Let's skip the New Year salutations, shall we? I've never been one to think that because the calendar turns and we toss off some Hallmark-created resolutions that things will change and life will suddenly be goddamn awesome! People make resolutions to break them and simply since they are too freakin' lazy to do something sooner than later. I've only ever known one person who made a resolution and kept to it and built on it three years in a row and he is a gentleman and a scholar!
I travelled the entire two weeks I was off from my job as a publicist. That meant a lot of iPod listening and I wanted to share some heavy - not metal, not brutal, not aggressive, not loud - music that I re-discovered. I mean heavy in a "speaks to you on that level" type of heavy. For me, it's usually metal music that does that, nine times out of 10. But I cranked 16 Horsepower's aching rendition of Bob Dylan's "Nobody ‘Cept You." I may be a blasphemer for saying this, but I think 16's twanged out version is much more yearning and gorgeous than the original author's version. It's a musically laid back song, but that's because the words have heft in the tonnage. I could listen to it on repeat nonstop and never tire of it.
You can't seek out ‘heavy' music without clicking on anything from the late Jeff Buckley's Grace. No, not going to talk about how he makes Leonard Cohen's "Halleluiah" his own. We all love that. But "Last Goodbye" is what makes an immediate lump form in my throat. Sigh. How Mr. Buckley is sorely, sorely missed. His voice isn't high; it's just memorable in a liltingly beautiful sort of way.
I recently interviewed H.I.M.'s Ville Valo and he was talking to me about how much he loves Madonna's "Live to Tell" from the At Close Range movie soundtrack. After he mentioned that, I listened to the song over and over on my iPod, since I have Miss M's The Immaculate Collection on it, amongst others. You have to remember that Madonna was known for sexy, fluffy dance and pop music and the lyrics and the maudlin melody and starkness of this song played completely against the type she built her Material Girl reputation upon. It's a dark, introspective song and I was instantly reminded of how much I loved it. When Madonna sings, "The light that you will never see / It shines inside / You can't take that from me," it's a rare moment of vulnerability and insecurity not commonly displayed by Madonna Louise Ciccone. Of course it inspired me to listen to "Crazy for You," from the Vision Quest soundtrack/movie. Another classic ballad where Madonna showed a non-alpha female softness. Don't you just love contradictions?
I may have mentioned her before, but the icy, almost shrill highness of Aimee Mann's gorgeous voice gets me every time she opens her mouth and lets a sound out. If you've never listened to the songs she penned for the soundtrack to Magnolia, the overstuffed, heady PT Anderson film, then I suggest you Netflix the movie and nab the soundtrack, stat. The two are interconnected and whenever I have a personal apocalypse, Mann's songs, like "Wise Up," go into instant, repeated rotation, like my own Top 40 radio station.
I didn't mean for this week's column to evolve (or devolve, depending on who you ask) into a missive on soundtrack songs, but it just became that. Sort of. I didn't mean for it to became a reference to covers that I happen to adore more than the originals. But it sort of did. That's the beauty of this column. I sit here with my laptop rocking, Teen Wolf on TV in the background, reminding me of my misspent, problem-free youth (only I didn't realize that's what it was back then, none of us did!) And I just allow the stream of consciousness of my brain and my relationship to music to just flow onto the screen and some interconnectivity develops.
Lastly, while flipping through my iPod while on my trip, I found several albums I left off my final column/top albums of the ‘00s! Like several. Seriously, I haphazardly and lazily put that list together, because I realized that I left off albums I adore and treasure like At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command, Avenged Sevenfold's Waking the Fallen, 36 Crazyfists' A Snow-Capped Romance, which I detested when it came out but grew to love and appreciate more and more with each listen until I had an epiphany about the album in 2007 and Poison the Well's You Come Before You. How the hell did I leave those albums off? Simple. I was in a rush to compile my list. I was in a hurry to get my ass on vacation and to get away from the East Coast. I was (and still am) in a depression that exists simply because I have a gravely broken heart that is still in a wearing-all-black mourning and grieving phase that I foresee will take a year to sift through (all the while hoping this is still just a hiccup!)
Check out those albums I mentioned, too. Dancin' on the corpses' ashes. What's that from? It's a lyric. From one of those albums. Go figure it out for yourself. Don't use Google. Go to the mom and pop shop or iTunes and listen to it.
