OK GO vs. Hollerado

OK GO has become famous for their single cut music videos. A new band (new to me at least) Hollerado has upped the ante for single cut* music videos.







*I suspect that the Hollerado video is not single cut, but a clever use of persistence of vision (like a cartoon) as well as some forced perspective (like when some posses for a photo holding the Eiffel tower in their hand).

Long Black Veil

Murder Ballads

Murder ballads are a sub-genre of ballad which I had no idea I was familiar with until doing some research online. Essentially a murder ballad is a song that depicts a murder with a strong focus on the consequences of the murderer. Typically my aim is to be humerus on the blog but its tough with a subject like "Murder Ballads." For more info on this ominous subset of music check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad

We Are Your Friends

Videos like this make me miss college and loath my friends. I imagine we have all had our occasion incidence of being over served and awoke to a situation similar to the ones demonstrated in the video.

One of my least favorites was the night before Father's Day 2009. Some trickster had switch my non-alcoholic O'Douls with Jägermeister. As the night dragged on, I grew increasingly fatigued so I decided to take a nap on the nearest arm chair. I awoke fresh as a daisy and shuffled off to the bathroom to freshen up. Upon opening the door I immediately noticed something off about my typically fair and glowing complexion. It appeared that my "friends" decided to "Joker Face" (color my face like The Joker from the comic Batman) me in permanent marker. I had a family function with my extended family in three hours.

Meat Loaf Elucidated

There is a great deal of confusion around Meat Loaf's song "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)."
First, what the hell is Meat Loaf supposed to be in this video? Clearly not a delicious entree as his name may lead you to believe. If I were to guess (and believe me I will), I would say a vampire or a pedophile. More likely a pedophile since he has the police chasing him, hides out in the woods and has unkempt finger nails.

As for the more significant ambiguity in the song, "What is it that meat loaf will not do for love?" Throughout the song he repeats the lines "I would do anything for love but I wont do that." What "that" is has been the subject of speculation by scholars for centuries. Luckily for you, I (and wikipedia), happen to know the answer. I placed it under the video link to give you a chance to figure it out before revealing the truth of all truths.



Each verse mentions two things that he would do for love, followed by one thing that he will not do. The title phrase repetition reasserts that he "won't do that" previously stated one thing. Each mention of "that" is a reference to the particular promise that he made earlier in the same verse. For example, one such line is "But I'll never forget the way you feel right now ..." In addition, at the song's conclusion, the female vocalist predicts two other things that he will do: "You'll see that it's time to move on" and "You'll be screwing around". To both of these, he emphatically responds, "I won't do that!"

Situations such as this give us a rare peak into each others psyches by observing how we interpret ambiguity by projection our thoughts or values. Here is some delightful arm chair psychology I just made up:

1. If you thought "that" was intercourse then your probably grew up in sexually repressive religious household.
2. If you thought "that" was murder or Meat Loaf assisted suicide, you are depressed.
3. If you thought "that" was commitment or marriage you have commitment issues.
4. If you thought "that" was leaving the person to whom meat loaf is singing, you have abandonment issues.
5. If you thought "that" was watching the first season of Glee with the perspective lover, you are as sane as they come (possibly a genius). You should call MENSA.

OK GO

The band notorious for single cut music videos has done it again. This time making one of the most unique videos I have ever seen. I know from experience how difficult it is to get a single dog to do a trick, it must have been a massive amount of work to get all of these animals to perform so well. 

Young Vs. Skynyrd

Neil wrote the songs Southern Man and Alabama for his After the Goldrush and Harvest albums, respectively. Each of the songs indicted the stereotypical southern racist attitudes that were somewhat prevelant in The South in the 60s & early 70s. Check the lyrics to see just what the songs have to say on the issue.

A few years later (in 1974) Lynyrd Skynyrd decided to answer those songs from the "Southern Rock" point of view, and so was born the song Sweet Home Alabama.   The song, which espouses some of the good things about Southern culture, includes the lines:

"I hope Neil Young will remember,
A southern man don't need him around anyhow"

As a result of these songs, a lot of people assumed that there was a feud between Neil and Lynyrd Skynyrd. But the fact is that they were mutual fans! Ronnie Van Zant often wore Neil Young T-shirts while performing (check out Freebird -- the Movie) and it has always been rumored that he was wearing one when the plane went down.

Neil had actually offered a couple of his songs (including one that later became one of his most popular - Powderfinger) to Skynyrd, but the plane crashed before they got around to doing anything with them.

A couple of weeks after the plane crash, Neil performed his song Alabama at a concert in Miami -- and changed the chorus of the song to sing "Sweet Home Alabama" several times.

