Category: Music

Songs and bands I love!

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SONGS I LOVE: “Theme from ‘Harry’s Game'”

Today’s “Songs I Love” is a two-fer: a new song for you to listen to, and some trivia about the band that wrote it!

The 1982 British TV mini-series Harry’s Game was notable for two things. Firstly, many people consider Harry’s Game to be the best film depiction of “The Troubles” (the issues that plague Northern Ireland to this day) ever made. Secondly, the series’ theme song – “The Theme to Harry’s Game” – was a worldwide smash hit, and propelled the band behind it to worldwide recognition. The song has been used in countless movies, TV shows and commercials. Americans might be familiar with the song from the opening scenes of the Harrison Ford film Patriot Games, or a popular Volkswagen commercial on the late 80s. Have a listen and see if you remember it:

[audio:clannad.mp3]

Clannad is the band behind the song. The band was founded in a remote part of Ireland in the early 1970s by members Máire Ní Bhraonáin (Moya Brennan), Ciarán Ó Braonáin (Ciarán Brennan), Pól Ó Braonáin (Pól Brennan), Noel Ó Dúgáin (Noel Duggan), and Pádraig Ó Dúgáin (Pádraig Duggan). Máire’s sister Eithne would later join the band on a part-time basis, then enjoy a brief stint as a full-time member, before striking out on her own using the Anglicized version of her name: Enya.

The name “Clannad” is an abbreviation of the Irish phrase “An Clann As Dobhar”, which means “the family from Dore” (Clannad hail from Gweedore, a remote district in County Donegal, Ireland; interestingly, Irish is the predominant language in this area). Amusingly, the band were approached by a policeman one day, and the members feared that they were in trouble for some reason. In fact, the policeman was bringing them an entry form for a local “Battle of the Bands” type of contest. The band hadn’t even thought about a name for themselves yet, so someone proposed “Clann As Dobha”, which someone else abbreviated as Clannad. And the name stuck.

“The Theme to Harry’s Game” is also notable in that it’s the only song sung entirely in Irish (Gaelic) to ever hit the British music charts.

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First Radiohead, then NIN…

If you haven’t been keeping up with this news lately, maybe you should. First Radiohead announced that they’d be ditching their record label and publishing their new album online. Then Trent Reznor announced that Nine Inch Nails will do the same. That’s worrying to the music industry, but not that bad. Radiohead is a great band, but they’ve never been a big seller, especially here in the U.S., and NIN only has about a dozen fans left, so the labels probably don’t give a damn where they end up.

But then Madonna went and dropped a bombshell today. She’s leaving Warner Brothers – the label she’s been on for most of her 25 year career – and signing a deal with Live Nation, the concert promotion people. Although Warner will still have the rights to her next studio album and another “greatest hits” album (as well as her entire back catalogue), Live Nation will distribute three new studio albums, have exclusive rights to promote upcoming concert tours, and exclusive marketing rights to Madonna’s name. The 10 year deal is worth $120 million for Madonna in cash and stock.

This is interesting news, not only because it’s the first time a truly huge superstar has left the traditional music industry behind, but it also reflects where the money is for the artists. Madonna’s last four albums have sold 10.4 million copies in the US. Even if Madge was getting $2 per CD sold (a completely outrageous amount, even for her), that’s “only” $20 million. In reality, she’s probably getting $1 or 75¢ per disc, so cut the $20 million number in half. On the other hand, her last three tours have netted $385 million in ticket sales, to say nothing of merchandise sales. We can assume that Live Nation will be getting a cut of Madonna’s ticket revenue under this deal, but how much is unknown at this time. What we do know is that this deal is so big that it’s driving down Warner’s stock price: Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor was the #1 selling album in the US in 2005, and without Madonna as a “marquee brand” on Warner’s roster, the label looks like a poorer investment. As of this writing, their stock is down 30¢.

