I'm Here Today, Expect It To Stay On - Ki's Journal of Music

Key · 08-16-2013, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astronomer

I love this album, it's one of my favourites. There are definitely some moments in these PT songs that really "hit" me as well, so to speak. And you're not terrible at writing up album reviews :P

But yeah, definitely my favourite Porcupine Tree album.

I've given PT's other albums a listen but there aren't many other instances where I feel goosebumps from listening to them. Arriving Somewhere But Not Here is the exception as I think that is PT's best song to date.

Key · 08-16-2013, 12:05 PM

We all know em', we all love em' and we all hate to love em'. That's right, a new section in my journal to talk about the songs that just rip my heart right out and stomp on them with steel toed boots. Before I go on, I want to explain that I see no problem with songs having such an effect on ones emotional state, because that just means the song is special to you, even if it makes you feel sad. Being sad is a natural thing and when music can reach such a natural effect in your life, it's obviously doing something right. Anyway, to start this off, I will post a song that I'm sure everyone has heard at least once. It's special to me in the way that I have the title of the song tattoo'd on my left arm to remember how much of an impact it had on me. It makes me feel a mixture of sadness, pain, and happiness all at the same time. Allowing me to remember what good times I had when I introduced my loved one to this beautiful man:

Elliott Smith - A Fond Farewell

Key · 08-19-2013, 07:40 PM

It's time for another heart wrenching tune that will surely cause some pain around the heart regions. But what is life if you can't feel emotions? Exactly, not worth it. Anyway, keeping this one short and brief.

Jon Anderson - Boundaries

This song means a lot to me, and listening to it now reminds me as to why that is. This song reminds me of when I spend 6-7 months in Monterey, CA living with my now girlfriend. We were living in a ****ty apartment and all we had was ourselves and the record collection that seemed to grow larger and larger as the day went past. I picked this one up in particular because I remember being a fan of Yes, but never checking out Jon Anderson's solo work. This song in particular was always a personal favorite of mine on the whole album because it just felt...beautiful. It's not so much that it's a heartbreaker in a bad way more than it is a heartbreaker when I remember the days in California. We do plan to go back for a small vacation in the future, and it will be just as great as it was.

Key · 08-19-2013, 08:01 PM

What fun is life if you don't have something to look forward to? Especially when it comes to music. Hell, it seems like the past two years there's been something to look forward to in at long list of genres. There has been a lot already released this year that I have probably hit on in my journal or am planning to. Here's a few that I will be getting on the first day of release:

Trivium - Vengeance Falls (Set to release Oct. 15 2013)

I love Trivium, and through the years I've noticed their albums do get better with each release. Although, In Waves for some reason got a lot of hate, I find that to be one of their best, only because I think being able to fill an album with so many tracks and still have so many hits and not getting boring is a pretty difficult feat to accomplish. With the new album coming up, the only thing I'm not too thrilled about is the album title. "Vengeance Falls" just sounds very metal band cliche, but opinions are opinions, and mine could be wrong, but that's just my first impression of that. I'm hoping the album is a hit, and i'm refusing to listen to any single released or any leaks for that matter only because there are certain bands that I want to hear the album as a whole as fresh as possible, and Trivium is one of those bands. Definitely an album i'm looking forward to. Another one that just needs to be released right away is...

Dream Theater - Dream Theater (Set to release Sept. 24th 2013)

Finally, another album with Mangini on drums. I don't know about you, but A Dramatic Turn of Events absolutely blew me away. It had so much energy and passion throughout the entire album and not one track felt boring or "filler-ish". It's funny that both Trivium and Dream Theater have new albums coming out this year since they were touring together, which is a show I definitely did catch by the way, and it was absolutely fantastic. Onto the album, it is rather curious as to why they chose to have this album as a self titled, since with all their other albums being released, you'd think they'd have done it a bit sooner. Though, that doesn't stray away from how excited I am about this. It's been two years since their last release, and I have been craving some more Mangini action. inb4 Portnoy fanboys saying "ohhhh Mangini sucks". To be fair, I don't have Portnoy nor do I show any disrespect for him, but I don't see him being not let back in DT as a viable reason to hate on Mangini, since he is someone who shows a lot of talent. I love Portnoy, but to say it wasn't his fault that DT didn't let him back in is bogus, but I won't go into that. Anyway, this album is surely going to be a "best album of 2013" for me. I'm just hoping they don't disappoint.

