Bavid Bowe - Space Oddity

(See what I did there?)

 

It's a little out of place to tag something Modern Monday when it was recorded over half a century ago, but this still sounds like nothing on the radio today*.

* Unless you listen to "Classic Rock" ...

Pentatonix - Where are you, Christmas?

The kids are all right. Yes. they're young (hey, they're kids, right?). Yes, they have weird hair - just like you (and I) did when you were their age. It's designed to annoy their elders, just like you (and I) did when you were 18. But these kids have some serious musical chops. 

There's a lot of discipline that goes into A Capella and they do it very well indeed.

Eddie Vetter - A Room At The Top

This is a touching tribute to the actors we lost last year.  Eddie Vetter brings a great performance of the song from Tom Petty (we lost him, too).



I'm typically pretty impatient with the Hollywood Bravo Sierra that you get at the Oscars, but this was Hollywood at its finest.

Rest in peace.

The Future is not stupid

Chris Lynch posted the most awesome picture to ever grace Al Gore's most excellent Information Superhighway:

Well played, Tesla.  Well played.



Suddenly, the future is not stupid.  At least for a moment.

Fall Out Boy - The Phoenix

Via #2 Son comes this plausibly appropriate-for-the-Zombie-Apocalypse music.  It seems it's what the young folk are listening to.



I'd sure like someone to do a song with these lyrics:

LORD, make me fast and accurate.
Let my aim be true and my hand faster
than those who would seek to destroy me.
Grant me victory over my foes
and those that wish harm to me and mine.
Let not my last thought be “ If only I had my gun ”.

And LORD if today is truly the day that You call me home,
let me die in a pile of empty brass,
Surrounded by the lifeless bodies of my enemies
and with blood and skin on the barrel of my empty pistol
where I beat the last one to death.

Amen

The Jayhawks - High Water Blues

Old is new.



"Alt" something sound FTW.

Swarms - Flikr of ur eyes

It's what the Young Folk are listening to.  And it's not bad at all.



#1 Son played it in the car, and it was good enough that I asked who it was.

Marianas Trench - Fallout

It's what the young folk are listening to.  At least if you're #2 Son.



A bit angsty, perhaps, but maybe comes as close as anything to showing autotune as an actual musical  instrument.

All their other stuff is ****, but this transcends so much.



Damn, I wish that this song didn't mean what it means.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions,
not to weep at them, nor to hate them,
but to understand them.

- Spinoza

Spinoza, you magnificent bastard.  I read your book.  But thank you, Brigid.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow,
you gotta put up with the rain.

- Dolly Parton

Easy to say.  And I notice that I have no "howl at the moon" category.  Maybe that's a good thing.

Eagleheart

Stratovarius is a long-running metal band that the kids liked a couple years back.  I find the classical music themes and techniques make it pretty interesting listening.

Kamelot - Ashes to Ashes

Silverthorn, Kamelot's new album is out featuring their new lead singer.  Perhaps surprisingly, the new singer (Tommy Karevik) sounds a lot like the old singer (Roy Kahn) - perhaps because Karevik is a Swede and Kahn is Norwegian.  Maybe there's a common lutefisk connection, or something.

There is a common songwriting thread - the same core of the band still writes the songs.  And so there's a commonality that Kamelot fans should like.



I've only listened to some of the album (in the car with #2 Son), but it sounds like the most classically operatic of the Kamelot oeuvre*. Certainly this song opens that way.  If you like Rock Opera - real Rock Opera - then this should be something that you'll like.

* I only use the term because I don't think I've used the word in the 6500 posts here.  So there.

Ellie Goulding - Lights

#1 Son tells me that this is what the Young Folks are listening to these days.

Karma's a bitch

#1 Son quite likes the performer known as "Owl City", having run across his "Fireflys" single a few years back.  I think that the idea of a composer/blogger making music in his parent's basement and hitting the big time through social media is a very interesting story - more interesting than the music, at least to me.



But it doesn't matter.  #1 Son will listen to what he want to, no matter what I think.  And so it's with some amusement that I find his cutting edge pop has turned into Muzak.  "Dancing With The Stars" used this song as their music.  When I pointed this out to #1 Son, he looked like he had thrown up a little in his mouth.

Get used to it, kid.  The great rock 'n roll of my youth is now used to flog merchandise.  Heck, Janet Joplin's iconic Mercedes Benz is being used to sell Mercedes Benz these days.  Irony - it's not just dead, it's lying in the street with tire tracks on its back.  But some people don't sell out.



Trivia: this wi=on MTV's best video of 1989, back when MTV actually played music videos.

A musical meditation on the election

When talking to young folk who were once inspired by Obama in 2008, this might help.



What was left when that fire was gone
I thought it felt right but that right was wrong
All caught up in the eye of the storm
And trying to figure out what it's like moving on
And I don't even know what kind of things I said
My mouth kept moving and my mind went dead
So I'm picking up the pieces, now where to begin
The hardest part of ending is starting again.

Just thinkin'.