Till next week... ~ Amy Sciarretto
I travelled the entire two weeks I was off from my job as a publicist. That meant a lot of iPod listening and I wanted to share some heavy - not metal, not brutal, not aggressive, not loud - music that I re-discovered. I mean heavy in a "speaks to you on that level" type of heavy. For me, it's usually metal music that does that, nine times out of 10. But I cranked 16 Horsepower's aching rendition of Bob Dylan's "Nobody ‘Cept You." I may be a blasphemer for saying this, but I think 16's twanged out version is much more yearning and gorgeous than the original author's version. It's a musically laid back song, but that's because the words have heft in the tonnage. I could listen to it on repeat nonstop and never tire of it.
You can't seek out ‘heavy' music without clicking on anything from the late Jeff Buckley's Grace. No, not going to talk about how he makes Leonard Cohen's "Halleluiah" his own. We all love that. But "Last Goodbye" is what makes an immediate lump form in my throat. Sigh. How Mr. Buckley is sorely, sorely missed. His voice isn't high; it's just memorable in a liltingly beautiful sort of way.
I recently interviewed H.I.M.'s Ville Valo and he was talking to me about how much he loves Madonna's "Live to Tell" from the At Close Range movie soundtrack. After he mentioned that, I listened to the song over and over on my iPod, since I have Miss M's The Immaculate Collection on it, amongst others. You have to remember that Madonna was known for sexy, fluffy dance and pop music and the lyrics and the maudlin melody and starkness of this song played completely against the type she built her Material Girl reputation upon. It's a dark, introspective song and I was instantly reminded of how much I loved it. When Madonna sings, "The light that you will never see / It shines inside / You can't take that from me," it's a rare moment of vulnerability and insecurity not commonly displayed by Madonna Louise Ciccone. Of course it inspired me to listen to "Crazy for You," from the Vision Quest soundtrack/movie. Another classic ballad where Madonna showed a non-alpha female softness. Don't you just love contradictions? I may have mentioned her before, but the icy, almost shrill highness of Aimee Mann's gorgeous voice gets me every time she opens her mouth and lets a sound out. If you've never listened to the songs she penned for the soundtrack to Magnolia, the overstuffed, heady PT Anderson film, then I suggest you Netflix the movie and nab the soundtrack, stat. The two are interconnected and whenever I have a personal apocalypse, Mann's songs, like "Wise Up," go into instant, repeated rotation, like my own Top 40 radio station.
I didn't mean for this week's column to evolve (or devolve, depending on who you ask) into a missive on soundtrack songs, but it just became that. Sort of. I didn't mean for it to became a reference to covers that I happen to adore more than the originals. But it sort of did. That's the beauty of this column. I sit here with my laptop rocking, Teen Wolf on TV in the background, reminding me of my misspent, problem-free youth (only I didn't realize that's what it was back then, none of us did!) And I just allow the stream of consciousness of my brain and my relationship to music to just flow onto the screen and some interconnectivity develops.
Lastly, while flipping through my iPod while on my trip, I found several albums I left off my final column/top albums of the ‘00s! Like several. Seriously, I haphazardly and lazily put that list together, because I realized that I left off albums I adore and treasure like At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command, Avenged Sevenfold's Waking the Fallen, 36 Crazyfists' A Snow-Capped Romance, which I detested when it came out but grew to love and appreciate more and more with each listen until I had an epiphany about the album in 2007 and Poison the Well's You Come Before You. How the hell did I leave those albums off? Simple. I was in a rush to compile my list. I was in a hurry to get my ass on vacation and to get away from the East Coast. I was (and still am) in a depression that exists simply because I have a gravely broken heart that is still in a wearing-all-black mourning and grieving phase that I foresee will take a year to sift through (all the while hoping this is still just a hiccup!)Check out those albums I mentioned, too. Dancin' on the corpses' ashes. What's that from? It's a lyric. From one of those albums. Go figure it out for yourself. Don't use Google. Go to the mom and pop shop or iTunes and listen to it.
Till next week... ~ Amy Sciarretto
Amy SciarrettoRight now I'm reading a lot about music. It almost sounds oxymoronic. To read about music, when music is what you listen to. But music, like many of the arts, is something that touches all of your senses. Now, I am not going to muse on the Kindle, and how it is going ruin literature and the literary process of digesting reading materials. I do love the bookshelves that runs width wise under my low windows of my cond Read More ...
Adam BernardWelcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from Dancing With The Stars finding so Read More ...
William DeshairI wanted to set the table with this edition of "R.eal A.nd P.ersonal" for columns to come on the subject of the Female Emcee. As time goes on, I will slowly phase out that title and hope that you will do the same. Because face it, calling a woman that raps, a female emcee, is like calling an African-American that plays the position of quarterback, a black quarterback. Ability should be sexless. We must change how we Read More ...
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