Thom York's gig in Cambridge

On the 26th of February Thom Yorke took to the stage in Cambridge where i also played some new songs. I am of course always excited about new things from that part of the musical landscape, but I must admit the new songs sound a bit blend, but you also have to have in mind that I usually don't like Radiohead/Thom Yorke songs before after a while and I can all ready feel myself liking Lotus Flower and These Are My Twisted Words a lot more now than when I heard it for the first time. One of the people that added comments on the ateasweb, commented on the exact thing as I always think: These songs need to be "greenwoodified", meaning that we need Jonny Greenwood to have a go at them too and then they will turn out to the brilliant mix that is Radiohead. If these songs will even be part of Radiohead? Who knows what Thom will do with them. The new Radiohead album is said to be out in not too long, so very excited about that :D Right now the songs to me sound a little like things I have heard Thom Yorke do so many times before.. same chords, same way he plays them, same melodies.. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I need more than this. I was truly excited when I heard Airbag at the end of the set and all the beautiful melodies in it.. :) Of course, it also helps to listen to this version of These Are My Twisted Words compared to the one that was released a while ago. Then you can see what will happen to the others too.

Here is a link to the page where you can see videos from the concert :)

Great music & film: Lord of the Rings Symphony

I don't think I have mentioned that before in this blog, but I am also a huge "Lord of the Rings"-fan and I find the music for the films a big part of why they are so so good. Howard Shore has done a masterpiece in enhancing the mood of the movies and the beautiful photos and the story created but the rest of the theme. Parts of the music is really moving and I'll never forget the first time I saw The Return of the King for the first time. I was in the front row of the worlds biggest THX movie theater and the speakers with the music was right in front of me. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty!!
The music has also been released like a Symphony and I have made a play list for you of an orchestra playing it. Enjoy this modern masterpiece!

Great songs & great live: U16 girls - Travis

On Monday I am going off to see one of my favorite bands Travis again. This time I am so lucky as to see them on a really small stage (but very legendary) stage in Oslo: Rockefeller. It should be an unforgetable experience as it's very intimate and they are amazing live. To celebrate this joyful event and to bring out more Travis fans, since there are still tickets left, I give you the legendary "U16 girls" from a live show in 2001 where Travis played live in their hometown Glasgow. Must be the peak of the career so far. I love the how direct the lyrics are, though they have been joking the last years that they think it's a bit weird to sing about that underage girls now that their are so much older... hehe.. It's that kind of song that makes you jump up and down and sing along... A great rock song and I am glad they are back to a bit more rock songs at their last album and back to their roots somehow and the days when they warmed up for Oasis. Here you go.

I met a girl in l a
The million dollar kind
She was all for all or nothing
She was open all the time
But when I called her number
Her mothers on the line sayin
Youve no business
As gods my witness
With a child as young as mine
So make sure that shes old enough
Before you blow your mind
She may look like she knows enough
But look in her eye
And if so
Let her go
Youll let her down in style
I met a girl in paris
She talked like vera lynn
And her eyes were full of dew drop
The moment I walked in
She was awfully nice
The kind that likes to win
But if Id been wiser
A whole lot wiser
Then I might have thought again
Chorus
Chorus

Great musicians and great songs: Beirut - Nantes

Beirut is an artist that friends of mine discovered at the Roskilde festival 2 years ago. They all came home with their eyes looking like if they had seen an angel when they talked about the Beirut-concert. There was basically so much chatter about Beirut all summer that it took me a few months before I could really sit down and listen to it myself. And man... It's amazing.

Beirut is really Zach Condon. Apart from being incredibly cute and angle like looking ha has a passion for music and a talent for music that is just beyond almost anything.
From what I heard in an interview on Norwegian tv, he started playing one instrument and then all friends and family would give him their instrument. It all ended up in his little bedroom and it was so full of instruments that he had to take away the madras during the day and lay it down in the middle of the room at night. The result was that he every morning would step on something as he woke up and break a lot of expensive equipment.

