I don't really enjoy listening to songs on shuffle on my iPod. I like listening to entire albums. Or sometimes playlists I created with songs that I know go well together. But lately I have been only carrying my 8 gig iPod touch. It has photos, videos and apps along with my music so it only has my most listened to favorite albums on it. Listening to the same albums over and over again started to get old so I broke out the old 60 gig iPod photo.
Listened on shuffle and it picked some old stuff I haven't listened to in a long time. Some good, some bad....but at least it was different.
Here's what I heard today:
* The Police: "Deathwish" - Regatta de Blanc
* The Beatie Boys: "Live at P.J.'s" - Check Your Head
* Nirvana: "Territorial Pissings" - Nevermind
* Simon and Garfunkel: "Kodachrome/Maybellene" - The Concert in Central Park
* Wico: "What's the World Got In Store" - Being There
* Portishead: "Only You" = Roseland NYC Live
* Baby Face Leroy: "My Head Can't Rest Anymore" - Chess Blues
* Led Zeppelin: "The Ocean" - How the West Was Won
* Mophine: "Eleven O'Clock" - Like Swimming
* G. Love and the Special Sauce: "Town To Town" - G. Love and the Special Sauce
* Led Zeppelin: "The Crunge" - Houses of the Holy
* The Who: "The Kids Are Alright": Who's Better, Who's Best
* Violent Femmes: "Promise" - Violent Femmes
* Le Tigre: "Slideshow At Free University" - Le Tigre
* Doves: "Break Me Gently" - Lost Souls
* Hound Dog Taylor: "Sitting Here Alone" - Chess Blues
* Latin Playboys: "Dose" - Dose
* Cibo Matto: "Le Pain Perdu" - Viva! La Woman
* Led Zeppelin: "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" - Led Zeppelin Box Set
* Soul Coughing: "Pensacola" - El Oso
* Jimi Hendrix: "Little Miss Lover" - Axis: Bold As Love
* James Taylor: "Copperline" - Live
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
5 (+1) Cover Songs I Like
Cover songs are a tricky thing. You either love them or hate them. I am a fan of artists taking someone else's song and making it their own. I think this important when covering somebody else's music. If you just try to recreate the song the way it was originally it is going to pale compared to the original.
If you can take a song, most likely that was already a hit and make it better than the original than you did something right.
If you can take a song, most likely that was already a hit and make it better than the original than you did something right.
So here they are. A list of 5 covers that I really enjoy.
Top cover songs:
1) Run D.M.C.: cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way".
I debated about this one for a while. For one thing is it really a cover? After all Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith actually perform on the Run D.M.C. Version. But I feel that they did such a great job making it their own that it had to be on the list. Also, the impact that it had on 80's music, rap in particular, was huge. This cover exposed the white teenage audience to rap for the very first time and paved the wave for some big 80's rap hits.
2) Aretha Franklin: Simon and Garfunkel's "A Bridge Over Troubled Water"
It wasn't until I was in college that I heard this version of "Bridge" and when I did I was blown away. She took this song and made it her own for sure. Taking this song and making it funky is not something I thought was possible but Aretha pulls it off for sure.
3) Joe Cocker: The Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends".
Is this even the same song?
4) Cake: Gloria Gaynor’s "I Will Survive"
I think I might get an ear full about this one. But Cake took this song and made it there's. It is the one on the list that I can't tell you which I like better, the cover or original.
5) Sinead O’Conner: Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”
Top cover songs:
1) Run D.M.C.: cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way".
I debated about this one for a while. For one thing is it really a cover? After all Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith actually perform on the Run D.M.C. Version. But I feel that they did such a great job making it their own that it had to be on the list. Also, the impact that it had on 80's music, rap in particular, was huge. This cover exposed the white teenage audience to rap for the very first time and paved the wave for some big 80's rap hits.
2) Aretha Franklin: Simon and Garfunkel's "A Bridge Over Troubled Water"
It wasn't until I was in college that I heard this version of "Bridge" and when I did I was blown away. She took this song and made it her own for sure. Taking this song and making it funky is not something I thought was possible but Aretha pulls it off for sure.
3) Joe Cocker: The Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends".
Is this even the same song?
4) Cake: Gloria Gaynor’s "I Will Survive"
I think I might get an ear full about this one. But Cake took this song and made it there's. It is the one on the list that I can't tell you which I like better, the cover or original.
5) Sinead O’Conner: Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U”
A lot of people don’t even know that this was a cover song. It is the only one on the list where the original was not a hit. The Sinead O’Conner version is so awesome that it needs to be on the list.