Honestly, there aren't a whole lot more albums that I know of that will be coming out this year that I am super excited about. I mean...Daft Punk already released theirs, Bullet For My Valentine released theirs and showed they aren't going to bother trying anymore, and a number of others have been released that have been hit and miss. Had I done a post like this earlier in the year say in January or February, it would have been longer. Who knows, someone can say they're releasing a new album tomorrow and thus I would probably excited.

Anywho, that's all for now, i'll make another post if I find out who else will be releasing something that I will be interested in.

Key · 08-21-2013, 02:32 AM

Number 7 out of 15: The Black Keys - Attack & Release

Both this album and the song I posted were the first of my listening to The Black Keys. Needless to say, it really got me in the mood to listen to almost all of their other albums. I had always heard very positive things about this group but never really took the time to really get into them, but when I finally just did it, I started with this album because it just seemed like a good one, and boy was I right. Not to say their other albums are any less enjoyable, they're all very enjoyable. This one in particular just holds a special place in my heart because it just reminds me of when I finally just broke down and listened to them, and at the same time, I was able to see why they get so much talk, because they are amazing. Everything from the vocals, to the distortion, to the acoustic, to just everything else. They manage to pull together everything about this type of music together into something very enjoyable to listen to. I'm not really sure what I was expected to hear when I started listening to them, so I don't really have any disappointments about the group, i'm just happy it was one of those "holy crap, this is why people talk about them" moments. Definitely worth a listen if you're in a late night smooth rock mood (which at this moment it's 1:32 in the morning) and you just want something easy to listen to yet still being enjoyable.

Key · 08-21-2013, 02:57 AM

Time to discuss the first page of my top artists on last.fm, and what better way to do that then to talk about each of them and why I like them so much. So let's get right into it.

Taking the #1 spot on my last.fm charts isn't too much of a surprise, the lovely, the beautiful, Elliott Smith. There are not enough words on the earth to describe why I love him so much, his music just hits me to a point that I feel the pain he felt when he was a part of this earth. It's probably fairly obvious as to why he takes the #1 spot on my charts, if it's not obvious, well i'll tell you. As with many artists that I have listened to, he is one of those that I heard a lot about but had no knowledge of his music nor did I even know what he wrote about, but people seemed to find his lyrics to hit really close to him, and holy cow were they right. This man basically wrote songs that can relate to anybody who has dealt with some sort of angst, love, or pain in their life, that's how it hit me anyway, because when I started to listen to him, I was going through a lot in my life, and his music just spoke to me on a level that no other artist could match. Songs like Waltz #2, A Fond Farewell, Needle In The Hay, and many others are prime examples of how incredible a songwriter he was, even if he himself didn't believe it.

I went through a usual phase of trying to find every album, single, b-side, etc. If it had Elliott Smith in the name, you can guarantee it was part of my collection, and it still is. Yes, even this album:

There's just something seriously charming about an orchestra doing a whole album for an artist that you really love. And so at this point I was already really into Elliott Smith and was curious to hear what an orchestrated version of his songs would sound like. Fortunately, they hit me just as hard as the originals did. They were so phenomenally done and you can tell the group have a passion for make very well managed orchestra covers. Definitely an album to check out if you're interested.

I can pretty much guarantee that all the plays that are recorded on my last.fm for Elliott Smith all came from those weeks I spent listening to JUST him, and nothing else. I used to just spend hours and hours on the computer just browsing while having his music in the background, I even remember sort of freaking out when last.fm decided not to scrobble a couple hours of listening I had done because I knew it wouldn't record it onto last.fm showing how much I listened to him that day, but it became sort of a regular thing to wake up in the morning, get on my computer, and just listen to him all day. Before I knew it, I was singing his music in my head, making special space on my ipod just for his music, and hell...I even got "A Fond Farewell" tattoo'd on my arm just to let people know that he holds a special place in my heart, and always will.

