With the message of, “A dead letter is a letter that has never been delivered because the person to whom it was written cannot be found and it also cannot be returned to the person who wrote it,” on the back of The Rasmus’ CD case I could already tell that this album was going to be one that I wouldn’t be able to walk away from without buying.

Dead Letters is said by Lauri Ylölnen himself to be an album filled with letters, letters to appologise, confess or even cry out for help. Each track a different letter of sorts.

Captivated by Ylönen’s rather feminine voice I literally listened to the ‘letters’ for hours on end. It didn’t take me long to realize why so many people loyally follow the band.

It is quite obvious that The Rasmus would be classified as rock/alternative but you can clearly pick out pop influences in the music, although their lyrics are ghoulish and meloncholic.

Having released two new albums since Dead Letters, soon to be three, I’m quite positive that they’re doing something right. With over a decade of experience making music, there’s no doubt in my mind that this group is  going to be around for quite a long time.

Official Site

Art and writing are not the only talents that senior Lara Kinne has firmly grasped in her hands and under her belt. To add onto the rather long list of skills that she’s been blessed with is her knack for creating music.

     Having stumbled across Lara’s page on myspace, I took a gander and saw a link titled ‘Octopus Owl’ and like any normal human being, I had to see what it was. I wasn’t expecting to find out that this girl that went to my school had so much talent and she was only a year older than me!

     While a variety of the songs on VIVA MEXICO do not excede two minutes long it does not make them any less great. It only further proves the point that she excells at what she does, not needing to put together some eleven minute song to try and dazzle people. All she needs is her guitar and her voice that makes you feel as if you’re being pushed into a sea of satin sheets and cotton balls, (i.e. very soft and comforting). 

     If I go on anymore I’m sure I’ll start to gush like a creepy teenager that just saw her favorite local band yet another time. Unless you’re deaf there is no excuse for you not to visit the sites below and be in awe over the sheer genius that is going to attack your ears when you click play.

Myspace
Last.fm

The DarkSide of the Wall
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
The Brown Theater
Better Than: Going to the dentist…?
     

     I have spent at least ten minutes trying to remember what music I listened to in middle school through freshmen year of high school, and the only thing that prominently comes to mind are the words Pink Floyd. This is when I realized that through that entire period of my life I listened to virtually nothing else. There may be a foggy memory of Dinosaur Jr’s Green Mind, or a Mars Volta album somewhere in the mix, but as far back as I can remember (and that’s not very far), I lost my entire middle school/9th grade years to Pink Floyd, and there’s no regret there. I’ve benefited from the binge. From an exhausting knowledge of their catalog, to a growing affection that becomes stronger as the years go by, I find that having such a strong connection to a band is like having affection for a kitten: it’s unconditional. Even if they may wet on your rug, that really tied the room together (Momentary Lapse of Reason, ahem), or split up because one of the members is a little difficult, you find a way to overlook that flaw. The great thing about having this affection for such a high capacity band like Pink Floyd is that there are so many different albums, eras, and sounds to get into at once. You’re never left bored or pining for more; it is emotionally and physically satisfying. The downside to liking a band like Floyd, though, is that two very significant members are already dead. Syd Barrett may have been kicked out of the troupe earlier on, but it doesn’t stop that part of Pink Floyd from being totally irreplaceable. How are we supposed to expect a reunion now that Richard Wright is dead? This is where tribute bands come in.

There’s always been a sort of 50/50 love-hate affection I’ve had with tribute bands, but when your long time favorite band is slowly dying off, sometimes you have no other choice, especially when you long to hear that music amplified to a live capacity. I’ve seen The Pink Floyd Experience twice: four years ago in Huntington, West Virginia and roughly one year ago while residing in Louisville. Both sets were sensually satisfying, but not because they played “Wish You Were Here”- in fact, they didn’t play it at all. They were satisfying because they took time to cover virtually every era of Floyd, cascading from the late Division Bell to the ancient jam tune known as “Astronomy Domine.” No Floyd was left behind. So after seeing this band twice, I’ve had pretty high expectations when it comes to these kinds of concerts.