Read all about Madonna’s new deal here. Oh, and Oasis and Jamerquai might be next…

 

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From the Wayback Machine…

My friend Terri has had this video of R.E.M. performing “Radio Free Europe” on Late Night With David Letterman (from sometime in 1983!) on her MySpace profile for ages. I only watched it a couple of days ago, and thought you might enjoy it too:

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SONGS I LOVE: “Methods Of Dance”

Japan - Gentlemen Take PolaroidsI’m not one of those people that “instantly” likes new music. Sure, there’s the occasional song that I instantly fall in love with… but more often than not, I have to listen to a song or album a couple of times before I really start to like it. This was especially true in the case of Japan, a British New Wave band from the late 70s and early 80s.

The band started off as a crappy glam-rock outfit, but eventually morphed into an “art pop” band heavily influenced by Roxy Music in general, and Bryan Ferry in particular. That metamorphosis actually began with the last track on Obscure Alternatives, their final glam-rock album, then hit a disco pothole with Quiet Life (a direction “strongly encouraged” by their record label), then finally came into its own with the 1980 album Gentlemen Take Polaroids. And if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Duran Duran ripped off Japan in so many ways. Look at the album cover there are tell me Nick Rhodes didn’t rip off Japan’s style! Listen to the “dance remix” of Japan’s “Adolescent Sex” single and tell me that Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” remix doesn’t sound suspiciously similar!

In any case, I managed to track down Polaroids on CD back in 1985. I liked the title track well enough, but it wasn’t love. And then “Methods of Dance” came on… and I was in love! I don’t know what it is about this song, but it just got to me. I think it’s the airy synth that kicks in just before the chorus. Or maybe it’s lead singer David Sylvian’s smooth singing style. Or the fretless bass. The mysterious backup vocals. I don’t know what it is exactly, but this is the song that made me fall in love with Japan. Have a listen for yourself:

[audio:japan.mp3]

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Music Blogs

As you know, the Internet is a great resource for finding new tunes to listen to. Lots of people use a legitimate service like the iTunes store or Rhapsody to get their music fix. Most people, however, use illicit P2P programs like BearShare, LimeWire or the like. While most of those P2P apps are great for searching for specific tunes, most drop the ball when it comes to just browsing for new stuff.

And that’s where “music blogs” come in. Now, there a ton of “blogs about music” out there, but when I talk about “music blogs”, I’m specifically referring to sites that offer links to download either full albums, singles, remixes, or rare tracks. Perhaps I should call them “MP3 blogs” instead. In any case, the blogs I’m referring to aren’t offering music by struggling artists you’ve never heard of. You’ll recognize most of the band names you see on all these blogs. So fire up your browser and check some of these sites out:

New Music Lists – Offers a wide variety of music for download, from pop to rock to alternative\indie to dance to country to R&B. Strangely, the site never offered Christian music before, but they began offering some holiday-themed Christian music just before Christmas of last year. For some strange reason they’ve kept it up, offering 2 or 3 “Christian Pop” albums a week. Although I don’t have anything against “Christian pop” (aside from most of it just being bad music), it’s just weird to illegally download music that celebrates the God that said “thou shall not steal”. Anyway, New Music Lists offers optional memberships that cost a few dollars; a few of their hottest releases will be restricted to “members only” for the first few days.

All New Releases – Offers a range of music, with a smaller scope than New Music Lists. This blog focuses mainly on rock, alternative and indie music. It’s updated frequently, too. Note: in most cases, you’ll find the download links in each entry’s “comments” section. If you find an album you like, click on the “Comments’ link at the bottom of the entry; the download URL will be the first comment.

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Classy Advertising!

Bell Canada has a discount cellular division called “Solo”. In an apparent attempt to be “hip” and “edgy”, the company approved a series of billboards with a “punk rock girl” on them. Unfortunately for Bell Canada, the “punk rock girl” was wearing a bunch of buttons… one of which said “Belsen was a Gas” – the name of a Sex Pistols song.