Astronomer · 08-22-2013, 01:42 AM

So many of my friends listen to Elliott Smith and are huge fans; can't say enough amazing things about him. I've never actually gotten into him or had a good, in-depth listen to his work

Maybe this post of yours Ki will be just what I need to get started! Do you have any specific recommendations? I would love to see your fond farewell tattoo!

Key · 08-22-2013, 12:12 PM

^The albums XO and either/Or are good starter albums however all of them are amazing.

Key · 08-22-2013, 04:19 PM

Nick Drake is in very few words...incredible.

I remember the first time I listened to him, it was with the Pink Moon album. The only song I knew about prior to that was the track titled Pink Moon only because the coffee shops around here play that song multiple times a day, with good reason. It's calm, it's easy listening, and the lyrics are top notch. As soon as I was familiar with that album, I wanted to dive into more of his music, only to come to the realization that he was both no longer with us on this earth, and he only managed to get three studio albums released in his time. I also learned that he was one of those guys who wasn't looking for fame, but gained a lot of it posthumously, which is a damn shame if you really think about it.

After giving the three albums a listen, I came to realize that Bryter Layter is timeless and works with whatever season you're listening to it in. It's got a mixture of slow acoustic songs and upbeat jazz influenced songs, which is a pretty fantastic combination that really makes the album a worthwhile listen from front to back. One notable mention off that album is Poor Boy:

Onto the last album I will mention "Five Leaves Left" is probably my number three album for him, though I don't know how else I would rank it since there's only three albums. It is in no way a terrible album, and with it being his first studio album, it does show what he was going for and how he wanted to be perceived as an artist, unfortunately it doesn't really do it for me as his other two albums do. A few tracks worth mentioning however are The Thoughts of Mary Jane and River Man. If those two songs were mentioned for a Nick Drake's Greatest Hits album, i'd see no problem agreeing with the choices as those two songs are the best on the album, but hey...that's just my opinion.

As a whole, I was more than ecstatic to finally give him a listen, because he's another one of those artists where you see his name thrown around everywhere, but you're not entirely sure what he sounds like or where to start. Personally, it's as easy as just looking for his three studio albums online and listening to them in whatever order you please, because each one has a little something special to offer. If I were to give a recommendation, i'd say start with Pink Moon, only because it captures some of his best moments, but hey...again, that's my opinion. Hell, some could say that Pink Moon is his worst album to start with, but I have no way of knowing for sure which is the best to start with.

As far as live videos go, I have been unsuccessful each and every time and I cannot express my disappointment in words in relation to not being able to find any live footage. He's an artist that I would have loved to see at a live show, or to at least see someone capturing some live footage of him. However, again...he didn't make it very obvious that he was an artist. A lot of his fame came posthumously which is a damn shame. his wikipedia page backs that up as well:

Quote:

