Tag Archives: favorite songs

All Things Must Pass

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This phrase has been stuck in my head quite a bit lately.  Not so much in tandem with the recent passings of numerous famous (and infamous) people we’ve known in our lives, but more with how nothing is ever permanent.  It’s a theme that runs rampant in the Mendaihu Universe.  Things end, things begin.  Things evolve.  It’s never the end of the world; it’s just an unfortunate moment that we must process in some way.  Yes, there are horrible things in history, horrible things that cost lives, and I’m not ignoring or belittling that.  But in the evolution of humankind, it’s never remained that way forever.  We learn from our mistakes as well as from our insights.  We make things better for ourselves and for others.  There are always naysayers, but there are others who believe.  There are destroyers, but there are also makers.

And to be honest, that’s the most fascinating part of being alive for me.

Movement

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You know, it dawned on me that I don’t think I’ve gone to a nightclub venue since…well, probably since before I moved down to New Jersey in 2005, come to think of it.  I used to head to various shows in Boston all the time back when I was in Massachusetts, and didn’t think twice about driving that seventy miles, hanging out int some smoky basement dive with too-loud music, and having to leave a tad early so I could make the last Red Line train out to Alewife where I was parked.

Over the years since we’ve been here, our showgoing has pretty much remained with the San Francisco Symphony and the SF Opera.  It just sort of happened naturally, as they were well-known ensembles we were looking forward to checking out when we moved out here a decade ago.  And over those last ten years, I’ve really come to appreciate classical music a lot more than I ever have in my life.

I won’t lie, for years the extent of my classical knowledge was pretty much tied in with Warner Bros cartoons such as What’s Opera, Doc?, The Rabbit of Seville, Long Haired Hare and so on.  There’s also the 80s Hollywood movie such as Platoon (Barber’s Adagio for Strings), Apocalypse Now (Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (R. Strauss’ ‘Morning’ from Also Sprach Zarathustra).

I wasn’t completely ignorant of classical music; it was just a genre that I didn’t follow as closely as I did others.  This of course has changed over the years; I used to really like Copland back in my college years but find his work kind of thin nowadays…I now find Tchaikovsky one of my biggest favorite composers.

There are certain pieces that I find absolutely stunning and will try to get to a performance if the SF Symphony is playing them.  Such as:


Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ completely blows me away every time I hear it, whether it’s the orchestral version or the original string quartet version.  I love when music has a deliberate flow to it — each melodic phrase is given time to complete itself without hurry.  It’s like breathing.


Maurice Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ is so much fun!  It starts off so quietly and unassumingly, and yet by the end, every single instrument in the house is bleating, banging and barking so loudly that the entire audience whoops with cheers when it finishes.  A silly Italian movie called Allegro non Troppo (a self-professed “low-budget” homage to Disney’s Fantasia) got me hooked on this piece in college with its unique take on planetary evolution.


Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony (‘Pathetique’) is probably my favorite piece of all right now. I was thinking of it the other day when I was watching David Bowie’s final video, “Lazarus”…one kind of got the feeling that David knew the end was coming, and had decided to go out on a final creative note — a denouement letting us know how much he’d enjoyed his time in this world.  I feel the same whenever I hear the Pathetique because it was Tchaikovsky’s last piece in much the same manner…I think he’d finally come to terms with his life as well as his mortality.  This is also why I love the way the ‘big finish’ in this piece is actually in the 3rd movement and not the final; the final 4th movement ends up being more of an exhalation, a release.


Mason Bates’ The B-Sides is a relatively new piece — written by a composer six years younger than myself, I should add — and I can totally see the future of classical music heading in this direction, with a mix of analog, digital, and found sounds (check the ‘instrument’ used about three and a half minutes in!).  Bates is somewhat of a local hero here, as he’s both a nightclub DJ (as DJ Masonic) and a composer of a large number of wonderfully creative pieces that he often performs with the SFS.  Bates also recently released an album with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project called Mothership, which I highly recommend.  I have high hopes for this one!

