So we’ve been on a roll here at dontgetsentimental.com recently. It’s like our 500th wind, but I can’t complain, it feels good to use this thing. Posting is fun. Hopefully we keep this up.
So I know to the holier-than-thou indie music kids this post may seem dated, but you know, I do things on my own time and I get into things as I find them. I got into M. Ward a while ago, and I’ve really been digging the Post-War album. I don’t remember how exactly I stumbled upon him, but I remember going on youtube and looking for some of his songs.
He’s got an awesome video for the song “Requiem” which I’ve featured below. It’s an awesome song. Nice blend of folky acoustic strums with some distorted guitars and a cool solo. Plus his raspy voice is fantastic. The old man in the video reminds me of my grandpa. I hope to someday be a really cool old man.
I’m not promising a feature or anything, I just put the Vol. 1 there just in case my colleagues want to follow up, or if I find a youtube video of another fantastic moment in horrible TV history.
Now, I’m not saying that TV is bad. By any means. I’m the type of person to sit in front of a TV and zone out for days. You may even need to detach me from my couch using a spatula every few days to prevent me from becoming grafted to the couch. It’s the reason I don’t own a TV and the reason I try to avoid it.
That being said, there is some seriously terrible programming out there. And there are some seriously unfunny people on TV. Nick Cannon is one of them.
Back in college Nick (this blog’s Nick, not Nick Cannon) and I, often joined by others (Nasco), used to sit around and just watch anything. We watched the bobble-head Italian food chick and Paula Deen at lunch way more often than I’d like to admit. Daily basis at one point maybe. We also managed to watch the aforementioned Mr. Cannon’s, Wild ‘n Out.
That’s some seriously unfunny stuff most of the time. Listening to Nick Cannon is like chewing tin foil. No exaggeration. He did have some great guests though, and they made the show what it was: nothing to write home about most of the time, but every once in a while you’d get a pop culture nugget that would keep you laughing for days…or in my case a couple of years later.
The clip featured below, the great moment I’ve been alluding to, is from the episode featuring Lil Jon, born Jonathan Mortimer Smith (WHAT!?!?!), doing his version of “London Bridge.” Absolutely stellar performance.
Don’t get sentimental. Jokes aside, you make an interesting point. Given the music is so closely tied to image, style, fashion, and other media, I’m wondering where things will go in terms of those as well under the Carter Theory. Will we delve into fashion trends of the past? Will we be wearing 80’s garb AND singing along to our favorite 80s songs? Will movies and sitcoms fall back on older pop gems to supply their soundtracks? And given that, will we be making movies about the past? Maybe TV and movies could be a vehicle for new music. You know how many indie songs end up on soundtracks for movies and TV series, and in commercials. After all that’s how our dear friend Feist made it big. I will be curious to watch all of this unfold.
There is always a big thing though, be it a pop gem or not, someone gets the spotlight, and some record company makes a killing. While mass marketing may not be the same now as it was before, other things in the past just kind of blew up on their own, through independent circuits. Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was a bit of a fluke in the sense that college radio started playing it and people latched onto it immediately. That’s the first example that comes to mind. But grunge was a huge success, an enormous movement that had us all angsty and flannel-clad. And you never hear people rocking out to Nirvana at bars. At least I don’t.
While I agree that there are songs that lend themselves to being mass marketed and constantly played at bars for people’s enjoyment, there are movements that propel themselves on their own and THEN the market capitalizes on them. Grunge, hip-hop, and all that jazz (badum bum). There are other ways for things to get big, and there will still be “shared-experience pop music,” it just might not be your grandmother’s shared pop music.
Until then we can continue listening to Bon Jovi masterpieces like this one:
Or who knows, maybe we’ll be stuck in a world full of awesome covers of classic 80’s songs like this one by Petra Haden:
And just for kicks, how about this cover by Finnish symphonic metal cover supergroup, Northern Kings:
Four years ago the legendary Ol’ Dirty Bastard otherwise known as ODB passed away. At the time I found out of ODB’s passing, I wasn’t nearly as big a fan of Wu-Tang as I am now, and I only knew Ol’ Dirty from his hit “Got Your Money.” Back then, his antics and his persona outweighed his abilities as an MC for me. Well, turns out I was wrong. I’ve really been getting into his material recently, and the man was a genius.
According to Method Man at the end of the track “Can It All Be So Simple” on the Wu’s 36 Chambers album, Ol’ Dirty Bastard got his name “’cause there ain’t no father to his style.” And there is no truer statement. His half-sung half-rapped unpredictable and sometimes humorous style is one of a kind, and I don’t think there is any MC that could even touch Ol’ Dirty in terms of originality, creativity, and style.
Check this song out. It’s testament to the man’s skill.
The song “Blueprint²” is featured on Jay-Z’s 2002 album “The Blueprint²: The Gift & The Curse.” The beat on this song initially caught my attention because it’s very epic sounding and very familiar, although I couldn’t figure out where I knew it from.
Later, after doing some reading on the Jay-Z vs. Nas feud I realized that this song was chock full of punches towards Nas. Then after some further reading on “The Blueprint²: The Gift & The Curse” I found that the sample came from “The Ecstasy of Gold” by Ennio Morricone, from the score to “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
The way I became familiar with “The Ecstasy of Gold” is not through “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” because I have never seen it sadly enough, but because it is one of the songs on Metallica’s “S&M” album which was recorded live with the San Francisco Symphony. Apparently Metallica has been using it as their intro music for their concerts since 1983. I had no idea. Apparently the Ramones also used the song for the same purpose.
Ennio Morricone as you may or may not know is a very well known Italian Academy Award-winning composer who has done film soundtracks and scores for tons and tons of movies.
The use of this classic and epic piece as a sample in a hip-hop song is simply brilliant. The producer on the Jay-Z track is Charlemagne, who I have never heard of before, unless he is the historical figure Charlemagne King of the Franks. And I don’t think he is. Below is a studio version of “The Ecstasy of Gold” in youtube video form, the song “Blueprint²” by Jay-Z, and the live Metallica S&M version of “The Ecstasy of Gold”.
So Dave recently posted on the song “Working for the Weekend,” by international pop sensation Loverboy. First thing that came to mind: Scrubs. Check this out:
First of all, I wish I could dance like Turk. Sadly, I cannot. Back to my association with Dave’s song, as you can see in the video, “Working for the Weekend” is followed by “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe. And it’s an awesome song.
That’s some great early 90’s R&B (new jack swing if you want to get technical) if I do say so myself. The vocal sample that can be heard throughout “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe is sampled from the song “Poison” by Kool G Rap. The sample is one of Kool G Rap exclaiming the word “poison,” which is taken from the opening line of his song.
12 18th, 2008| 