Zac's little bedroom was in Santa Fe, New Mexico and from there he ventured into the world and found music from Eastern - Europe on the way. This results in a very exceptional mix of folk and balkan music with accordian, ukulele, tubas etc.

Zac was to tour Europe again in the summer of 2008 but had to cancel. Of what I gathered the man was just to tired to go on any more, and made a wise choice to just relax. He is now back with a double EP instead and you can read more about the current state of things here.

But more than all of the above... Zac is his voice, I think and the way he sings it, but also with such a great sense of timing and arranging. I give you three versions of my favorite song "Nantes.

First the version that is on the album:



Then two more versions of live music video things from Paris. One more improvised than the other in a way. Look at the passion for the music :)
1


2



For further reading : Wikipedia Official Homepage

Great songs: Nessun Dorma

Nessun Dorma is one of the most beautiful works of music that has ever been made. I am sure you all have heard it before but here is a bit about the story of it. And also a translation of the lyrics. Made it even more beautiful. (Like I wasn't all ready crying?)

For a long time I thought the only one that could sing this was Pavarotti. I just get tears to my eyes from listening to him and the way he lives through his music when he sings is amazing.
But then I found another clip of another version of the piece. It's Areatha Franklin singing it at the Grammys because Pavarotti got sick in the last minute. I also really love her voice and it actually is amazing to hear her sing soul/opera. Also brings tears to my eyes.

Here is Pavarotti:


Here is Aretha

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Nessun dorma (English edition: None shall sleep tonight)[1] is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot,[2] and is one of the best known tenor arias in all opera. It is sung by Calaf, Il principe ignoto (The unknown prince), who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot. However, any man who wishes to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded.

In the previous act, Calaf has correctly answered the three riddles put to all of Princess Turandot's prospective suitors. Nevertheless, she recoils at the thought of marriage to him. Calaf offers her another chance by challenging her to guess his name by dawn. (As he kneels before her, the 'Nessun Dorma' theme makes a first appearance, to his words Il mio nome non sai!.) If she does so, she can execute him, but if she does not, she must marry him. The cruel and emotionally cold princess then decrees that none of her subjects is to sleep that night until his name is discovered. If they fail, all will be killed.

As the final act opens, it is now night. Calaf is alone in the moonlit palace gardens. In the distance he hears Turandot's heralds proclaiming her command. His aria begins with an echo of their cry and a reflection on Princess Turandot:

"Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa, nella tua fredda stanza, guardi le stelle che tremano d'amore, e di speranza!"

(English translation: "None shall sleep! None shall sleep! Even you, o Princess, in your cold bedroom, watch the stars that tremble with love and with hope")

"Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me; il nome mio nessun saprà! No, No! Sulla tua bocca lo dirò quando la luce splenderà!"

(English translation: "But my secret is hidden within me; none will know my name! No, no! On your mouth I will say it when the light shines!")

"Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio che ti fa mia!"

(English translation: "And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!")

Just before the climactic end of the aria, a chorus of women is heard singing in the distance:

"Il nome suo nessun saprà... E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!"

(English translation: "No one will know his name... and we will have to, alas, die, die!")

Calaf, now certain of victory, sings:

"Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle! Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò! Vincerò! Vincerò!"

(English translation: "Vanish, o night! Set, stars! Set, stars! At daybreak I shall win! I shall win! I shall win!")

Musical memories: Chris Rea - Tell Me There's a Heaven

This song I found when I was about 13 in my father's record collection and it still touches me. It's very over the top, but still it's quite cute. It's something in Chris Rea's voice that is comforting in a way and cliches are always true, so it's quite cute :) Look here

Great music videos: Ok Go - Get over it and Here It goes again

Ok Go is one of the few bands that I started liking because of their music videos. I so "Get over it" and thought it was so funny. Especially the part in the middle where there is a very funny pause and how everything in the video reflects the lyrics.

"Here it goes again" is also a very funny video. An incredible idea first of all with the threadmills. If I am not mistaken I think they actually came of with the idea for that themselves. Genius.