Let’s Play This One for Laughs

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As mentioned in my year-end overview, I was particularly enamored of the recent reissue of some early titles from The Comsat Angels.  I hadn’t listened to them in ages (I used to have a few of their albums on vinyl oh so long ago) and was surprised at how well they’ve held up.  Their first album, Waiting for a Miracle, was released in 1980, and it sounds fantastic.  At this point they’re kind of a cross between 154-era Wire, a bit of Unknown Pleasures Joy Division, with a pinch of Chameleons and Abecedarians thrown in.

The above song, “Home Is the Range”, which wasn’t on the first album (it’s on the reissue) but a pre-album EP, has been stuck in my head for the past week and a half, and I can’t seem to get it to leave.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you.  It’s a hell of a great track.

Jonc’s Best of 2015 List!

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Hey Kids!  Check it out:  My favorite albums, tracks and other musical whatnot from 2015.  This year’s grouping came radio stations in multiple corners of the country, terrestrial and digital, from RadioBDC to Sirius XM to KUSP to KSCU.  And one band (Unknown Mortal Orchestra) discovered while in London!  In the process, the list is all over the place, from obscure indie to commercial alternative.   Enjoy!

2015 Songs

20: The King Khan & BBQ Show, “Alone Again”
19: Mikal Cronin, “Ready”
18: A Silent Film, “Paralysed”
17: Caspian, “Arcs of Command”
16: The Helio Sequence, “Stoic Remembrance”
15: Cayucas, “Hella”
14: Steven Wilson, “Perfect Life”
13: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, “In the Heat of the Moment”
12: Blur, “Go Out”
11: Public Service Broadcasting, “Go!”
10: Foals, “What Went Down”
9: Young Empires, “The Gates”
8: Jamie XX, “Loud Places”
7: Wolf Alice, “Moaning Lisa Smile”
6: Editors, “No Harm”
5: Failure, “Hot Traveler”
4: The Vaccines, “Handsome”
3: Beck, “Dreams”
2: Mark Ronson, “Uptown Funk”
1: Best Coast, “California Nights

2015 Albums

20: Death Cab for Cutie, Kintsugi
19: JR Richards, Honore et Amore
18: The Helio Sequence, The Helio Sequence
17: Foals, What Went Down
16: Public Service Broadcasting, The Race for Space
15: Wire, Wire
14: New Order, Music Complete
13: Veruca Salt, Ghost Notes
12: Dog Party, Vol 4
11: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Chasing Yesterday
10: The Decemberists, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World
9: Chvrches, Every Open Eye
8: Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love
7: Editors, In Dream
6: Low, Ones and Sixes
5: Best Coast, California Nights
4: Failure, The Heart Is a Monster
3: Wolf Alice, My Love Is Cool
2: Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Multi-Love
1: Blur, The Magic Whip

Favorite Earworms:  Songs most stuck in my head in 2015
The Vaccines, “Handsome”
The King Khan & BBQ Show, “Alone Again”
Jamie XX, “Loud Places”
The Arcs, “Outta My Mind”

Unexpected Delights: Albums I enjoyed a hell of a lot more than I expected to:
Alabama Shakes, Sound & Color
Mark Ronson, Uptown Special
Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love
Best Coast, California Nights
Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Multi-Love

Many Welcome Returns: Great releases from bands we haven’t seen in quite some time
Failure, The Heart Is a Monster
Jeff Lynne’s ELO: Alone in the Universe
Swervedriver, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You
New Order, Music Complete
The Chills, Silver Bullets

Best Reissues:  I have them already, but did I go and buy them again?  Maaaaybe?
The Beatles, 1+
Garbage, Garbage (20th Anniversary Reissue)
The Specials, Specials/More Specials/In the Studio
Catatonia, Way Beyond Blue/International Velvet/Equally Cursed and Blessed/Paper Scissors Stone
The Comsat Angels, Waiting for a Miracle/Sleep No More/Fiction/Chasing Shadows/Fire On the Moon
Jellyfish, Bellybutton/Spilt Milk
Lush, Chorus

