. Roots Manuva - True Skool
Sway - Flo Fashion
Killa Kela (I think that's right) - Jawbreaker
Art Brut - Formed a Band
Pendulum - Hold Your Colour (Bi-Polar Mix)
End of Fashion - O Yeah
Editors - Munich
British Beef - Without Me
Swingfly - Something's Got Me Started

Yep, that's about it. Have fun listening to them!

Until next time.

Jamie.

My Post #42: The Who - Another Tricky Day

The Whooooooooooooo.

Oh man. Summer 2010 was the moment when I began to actually start listening to the band. Best decision I've made.

I could start a whole story about how I started listening to them and everything, but 'Another Tricky Day; doesn't really fit in with that, so I'll leave that for another day.

Firstly, my new found love for The Who made me want to search for music videos on the YouTubes, and after coming across songs like 'Happy Jack' and 'Substitute' I realised that they were experts at everything they did. Townshend is a great guitar player, Moon, well, you know he's crazy but a beast on the drums, Entwistle the best bass player of all time and Daltrey with his soaring vocals combined produced a wall of melodic noise to great effect.

Then I watched the video for this song; initially I didn't think much of it. Keith wasn't there, he had passed away, and it all sounded very tame. All the energy was lost, but Entwistle made it up with his bass. Townshend was still recuperating after Keith's death, he was drinking and thinking he was going to go next, his family had left him. Life got hard.

It's a pretty sad song. I feel sad listening to it sometimes. I was going to school recently with my iPod playing in my ears. It was raining, this song started playing, and I began to feel useless. The weather was bad, I didn't want to go in, everything was just so boring and repetitive. I don't feel like working anymore, I will for my exams but school is just so pointless.

"It's just another tricky day for you."

Yeah, I know Roger thank you.

All in all, I never feel really happy when I hear this song. Thoughts of dread and despair build up, and it isn't great.

We shall have a happier post tomorrow.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #41: The Beatles - Another Girl

Alright. So, if you read my post yesterday, you know that I am 18 years old! Woot woot.

I still feel the same though. Does everyone else wake up when it's their birthday and just think, 'well, what now?' I thought that by turning eighteen I would feel some sense of freedom or intellectual gain, that hasn't happened so far. Meh. Life goes on.

Yeah yeah, The Beatles were great blah blah blah.

'Another Girl' is a bright and peppy song of the band's album 'Help!'. Paul McCartney takes the lead on this, also filling the role as the lead guitarist. He's the one doing all the random licks during the verses and chorus.

The band also play along with the song in a kind of music video, this can be seen in their movie also named 'Help!'. It's all fun and games with the Fab Four. The guys are in the Bahamas fooling around, John starts playing the drums and Ringo tries to the play the guitar, George starts throwing rocks at the other members, Paul almost touches a girl's noob whilst 'strumming' her like a bass. It's all good times in 1965.

'Help!' won't be that album that The Beatles are most known for, but it's still got some good tunes. This is a highlight.

Happy birthday to me and Pharrell Williams.

RIP Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #40: The Rutles - Another Day

Hi everyone.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Yaaaaaaaaaaay. I am getting older. I will no longer be seventeen in a few hours.

How will I celebrate this day? Probably revising. I will do something with friends though, that's a guarantee. I'm not socially awkward or anything.

Where does the time go? I remember turning seventeen like it was two days ago. Oh well, here's to another healthy year on this earth, and may good tidings come my way in the future.

Back to the music.

Lately when I watched a Rutles video on YouTube, some idiot posted 'Oh my god, these guys are trying to hard to be The Beatles. They make the same kind of music and everything', or something along those lines.

Well no shit, Sherlock.

The Rutles are a parody of the band, created by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, and Neil Innes of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. The band was originally part of a sketch in the show 'Rutland Weekend Television', however the 'Pre-Fab Four' gained fame in the television film, 'All You Need Is Cash'. A must-watch, it's very funny. John Lennon and George Harrison liked it, so.... you know. Witness it.

'Another Day' isn't featured in the film, but can be found on the soundtrack album. It's an obvious parody on 'Martha My Dear' from The White Album, with 'Dirk McQuickly' on lead vocals. Really it's sung by Ollie Halsall, a left-handed guitar player who provided lead vocals on all the 'Paul' songs of the album. If you want to find out more about him there won't be anything recent, he passed away in 1992.