There were no documentaries or compilation albums in the wake of Drake's death.[84] His public profile remained low throughout the mid and late 1970s, although occasional mentions of his name appeared in the music press. By this time, his parents were receiving an increasing number of fans and admirers as visitors to the family home in Far Leys. Island Records, following a 1975 NME article written by Nick Kent, stated "we have no intention of repackaging Nick's three albums (which remained available), either now or at anytime in the foreseeable future",[85] but in 1979 Rob Partridge joined Island Records as press officer and commissioned the release of the Fruit Tree box set. Partridge was a fan of Drake's, and had seen him perform early in 1969: "The first thing I did when I got to Island was suggest we put together a retrospective—the studio albums plus whatever else was there. I wasn't necessarily expecting massive vaults with millions of tunes, live recordings or whatever, but there was very little". The release brought together the three studio albums as well as the four tracks recorded with Wood in 1974 and was accompanied by an extensive biography written by the American journalist Arthur Lubow. However, sales were poor and the album received little press notice, and in 1983 Island deleted Fruit Tree from its catalogue.[14]
By the mid-1980s Drake was being cited as an influence by musicians such as R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Robert Smith of The Cure. Smith credited the origin of his band's name to a lyric from Drake's song "Time Has Told Me" ("a troubled cure for a troubled mind").[86] Drake gained further exposure in 1985 with the release of The Dream Academy's hit single "Life in a Northern Town", which included an on-sleeve dedication to Drake.[87] In 1986 the first biography of Drake was published, in Danish[88]—it was eventually translated, updated with new interviews, and published in English in February 2012. His reputation continued to grow, and by the end of the 1980s, his name was appearing regularly in newspapers and music magazines in the United Kingdom;[89] he had to many come to represent a "doomed romantic hero",[90] and an "enigma wrapped inside a mystery".[37] The first step in translating that reputation into record sales came with the release of the compilation album Way to Blue: An Introduction to Nick Drake in May 1994. Although the album never charted in the UK, it sold consistently over the next few years, gaining a gold disc certification in September 1999 for sales of 100,000 copies in the UK.[91]
On 20 June 1998 BBC Radio 2 broadcast a documentary entitled Fruit Tree: The Nick Drake Story, featuring interviews with Joe Boyd, John Wood, Gabrielle and Molly Drake, Paul Wheeler, Robert Kirby and Ashley Hutchings, and narrated by Danny Thompson.[92] To tie in with the release of the compilation album Made to Love Magic, an updated version of the documentary was broadcast on 22 May 2004 on Radio 2, retitled Lost Boy: In Search of Nick Drake and featuring the same interview clips but with Thompson's narration replaced by that of Brad Pitt, a self-confessed Nick Drake fan.[93][94] In early 1999, BBC2 aired a 40-minute documentary, A Stranger Among Us—In Search of Nick Drake. The following year, Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens released the documentary A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, featuring interviews with Boyd, Gabrielle Drake, Wood and Kirby. Later that year, The Guardian placed Bryter Layter at number 1 in its "Alternative top 100 albums ever" list.[69]
In 1999, "Pink Moon" was used in "Milky Way", a Volkswagen Cabrio commercial, leading to a large increase in record sales.[95][96] The US telecommunications company AT&T used "From the Morning" in one of their advertisements as part of their "Rethink Possible" campaign in North America in 2010.[95]
In recent years several musicians, including Lucinda Williams, Ben Folds,[97] Badly Drawn Boy, Lou Barlow and Mikael Åkerfeldt have cited Drake as an influence. In 2004, nearly 30 years after his death, Drake gained his first chart placing when two singles, "Magic" and "River Man", were released to coincide with the Made to Love Magic album.
On 16 May 2009 Joe Boyd curated a concert at the Birmingham Town Hall, with Robert Kirby as musical arranger and a variety of singers and musicians performing Drake's songs. Among the featured artists were Robyn Hitchcock, Camille O'Sullivan, Martha Wainwright, Graham Coxon, Beth Orton, Harper Simon, Kate St John, Stuart Murdoch and Vashti Bunyan.[98] Following this concert's success, Boyd staged a short concert tour of the UK in January 2010, following the same format: artists on the tour included Vashti Bunyan, Green Gartside, Lisa Hannigan, Scott Matthews, Teddy Thompson, Krystle Warren, Robyn Hitchcock, Kirsty Almeida and Harper Simon. The concert at the London Barbican Centre was filmed and broadcast on BBC Four in April 2010.[99]

Definitely a man taken way too soon, I mean...the guy was only 26 years old when he died, never even had a chance to allow people to find his music and give it a good listen. Perhaps he was afraid of the fame, or just didn't feel like dealing with the world anymore, much the same could be said about Elliott Smith. Had he been alive today, he would see how much people love his music, but I don't know if that'd be a good thing or a bad thing.

ladyislingering · 08-23-2013, 06:41 PM

Hey, sweetie, I just wanted to drop this here for you.

It's been in my head all day and I felt like you needed to hear it.

I looked around enough to know that you're the one I wanna go through time with.

It might be a while before you see this, and I can guarantee that I won't even mention it as I curl up in bed with you tonight.

But when you do, I hope it will make your day a little better. I love you.