+1) Alien Ant Farm: Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”
I not a fan of Alien Ant Farm and I don’t know any of their other music. I remember hearing their version of this song and really liking it. They really make it rock.
Let me know what your favorites are.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
music quality VS audio quality
I just read an article on www.nytimes.com about the audio quality of music we listen to today. They pointed out how we are listening on devices that sacrifice audio quality and how music is recorded and compressed (the softest parts of the song are made louder and the peaks are brought down and then the overall level is brought up) to make the song sound louder.
Should I be surprised that they didn't mention the fact that most of the music that is purchased and listened to on portable music players in a compressed digital format is crap. No mention of the quality of the music at all. That is the problem that is hurting the industry the most.
I was an audio engineer and have a trained ear but if you are churning out crappy music I don't care what it sounds like. Maybe they should focus on making good music and not on making sure the song will be louder than the song before it on my iPod playlist.
Should I be surprised that they didn't mention the fact that most of the music that is purchased and listened to on portable music players in a compressed digital format is crap. No mention of the quality of the music at all. That is the problem that is hurting the industry the most.
I was an audio engineer and have a trained ear but if you are churning out crappy music I don't care what it sounds like. Maybe they should focus on making good music and not on making sure the song will be louder than the song before it on my iPod playlist.
Friday, April 30, 2010
You Can Polish a Turd
When I worked in the recording industry there was an expression I heard a lot that went "you can polish a turd but then all you have is a shiny turd".
The funny thing was that it was always used by the assistant engineer or engineer after it was way too late to fix the fact that you were working on a crappy recording and well into the polishing stage (This would have needed to be fixed during the recording process by the producer). In the age of digital recording and editing it seemed to me that there was a lot more time and energy spent fixing bad performances than there was concentrating on getting a good performance. Some of this was because the musician or singer simply couldn't sing or perform well enough to get a good performance. Or it could be because it is "more work" to get a good performance. (Of course this is a fallacy. I like to draw the analogy that it is similar to buying a cheap car to save money but once you factor in more gas because of bad gas mileage, towing and repair costs it would have been cheaper to buy a more expensive car). Or it could simple be laziness.
I was actually shocked on my first session. I knew that it was standard practice to record each instrument individually. Usually the band all played together but the focus was to get good drum tracks. Once the drum track was done the rest of the band would take a break while the bass player either re-recorded all his parts or fixed certain bad spots. Then the guitarist would re-record, and so on until you have the whole song. This was how we recorded our album when I was in the band. So, I wasn't too surprised to see that the band was going to work this way and the producer had them start running through the song.
It seemed that the drum parts were not all ironed out yet. So the producer stopped them often asking the drummer to try something different in a section and we recorded everything (you never know when you are going to get a good take). Once each section had a few different options on it the producer called the drummer in to have a listen. This also didn't shock me as I thought they were going to pick which parts went in each section and this is exactly what they started to do. Jumping between takes they chose which part went where and even took a first verse part and copied it into the third verse section. We listened to the whole song and the parts all made sense and seemed to work where they were.
And this is were the shock came in. The drummer was done. The band ordered dinner and headed to the lounge. The producer left for a few hours and the engineer started to polish. The drummer never played the song for start to finish. He never he played the outro which was composed of snippets of the choruses. Drum fills were edited and flown around as needed. The drum part was a Frankenstein. It had no soul. It had no feeling. The drummer was very capable of playing all the parts for start to finish. So why didn't he? I never felt he turned on his performance energy level. Maybe most people won't notice but the same energy that is only present in front of a live audience (and missing, say, in rehearsal) was missing from rehearsal. It is the thing that I found challenging when I was laying down drum tracks. How do I get that live audience energy level when I am just performing for the microphones? I guess if I didn't play the song all the way through and we just chopped the song together I wouldn't have to...of course we could have used a drum machine to do that, but I am glad we didn't.
The funny thing was that it was always used by the assistant engineer or engineer after it was way too late to fix the fact that you were working on a crappy recording and well into the polishing stage (This would have needed to be fixed during the recording process by the producer). In the age of digital recording and editing it seemed to me that there was a lot more time and energy spent fixing bad performances than there was concentrating on getting a good performance. Some of this was because the musician or singer simply couldn't sing or perform well enough to get a good performance. Or it could be because it is "more work" to get a good performance. (Of course this is a fallacy. I like to draw the analogy that it is similar to buying a cheap car to save money but once you factor in more gas because of bad gas mileage, towing and repair costs it would have been cheaper to buy a more expensive car). Or it could simple be laziness.