Local Color:  Favorite 2015 songs about and/or by locals
Best Coast, “California Nights”
Cayucas, “Hella”
Geographer, “Age of Consent”

Fly-By: Still here, still rockin’ out, just super busy

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Hey gang!  Sorry to keep you waiting for another WiS blog update, but in the past few weeks I’ve given myself a ridiculously tight deadline:  I will, with Best Laid Plans finally coming to fruition, be self-releasing Book I of the Bridgetown Trilogy in the Mendaihu Universe (aka A Division of Souls).  I am doing nearly all the work myself: the final line edit, the e-book cover, the formatting, the uploading to the e-pub site, and so on.  The deadline I’ve given myself is 8/20, with the drop date of the book being 3 September.

In other words, I’m going to be stupidly busy in the next couple of weeks.  I’ll be scarce here, but once it’s released, I should have more time to entertain and educate you here at this here blog.

In the meantime, here’s some tunage that’s been on heavy rotation here in Joncworld to tide you over.  See you soon!

Jonc’s Best of 2014 Lists

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This has been quite the interesting year musically. As mentioned in the previous post, I chose to branch out with where I got my music. I listened to Santa Clara University’s radio station KSCU for a good while, but I also listened to Boston’s Radio BDC, the various stations on our Sirius XM setup, and even used the good ol’ car radio to listen to KFOG, Live 105 and other terrestrial stations. I also kept up on the new releases being pushed by the various music blogs and magazines, and checked out the occasional streamed preview as well. It turned out to be quite an eclectic year in the process, with all kinds of genres seeping into my playlist over the course of the year.

JONC’S TOP MUSIC OF 2014

Old Bands, Awesome Releases: Still Going Strong After All These Years
—U2, Songs of Innocence. This album received mounds of grief when it came out because of its original iTunes release. The most vocal hated it purely out of spite, having been “forced” to add it to their collection without their say-so. Regardless…I still say this is one hell of a tight album. The songwriting is solid, the production is crisp and lively, and the band sounds reinvigorated here.
—Big Wreck, Ghosts. A band from my HMV years, having released an album in 1998 and 2001, they vanished for over a decade before returning with 2012’s Albatross. A lot of bands with that much of a stretch between releases don’t often have a follow up soon after, but these guys pulled it off with an even crunchier, heavier album. Well worth picking up.
—Failure, “Come Crashing” and “The Focus” singles. HOLY CRAP FAILURE GOT BACK TOGETHER?? SWEET! Love this band, and I was so happy to hear Ken, Kellii and Greg returned with not one but two solid new singles (both available on their Bandcamp site), a tour, and a possible new album in the works. I’m totally looking forward to hearing what they have in store.
—The Verve Pipe, Overboard. These guys have been under the radar the last few years, taking alternate routes in music. Singer Brian Vander Ark led an interesting solo career, balancing album releases with self-managed house concerts, and gathering the band back together a few years back for a few children’s albums. This album was a very welcome return to their more alternative rock sound.

Old Albums, Awesome Reissues and Remasters
—The Beatles, The US Albums box set. Yeah, I know…don’t I already own everything this band released in triplicate already? Well, when the band officially releases the CD versions of their US discography, especially on my birthday, I can’t help but jump at it. [And besides, I pretty much paid for it all via multiple B&N gift cards and a 20% off coupon I happened to have on hand.] The music source is the 2009 remasters, but the packaging was exquisite, including the original butcher sleeve for Yesterday and Today. It was like starting my collection all over again, thirty-plus years later!
—George Harrison, The Apple Years 1968-75 box set. Same could be said here, but it was well worth it for some new remasterings, great liner notes and packaging, and some of his best solo tracks.
—Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair Reissue/Remaster. Oh man, I LOVED this album back when it came out in 1985, so much so that it’s one of the few tapes I had that wore out. It’s great to hear this album again with such great sound, especially since the remaster was done by Steven Wilson, who seems to have turned into a remaster god as of late. Totally worth picking up, even just for the original album!
—Pink Floyd, The Endless Sea. Say what you will about this album, given that it’s leftover jam material from sessions for 1994’s The Division Bell, it’s a lovely ambient collection nonetheless, full of signature later Floyd soundscapes. David Gilmour’s somber “Louder Than Words” is a nice ending chapter to the band’s epic history.

