Greg's Life #50: Music I'm currently listening to #2

Music I'm currently listening to #2

September 2010

Hello again. Here are the tree albums I am currently listening to the most at the moment. All three of these albums are available on emusic.com, my favorite source of music. It favors indie labels, which is pretty much 90% of what I listen to.

Before I get started, I want to mention that I've seen the recent movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" twice in the theaters. This movie is genius. It is made for geeks. If you aren't a nerd or geek, you won't appreciate the movie much. It's not a movie for everyone. However, it is an intelligent movie and a very well-made one at that, with incredible characters. Spoony did a great review of the movie that made me appreciate the movie even more than I already did. Wired's Geekdad did an article on "Why you must see Scott Pilgrim." (Geekdad is an awesome blog I read frequently... because I'm a geek dad!) Movies like Scott Pilgrim need our support. We get crappy movies because that's what's safe and what sells. (Karate Kid in China? What does Jackie Chan have to do with karate? Why not just call it the Kung Fu Kid?) When people don't go see movies like Scott Pilgrim in the theaters, we're basically telling Hollywood that it's not worth their effort to make decent movies that don't insult our intelligence. Heck, it's by the guy who made Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Need I say more?

Spoony pointed out in his review that you can watch the movie over and over again and focus one of the characters and just focus in on him/her just to study the movie. The characters are really brought to life, and interestingly enough, the alleged "goddess" Ramona is the least interesting character of the movie. I must say that Knives Chau is really the best part of the movie. She's made to be awesome and her function in the story is to have her heart broken. The actress, Ellen Wong, totally steals the show.

Anyhow, onto the albums I'm listening to the most recently.

Crystal Castles
OK, I've had this album for a while, actually. I played it a bit, liked it, then kinda forgot about it for awhile. I was initially turned off by the songs with shouting lyrics. But after a long while from taking a break from this album, I've really come to appreciate it even more. After seeing the brilliant movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, I've been in the mood for some video game-y music. According to allmusic.com, "the band's distinctive sound comes from a keyboard modified with an Atari 5200 sound chip." How cool is that? I never had an Atari 5200; I went from the 2600 to the 7800. The 5200's controllers were terrible, but at least the sound chip has been put to good use.
The single Crimewave gets the most attention, and while it's a great song, there are so many other great songs on this album. Air War, Courtship Dating, 1991, Vanished, and Reckless are all great. My favorite on the album has to be Black Panther. And although I didn't like them at first because of the shouting vocals, I now do like Alice Practice, Xxzxcuzx Me, and Love and Caring. In fact, it's a shame that Xxzxcuzx Me wasn't on the soundtrack to Scott Pilgrim. It would've been perfect!

Ladytron: Velocifero
I've known I like Ladytron for a while now, but I finally bought this album at Borders a couple months ago. I am glad I did! I'd already heard the three top songs on this CD, Ghosts, I'm Not Scared, and Tomorrow. Both my friend Jon and my cousin Bethany have shared songs from Ladytron with me on the compilation CDs they've made for me. Upon listening to the rest of this album, I was very satisfied. Runaway is a song that sounds like it is straight out of the 80's, and so does Burning Up, Predict the Day, and Deep Blue. Ladydron is a solid electronic dance group, and after buying this album, I am interested in checking out their earlier works.

The Brother Kite: Waiting For the Time To Be Right
I've been listening to this album over and over again for the past few years. This CD gets constant play. This album has a very heavy Beach Boys influence, and yet it surpasses Brian Wilson's works in my opinion. Mainly because I don't care much for the Beach Boys. Then again, I don't really like The Beatles either, yet I appreciate bands that are influenced by them.
Anyway, this album is pure genius. Somewhere between the Brian Wilson vocal harmonics and dreamy shoegaze guitars, the lyrics are very dense and each song's lyrics are more like a reading of a poetic essay than mere song lyrics. Peter Boutwell does not bother trying to come up with words that rhyme. He doesn't sing idiotic songs like "I love you baby" and try to come up with stuff that rhymes with "baby." Instead, he sings of a love for life, of coming of age, pressing forward and letting all the things that drag you down fall away. Knowing in your heart what is good and what is right, living your life in the pursuit of these things, and to lay down your burdens that weigh in your heart and prevent you from reaching your goals. Even in times of darkness, we must be striving forward, putting our past behind. Listening to this CD is so very uplifting every time I listen. I have it on MD to listen to in the car as well as on my Sansa MP3 player clipped to my shirt while I'm riding the train to work.

Visit a nerdy tourist spot by reading the next Greg's Life.

Go back to the "Greg's Life" Table of Contents

Go back to the main page

mail: greg -atsign- stevethefish -dot- net

	Crystal Castles OK, I've had this album for a while, actually. I played it a bit, liked it, then kinda forgot about it for awhile. I was initially turned off by the songs with shouting lyrics. But after a long while from taking a break from this album, I've really come to appreciate it even more. After seeing the brilliant movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, I've been in the mood for some video game-y music. According to allmusic.com, "the band's distinctive sound comes from a keyboard modified with an Atari 5200 sound chip." How cool is that? I never had an Atari 5200; I went from the 2600 to the 7800. The 5200's controllers were terrible, but at least the sound chip has been put to good use. The single Crimewave gets the most attention, and while it's a great song, there are so many other great songs on this album. Air War, Courtship Dating, 1991, Vanished, and Reckless are all great. My favorite on the album has to be Black Panther. And although I didn't like them at first because of the shouting vocals, I now do like Alice Practice, Xxzxcuzx Me, and Love and Caring. In fact, it's a shame that Xxzxcuzx Me wasn't on the soundtrack to Scott Pilgrim. It would've been perfect!
	Ladytron: Velocifero I've known I like Ladytron for a while now, but I finally bought this album at Borders a couple months ago. I am glad I did! I'd already heard the three top songs on this CD, Ghosts, I'm Not Scared, and Tomorrow. Both my friend Jon and my cousin Bethany have shared songs from Ladytron with me on the compilation CDs they've made for me. Upon listening to the rest of this album, I was very satisfied. Runaway is a song that sounds like it is straight out of the 80's, and so does Burning Up, Predict the Day, and Deep Blue. Ladydron is a solid electronic dance group, and after buying this album, I am interested in checking out their earlier works.
	The Brother Kite: Waiting For the Time To Be Right I've been listening to this album over and over again for the past few years. This CD gets constant play. This album has a very heavy Beach Boys influence, and yet it surpasses Brian Wilson's works in my opinion. Mainly because I don't care much for the Beach Boys. Then again, I don't really like The Beatles either, yet I appreciate bands that are influenced by them. Anyway, this album is pure genius. Somewhere between the Brian Wilson vocal harmonics and dreamy shoegaze guitars, the lyrics are very dense and each song's lyrics are more like a reading of a poetic essay than mere song lyrics. Peter Boutwell does not bother trying to come up with words that rhyme. He doesn't sing idiotic songs like "I love you baby" and try to come up with stuff that rhymes with "baby." Instead, he sings of a love for life, of coming of age, pressing forward and letting all the things that drag you down fall away. Knowing in your heart what is good and what is right, living your life in the pursuit of these things, and to lay down your burdens that weigh in your heart and prevent you from reaching your goals. Even in times of darkness, we must be striving forward, putting our past behind. Listening to this CD is so very uplifting every time I listen. I have it on MD to listen to in the car as well as on my Sansa MP3 player clipped to my shirt while I'm riding the train to work.