08-22-2013, 01:42 AM	#57 (permalink)
Astronomer we are stardust Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 2,894	So many of my friends listen to Elliott Smith and are huge fans; can't say enough amazing things about him. I've never actually gotten into him or had a good, in-depth listen to his work Maybe this post of yours Ki will be just what I need to get started! Do you have any specific recommendations? I would love to see your fond farewell tattoo! __________________

08-23-2013, 06:41 PM	#60 (permalink)
ladyislingering Maelian Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Seattle Posts: 695	Hey, sweetie, I just wanted to drop this here for you. It's been in my head all day and I felt like you needed to hear it. I looked around enough to know that you're the one I wanna go through time with. It might be a while before you see this, and I can guarantee that I won't even mention it as I curl up in bed with you tonight. But when you do, I hope it will make your day a little better. I love you. __________________ You and I, We were born to die.

08-16-2013, 12:05 PM	#52 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	We all know em', we all love em' and we all hate to love em'. That's right, a new section in my journal to talk about the songs that just rip my heart right out and stomp on them with steel toed boots. Before I go on, I want to explain that I see no problem with songs having such an effect on ones emotional state, because that just means the song is special to you, even if it makes you feel sad. Being sad is a natural thing and when music can reach such a natural effect in your life, it's obviously doing something right. Anyway, to start this off, I will post a song that I'm sure everyone has heard at least once. It's special to me in the way that I have the title of the song tattoo'd on my left arm to remember how much of an impact it had on me. It makes me feel a mixture of sadness, pain, and happiness all at the same time. Allowing me to remember what good times I had when I introduced my loved one to this beautiful man: Elliott Smith - A Fond Farewell

08-19-2013, 07:40 PM	#53 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	It's time for another heart wrenching tune that will surely cause some pain around the heart regions. But what is life if you can't feel emotions? Exactly, not worth it. Anyway, keeping this one short and brief. Jon Anderson - Boundaries This song means a lot to me, and listening to it now reminds me as to why that is. This song reminds me of when I spend 6-7 months in Monterey, CA living with my now girlfriend. We were living in a ****ty apartment and all we had was ourselves and the record collection that seemed to grow larger and larger as the day went past. I picked this one up in particular because I remember being a fan of Yes, but never checking out Jon Anderson's solo work. This song in particular was always a personal favorite of mine on the whole album because it just felt...beautiful. It's not so much that it's a heartbreaker in a bad way more than it is a heartbreaker when I remember the days in California. We do plan to go back for a small vacation in the future, and it will be just as great as it was.

08-19-2013, 08:01 PM	#54 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	What fun is life if you don't have something to look forward to? Especially when it comes to music. Hell, it seems like the past two years there's been something to look forward to in at long list of genres. There has been a lot already released this year that I have probably hit on in my journal or am planning to. Here's a few that I will be getting on the first day of release: Trivium - Vengeance Falls (Set to release Oct. 15 2013) I love Trivium, and through the years I've noticed their albums do get better with each release. Although, In Waves for some reason got a lot of hate, I find that to be one of their best, only because I think being able to fill an album with so many tracks and still have so many hits and not getting boring is a pretty difficult feat to accomplish. With the new album coming up, the only thing I'm not too thrilled about is the album title. "Vengeance Falls" just sounds very metal band cliche, but opinions are opinions, and mine could be wrong, but that's just my first impression of that. I'm hoping the album is a hit, and i'm refusing to listen to any single released or any leaks for that matter only because there are certain bands that I want to hear the album as a whole as fresh as possible, and Trivium is one of those bands. Definitely an album i'm looking forward to. Another one that just needs to be released right away is... Dream Theater - Dream Theater (Set to release Sept. 24th 2013) Finally, another album with Mangini on drums. I don't know about you, but A Dramatic Turn of Events absolutely blew me away. It had so much energy and passion throughout the entire album and not one track felt boring or "filler-ish". It's funny that both Trivium and Dream Theater have new albums coming out this year since they were touring together, which is a show I definitely did catch by the way, and it was absolutely fantastic. Onto the album, it is rather curious as to why they chose to have this album as a self titled, since with all their other albums being released, you'd think they'd have done it a bit sooner. Though, that doesn't stray away from how excited I am about this. It's been two years since their last release, and I have been craving some more Mangini action. inb4 Portnoy fanboys saying "ohhhh Mangini sucks". To be fair, I don't have Portnoy nor do I show any disrespect for him, but I don't see him being not let back in DT as a viable reason to hate on Mangini, since he is someone who shows a lot of talent. I love Portnoy, but to say it wasn't his fault that DT didn't let him back in is bogus, but I won't go into that. Anyway, this album is surely going to be a "best album of 2013" for me. I'm just hoping they don't disappoint. Honestly, there aren't a whole lot more albums that I know of that will be coming out this year that I am super excited about. I mean...Daft Punk already released theirs, Bullet For My Valentine released theirs and showed they aren't going to bother trying anymore, and a number of others have been released that have been hit and miss. Had I done a post like this earlier in the year say in January or February, it would have been longer. Who knows, someone can say they're releasing a new album tomorrow and thus I would probably excited. Anywho, that's all for now, i'll make another post if I find out who else will be releasing something that I will be interested in.