And oh, yes... I really love their music too ;)

Can't believe I haven't posted these before. I have been showing them to people for ages.

Get over it



Here it goes again

Musical Memories: The Wannadies

In the series of music that has meant a lot to me at some time during my life, and still do, I give you The Wannadies. I think I might have discovered The Wannadies back in 1998 at the same time almost as Kent. I remember walking down to a huge mall right next to where I used to have my piano lessons and buying "Bagsy Me". I think I must have heard You & Me song before that on radio or maybe in the Romeo and Juliet movie. What a movie soundtrack that is... (Lovefool - The Cardigans, Kissing you - Desree and Exit music (for a film) - Radiohead among others). When I listen to The Wannadies now, it kind of gives me a feeling of being 19 again (I was young once too ... hehe) and it really takes me back. The Wannadies also was the other band that made me become friends with my Kent-friend, that I have mentioned for you before.

The Wannadies sound Swedish in a way I think. I can't really explain why. They are basically just pure rock'n'roll and works well when you are really excited, mad or happy, because it has so much energy. Below I give you some of my favorite songs of them. And oh, yes, I love the videos too :)

Skin



You & Me song


Hit

Great productions: Kelly Clarkson - Since U been gone

Some songs just hit me right in the spine, just because they are so well produced. One of them is Since you've been gone by Kelly Clarkson. It's not real easy to explain why, but I am gonna try.

The first vers is a perfect build up... The sound is quite tight. The drums are very mechanic and a bit muffled and the sound is almost a bit electronic. Then the second guitar enters and promises that something is gonna happen and keeps the groove going. As a final sparkly touch there is this third guitar that is very high and single notes. And then come the moment that gives me shivers and brings tears to my eyes. All the other instruments than Kelly's voice is cut away as a moment of quiet before the storm, and then booom... the music foldes out and uses the whole spectrum and Kelly is one of those girls that sings like she would die if she didn't on this song. And that gets me. Then on the second verse is a bit more rocked up version of the first one. But the second vocals are added more, that's a really cool effect all through the song that I really like too, almost all of it is done with a double vocal of Kelly, either just similar or with a slight second melody. Makes the sound deeper and fuller. Then for the second chorus that again gives me shivers... and now the bridge that is also great... It just takes of and flyes og and just when it's boring the guitar is cut away for a few beats which makes it interessting, The it quiets down and the the electronica drums form the beginning are back. Before a great build up and just doing all that is possible to make the last vers explode, before ending almost where it started.

The lyrics are of course doing a lot too, since it's a very universal "I wanna get back at you song". I can imagine it would be very good for break-ups and girl power. And I really really believe Kelly when she sings, though I really don't like her as a person after the whole world idol event. I am sure we will get back to that some other time.

And oh... The producer is not surprisingly Max Martin, the pop mad man behind all pop sensations:

he crafted a string of worldwide hits for pop artists like the clean-cut boy bands The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, Britney Spears, P!nk, Swedish starlet Robyn and the Swedish eurodance star E-Type among many others, in the mid/late '90s to mid 2000s.

Wikipedia

But even though he is knowen as the ultimate teen pop commercialized producer but he is very very good at what he do in that genre and makes a lot of really perfect choices, I think.
More on the song

Just read there about the song being very similar to The Strokes song Last Night.
And that is actually quite true... at least when it comes to the rhythm. Love The Strokes song even more though :)


Song and video

Classical music saves children in Venezuela

I just watched this on 60 minutes and it's amazing. It's about a project called El Sistema in Venezuela. Kids from really poor parts of the cities are given education and learn how to play and instrument in a classical orchestra. This opens a whole new world to this kids. They learn about culture, how to socialized with other people without using violence, and it they are really good they get to join an orchestra that goes on tour all over the world. They say as a result of music becoming a part of their life the whole view on life changes and they become doctors and lawyers instead of drug dealers. It actually made me cry when I watched this. Music can save life. Music is universal. 200 000 kids in Venezuela is proof.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/60minutes/main4009335.shtml