I was actually shocked on my first session. I knew that it was standard practice to record each instrument individually. Usually the band all played together but the focus was to get good drum tracks. Once the drum track was done the rest of the band would take a break while the bass player either re-recorded all his parts or fixed certain bad spots. Then the guitarist would re-record, and so on until you have the whole song. This was how we recorded our album when I was in the band. So, I wasn't too surprised to see that the band was going to work this way and the producer had them start running through the song.
It seemed that the drum parts were not all ironed out yet. So the producer stopped them often asking the drummer to try something different in a section and we recorded everything (you never know when you are going to get a good take). Once each section had a few different options on it the producer called the drummer in to have a listen. This also didn't shock me as I thought they were going to pick which parts went in each section and this is exactly what they started to do. Jumping between takes they chose which part went where and even took a first verse part and copied it into the third verse section. We listened to the whole song and the parts all made sense and seemed to work where they were.
And this is were the shock came in. The drummer was done. The band ordered dinner and headed to the lounge. The producer left for a few hours and the engineer started to polish. The drummer never played the song for start to finish. He never he played the outro which was composed of snippets of the choruses. Drum fills were edited and flown around as needed. The drum part was a Frankenstein. It had no soul. It had no feeling. The drummer was very capable of playing all the parts for start to finish. So why didn't he? I never felt he turned on his performance energy level. Maybe most people won't notice but the same energy that is only present in front of a live audience (and missing, say, in rehearsal) was missing from rehearsal. It is the thing that I found challenging when I was laying down drum tracks. How do I get that live audience energy level when I am just performing for the microphones? I guess if I didn't play the song all the way through and we just chopped the song together I wouldn't have to...of course we could have used a drum machine to do that, but I am glad we didn't.
It Might Get Loud
A few days ago while taking an hour and half bus ride from the airport to the hotel I booted up my laptop and watched the Davis Guggenheim documentary "It Might Get Loud
".The film brings Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Jack white (The White Stripes) and the Edge (U2) together to talk about their influences, their sounds and their guitar techniques.
This movie totally blew me away.
As a huge Led Zeppelin and White Stripes fan, and a (not very good) guitarist myself, I was so excited to see this movie when I first saw the trailer on the 37 signals blog that I added it to my netflix queue right away.
To watch Jimmy page air guitar to songs that influenced him as a child and see the stairwell that John Bonham recorded the drums to "When the Levee breaks
" on Led Zeppelin IV
, it made me break in to a smile. But to see Jack White and the Edge smile like little children was great to watch. Here are two guitarist that are two of the most famous guitarists in the world, so to see them as humble fans is nice and really demonstrates that Jimmy page is truly an icon.Hearing Jack White talk about his approach to music and the guitar was not much of a surprise to me. He gained his fame playing in a two piece band that used minimal technology to make it sound larger than the 2 piece they were and they played mostly simple, blues-based rock songs. So, there were no surprises to hear him say that "technology is the destroyer of emotion and truth". I know what he means as I have seen it first hand....but more on that in a different post.
I have never been a huge U2 fan and the Edge's approach to creating music is the one that I had the hardest relating to. He is at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum from White when it comes to technology. He crafts his guitar parts with the technology leading the way. It seems like if his equipment, which Davis Guggenheim said arrived in a truck and took a day to set up, didn't arrive he wouldn't be able to play.
On the other hand the movie opens with Jack White at what I am guessing is his home. He is on the porch and a bunch of scattered materials are in front of him. He takes an old 2x4 that is around two feet long and nails a few nails into it. He then suspends a guitar string between two of the nails and wedges a glass coke bottle under the string to add tension. He nails a pick-up onto the 2x4, plugs it in and proceeds to play a blues lick. He turns it off, takes a drag from his cigarette and says "who says you need to buy a guitar"? He can create music with the minimum of equipment you can get away with.
Jake White seems to me to be a rare treat in this day and age. He can sit down with a guitar and bang out a song that has soul while the Edge seems to need to spend hours crafting a sound before he can play. Neither approach is more right or wrong than the other I just relate to Jack Whites a little more.
I have always been a fan of less technology. Funny considering I worked in a recording studio and now work in IT. But I feel that if you can express yourself with a guitar and vocals it is going to resonate with the listener more than a song recorded with a ton of tracks and effects and edited to death.
Write a good song. Play it well. That is all that is needed. No amount of technology will fix a poorly played part or badly written song. This movie reminded me of that.
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