The DarkSide of the Wall is a Louisville-based band consisting of what the website claims as “some of the top music and production talent in the region.” Unfortunately, there is a difference between being exceptional and genuine. I totally understand the concept of playing what the crowd may want to hear, but sometimes the crowd isn’t all middle aged washups. Perhaps there are eager high school girls crammed between drunkards who simply wish to hear a song from Obscured by Clouds, or maybe just a couple tracks from Relics. It’s hardly a selfish thing to ask for; after all, why would we want to hear songs we hear consistently on 107.7 anyway? No luck. It was all strictly Dark Side and The Wall as their name fittingly proclaims. Although I have no complaints about hearing “Welcome to the Machine” or “Pigs,” I just kind of wished there would be more variety. You would be considered naive to think this set list did any justice.
But the set list wasn’t the only problem I noticed with the band. There were several instances during the show where specific guitar solos were omitted and replaced with  vocal solos instead. Take the second acoustic solo in “Wish You Were Here,” the glorious moment when David Gilmour scat vocals with his guitar: completely ignored here. It’s almost like the guitar player was either too stupid or too lazy to learn the solo. Even I know how to play that solo. I also noticed a problem with the band’s guitar tones, specifically on songs like “Run Like Hell” or “Pigs” where the initial guitar tone is absolutely key. I’ve listened to these songs enough to know a wrong tone when I hear one. As opposed to the hollow and twang-like tone used in these tracks, the band adapted a heavier and almost metalesque sound that didn’t work well with the music they were supposed to be playing. The lead guitarist was also prone to jumping around the stage as if in a slow motion mosh pit, something I’ve never seen David Gilmour do on stage before. His only job is to play and look cute!

I feel I could fill up another paragraph about how I was close to walking out mid-show or about the sloppy vocals on “The Great Gig in the Sky,” but I guess I should have seen this coming. I can’t expect less-than-perfect musicians to give me the absolutely perfect show that I want. That’s not what a tribute band is about. They may know how to play all the notes and use all the right lights at the right time, but it all comes down to the fact that it’s not Floyd. Not even close. These are merely people like me, committed in their fanship, just in a different way. I know I wasn’t fortunate enough to be born in a time where a Pink Floyd tour was the norm, but I wish that I could at least have a taste.  Just a little bite.

     Late 2009, the Wall Street Journalhyped the emergence of the fall’s upcoming “lavish” accessory as the Snood, a tube of fabric derived from morphing a scarf and a hood, i.e. Scarf n’ Hood- (Snood). But what came as no surprise was Lady Gaga caught sporting the sweater tube the previous year; she even used to sell official Lady Gaga hood wraps on her website. Now, fashion empires Missoni, Burberry, and among others, have adapted the loopy style as the current fall/winter’s “Want it” accessory. Because who wouldn’t want to have a knitted American Apparel fabric tube that makes you look homeless and depressed?

     The only thing this comes down to is that nobody should dress like Lady GaGa, except Lady GaGa. The only thing worse than having GaGa’s accessories massed produced at Bloomingdales and Hot Topics alike, is other pop stars joining the shock parade. GaGa and Beyonce’s recent collaboration in the painfully repetitive “Videophone” proves that hip hop’s booty-shaking Christ Queen isn’t afraid to break out her private collection of leather delicates (even if this means looking completely ridiculous and bad). Out of  Beyonce’s perpetually changing outfits in the music video, only few faired as decent or attractive. This wouldn’t include her black leather contraption she wore in the video’s opening scene, trailed by men in suits. No justice can be made for her black and white cone-shaped bikini, or the single, thin braid protruding from her head as it snapped agaist her neck with each dance move. It seems that Beyonce has sucked the GaGa out of the Lady.  And ironically enough, this is the first music video where the Lady actually looked kind of normal.

     Among the other celebrities pining for shock value is the buzzed-haired hip hop singer, Rihanna. ”Hard” has peaked at number eight on Billboard’s top 100, with a running of eight weeks on the spot, along with the greatest airplay and sales gain this week alone. There is probably nothing relevant or impressive about this at all, but it’s a start. If you can fair easily through the video’s stale chorus and location, you might take time to
notice Rihanna’s painfully ugly costumes as well, whether it be in a rubber-foam suit or in her GWAR-like spiked vest as she struts through a battlefield -a metaphorical battlefield, no doubt.