Best Opening Tracks
—Beck, “Cycle”/”Morning”. When I listened to the streaming preview of his Morning Phase album on the NPR website, I knew right away that I would absolutely LOVE this album, even before I heard any other tracks. The string-laden “Cycle” and the drowsy “Morning” manage to capture the sound of an early rising sun and turn it into aural poetry, evoking the feeling that a new day and a fresh start had just begun.
—Interpol, “All the Rage Back Home”. This track does double duty–first, it opens up El Pintor suggesting a newer, more melodic sound from the band. It’s almost summery, dreamy in a Beach Boys sort of way, something they captured perfectly in the video.
—TV On the Radio, “Quartz”. Like Beck’s “Cycle”, it’s more of an overture than a song proper, and it sets the mood for the rest of the album, which ends up being poppier, catchier and more emotional than previous releases.

Best Closing Tracks
—Alt-J, “Lovely Day”. A bonus track at the end of the album, it’s a lovely song that’s a perfect coda to the band’s moodier, darker second album.
—The Black Keys, “Gotta Get Away”. Sure, it’s a throwaway song that shouldn’t be taken that seriously at all. My favorite description of this song by a music blog suggested it sounds like one of those goofy music montages in the middle of a Scooby Doo or an Archies cartoon. It’s pure fun, just like the rest of the album.
—U2 feat. Lykke Li, “The Troubles”. U2 has often ended their albums on a somber note–“Wake Up Dead Man”, “Exit”, and “40” come to mind–and this track follows the lead to quiet yet chilling effect.

BEST ALBUMS OF 2014
[No particular order, top favorite in bold]

Alt-J, This is All Yours
AnaDaenia, Digital Scars
Beck, Morning Phase
Big Wreck, Ghosts
Deathmøle, Permanence
Elbow, The Take Off and Landing of Everything
The History of Apple Pie, Feel Something
The Horrors, Luminous
Interpol, El Pintor
Johnny Marr, Playland
Kaiser Chiefs, Education, Education, Education & War
Lamb, Backspace Unwind
Mono, The Last Dawn/Rays of Darkness
OK Go, Hungry Ghosts
Phantogram, Voices
Phish, Fuego
Sloan, Commonwealth
TV On the Radio, Seeds
U2, Songs of Innocence
Warpaint, Warpaint

BEST SONGS OF 2014
[No particular order, top favorite in bold]

Alt-J, “Left Hand Free”
Beck, “Blue Moon”
Big Data, “Dangerous”
Black Rivers, “Voyager 1”
Elbow, “New York Morning”
Failure, “Come Crashing”
Future Islands, “Seasons (Waiting On You)”
The Horrors, “I Feel You”
Interpol, “All the Rage Back Home”
Jungle, “Busy Earnin’”
My Goodness, “Cold Feet Killer”
Night Terrors of 1927, “When You Were Mine”
OK Go, “The Writing’s On the Wall”
Phantogram, “Black Out Days”
Robert DeLong, “Long Way Down”
Spoon, “Do You”
Temples, “Shelter Song”
tUnE-yArDs, “Water Fountain”
TV On the Radio, “Careful You”
U2, “Raised By Wolves”

Why TV On the Radio’s “Careful You” Is My Favorite Song of the Moment

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I listen to a hell of a lot of music.  A metric crapton of tunage.  Even I’m amazed that I can remember half of what’s in my own collection, let alone remember the various songs I hear on the car radio or whatever station I happen to be streaming.  Lately I’ve been listening to RadioBDC (the online station created from the ashes of Metro Boston’s WFNX and owned by Boston.com) to get my head around more of the popular alternative rock again.

