I got the new video for Fall Out Boy’s latest single, “This ain’t a scene, it’s an arms race”, which will be the first single to be released from their new album, “Infinity on High”, to be released on 6 February 2007.
First impressions, when I heard the single playing on the radio, was that it is definitely a lot different than their previous offerings and you could hear that they tried to experiment with a lot of different influences. Problem however for FOB is, that My Chemcial Romance successfully pulled that stunt off in December with their Black Parade album. So FOB, at this stage still and until I hear the full album, are a bit of copy-cats to me.
But anyway, I’ll wait for 6 Feb to pass complete and final judgement on “Infinity on High”, but until then, here’s the music video…
I was watching an interview with one of my favourite South African bands the other day and one of the questions posed during the interview was if the band “after doing two cover songs would ever go back do doing something original or if they were stuck on the covers?”.
I started thinking about this. Does doing a cover make you a bad artist? Does it mean that you have nothing original left to say? I discovered that this was too complex to be answered by a simple `yes` or `no`.
I dug into my own CD collection and realised (with a shock) that most of my favourite bands/artists (some of which have been declared as rock/grunge/metal/pop legends) covered quite a few songs during their careers.
But what is a cover song? It’s taking a classic, existing song (those songs we sing in the shower; play air guitar to, drum on the steering wheels of our cars) and re-creating it in a new context.
Taking the big hits of yesterday and revamping it for today.
Some notable examples:
· Nirvana’s `The Man Who Sold The World` (originally done by David Bowie)
· Pearl Jam’s `Tearjerker: Last Kiss` (originally done by Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers – bet you didn’t know that)
· A Perfect Circle’s `Imagine` (The John Lennon classic which is probably one of the most covered songs in music history.)
Why bands/artists do cover versions, is a separate discussion altogether.
Sometimes bands produce cover versions for artistic reasons. Performing songs that would normally be completely out of character for them to record, but which give them the chance to prove their versatility. A perfect example is The Narrow’s take on A-Ha’s `Living Daylights`. Pop, twisted to a kick-ass track with a rock-edge. Another is Marilyn Manson’s nu-metal rendition of the Eurythmics pop classic, Sweet Dreams. It’s a damn catchy tune…
Then there’s the tribute. When established artists pay homage to the artists or songs that influenced/inspired them.
So this has been a slow day and we’ve decided to share a bit more about our musical tastes and preferences going at the moment. And we promise we haven’t been listening to any special Xmas albums…
We’ve been listening to (+44) Plus Forty Four quite a bit, since they launced their album late 2006 and we must say, although it compares to Blink 182, it’s actually a bit of a breath of fresh air. Seems that the nice emo rhymes are actually well-thought of and the song structures are pretty good. I especially like the the tempo and style changes within individual songs. Mark and Travis (ex-Blink) has definitely progressed since Blink broke up and in my opinion (+44) trumps other ex-Blink member, Tom deLonge, new project, Angels and Airwaves. Although it’s different bands and different styles, (+44) goes with hand-in-hand with blogging everytime.
For our more chilled out vibes, we’ve been listening to The Postal Service’s 2003 offering “Give Up”. The electronic indie pop sounds generated by this pair is just so soothing to the ears. The album might be old, but it’s probably one of the best albums within its genre. Vocalist Ben Gibbard, from Death Cab for Cutie fame, just continues to remind that he is a brilliant musician and we sure hope that The Postal Service will produce another album quite soon, since 2003 is a very long time ago…
Other notable entries on our current playlist: The Distillers - Coral Fang Zella Mayzell - The Murder, Porn, And Fatherhood Lark - Mouth of me Snow Patrol - Final Straw
This is a very good video of Meg and Dia performing their single, “Setting up Sunday”, acoustic and live at Weber FM (at Weber State University, Utah). In this video, the Frampton sisters really showcases their talents and in our opinion, it takes some doing to perform as flawlessly live like this!
The second vid is also for “Setting up Sunday”, but is a lot more informal. Dia actually has what seems like, a glass of white wine in her hand (EDIT: After having a more in-zoom look, I see it’s only a bottle of wine. Would’ve been cool the glass of wine though…). Still very good and you can see that these two are pure class!
So yes, I’m still listening to Meg and Dia a lot, because it’s fun and it’s easy to listen to. That does not however mean that I’ve turned gay, just that M&D is my official soundtrack for the process of compiling my favourite albums for 2007.
This new video for “Who’s my daddy?” by Benny Benassi is the dodgest video I have ever seen! Considering that they play this on MTV and VHS1, you must really keep your kids away from the TV screen. It is actually just shocking and disgusting that you would have to go to such an extent to promote your music. In the end, all the people that “like” the song, will just like it because of the video. And I shouldn’t get started on the song either, because that is just going from bad to worse. Watch this if you like and thereafter rant with me a bit and post a comment…