     Surely, there must be a larger theme here, and from what can be collected, perhaps there is. Many people forget to note David Bowie as a prime influence for the popularization of the glamour explosion, notably when the the singer emerged as his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust in the 1970’s. This short-lived persona is marked as a complete reinvention of the glamour era, and without it, it’s frightening to think what ideals in music and fashion we wouldn’t have today.

     Unfortunately, the years have done damage on the once innovative presentation. It may have barely survived through the 1990’s, but the 2000’s haven’t been scant in bringing the era back. In this case, like most, history repeats itself. Although, it may be worse for glamour’s second round. We accept a lot of the fashions these icons wear because we take it as their own visual expression, but there’s a difference between being weird for the sake of weird, and actually reinventing something. Katy Perry used this to her advantage, from straddling giant chap stick tubes to wearing a replica carousel dress, everything was there, but did it last? Even she and Beyonce might share some common ground, both in the realization that with Jesus’s help or not, shock-pop has been their only vice to come back to. But this hasn’t change the fact that there still hasn’t been anything new. It’s hard to accept Rihanna representing a persona she doesn’t fit, just as it is unsettling to accept that Beyonce may intentionally try to look bad. Taken as a whole, it’s clear that between these singers, one of them is not like the others. Lady GaGa has merely taken that image of glamour and crafted her own distinction of shock value; it’s become the GaGa norm. Regardless, this kind of image has pulsed through dance music since the beginning of time, but hip hop music has never officially adapted it as its own. Rihanna and Beyonce aren’t wrong, they’re confused, or perhaps just misunderstood. Maybe they can write a song about it and call it “Miss Understood.” Even if Pink already did something like that, surely it wouldn’t hurt them to copy off someone else again. After all, what slips onto the pop radar is rarely remembered.

Never in my life did I think I would fall in love with someone I had never met, but some how Yann Tiersen stole my heart and everything in it. I’d never even seen the man, let alone heard him speak. Yet he didn’t need to, for the way in which he composed the sheets of music I was constantly listening to when I would do any small task such as clean my room, write, draw, sleep, etc. was far beyond mind blowing. He had taken over my mind with his notes that he  beautifully places one after another to create a piece of music that leaves me smiling and sometimes crying.

It’s apparent that I’m not the only one that feels so passionately about his words.  If you  type Yann Tiersen into youtube, you will bombarded with thousands of people from all over the world copying his talent and showing anyone who will watch and listen, that they, too, love his work.

If you’re ever looking for a song to help calm you down, make you feel happy, inspire you, I suggest you to listen to his pieces. They’re pure bliss flowing into your ears.

Additional videos:
Rue de Cascades
Untitled, playing violin.

Ingredidents for an amazing album:

Self produce said album.

Play piano.

A soothing voice.

Lyrics that melt your heart melt.

Smooth beats.

     All these ingredients are evident in Oren Lavie’s debut album, The Opposite Side of the Sea. Having taught himself how to play piano when he was youunger, he’s been leading up to making a real album for quite some time now. Yet he only wanted to make music for himself, like most artists do, while most of them never get recognized for their efforts. Especially people from Israel such as Lavie.

      While I’m such a huge fan of Oren, hardly anyone that I know of has ever heard of him which is truely a shame. I can bet my left arm that he’s going to be one of those artists that just pops out of no where and dazzles peope that are aimlessly browsing videos on youtube and last.fm.

 Release Date: 1994
Label: Up Records

      In the now long gone ’90s, Built to Spill dominated the indie rock scene alongside fellow pioneers Pavement and Modest Mouse. The term “indie” may be defecated upon in this day and age, but listening back to the golden years, it’s not tasking to pinpoint where it all started. However, even the great eras must come to an end. Pavement disbanded prior to the new millennium, and Modest Mouse found a new home and grander budgets underneath the wing of a little record label called Epic. Even Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel pulled away from the public eye after releasing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea—one of the most beloved triumphs in the indie scene. So what became of Built to Spill’s bearded frontman Doug Martsch? For starters, he consistently maintained his reputation as a powerhouse guitarist for nearly 20 years, outlasting various bands, projects and pipe dreams that most people with a guitar fantasize about. Although being one of the first to have his band defect from independent labels to find a home with Warner Bros., he fortunately retained as much creative control on a major label as he would have elsewhere. Most people don’t realize that 1997’s Perfect from Now On was the band’s Warner Bros. debut, clearly due to the fact that it doesn’t sound like a major label album. Despite that, at eight songs and nearly an hour long, it cemented their status as indie rock kings.

