Music Banter - View Single Post

Bulldog · 02-01-2011, 12:01 PM

^ Well, if you managed to get through all that, good on ya!

So, a new day, a new month, and it's a month I'll be dedicating to another favourite David, thus rendering this February as being...

David Bowie Month

...simply because, no matter how long I find myself shut in my room, staring at this monitor and hanging around every so often on message boards, I can never run out of things to say about this guy. Put simply, along with Nick Cave and Elvis Costello, I would never have been inspired to take my life on the course it's now on. Regardless of the haters, his body of work is so important to me.

And let's kick this month off then...

Never Get Old

On one or several of those many occasions when my Bowie fanboyism spills over onto my posts on other forums here, I think I've said before that Bowie's last album to date, 2003's Reailty, is far from my favourite of his. Barring a couple of truly great songs, the rest of the album's always veered perilously between decent enough and average for me. Along with another track from it called She'll Drive the Big Car, the above song is the definite highlight of what I think is a fairly poor album.

I just love the funky vibe to this track, the melody, a pretty damn cool chorus etc - going into it too far would be a bit much, but I'll just say that this is simply and all-round great pop-rocker. It touches a level of quality for me that most of the rest of the album around wishes it could.

Unfortunately, contrary to the title of the song, it seems that Davey B here has, finally, got old if you will. Outside of his starring role in Chris Nolan's the Prestige, he's done nothing of note for almost 7 years now, and it certainly looks like that'll be the case permanently. Still, I've got my eyes open for the increasingly unlikely news of a new album that'd quite simply make my year if it ever came around.

Anyway, some more songs I like;

Artist: Superman Lovers
Tuneage: Starlight

Here lies a song I remember well from my pre-havinganythinglikeatasteinmusicatall days, which I'm sure I could bore you with an anecdote about me riding the taxi home from school, playing Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy Colour and the works to put it into a bit of personal context, but I'm sure that'll do just fine

I will say though that for six years I took that taxi across Surrey to get to school as the driver would never fail to leave to the radio on, thus inadvertently becoming quite a musical influence on my good self.

The Superman Lovers here were one of those who had their one-hit wonder when the final embers of dance musics domination of the UK charts were finally starting to extinguish about a decade or so ago. This is, of course, one of the much, much better songs to have emerged from that era that got virtually endless radio play, the royalties of which are probably still just about supporting the coke habits of this song's writers and performers. I just love that constant, repetitive percussive beat that could only belong to one kind of pop music, and the whole funky vibe there is to this thing. It's a song I still love to this day then.

Artist: Akira Yamaoka
Tuneage: Room Of Angel

And here I am, continuing along the strand of Silent Hill fanboyism that started a handful of posts back. The reason I do this is not simply because the first few games of that franchise still stand as my favourite survival horror games ever, or the superb Sinner's Reward comic book mini-series, but also because of Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks. He has this way of being able to create something that sounds as noisy, industrial and all round creepy as possible (reminding me a lot of Scott Walker's latter-day releases). He also has this knack for creating more conventional and complete-sounding songs - some with vocals, some not - that just ooze a kind of soul and emotion that's at once warm yet haunting as all hell.

This song belongs to the latter category. Just listen to it and be merry I suppose

Silent Hill 4 was far from the best game of the series, but I've got a sneaky feeling that this is the best song Yamaoka ever composed for the said series. Enjoy!

02-01-2011, 12:01 PM	#45 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	^ Well, if you managed to get through all that, good on ya! So, a new day, a new month, and it's a month I'll be dedicating to another favourite David, thus rendering this February as being... David Bowie Month ...simply because, no matter how long I find myself shut in my room, staring at this monitor and hanging around every so often on message boards, I can never run out of things to say about this guy. Put simply, along with Nick Cave and Elvis Costello, I would never have been inspired to take my life on the course it's now on. Regardless of the haters, his body of work is so important to me. And let's kick this month off then... Never Get Old On one or several of those many occasions when my Bowie fanboyism spills over onto my posts on other forums here, I think I've said before that Bowie's last album to date, 2003's Reailty, is far from my favourite of his. Barring a couple of truly great songs, the rest of the album's always veered perilously between decent enough and average for me. Along with another track from it called She'll Drive the Big Car, the above song is the definite highlight of what I think is a fairly poor album. I just love the funky vibe to this track, the melody, a pretty damn cool chorus etc - going into it too far would be a bit much, but I'll just say that this is simply and all-round great pop-rocker. It touches a level of quality for me that most of the rest of the album around wishes it could. Unfortunately, contrary to the title of the song, it seems that Davey B here has, finally, got old if you will. Outside of his starring role in Chris Nolan's the Prestige, he's done nothing of note for almost 7 years now, and it certainly looks like that'll be the case permanently. Still, I've got my eyes open for the increasingly unlikely news of a new album that'd quite simply make my year if it ever came around. Anyway, some more songs I like; Artist: Superman Lovers Tuneage: Starlight Here lies a song I remember well from my pre-havinganythinglikeatasteinmusicatall days, which I'm sure I could bore you with an anecdote about me riding the taxi home from school, playing Pokemon Blue on the Gameboy Colour and the works to put it into a bit of personal context, but I'm sure that'll do just fine I will say though that for six years I took that taxi across Surrey to get to school as the driver would never fail to leave to the radio on, thus inadvertently becoming quite a musical influence on my good self. The Superman Lovers here were one of those who had their one-hit wonder when the final embers of dance musics domination of the UK charts were finally starting to extinguish about a decade or so ago. This is, of course, one of the much, much better songs to have emerged from that era that got virtually endless radio play, the royalties of which are probably still just about supporting the coke habits of this song's writers and performers. I just love that constant, repetitive percussive beat that could only belong to one kind of pop music, and the whole funky vibe there is to this thing. It's a song I still love to this day then. Artist: Akira Yamaoka Tuneage: Room Of Angel And here I am, continuing along the strand of Silent Hill fanboyism that started a handful of posts back. The reason I do this is not simply because the first few games of that franchise still stand as my favourite survival horror games ever, or the superb Sinner's Reward comic book mini-series, but also because of Akira Yamaoka's soundtracks. He has this way of being able to create something that sounds as noisy, industrial and all round creepy as possible (reminding me a lot of Scott Walker's latter-day releases). He also has this knack for creating more conventional and complete-sounding songs - some with vocals, some not - that just ooze a kind of soul and emotion that's at once warm yet haunting as all hell. This song belongs to the latter category. Just listen to it and be merry I suppose Silent Hill 4 was far from the best game of the series, but I've got a sneaky feeling that this is the best song Yamaoka ever composed for the said series. Enjoy!