Happy New Year, Popular Music!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Hope you all had a happy Christmas and hope the music you choose to play today wishes you another great year of making memories..

Last year was pretty basic, on the blog front. My tags were either Hole or Nirvana... this may continue for the rest of the new year!

I am buying more into music that isn's the grunge era, and just the day before yesterday, I remarkably bought a CD from HMV that was actually produced in 2010!! A remarkable fate for me, and my close friends would even let out a shriek of surprise.

No Age's "Something Inbetween" is produced by Sub Pop and was the band was hopefully helped by Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe inviting them on his show and stating them as a "fine band". They were good, so I bought the album. That's how it should go! No downloading necessary, just make the effort, and for me definitely I feel that that is SO much more rewarding!

It's a great album, and I had a great year, plagued by the same music, always influencing me.

My Grunge Box is the epitomy of my obsession, and I hope it never dies anyway...

But now I move onto a new obsession: the music of the O.C.

The O.C. is, of course, A brilliant pinnacle of California dreamy drama, where there's loads of rich kids that somehow have more problems than you. But the commercial impact of this show were amazing; although it ended nearly 4 years ago now with Season 4, the producers brought out multiple "mixes" of music with the music featured on various episodes, depending on what series you were looking at. Mix 2 and Volume 2 were from the first series (which I successfully finished a week ago; known to be the best season, that was a full 20 hours of my life I spent watching that- time spent well, for me!) and these include some best music moments and the songs I favour at the moment. Thanks to these compilation discs, my iPod will now have more variety. Songs like South's "Paint The Silence", the Killers' "Smile Like You Mean It" and obviously the theme tune "California" by Phantom Planet are all, with the exception of The Killers, songs from pretty obscure bands. This is VERY CLEVER. The musical director of the show really knows her stuff, and by putting these previously unknown mainstream acts there's lots in it for her (You can tell I've been reading a book with a guide to the music industry and record labels, huh?) It fits the situation, makes the show look even more gorgeous than it already is, and it also means bands like Death Cab are known. Death Cab For Cutie practically made themselves on the use of their songs in Season 1.

So the main resolution for this year is new music. My music library is rapidly expanding, so your should too. Maybe just impulse buy an album because you're curious? Link bands with other bands you already like. It's the only way you can start on the million of unheard music in the USA alone.

Happy New Music!

P.S. Will post pics of the ever famous "Grunge Box" soon, or you can access them on Twitpic from my twitter shown on the top of the page on the left hand side :)

^ Mix 2 features the greats like The Killers, Death Cab For Cutie and a great cover of "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Jem, orginally from that of Paul McCartney. Enjoy!

I hate myself and want to have revenge on Seattle

Even knowing that every moment of forever I will love and cherish Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, there is no way in the world that anybody- myself included- will begin to understand the actual music technicality of Nirvana. How did Kurt write songs for a generation? How do we even begin to understand what any of the songs dark depths and actual meanings are? This is something that is starting to seriously evoke curiosity based on a post I read on the ‘Nirvana Formula’ on a pop theory website about song-writing. To even begin to understand is quite difficult but to question if this sculpturing that happened was on purpose or just the genius’ subconscious mind working is another thing. It talks of all the technical stuff, about how many of the chord transitions Kurt works are Minor 3rds and how the basis of his songwriting relies so much on supertonics. If you listen to the little extracts and read the post here:

http://www.midside.com/2007/02/18/nirvana_supertonic/

You may even start to understand a song writing world of a true genius. Kurt Cobain may have just fooled everyone with his way of music.

But to the interesting thing. Some see a description of patterns in songs and tastes in rock stars’ choices of power chords overly confusing, but with a visionary aid, I may seem to prove my point better.

I stumbled across this lovely thing by complete accident, and it filled me with complete joy. Maybe Kurt Cobain is just like any other song writer, not of ‘rock royalty’ or whatever, but paired with this complete formulaic love of power chords (mostly because they’re easy and it’s straight there, straight back) and his gorgeous voice, it was gonna happen that some die-hard fan is going to listen to these songs so much she does start to see similarities.

Check these two songs out. The choruses are particularly things to focus on. This world of his is clever, eh?

‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’ is a song they specifically recorded for Beavis and Butthead- true 90’s cartoon heroes – and was going to be the title of Nirvana’s 3^rd album for years, until others suggested to Kurt that perhaps it was a bit too bleak.

‘Frances Farmer will have her Revenge on Seattle’ is from In Utero, and it is one of Nirvana’s hidden gems of that particular discography.

If you were a world famous rock star by this time with a full-blown heroin addiction, I think you would start to recycle some chord/melody patterns. And THAT's what made that guy so special. Three cheers for Kurt! Oh, and it's the 4th of July, Three cheers for where I always am in my imagination- America! Hip hip hooray for Alternative Rock!

Peace, Love and Empathy,

riotgrrrllives|x

Cliffy Byro.. or... whatever.

Named as the Best British Band of 2009 by many (and who's to argue) was the astonishing Cliffy Byro.. Oh, wait, no sorry, Biffy Clyro. (We can forgive the name for the talent)


Mix the soaring climaxes of Kings Of Leon with the melodic, but yet incredibly gritty rock riffs and choruses of Foo Fighters, and make them Scottish.

Voila.

Simon Neil, Ben Johnston and James Johnston, (Lead, Drums and Bass respectively) were united at the age of 12 by their love of grunge, metal, punk and Pearl Jam's "Black" from the 1991 album Ten (the defining underground record apart from Nirvana's Nevermind) and formed a band as a result. Simple enough.

But, as the best band story often goes, this wasn't an overnight success. They realeased their debut single in 1999. A decade ago.


Despite everything you immediately assume, Biffy Clyro are not some kind of puritan Rock/Metal/Hardcore band.


They embrace the Pop. (You see the resemblance to the Foo's?)



The way they mix the kick-ass riffs with some nice melodies made the long path to the mainstream charts just a little bit shorter.


They kicked out the 8-minute tracks with some shorter, straighter songs complete with some softer songs(Many of Horrors, for instance, simplistic but beautiful) and released the album Only Revolutions. Yes, there are the few people, unsurprisingly that say Biffy have Changed "in a bad way". But, really, if they hadn't changed their sound just a little bit they might not have gained the popularity they now indeed have. Because sometimes change is good, and not everyone wants to listen to 8-minute songs...



Whether its the incredibly sweet, piano power of "Mountains" or the slightly strange "Pause It and Turn It Up" (No, it isn't just you, the song IS 25 minutes long. FACT), There is something there worth listening to, because secretly, everyone likes a good pop melody, whether or not it is diguised by the "Rock Star" cover.



Embrace the pop, people.



Peace, Love, Empathy.

Album Highlights: That Golden Rule, Cloud Of Stink, Many of Horror