Instrumentals

Hello everyone. I wanted to update my blog sooner but unfortunately the internet on our campus died. Actually I’m writing this in Word and planning to post it whenever our connection returns. Anyway, I apologize if you were eagerly awaiting a new post all weekend long.

Also, on Friday night before the death of the internet, I managed to stick a little last.fm box in my sidebar. It lists my top artists for the week, so you can check out which artists I like to listen to that aren’t likely to be featured on this blog. (If you don’t know, last.fm keeps track of the music you play and then you can check out all your statistics.)

Right. Let’s talk about music. My theme today is instrumentals. It takes a lot to make a good instrumental song. An instrumental version of a song that normally has lyrics is not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about songs that manage to evoke feelings or atmospheres without words. A successful instrumental not only achieves this but also is attention-grabbing and interesting to hear. With that in mind, here are four songs that I think fit these criteria.


Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

Fire Walk With Me (Twin Peaks Theme) – Angelo Badalamenti. I guess I should say that I think this track is pretty much The Best Instrumental of All Time, Ever. It is simultaneously lush and minimal, intimate and epic, subtle and powerful. I’m not sure what else I can say—just listen to it. [amazon]

18 – Moby. Moby has a keen sense of instrumentation that is evident in all the music he makes. He often samples vocals from other records—meaning he takes them out of their original context and wraps them up in totally new instrumentation. Thus he has a strong sense of exactly what role instrumentation plays in a song. This track is from his album 18, which includes a couple of other great instrumentals, “Fireworks” and “Look Back In.” [amazon]

Espionage – Green Day. You may notice that all the other songs in this list are slow, evocative tracks. When you think of Green Day, are “slow” or “evocative” words that come to mind? Of course not. Especially not a track from an album called Shenanigans. This song is perhaps a bit less profound than the others, but infinitely more fun. It is Green Day’s tribute to James Bond-ism, spies, and the 60s. Green Day actually have another instrumental that very nearly made this list, “Last Ride In” which is found on their album nimrod. [amazon - Shenanigans][amazon – nimrod]

New Orleans Instrumental No. 1 – R.E.M. R.E.M. are known for having moody instrumentation in their early career, mostly because no one could comprehend Michael Stipe’s infamous mumbles. The man himself has, in the past, mysteriously claimed that R.E.M.’s early records had no words, only phonetic sounds. This track is from their most celebrated album, Automatic for the People. In a record about life and death, this song expresses the hazy middle space between the two under the guise of a city that itself seems to walk the line. (If you were curious, there is indeed a New Orleans Instrumental No. 2.) [amazon]

I hope you enjoyed the songs. As an aside, does anyone out there reading know how to make links to the iTunes store? Leave me a comment or email.

User's Guide, Round 2

I'm going to be doing things a bit differently from now on. Don't worry--it's nothing major! Your carefully ordered world will remain much the same. But box.net (where I host the music files for this blog) has recently introduced the ability to make an embeddable widget from a folder of one's files. For example, here's a widget I've made of all the music that has been previously featured on my blog.


Get your own Box.net widget and share anywhere!

To play a song, simply click on it! A smaller box will pop up that allows you to adjust the volume and pause the song if you like. Use the little up and down arrows to scroll through the list. It's that easy! So future posts will feature a widget instead of those messy links. Hopefully everyone's computer can handle the widget; I think it's just a little piece of Java but I'm not certain. Leave me a comment if you're having trouble.

Damone

Sorry for the delay on new posts--I was on spring break, and while myself and my iPod (named arachnopod, if you were curious) were back home, my actual iTunes library remained in my dorm back in Atlanta. So I didn't have access to my library. But I'm back and ready to serve you once again!

Before I get to the meat of this post, I'd just like to mention a couple of up-and-coming artists. I was actually going to do posts dedicated to these two artists, but I happened to see both of them mentioned in the latest issue of Blender, so I figured they didn't need any extra publicity from my little blog. :) Anyway, with no further ado, they are The Fratellis and Uffie. The Fratellis are a rock band from Scotland, and Rolling Stone recently said of their album Costello Music, "It makes you elated in the moment and sorry when it's over." I agree. Uffie makes a different type of music: a blend of dance, techno and rap with a minimalist twist. You can hear it on her MySpace.

Finally, on to the real point of this post! Today I'm highlighting a band from Boston named Damone [Official Site]. They are a rock-pop band with a classic catchy sound. Perhaps the lyrics seem a bit plain, and you might notice a distinct lack of artsy experimental sounds. No matter! Damone just want to give you a good time, and give it they will. Power chords are the name of the game and they play it with catchy hooks. Here are a couple of tracks I've picked to highlight Damone's sound.

