With summer coming to it’s official official end today, I thought it would be fitting to post the song of the summer. Katy Perry might be able to stake a claim to this honor, maybe even LCD Soundsystem, but god damn Fuck You is the catchiest song I’ve heard in years.
Which version of the video do you like best? I can’t tell.
Read MoreYep, I love me a key change.
It’s impossible to nail down the greatest key change of all time. Not just because it’s completely a matter of opinion. It’s that they’re all equally powerful. Not one key change can be greater than the other. Sure I could say the key change in MJ’s “Man in The Mirror” is the best or Cheap Trick’s “Surrender”. But it doesn’t matter, because they both exude the same power. Because of the wonder of the key change.
The key change (Also called phrase modulation… Who knew?) get’s a bad rap from pretentious song writers who feel that it’s a cheap way to liven up a song. That’s bupkis. While I don’t think it should be over-used, as most song writing tools shouldn’t be, I do feel it’s a perfectly valid instrument for emotional evocation. Don’t be afraid of them boys and girls.
What are some of your favorite key changes?
Michael Jackson – Man In The Mirror. Key Change at 2:17
Cheap Trick – Surrender. Key Change at 2:38
I really liked Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog when I first watched. In case you’ve been in a coma recently, this was a Joss Whedon mini musical released exclusively on the web. Even though it was a little cheeky, the music was really good. NPH, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion are infinitely watchable on their own, much less together. It’s funny the geek culture that has sprung up around Dr. Horrible. Though not surprising as this seems to happen on everything Whedon touches.
Well it’s been given the 8-bit treatment. This doesn’t come anywhere near the awesomeness of the original show, but it demonstrates a good use of the 8-bit machine and shows how much fun Dr. Horrible was.
Read MoreI love Nashville. I’ve had some swingin’ times there. The walls of every building bleed music and the people are friendly and accommodating. They just want to have a good time. This past weekend the town experienced more rainfall the any other point in it’s history and now has to deal with ramped flooding. With the fear of levees breaking, there is a chance it could get worse. Two of our most musical cities are being attacked by water at this moment. New Orleans is fending off a giant, stubborn, oily blob that infests it’s coast. A man-made disaster which may turn out to be the worst in our nation’s history. And now these floods in Nashville. Take heart though. Spending summers at the Jersey Shore as a kid, I can tell you with absolute certainty that twang is amplified over water.
Read MoreSo this is rather geeky, but I thought I’d share it anyway. It’s a little remix with a message using bites from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I realize they needed auto-tune to make this work, but it really seems offensive here, given the fact that Sagan had one of the greatest voices ever. If you haven’t seen Cosmos, you really should just go find some train tracks to lie on.
Read MoreThe pastel backgrounds in this video really make me happy. And by the time the theremin comes in, my face has already melted off. I owe you a beer Brett Domino.
Read MoreYou’re one of my hero’s Carl Sagan, but a little musical diversity might have served you better here.
I was a little disappointed last week when I couldn’t get my act together in time to go to SXSW. Even though my bosses said they’d pay for it. None of us really knew about the interactive portion of the annual conference. I thought it was a film festival with good music! I have always wanted to see Austin and the interactive portion kind of hit the big time this year. At least in my eyes. The sessions offered where really cool and totally what I’m in to. I picked the ones I wanted to go to, wrote up what I was going to get out of it and handed it in to my boss. Then I downloaded the official SXSW iphone apps and waited. But alas, I got the go ahead on a monday and had to leave that thursday. So I made a game-time decision to skip it this year. You can bet I’ll have my glasses and tight jeans ready for next year.
But had I gone, I would have been met with this sign from a local bar that wasn’t too thrilled by the unusually high traffic.
This weekend I watched the bizarre Todd Haynes biopic, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter story. This was one of Haynes’ first films and he made the entire thing primarily using Barbie Dolls™ as actors. It chronicles the career of Karen Carpenter who is most known for her sweet sweet voice in the soft-rock band, The Carpenters. What I didn’t realize is that Karen was a kick-ass drummer. She always considered herself a drummer first and was well respected among her percussionist peers. The lady could rock the skins.
Check out this drum solo she did on a 1976 TV Special. Dayum!