Let's Get It...but Let's Not Get It On.

Another band that isn't popular. Yaaaaaaaaaaay. I mean...darn.

So like, I was chilling the other day, playing Tap Tap Revenge 3 on my iPhone (The 3GS, of course. The iPhone 4 can go die in a fire), pretending I was cool or whatever, and I came across the song Duck, Duck, Grey Goose by the band Let's Get It. Oddly enough, despite not getting a good score on the song, I found the band's "sound" to be totally awesome. And of course, I went and looked them up, found their Myspace Music page, and put the songs there on repeat. Since then, I haven't really stopped listening. (You can guess how long this has been going on)

While I'm not sure of what words I could use to properly describe how the band sounds like, I will instead use an anecdote (Take that, English). "On a scale of 1 to sirloin, how sirloin is it?" "Oh, it's very sirloin." There. Enjoy. If this band was 100% sirloin and rated on that same scale, it, too, would be very sirloin. Possible even more than very sirloin. I would need to figure out what comes after very sirloin. 

There is something that needs to be said with the band, and by that I mean the obligatory black jokes. "Why, this man of colour is singing! Blasphemy! Why hasn't he said 'Shawty' yet!?" Well, I don't know why. All I know is that not every black man needs to be a rapper with a fixation on a black woman named Shawty. Some of them can sing (this guy), or some of them can start a band (Earth, Wind and Fire), or....they can rap about Shawty. 

On a completely unrelated note, if I ever got around to starting a band to produce my music, I wouldn't complain if my music turned out to be similar to Let It Go. (Also, screw you, font colour!)

Dude, your font colour sucks.

It's something I worry about everyday.

..

Not.

Anyway, since I felt like taking 5 minutes to let my dinner cool, I figured I could go and type words up and hope that something awesome comes from it. With that in mind, I decided to go find another band that isn't popular. That band is Avenged Sevenfold. Or A7X, for those people who don't feel like saying the full title.

Last Friday, I went out of my way to go to a music store (HMV, I guess. I honestly didn't bother paying attention to the name of the place.) with the hopes of picking up some more CDs that I can stick in my computer and rock out to in my pajamas at 6 pm because I'm the only person in the house. Sadly, there weren't any Good Charlotte albums on sale, but whatever, I picked up Nightmare and some stuff made by David Guetta for 20 bucks. I'm not complaining.

As one of many who actually read wikipedia to see what their favourite bands are up to, I was one of the dudes who shed manly tears over the fact that The Rev (Jimmy Sullivan) passed away. I would say that he "died", but that seems a bit too violent. And I gotta make sure not to offend anyone. But like I said, manly tears. Doesn't happen often.

However, it got me thinking. Well, not so much the fact that The Rev passed away, but the whole "I dedicate this album to such-and-such person" mentality. I have nothing against it; in fact, I kind of think it's a good thing (That's a story for when I have time to write more, though). Alas, just go look up the song 'Fiction' by A7X.

I liked it.

Spontaneous self-worth interlude!

So now that the good Halloween candy (The Caramilks, of course) is gone, and I have a few days where I don't have to put too much time into schoolwork, I can write this post and pretend that I care about stuff. Yay. I mean...really, is there such a thing as a blogger who is a caring person? Not if Myspace has anything to say about it.

Anyway, with the ability to have a bit of time to think about music, I eventually turned my thoughts towards myself as a musician. Of course, that didn't go too well. The one song that I actually personally wrote and produced is lost somewhere in the vast whatever that is known as cyberspace. Which means that I didn't really care enough about the song to hold onto it. In recent months, however, I've been writing lyrics a lot more. Which is basically since I graduated from High School this year until...now. I've managed to write enough lyrics to produce 7 songs or so, but..that's only lyrics. The only progress I've made on finishing the songs is figuring out a relatively general genre that the songs would fall under. Of course, that genre would be 'mopey emo pop'. I don't think that's an official genre, but I suppose you could just point at Breathe Carolina and say "Pretty much that". Which is sadly true.

On one hand, it would be relatively easy to finish the songs. Find another dude around my age who can scream and is able to play the guitar/bass/percussion. Heck, he doesn't even need to play the bass or percussion. Just as long as he knows how to play a guitar and doesn't sound horrible when screaming vocals. On the other hand, that would just be perpetuating stereotypes and other things. Seriously, who the hell wants to promote being emo? Don't answer that, by the way. Just for that smartass who thought he or she would tell me.

Or maybe I could just not produce them, and perpetuate stereotypes and stuff by overthinking everything and be undecided on how to act.

Your Vegas. No, not My Vegas. That would just be silly.