(1) Feel Bad Vibe. This is a track off Damone's first album, From the Attic. With this song Damone illustrate that songs about bad feelings need not be angsty acoustic numbers. The lead vocalist, Noelle, sings of the discovery that one's ex-lover has moved on, and the ensuing emotion: "Who's that in your chevelle? / Feel it come."

(2) Stabbed in the Heart. This track is from Damone's latest album, Out Here All Night. Once again, Damone's lyrics may be lacking a certain poeticism, but they get straight to the point: "Well I must not be too smart, / If I can't fix what I let fall apart. / But standin' there listenin' was like bein' stabbed in the heart." This song is a bit less upbeat, but still features lots of distortion and a guitar solo.

You can check out more tracks by Damone at their MySpace. "What We Came Here For" is a real winner, and will have you dancing around your home like Twisted Sister.

[amazon - Out Here All Night][amazon - From the Attic][Wikipedia]

User's Guide

I just thought I'd throw up some quick notes about how to use the media in this blog. There are two ways you can hear the songs.

(1) Download. Click the song link and you will be taken to my box.net account. Click "download" to download the song to your computer. Then open the file using the media player of your choice. The files I provide should be in either mp3 or m4a format. iTunes will play both of these; I'm not certain if Windows Media Player will play m4a.

If you choose to download songs, remember that most of the songs offered should be deleted after 24 hours. However, some artists choose to allow certain songs or albums to be downloaded for free with no legal restriction. I've helpfully marked these with the tag [freebie].

(2) Stream. Click the song link and you will be taken to my box.net account. Click "play" to stream the song in a mini-player. If you have a slower connection, you may want to let the song completely load before playing it. The progress of loading is shown in the box that displays the file name: a pale orange-ish bar will "fill up" the window as the song loads.

I think that should cover all the business of "using" this blog. If you have any questions, leave me a comment!

Cover Songs

Here's a not-so-secret: I love cover songs. I once attempted to organize a playlist in iTunes of all my cover songs. ...It had five subcategories and literally hundreds of songs. Some of this is due to cover bands, like Me First & the Gimme Gimmes or Nouvelle Vague, and some of it was due to artists who are frequently covered, like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. Even considering these factors, there's no doubting that I! Love! Cover songs!

Given my extensive cover song collection, I think I can offer a few thoughts on what makes a good cover song. I think there are two elements that one must consider:

(1) Originality. Any bar band can cover a song note-for-note. Drafting a song into a different genre is often a great covering strategy.

(2) The Bizarre Factor. The interpretation of a song should not be at odds with the song itself. Prime example: I bought an entire CD of Green Day songs done in bluegrass. Now, I don't consider this a waste of money because, frankly, this album is hilarious, consistently reducing myself and others to tears. Unfortunately, that was not the intent of the band. Neither the bluegrass style nor the whole bluegrass ethos lend themselves to Green Day's punk sensibilties.

Whew! With that out of the way, let's move on to my selections. I narrowed it down to 5 songs that I decided you must hear, and, I have to say, this was extremely difficult. To download the song, click the link, and you'll be taken to my box.net account. On that page, click "download."

(1) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Cat Power. Ms. Power employs a classic covering strategy in this cover of the Rolling Stones: acousticize. [amazon]

(2) Rock el Casbah - Rachid Taha. I really love foreign-language versions of songs. I think that this one is particularly ingenious: a cover of the Clash's "Rock the Casbah" done in Arabic, with added Arab stylings. [amazon]

(3) I Fought the Law - Dead Kennedys. This is a perfect example of how to take a cover song and make it your own. The DKs' cover of this Bobby Fuller Four song changes the lyrics almost completely to reflect Bay Area political scandals. They've taken this song and incorporated their own trademarks: biting political lyrics and classic hardcore sound. [amazon]

(4) I'm Real - The Starting Line. Here's a great example of the aforementioned genre-drafting. The popular J. Lo & Jay-Z hip-hop duet has been punkified by The Starting Line as a part of a multi-CD series entitled Punk Goes.... This song is off the album Punk Goes Pop. I'm also a big fan of Punk Goes 80s. [amazon]

(5) Kaar Mege [Rape Me] - Bugotak. Okay, this song does have a pretty high Bizarre Factor, but I still think it's pretty good. It's a cover of Nirvana's "Rape Me" done entirely in traditional Siberian instrumentation. I'm not certain of the language, but the vocals are in the style of Tuvan throat-singing. Pretty awesome stuff! [dmusic][freebie]

So concludes my very first real post! Leave me some comments, tell me what you think.

Introduction

Hello. My name is Allie. I like spiders--hence the username. Also, music--hence this blog. The purpose of this blog is generally just to dig through the labyrinth that is my iTunes and share with the world music that is lesser-known, be it fantastic or bizarre.

I live for cover songs.

I'm a college student living in Atlanta. I have an LJ and I'm also on DA. You can email me at arachno.allie@gmail.com.