Category: Music

London Grammar perfects atmospheric (and sometimes outright epic) sounds. This remix that I discovered last year turns it into a different direction. I honestly prefer the jilted lover remix over the…oddly-placid-in-the-face-of-infidelity original?

After writing that last sentence I had to listen again and really study the lyrics to try and get a feel for the original.

I never was able to understand that first lyric in the intro. Turns out it’s:

“Imagine if I’d have had a baby”

Which…fuck. Tough, tough, TOUGH, sentence. As I listen to the rest of the song, I feel more and more that it’s about a love triangle. Is the voice we’re hearing the voice of one of the points of that triangle that’s waiting for the other to leave the third? The line in the beginning about “I saw the words she wrote that broke my heart” kind of leads me there.

The more I listen to the original I see that my “oddly placid” judgment was hasty. Our voice is definitely sad and I think questioning their own decision/part in the triangle. It’s almost an existential questioning of self.

Our remix though…

I love how we start out with beautiful strings and shimmering chimes. Things were good then for our voice.

Starting at 1:06, those low synths are menacing. Even though it’s the same lyrics of the song, I think the remix has more venom to it. The voice is angry about their involvement in this triangle. Less questioning existentially and more admonishing existentially. They are cynical and wiser to the game now.

That’s my assessment anyway. Both are beautiful in their own way. Just like all of you.

It’s been a while since I’ve told you, but, love ‘ya.

BGDG.

Maiah has such a beautiful voice!

“When I left you in New York
I knew it was the end
Then the road began to fork
I walked down your path again
You say that I’m so perfect
A dream so red and true
So really was it worth it
Always telling me what to do
I know what you wanted more”

Bit of a heartbreaker but a pretty one, and at least she is trending up by the end and on the road to better.

I hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy how lovely this song is!

BGDG.

First post from my phone! Let’s hope this works correctly. I’m in Addison after finally getting my Joanie going for the riding season! Michael and I have been hard at work putting new tires on and getting her buttoned up and today was the first ride!

Looking forward to putting some miles in this summer/fall.

Anyhow, Michael’s partner Erin is like, the biggest fan of The National and their spoken word sound. She’ll be super stoked about this post.

“Your imagination is in an awful place, don’t believe in manifestation, your heart’ll break, don’t you understand, your mind is not your friend again, it takes you by the hand and leaves you nowhere, you feel it in your nerves, it’s choking out the sun, you try in vain to be persuaded that it’s nothing”

It’s easy to go down that rabbit hole of negative thought spiral. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, author Mark Manson talks about The Feedback Loop From Hell.

Essentially, because we have the luxury to be able to think thoughts ABOUT our own thoughts, we can catch ourselves being anxious about something and then get even more anxious because we are thinking about how bad it is that we are anxious in the first place. It’s a bad place to be.

So, no one wants to be there. You can train yourself to avoid it, but it’s not easy and will take a while to understand how much control you really have over your own daily happiness. Once you do though…so much can change. Take control!

BGDG!

Great little jaunt through some electronic-pop here! Gorgeous voice on lead singer Olga.

“Oh your hands, I cried when I lost them, tears falling, touching the surface, oh I’m afraid of losing the time, oh I can’t stay, oh can’t I stay, she has got me running, faster than the wind blows, sorrow without silence, built the walls that hid you”

The whole song, despite some of it’s intention dissonance, just feels smooth to me. I picture an oscilloscope? I’m picture then green screen computer thing that you see in movies measuring rhythm or even that old visualizer music player on PCs. YES! That’s it. This is the quintessential song to play on one of those visualizer screen-savers!

A kaleidoscope of sound.

BGDG.

I first heard Noah’s voice on his duet with Phoebe Bridgers, Killer + The Sound. See the P.S. at the end of this post for how much I love that song.

I love this song because it feels like it has a little bit of that country music heart, which is what I grew up on. But, I think I love it more because it also blends all that stuff together in a more indie way. This song will sound SO different from The Sound when you listen to it below! You’ll see what kind of range Noah has…and then you’ll be floored by Killer + The Sound. You’re welcome!

The entirety of North Cath is getting paved this week. It will be a daily exercise in patience for me. Join me in trying to be as Zen as possible regarding it. 🙂 That’s the intention I’m setting today. Like one of my all-time favorite people Alyssa Sample intoned to me once, “I will observe, not absorb”.