And every now and then, a track pops out at me that makes me take notice.  This happened in 2002 with Interpol’s “PDA”, in 1994 with Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”, in 1988 with The Church’s “Under the Milky Way”, last year with Dutch Uncles’ “Fester”.  I can’t always say what it is that catches my ear–it could be the mix, the mood it creates, or even the dynamics of the song.  The song could be fast, slow, ambient, or loud, doesn’t matter.  It may not even click with me the first time…it may just happen to hit me at the right moment when I’m doing something else, or happen to be in a specific mood.

Such is the case with TV On the Radio, whose Seeds just dropped a few weeks ago.  I’ve been a fan of them since 2004 when they released their murky, weird debut Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. Not exactly a huge fan, as their earlier albums, while fantastic, are sometimes a bit hard to listen to, especially during writing sessions.  Seeds, on the other hand, is a much lighter affair, with poppier and catchier songs and a very crisp production.  And I absolutely love it.  [And it passed the test last night of being a great writing session soundtrack.]

So what is it about “Careful You” that I love so much?

On the surface, it’s no different than any other semi-electronic rock track out there by someone like, say, Bear in Heaven.  There’s echoey reverb, there’s a wobbly synth riff underlying the entire song, and the lyrics, while creative, are also economic in use.  It’s a love song, a plea made at the moment the relationship could go either way: don’t know/should we stay/should we go/should we pack it up and turn it around?  And he states his case right off the bat: Oui, je t’aime, oui, je t’aime/à demain à la prochaine. [Roughly, “Yes, I love you, tomorrow and the next (day).”]  The chord progression is simple but effective: a muted Eb/Db/Cm/B/Eb on the verses, and a ringing Eb/Bb/Db/Eb on the chorus.

It occurred to me after maybe the third or fourth listen: this is is a Beatles song, isn’t it?

Those chords are straight out of the Please Please Me songbook–that Cm-B-Eb passage in the verse is very much something Paul or John would have enjoyed back in ’63.  Tunde Adebimpe’s delivery of the lyrics are fantastic too, alternating loud and soft.  Verses, quiet: line 1 is given on beat, line 2 is double-time, line 3 is off the beat but never wavering far, and line 4 brings it back to the beginning, on beat.  Chorus, loud:  line 1 is high and on beat, line 2 descends triple-time (and phrased to drop the last beat), line 3 is triple time but ascending, with line 4 carrying the entire theme: I will care for you/oh, careful you.  John and Paul would have been amused by that wordplay.

Sonically there’s a lot of interesting bits going on in there as well.  Very low bass notes only show up on the chorus.  David Andrew Sitek shows up with his chiming guitar during the chorus, hitting only four high notes — Eb, F, F, Eb — but with the tone (deep reverb) and direction (ascending when the chords descend, and vice versa), it adds more energy to the section of the song.  Kyp Malone adds background harmony vocals throughout as well, but very sparingly, singing on octave in lines 1 and 2 of the lyrics, and only venturing into true harmony on lines 3 and 4.  His high-register delivery is often delicate, underscoring the lyrics as well.  There’s an odd sound drop too, right under the line things will never be the same, where we lose all music for those last few words.  If that’s intentional, it definitely works to drive the point home.  Finally, the coda holds the only change in melody: a repeating Gb/F/Eb line repeating with a sampled Tunde singing “no no no”.  It doesn’t so much fade or stop cold but falls apart, leaving us in the air–we have no idea if this relationship will be on the mend or not.

“Careful You” a wonderfully written, brilliantly produced track, and even if I’m not paying attention to all the bits and bobs that make up the track, it’s still an absolutely lovely song.