Despite Ronnie Van Zant's respect for Neil, Ronnie's younger brother Johnny, who fronts the current version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, chooses to play to the crowd by taunting Neil when they play Sweet Home Alabama these days... :-(   That's about as close to a "feud" as exists, because even while this taunting goes on at their shows, lead guitarist Gary Rossington has told Guitar World (in the April 2000 issue):

"Like the Beatles, Neil Young was another guy who helped us get started writing real songs. It was because of his unique style, his chord changes and what his songs expressed - all the shit he did back then. As much as we loved his songs, when he wrote about 'Alabama and bullwhips crackin' ' we had to answer with Seet Home Alabama. We toured all through Alabama for years, and it's pretty country, with plenty of great people. We weren't hanging out in the cities or with the politicians. So, we were just kidding him when we wrote that we didn't need him cuttin' down Alabama. We loved him so it was meant kind of tongue-in-cheek. He immediately sent a telegram to our manager saying he liked the song, which we thought was pretty cool. Then he came onstage in California and actually played the song with us. That was VERY cool."

According to the August 14, 2000 issue of the Boston Globe, who interviewed Neil after his 8/12 show at Tweeter Center, there's some dispute about Gary's last statement there...

Sitting in a dark, candlelit room sipping tea, Young said it almost happened, but never did. In 1970, Young penned Southern Man, taking the American South to task about racism. Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant retaliated with Sweet Home Alabama, featuring the line "I hope Neil Young will remember / A Southern man don't need him around anyhow!" The story runs that Young joined Skynyrd, at their behest, onstage and sang that very song. Nope. Young says they had plans to do exactly that, but fate intervened. Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane went down on Oct. 20, 1977, killing Van Zant and two others. Young did reveal this: Van Zant was wearing a Neil Young T-shirt when he perished.

Since Neil sometimes has his "senior moments" maybe he forgot about playing with them. Or since Rossington did his fair share of mind-meddling substances over the years, perhaps his memory of it was really a dream. I guess unless somebody comes up with a good tape of the show where this supposedly happened, we'll have to take Neil's word that it didn't really happen.

Taken from http://hyperrust.org/General/Skynyrd.html

The Superbowl Shuffle

By far the finest piece of music ever produced by The Chicago Bears. Here are a few points should commit to memory:

1. The song sold more than a half-million singles and reached No. 41 on the music charts.
2. It was recorded slightly before The Bears played and won the Super Bowl.
3. “The Super Bowl Shuffle” raised the media profile of the Bears as they completed their one-loss regular season. The Bears backed up their musical strutting by dominating their playoff opponents and hammering the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, 46-10, in one of the greatest seasons in NFL history.
4. “The Super Bowl Shuffle” was a huge success from the minute it aired on radios and televisions across the country.
5. The 1985 Chicago Bears were the first sports team to have their own rap video.
6. The song was nominated for a Grammy in 1985, but due to an mathematical error, The Bears did not win. A similar error was responsible for why The Bears did not receive "Best New Group or Artist" as well as the "Life Time Achievement" award.
7. The song had an strong humanitarian impact on the community - over $300,000 was donated to the Chicago Community Trust to help needy families in the area with clothing, shelter, and food.
8. I have listened to this song over 4,000 times.
9. The 1985 Bears were the greatest single season team in NFL history.
10. The 1985 Bears were not the first pro football team with a group song. The 1984 San Francisco 49ers put out a record during that season, one in which they also went on to become Super Bowl champs. The song, "We Are the 49ers," was in the vein of post-disco/80's dance-pop music. Later in the 1980s, the 49ers would put out another team song titled "49ers Rap." No one has ever been reported to have cared about the 49ers or their music.

Allman Brothers

The Allman Brothers: (n) a jazz band in rocker garb with their own brand of blues music.

Mark David Chapman is a total jerk

"Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American prison inmate who shot to death former Beatle John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He committed the murder as Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were outside their apartment in New York City. Chapman shot Lennon four times in the back, outside the Dakota apartment building. He remained at the scene until arrested by police, and pleaded guilty to the crime. He was sentenced to a prison term of 20 years to life and has been imprisoned at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York since 1981, having been denied parole six times.^[1][2] Each of Chapman's applications for parole have been opposed by Ono."
Taken from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_David_Chapman

Simon sans Garfunkel

Paul Simon may only be 5 feet tall, but the music he makes is huge. After splitting up with long time friend and band mate Art Garfunkel, he began on a endless pursuit of new sounds. Paul Simon literally searched around the globe for influences. He is often over looked as an artists that "reinvented" himself, but Paul Simon has released album after album in unique new directions.
His post Garfunkel career started (more or less) with his 1972 album Still Crazy After All These Years, which was much like his earlier work as a folk singer-songwriter. In 1986 he fused the rhythms of traditional African music into the album Graceland. He then moved west, fusing Brazilian and South American influences with his own style for the production of 1990 album Rythm Of The Saints. Next he went north, hitting the Spanish ghettos of New York with Song From The Capeman in 1997. His most recent move was to a more modern sound - incorporating a unique blend of techno, folk, and rock in the 2006 album Surprise. All of these albums are exceptional and I highly recommend all of them.









http://www.artistdirect.com/video/the-obvious-child/52563





"Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die."  ~Paul Simon