I have recently come across a CD that I thought I had lost. That CD had to do with a band called Your Vegas. Yay. Another small band that has yet to do anything worthy to join the realm of bands that are actually known. (Cue the party noise makers, or whatever)

Anyway, even though they have only produced an EP (Extended Play, you unknowing reader, you) I recommend you try to find them. I suspect youtube will work. They are like...cool people. I would know, because I saw them be the opening act to a Duran Duran concert, so they must be cool people. I mean, I even managed to hang out with the singer for a few minutes to get my CD case signed. Yeah, CD case. Take that, piracy.

Long story short, I was kind of floored by how committed (For lack of a better word) the band was. The singer, who I'm pretty sure is Coyle Girelli, had a broken leg. Or maybe it was Mat Steel. I forget. Anyway, point is that even though the singer had a broken leg, he still was on stage singing his heart out, and hopping around every now and then to look silly. It was one of the more captivating performances in my life, until Duran Duran finally came on stage. But I'm not talking about them. Yet.

They are a rock band that is on the 'lighter' spectrum of what is known as rock. I say lighter because they don't really have any screaming vocals, clean/clear or otherwise. And they sing about issues that people should actually give a damn about, like war. War is a good thing to sing about, right?

If you are one of those people who just reads this to be amused, well...go look them up. I'm done rambling about nothing today.

Lostprophets. They aren't actually lost.

Well, unless you have no idea where the eff Wales is. (It's in the UK, by the way. Just for that one twit who reads this that doesn't know)

So anyway, Lostprophets. If we're to trust Wikipedia (Which is the worst idea in the world, by the way. Who knows how many people have edited articles so they contain false information), they are a rock band. That is about as general of a description as you can get. Unless it just said "a band", or something stupidly similar. But I digress.

They're a bunch of pretty cool bros. They play music and everything. Like, good music. Of course, they aren't as big as some bands, but who cares, right? It means that when they become the most popular band in the world, I'll be one of those smug people who knew who they were before you. Like now, for example.

As I love to keep people in the dark, I recommend you Youtube them, and listen to the oldest song of theirs that you can find. Afterwards, listen to their most recent album. I find it interesting as to how a band can be so diverse. I guess that's why their considered a rock band. Meh. You'll figure it out when you listen to them. (Which I assume you are, since I recommended that you do. That includes you people who like to read blogs without commenting on anything)

Ian Watkins (The lead singer, you ignorant person, you) likes to pretend he's emo and have clichéd emo hair, all while singing/screaming words that make you contemplate the greater questions of life. Except it's uplifting and happy and stuff. It works really well. I guess Lee Gaze, Mike Lewis, and Stuart Richardson help out by producing backing vocals, or whatever. But, yeah. Emo hair. Who knew. (Why the eff does it matter how someone's hair looks like, anyway? It works. Besides, he hasn't killed himself yet, so he can't possibly be an actual emo person, because the only real emos are dead.)

Tangents and digressions aside, the point of this is that you should check them out. I was going to complain and stuff about bands that were really clichéd, and were awful, but I figured those 3 people who read this blog actually deserve something good for the first band I talked about.

What's In A Song?

Getting straight to the point...

What exactly is in a song?

Well, I suppose at the most basic level, you could say that a song contains vocals, along with the noise of musical instruments. But, is it really that simple? If you're the kind of person who doesn't care about what is in a song, I wouldn't hate you for making it that simple, but why the eff would you be reading this blog if you were such a simpleton? Anyway, I don't think a song is that simple. No way, no how. Not with the diversity that we have in this day and age. The implications would shatter my feeble little mind.

Unless you've created an a cappella song, or an instrumental piece, there are two pieces that makes a song what it is: Vocals (lyrics), and Noise (musical instruments). Like I said above. Anyway, I think that to see what is really in a song, we need to delve deeper into each of the two pieces (we'll just exclude a cappella and instrumentals for now). Well, let's start with the noise. What instruments did they choose to create the noise? How does the noise sound (tone, pitch, blah blah blah)? What do the instruments look like? Brand, model number, colour...anything. And then comes the vocals. What tone and pitch are the vocals in? How do those two things vary? What choice of words were used?

Taking all this into account, I can safely say that a song consists of the emotions of the artist(s), on top of the vocals and lyrics. Look at a band like Jimmy Eat World. At times, all I think Jim Adkins is doing is moaning in either a condenser or dynamic microphone, but I bet he has a good reason that he decided to put moaning into the song. Of course, that's some quirky Emo band that no one listens to. I think they go by Alternative Rock now, though. I think that's why I started listening to them. On another point on the spectrum, we have something like In Flames. Instead of moaning like you're in a certain soft-core industry, you have screaming that will take days to figure out what is actually being said. Instead of chords and licks and riffs that might be catchy, you have people just going "BWUEIHRGWOFIJWIHWEABABALGH" onto guitar strings with their fingers and making it sound good.

The only thing I worry about is whether comparing those two bands is a good idea.