08-21-2013, 02:32 AM	#55 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	Number 7 out of 15: The Black Keys - Attack & Release Both this album and the song I posted were the first of my listening to The Black Keys. Needless to say, it really got me in the mood to listen to almost all of their other albums. I had always heard very positive things about this group but never really took the time to really get into them, but when I finally just did it, I started with this album because it just seemed like a good one, and boy was I right. Not to say their other albums are any less enjoyable, they're all very enjoyable. This one in particular just holds a special place in my heart because it just reminds me of when I finally just broke down and listened to them, and at the same time, I was able to see why they get so much talk, because they are amazing. Everything from the vocals, to the distortion, to the acoustic, to just everything else. They manage to pull together everything about this type of music together into something very enjoyable to listen to. I'm not really sure what I was expected to hear when I started listening to them, so I don't really have any disappointments about the group, i'm just happy it was one of those "holy crap, this is why people talk about them" moments. Definitely worth a listen if you're in a late night smooth rock mood (which at this moment it's 1:32 in the morning) and you just want something easy to listen to yet still being enjoyable.

08-21-2013, 02:57 AM	#56 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	Time to discuss the first page of my top artists on last.fm, and what better way to do that then to talk about each of them and why I like them so much. So let's get right into it. Taking the #1 spot on my last.fm charts isn't too much of a surprise, the lovely, the beautiful, Elliott Smith. There are not enough words on the earth to describe why I love him so much, his music just hits me to a point that I feel the pain he felt when he was a part of this earth. It's probably fairly obvious as to why he takes the #1 spot on my charts, if it's not obvious, well i'll tell you. As with many artists that I have listened to, he is one of those that I heard a lot about but had no knowledge of his music nor did I even know what he wrote about, but people seemed to find his lyrics to hit really close to him, and holy cow were they right. This man basically wrote songs that can relate to anybody who has dealt with some sort of angst, love, or pain in their life, that's how it hit me anyway, because when I started to listen to him, I was going through a lot in my life, and his music just spoke to me on a level that no other artist could match. Songs like Waltz #2, A Fond Farewell, Needle In The Hay, and many others are prime examples of how incredible a songwriter he was, even if he himself didn't believe it. I went through a usual phase of trying to find every album, single, b-side, etc. If it had Elliott Smith in the name, you can guarantee it was part of my collection, and it still is. Yes, even this album: There's just something seriously charming about an orchestra doing a whole album for an artist that you really love. And so at this point I was already really into Elliott Smith and was curious to hear what an orchestrated version of his songs would sound like. Fortunately, they hit me just as hard as the originals did. They were so phenomenally done and you can tell the group have a passion for make very well managed orchestra covers. Definitely an album to check out if you're interested. I can pretty much guarantee that all the plays that are recorded on my last.fm for Elliott Smith all came from those weeks I spent listening to JUST him, and nothing else. I used to just spend hours and hours on the computer just browsing while having his music in the background, I even remember sort of freaking out when last.fm decided not to scrobble a couple hours of listening I had done because I knew it wouldn't record it onto last.fm showing how much I listened to him that day, but it became sort of a regular thing to wake up in the morning, get on my computer, and just listen to him all day. Before I knew it, I was singing his music in my head, making special space on my ipod just for his music, and hell...I even got "A Fond Farewell" tattoo'd on my arm just to let people know that he holds a special place in my heart, and always will.

08-22-2013, 12:12 PM	#58 (permalink)
Key . Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 13,153	^The albums XO and either/Or are good starter albums however all of them are amazing.