Belsen was a gas

Belsen was, of course, a Nazi death camp. The title of the song is a play on the old slang term “gas” meaning something fun (“That movie was a gas!”) and the Zyklon B gas that the Nazis used to kill millions of innocent people. The title of the song is meant to be ironic (the song is vehemently anti-totalitarian), but the distinction would understandably be lost on people who didn’t know better. Because of this, Bell Canada has decided to scrap all of the ads – which included several billboards and “around 30” smaller displays (such you’d find on busses), which were cropped and didn’t show the button. In any case, it’s hard to believe that no one at Bell Canada or its ad agency didn’t catch this.

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CD Art Display

Longtime jimcofer.com visitors might recall this post from the original Geek Stuff page. In it, I opined about Toaster, a free WinAMP plug-in that displays pop-up notifications (“toasts”) showing the currently playing track, as well as the track’s album art. I really liked that plug-in, but I think I’ve found something better: a free program called CD Art Display:

CD Art Display 1

This program not only puts the the track information on your desktop, it also puts the album art as an icon in your system tray (see the Ray of Light icon there by the WinAMP icon?). The program also lets you change how the cover art is displayed. For example, you can tilt the “virtual CD tray” at an angle:

CD Art Display 2

You can even have CD Art Display show the album art as a label on the CD itself:

CD Art Display 3

Pretty cool, huh? On top of being free (which is always good), CD Art Display also works with WinAMP, Windows Media Player, iTunes, foobar 2000, MediaMonkey, musikCube, and several other media players! The program can read artwork from several sources (including embedded ID3 tags, my flavor of choice), and CD Art Display can even download missing album art for your tunes from Amazon!

All in all, CD Art Display is one nifty program… Why not try it out today?

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SONGS I LOVE: “Hair and Skin”

Mazzy StarBack in the late 90s, I was infatuated (OK, obsessed) with French supermodel Laetitia Casta. She was absolutely stunning, and I just couldn’t get enough of her. Pictures of her started appearing everywhere on the Internet. I had recently gotten broadband, and with the help of Usenet and “image-grabbing” software (programs that download all the images from a given website), I was quickly able to amass a catalog of thousands of pictures of Laetitia. And some nights I’d get really smashed and watch a slideshow of all those pictures with Mazzy Star’s “Hair And Skin” playing in the background:

Your hair and your eyes
I saw them in the night
Your face, your disguise
I felt it in the night

Your cool clammy skin
It could be right beside me
I saw you swimmin’ over here
You looked so fragile

And don’t you know her eyes were red?

“Hair and Skin” is a b-side from the “Flowers in December” CD single. It was originally written and preformed by “desert rock” band Green On Red, although Mazzy’s take on it is spectacular. It’s slow and brooding, with an old-school organ playing in the background. Hope Sandoval’s voice was always great, but in this song there’s a noticeable echo to her voice that just makes the whole thing a bit creepy. I just love this song:

[audio:mazzy.mp3]

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Songs You Didn’t Know Were Covers

Blender.com has an awesome list of songs that you probably didn’t know were covers. Examples? “Bette Davis Eyes”, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Barbara Ann”.

An interesting tidbit: a lot of folks from “my” generation know the song “Always On My Mind” from the Pet Shop Boys’ cover of it. Many from my generation (including me) were somehow under the impression that it was originally a Willie Nelson song. Well, Willie covered it too, as did Elvis Presley. Until today, however, I had no idea that Brenda Lee actually sang the song originally. You learn something new every day, I guess!

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Bill Paxton Redux

Wow! Right on the heels of my previous post about Bill Paxton’s mid-80s band “Martini Ranch”:

I showed the video to Lisa, who initially recognized Paxton as “Chet” from Weird Science. Which is true, of course. But she didn’t believe that “Chet” from Weird Science and “Bill” from Big Love were the same person. I went to his IMDB page to show her that they are the same person… when I came across yet another amazing Bill Paxton fact: Paxton directed (and starred in) the early 80s cult classic video “Fish Heads”. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself:

Man, Bill Paxton is everywhere!