What do you like? What do you love?

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It’s no secret that the above song, The Church’s “Under the Milky Way”, is my absolute favorite song. I’ve mentioned it countless times in previous LiveJournal posts and elsewhere. I think I’ve given various reasons why I love it so much in those same posts. Of course this begs the question…why do I love the songs that I do? I could give this a simple answer, which to some extent is true: would I go out and buy it, or just acknowledge its existence and maybe buy it at some later point if I’m still interested? But that’s too easy and too simplistic an answer, and really misses a lot of why I like and/or love a song.

I’ve often said one of the easiest ways for me to love a song is to drench it in reverb. It’s partly why I love shoegaze and Britpop so much, to be honest. Giving a song depth by way of selective echo–just enough to give it atmosphere–is an easy thing to do, even with your simple audio mixing software. I did it with a mix of one of my jeb! songs by making it sound like Bruce and I were playing on an empty stage (when in reality, it was recorded in a small room in his parents’ basement), and I consider it one of our best tracks. Reverb is also right at home with My Bloody Valentine–their signature sound, especially on “Only Shallow”, was created with a combination of heavy reverb, heavy delay, and seriously loud volume. That intense wall of guitar riff you hear in Ride’s “Leave Them All Behind”, the one that sounds like some giant machine churning out an infinite B chord, uses the same technique. Why do I like that vast, echoey sound? A lot of it has to do with my old listening habits back in the 80s, most of which was via headphones. That echo, combined with the darker mood of the ‘college rock’ I listened to, was great at stimulating my imagination at night. It was like an aural equivalent of being in the middle of a New England forest, with no one around for miles.

I also find that one of my favorite types of songs are ones that start off modestly, maybe quietly or evenly, and slowly but insistently build in volume and intensity, until it reaches its cacophonous climax. I suppose I should blame The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and “A Day in the Life” for my love of that kind of dynamic, considering that The Beatles are what started it all for me. But there’s also Maurice Ravel’s Bolero (a piece I had the immense pleasure of seeing performed by the San Francisco Symphony this past weekend), the ultimate in “soft–>LOUD”, which I’d been familiar with since I was a kid. There are other kinds of dynamics my favorite songs can take, but this is one resonates with me, because it’s almost literary in shape. Failure’s “Daylight” is one of my favorite examples of this, starting off with what sounds like a child’s push toy and a wilted piano melody. Gradually, the vocals and the other instruments (more piano, synth and guitar) enter, building an ever-mounting tension, until BAM! You’re hit with a gigantic wall of thundering drums, wailing guitar, and heavy bass, unrelenting for the last half of the song, until it finally comes to an end, leaving you gasping for air. The first time I heard this song, my first thought was, this is the ending credits theme to my novel. It’s pretty damned epic.

But there’s also just damn fine songwriting and production, regardless of the style. It can be a simple balls to the wall blues-inspired rock song like Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?”, which is basically your indie rock version of 60’s-era Rolling Stones, or something like Interpol’s “PDA” where underneath the simple melody lies some deceptively complex musicianship. It could be a kickass rock song with ridiculously fast and intense energy like L’arc en Ciel’s “Ready Steady Go” or something hauntingly beautiful and quiet like Porcupine Tree’s “Lips of Ashes”. They could even be ambient mood pieces like Global Communication’s “Epsilon Phase” or Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

I suppose my overall point here is that there’s not just one deciding factor in whether or not I like (or love) a song. It can be one of many things, and that is precisely why I try to keep an open mind about different genres of music. There’s not a lot I can’t stand, and tracks that do bother me are usually due to the horrible songwriting or production tricks that make me twitch. But the ones that stay with me the most are the ones that catch my attention, especially if it’s for the first time. These are the songs that stick with me, that make me stop and really concentrate on them, and the ones that impress me the most. I absolutely love that music affects me this way, and I would not want to change that one bit.

[Thanks to Wire’s “Illuminated” for this post’s title.]