KAMELOT - March Of Mephisto

The boys have been playing this lately.  If you have to bring back Rock Opera (with hair and everything!), then this is doing it up right.

The boys got a copy of Kamelot's album The Black Halo as a gift for Dad.  The whole Faust thing was new to them, but Dad of course gave them a fifty minute soliloquy on Goethe, the Romantic German musical movement from Beethoven through Mahler, and the concept of Temptation, the Fall, and Redemption in Western literature.

You see, the Boys had forgotten that he was a History Professor, and watching the whole thing made me think of dinners long ago when I had made the mistake of asking him about "Turnip" Townsend and got a fifty minute talk on the Agricultural Revolution in 18th Century Britain and its relationship to the Industrial Revolution.

Man, I sure miss those talks, but I love it when the boys play this music.

Madness

There's a new album out from Muse.

We have a containment breach

But it's what the Young Folk are listening to these days ...



Laser dots are A Bad Thing.  Just sayin'.

Muse - Exogenesis

Bluesun emails to point out that some modern bands - in this case Muse, but Kamelot and Stradavarius spring to mind as well* - have taken classical styles and put a modern spin on them.  Sure have.



* And who can forget Emerson, Lake, and Palmer?  If you're going to do Rock Opera, do real Opera.

Kamelot - Soul Society

Some stories are timeless, and are refreshed each generation as new art forms emerge to renew a story springing deep from the soul.  Goethe's Faust is one such story - the corruption that can result from the very best of intentions.

Kamelot's version of this story, renewed as latter day Rock Opera, inspired #1 Son to go to the library in search of Goethe.  Subversive actually, targeting a new generation with thoughts that all Right Thinking People® recognize as double-plus ungood.

Somehow, I like to think that Goethe looks down on all this, and smiles.




Soul Society (Songwriters: Kamelot)

If my soul could revive
from my carnal remains
what does it matter to me
If it all fades to black
If I’m born once again
then no-one really is free
How could I be condemned
for the things that I've done
If my intentions were good
I guess I'll never know
Some things under the sun
Can never be understood

How can we believe in heaven
Human reason counters all
Ideas of a soul society
my life is just a fragment
Of this universe and all
there must be more than I can see

In the dark we're the same
In the concept of time
We're like a grain in the sand
And we strive for the flame
As if death was our aim
'Cause we cannot understand

How I wish there was heaven
All for one and one for all
a flawless soul society
Our lives are just a fragment
Of the universe and all
there may be more than we can see

How could I be condemned
for the things that I've done
If my intentions were good
I guess I'll never know
Some things under the sun
Can never be understood

How can we believe in heaven
All for one and one for all
Ideas of a soul society
my life is just a fragment
Of this universe and all
there may be more than we can see

Linkin Park - Waiting For The End

#1 Son informs me that I need to be branching out in the music I post here, to include "modern" stuff (as he calls it).  He offers this as the introductory "Modern Monday" post, from Linkin Park.

Linkin Park won't need much introduction to most readers, after selling 50 million albums and winning a couple Grammys.  This song is somewhat of a departure for them - as is much of their latest album,  A Thousand Suns.  Musically, it's very interesting with layers of musical activity playing with and opposite each other.  Not your average musical bear, from not your average Pop/Rock band.



Waiting For The End (Songwriters: Linkin Park)

This is not the end
This is not the beginning,
Just a voice like a riot
Rocking every revision
But you listen to the tone
And the violent rhythm
Though the words sound steady
Something empty's within 'em

We say Yeah!
With fists flying up in the air
Like we're holding onto something
That's invisible there,
'Cause we're living at the mercy of
The pain and the fear
Until we dead it, Forget it,
Let it all disappear.

Waiting for the end to come
Wishing I had strength to stand
This is not what I had planned
It's out of my control....

Flying at the speed of light
Thoughts were spinning in my head
So many things were left unsaid
It's hard to let you go...

(Oh!) I know what it takes to move on,
I know how it feels to lie,
All I wanna do
Is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what I haven't got

Sitting in an empty room
Trying to forget the past
This was never meant to last,
I wish it wasn't so...

(Oh!) I know what it takes to move on,

I know how it feels to lie,
All I wanna do
Is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what I haven't got

What was left when that fire was gone?
I thought it felt right but that right was wrong
All caught up in the eye of the storm
And trying to figure out what it's like moving on
And i don't even know what kind of things I've said
My mouth kept moving and my mind went dead
So, picking up the pieces, now where to begin?
The hardest part of ending Is starting again!!

All I wanna do
Is trade this life for something new
Holding on to what i haven't got...

This is not the end
This is not the beginning,
Just a voice like a riot
Rocking every revision
But you listen to the tone
And the violet rhythm
Though the words sound steady
Something empty's within 'em
(Holding on to what i haven't got)

We say Yeah!
With fists flying up in the air
Like we're holding onto something
That's invisible there,
'Cause we're living at the mercy of
The pain and the fear
Until we dead it, Forget it,
Let it all disappear
(Holding on to what i haven't got!)