     Three years prior, Built to Spill quietly released a loud pop rocker on pseudo-legendary Up Records. There’s Nothing Wrong with Loveis an amazingly fun album to enjoy, probably as much as it was for the band to record. Martsch displayed an almost whimsical style to his lyrics at this time, focusing more on the direct subjects than the thought provoking ones. The opening verse to “Fling” features some surprisingly not-so-subtle sexual innuendo, while fan favorite “Car” is a substantial blueprint to the existentialism and analogical style that would be heavily explored on Perfect from Now Onand future endeavors. It goes without saying that the guitar riffs from one album to the next remained infectiously heavy, which above all else has become Built to Spill’s defining attribute. Not a lot of guys had the guts to perform guitar solos in the ’90s, but Martsch was determined to keep it in style.

     Take a trip back before when Warner Bros. owned the band, when the Brontosaurus took to the sky and step dads looked just like David Bowie. If this album was good enough for Pitchfork’s top 100 albums of the ’90s, it’s freaking good enough for you.

     When you think of French music I’m sure you picture accordions, men in berets, striped shirts and a lit cigarette dangling from their lips. But once you listen to M83’s Saturdays=Youth album you’ll realize that you have possibly made the worst assumption in your life.

     This album alone held four singles, “Couleurs”, “Graveyard Girl”, “Kim & Jessie”, and ”We Own The Sky.” all the songs on the album  were obviously influenced by an 80’s sound, making you feel as if you have  put on some spandex and teased your hair to oblivion. When in reality, all you’re doing is listening to music that shouldn’t even be allowed to be produced because it’s so incredible.

1.”President”-3:54

2.”The Alternative”-4:00

3.”Nightlife”-4:21

4.”Lulled By Numbers”-4:01

5.”Song of Imaginary Beings”-4:27

6.”The Negative Sex”-3:08

7.”Bring Me Back a Dog”-3:23

8.”S.H.E.”-3:58

9.”Spit It Out”-3:34

10.”After Every Party I Die”-3:50

11.”This Will Make You Love Again”-4:39

In Britain it’s safe to say that Chris Corner is a well known name in the music community, having produced such bands as Robots In Disguise and collaborating with Imogen Heap. His first album as IAMX, Kiss+Swallow was released in 2004, but the album that you must know about is The Alternative, which was released on different dates, all over the world.

     In The Alternative you can clearly hear that Chris knows what he is doing. He’s no stranger to experimenting with sounds and making them work unlike anyone can, as if he was born with some super natural gene that forces him to make outstanding music. His sound is diverse. While some of the songs he produces are eerie and beautiful, he also throws together these mind blowing beats that leave you wanting to dance like an idiot, even if someone is watching. It’s that music that you get stuck in your head and want to listen to at three in the morning when you wake up for a glass of milk.

Official Website
IAMX’s Myspace
IAMX’s last.fm

Release Date: 1999
Label: Warner Bros.

For years, (like many artists of the same massive cult status, i.e. Radiohead, or say, the Grateful Dead) the Lips have been delivering perplexing marvels in rock music. But the prevalent, expensive and fancy equipment were never an option for Wanye Coyne’s control. Even beyond the animal suits and dancing choirs, the exhibition of the Lips’ high standing capacity is actually more hands- on than you think.

Take Coyne’s paint splattered Calvin Klein suit, for example, or even his spray painted leaf blower “balloon machine.” The Lips have always had that intimate touch, through their music and beyond, and this is what makes The Soft Bulletin so special. It’s a constant tug upon your coattail, a small child longing for attention, or a passionate kiss. It’s a freaking kitten. Whatever it may seem, this record still gives me that sensation. From the opening’s glorious optimism, through the sincerity in “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton,” and to the driving essence of “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” it’s understandably unreal. Everything is contradictory, and it finds this way to totally make sense. It’s a trait the Lips have carried through their career because they realized it doesn’t have to make sense to mean something to someone else. The abstraction is 85% intentional. This was (probably) the factor that drove Spin Editor, Doug Brod, to claim he’s “not sure I’ve ever met anybody who didn’t like the Flaming Lips.” What is it about the Lips that keep us so personable with their music? The answer is found here.