I've pretty much summed it up right there. Neil Innes wrote all the songs for The Rutles, and his songs sounded so much like The Beatles that, apparently, he was taken to court by owners of The Beatles' catalogue. The song 'Cheese and Onions' even appeared on a John Lennon bootleg because it sounded so much like him.

Innes' lyrics are very clever too. I didn't even know the word 'pusillanimous' existed until I heard this song.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #39: Green Day - Android

One for the hardcore Green Days fans out there.

Those fans who see the album artwork and think "Ooh, what's this?' Well, it's a song from Green Day's second album, Kerplunk.

"Kerplunk? That sounds stupid, I don't want to listen."

Yes, I felt the same way. American Idiot was my first Green Day album, I really liked 'Holiday' when I was younger, I thought it was one of the best songs around. And Dookie, well that's breakthrough album isn't it? The major label debut, the dogs in the planes and the monkey with the poop in its hand thinking 'Throw?', Basket Case.

"Exactly! What makes Kerplunk so good, or even... 39/Smooth?'

I can't really answer that. They were recorded when the band were on the independent label 'Lookout! Records.' Nobody knew who they were at the scale that they are recognised now, but people still 'knew' about them, you know? Like, people heard they were good stuff so they wanted to find out more about them.

".... OK. I'll have a listen."

Away from that scenario, Kerplunk was one of the last Green Day albums I downloaded. Only for the reason that Green Day: Rock Band came out, and I thought I should download all their stuff for the hell of it. I got 1039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours' in 2004/05 but after getting it I realised that I had no clue about the songs on the compilation.

Kerplunk has grown on me as time has gone by, and this song is one of the reasons why. It's just a really punk, four chord sequence song with great playing by all three members.

Another song by them about time and ageing, Billie Joe asks the questions that we all want to know about our lives:

"Will I grow that old, will I still be around?

The world will carry on, I'll end up six feet underground.

Waste away."

The song carries on at this fast pace for the first few verses and choruses, then it all slows down (with a weird sample placed in, I don't know where it's from), everything starts to sound quite sad and introspective especially when Billie Joe is backed up with the child-like sounding vocal during the bridge:

"It seems so frightening, time passes by like lightning.
Before you know it you're struck down."

But then the music picks up again, and you're head banging to the instruments again.

It's pretty much a sad lyrics but confident music song, and it's executed brilliantly.

So check out the first two albums by GD, and I don't mean Dookie and Insomniac.

Until next time.

Jamie.

My iPod #38: The Beatles - And Your Bird Can Sing

1966 was a good year for England. The football team won the World Cup, Tony Adams was born, and The Beatles unveiled their seventh album to the world. Except for the USA, who wouldn't hear the album in its original form until the remastered CD in 1987.

Revolver. My favourite album by The Beatles. One of my favourite albums by any band.

Where can I start? I think that everything I would say about it has been said by almost every reviewer there is. I'll leave it to you lot to find out what they say.



Upon seeing the Beatles light in 2009, I went on any site where I could download their whole discography. 'Revolver' was one of their first albums I downloaded, and then I didn't know what to think of it. I've said many times that it takes a few listens to appreciate each song individually, resulting in an accumulated appreciation for the album as a whole. This was another of those times.

I think the fact that the songs were so short was something that made the album seem really quick to me. I would be listening to a song, and then it would finish and it was onto the next one. It was hard to get into something when the last chord faded out before your ears.

'And Your Bird Can Sing' was one example. Barely over two minutes, it's one of the shortest songs.

Listening to it again and again though, I finally understood why the song was so sick. Sick is good. Now, it's come to a point that when I see the cover, I either think of the fake countdown at the beginning of 'Taxman' or the introduction of this song.

It's actually one of the more 'basic?' pieces of the album. A straight-forward rocker written by Lennon, with dual-guitar solos by both George Harrison AND Paul McCartney, Ringo doing his stuff on the drums. It;s just a really cheerful song, with hubris at its finest in the lyrics:

'You tell me that you've heard every sound there is
And your bird can swing, but you can't hear me
You can't hear- MEEEEEEE.'

It's just a huge 'You suck. I'm great' message. It's brilliant. It's everything you want musically and lyrically, and it's only done in a short amount of time.

Then 'For No One' starts. Then you need to get the tissues. For drying your eyes.

It was clear that the band was a world away from their mop-top mania stage and had already embraced their dive into the unknown. That's why they're so great you know? They changed their sound on every album and they still sounded good! JESUS.

Revolver forever.

Until next time.

Jamie.