Thursday, April 06, 2006

Musical Musings

  • I'm liking The Cardigans, especially the syrupy nature of the lead singer's vocals, as heard on Erase/Rewind (469KB MP3). I also like the vocal acrobatics and the sheer musical audacity of The Darkness, as heard on One Way Ticket to Hell (511KB MP3). They do camp in a good way.

  • Three worst songs I've heard on the radio this week:
    • Gwen Stefani - Crash (346KB MP3)
      She's obviously forgotten what a melody is and her beat sounds like the kid in marching band who didn't have enough rhythm to play the snare drum so they got the triangle. If the movie, Crash, had used this for a theme song, you never would have seen them in the running for the music Oscar.
    • Cheeky Girls - Cheeky Song (511KB MP3)
      This song is about four years old now but it's still embarassingly bad. These girls didn't make the cut on the British American Idol... I wonder why.
    • TATU - All About Us (447KB MP3)
      From the patented TATU department of "rush through the verse in broken English so you can get to the horrible chorus that really wasn't worth rushing towards in the first place".
  • Hearing foreign singers attempt to phonetically sing English really irritates me. I suppose it's as bad as when all our American sopranos try singing other European languages. I would rather hear some Italian chick singing well in Italian and not understand a word she's saying than hear her mangle English.

  • I was originally going to use Katie Melua's Nine Million Bicycles (513KB MP3) as an example of why pop singers shouldn't cover show tunes. Then I learned that the song is actually an original -- I can't decide if that's better or worse. Normally this is the kind of voice that I really enjoy listening too, but something about her delivery is just way too sterile to enjoy. Another annoying thing about the song -- every verse, she removes more and more syllables from the word "bicycles" until it's virtually monosyllabic.

  • Funny song of the moment: Moonlight Special by Ray Stevens: (629KB MP3)

  • The funniest CD I own is not a CD full of funny songs. Instead, it's Mancini Rocks the Pops, a collection of 80s pop songs arranged for orchestra by Henry Mancini who also conducts. Were I the parent of some budding musician who paid a billion dollars to see my kid through Oberlin, only to have them land a gig playing the piccolo part to With or Without You I think I might be a wee bit disappointed. See if you can recognize any of these classics:
    • (292KB MP3)
    • (187KB MP3)
    • (141KB MP3)
  • On a note closer to home, here's a recording of my first public solo performance as a trumpeter, playing Mira by Vander Cook in seventh grade (93KB MP3). It wasn't until three years later that I realized that every single one of Cook's songs sounded exactly the same (see also, Jim Swearingen).

  • Everyone seems to be head-over-heels for James Blunt these days. I like exactly two of his songs. The rest sound like he forgot all the words and is just making stuff up on the fly in a ridiculously stilted meter. I would like to hear Goodbye My Lover on double speed as if sung by the Chipmunks -- it might be an improvement.

  • Also new on my playlist this month:
    • Shaggy - Angel
    • Barenaked Ladies - One Week
    • Cardigans - Don't Blame Your Daughter
    • Jet - Look What You've Done
    • The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love
    • McFly - Ballad of Paul K
  • I've never liked a single song by Oasis simply because the lead vocalist was too annoying to listen to. For some reason though, I like Champagne Supernova enough to listen to it all the way through (515KB MP3).

  • KT Tunstall's CD still hasn't left my car. Go buy it.

  • Discuss.

  • Three Act Season Three of LOST
    He didn't like Led Zeppelin or The Clash but I don't think there was any need to tell the police
    A donkey is like a housewife

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