Be good, do good.

P.S. You NEED to listen to this song. The cool part? Killer, and The Sound, are separate songs by Phoebe, and Noah respectively.

All three are distinct. The combination of them creates one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in my life. They are joined on this song by Noah’s sister, Abby, and I’ll think you’ll see why it rates so highly for me. But listen to either song separately first, and then the combo.

WordPress ate this. I’ll fix tomorrow.

I thought maybe it was too soon for another Middle Kids song, but honestly, this song kicks ass, and it’s too good not to share. I’m a little miffed at myself that it didn’t make the top 100 honestly, but there are literally 518 songs on the playlist. That’s a lot of bonus tracks for you! Middle Kids are quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

“The line is very fine, between free and paralyzed, and I’m riding it all the time, my breath is my life, but my mind’s a parasite, and it’s eating me alive, I am on bend away from a break, I am one stop away from the precipice of crazy, I am holding all the pieces in place, but maybe you’ve got to break me to see what I’m made of, I am one bend away, I am on step away, I am holding all the pieces in place, but maybe you’ve got to break me to see what I’m made of”

What a fucking battle-cry for the downtrodden and depressed. Lead singer Hannah Joy Cameron has a fan-friggin-tastic voice.

So if you’re feeling either of those feelings there, let this be the anthem that begins your upswing. Love ya. The world needs you. Be good, do good.

PS. Here’s the link to that other Middle Kids post!

https://wordpress.com/post/everything-etc.com/2463

The late, great Dolores O’Riordan, ladies and gentlemen. Bearer of maybe the most distinctive sounding voice on the list, she kills this one.

“We should of lied but I cried so hard, the ridiculous thoughts, ah, we should have lied, have lied, have lied, but you’re gonna have to hold on…”

I remember a girl in my school doing a gymnastics routine to Zombie in a talent show, and I was enthralled by the interpretation of the music in the movement. I remember thinking she was pretty cool for doing that in front of the…I guess it would’ve been middle school. I’m not sure how it took me until last year to come into contact with this song.

Her voice still hits now. I really enjoy Now, which I’ll post the link to at the end, but of course Zombie is an all-timer and seems…fairly poignant right now. Personally, I’m terribly disillusioned with our government and terrified at what’s going on in Palestine. I feel helpless and more scared than I’ve been in a long while.

BGDG…the world might depend on it.

As I’ve stated over and over again, the Hip Hop sucks me in with wordplay and great beats. The jazz beat that Tyler and Weezy use here is something I never thought I’d hear people rapping on. I love the creativity these two bring to the genre.

Weezy’s verse, as usual, as fantastic.

“Excuse me, pardon me, the wind, it blow so hard at me, like mother nature arguing about some baby father beef, I’m stuck in the middle of the sandwich like slaughter meat, got my middle fingers to the cameras that’s recording me, from y’all to me, brrt, stop callin’ me unless you’re ordering, I’m on the beach, I got my feet out, and I stay on my feet, the corner beat, I’m on a deep route, just throw the ball to me, thought all this lean would have me senile, I guess they see now, let’s touch down, catch a beat down, like I catch touchdowns, I fuck ’round, and slow the beat down and take the drums out, and speed up my flow, I’m so greedy, I’ma eat my own flow, and I’m in need of a flow, may eat me a rapper, I might as well eat me a hoe..”

He continues, but I felt like that was a big enough block of text!

Enjoy the vibe on this Wednesday. We might not be on the beach with our toes out, but we can still be warm to those around us. BGDG.

“She’s a fire sign, and I don’t really know what that means, I’m a cold night, and I wanna be close to the heat, I don’t wanna get burned, I don’t want love like that, but I can’t go any further ’til I start coming back, I’m a rock-star, and I’m never around when you need, like a race-car driving away from the scene, does she want me to stay?, does she want me to pack?, you can’t push me any further ’til I start coming back”

The Beaches are absolutely one of my favorite finds of last year. Each time I dive into their discography I’m left rocking out with them. I bet you still remember Blame Brett by them! Check out a version with Royal & The Serpent at the end of the post!

They have their finger on the pulse of those early-20s relationship roller-coaster vibes. Their songs are bops. End of story. Enjoy them in all their splendor! 😀

BGDG.