gotta plug this Italian gigh right here, not just cause he kinda looks like me.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg3iWo62y0s[/youtube]
gotta plug this Italian gigh right here, not just cause he kinda looks like me.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg3iWo62y0s[/youtube]
Wonder why I like the tracks by Bengal Sound, a lot…
Good tracks all round… tunes to chill to, to fall asleep to, but not dream to…
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HGX_l7JVeQ[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeORT3ua2V4[/youtube]
“Hitori No Yoru” is most definitely upbeat and too cheerful for my taste just as well (not a fan of the band myself.)
Here’s some bittersweet music instead:
Empire of the Sun - We Are The People
youtube.com/watch?v=a47Y1lCRHlM
Coldplay - The Hardest Part
youtube.com/watch?v=WAGbq3A9HfA
Phoenix - Lisztomania
youtube.com/watch?v=4BJDNw7o6so
(Armistice is another.)
(Countdown is yet another – my favorite, in fact.)
M83 - Outro (Versailles opening theme)
youtube.com/watch?v=_nTP2eMEPSs
The 1975 - The City
youtube.com/watch?v=UuihJInaeN4
Crystal Fighter - Love Natural (actually, quite cheerful but I can’t help but perceive it as quite sad at the same time)
youtube.com/watch?v=IVzyErnSnFI
Polyenso - Falling in Rain
youtube.com/watch?v=zhNxRtvrSY8
“Hitori No Yoru” is most definitely upbeat and too cheerful for my taste just as well (not a fan of the band myself.)
Here’s some bittersweet music instead:
Empire of the Sun - We Are The People
youtube.com/watch?v=a47Y1lCRHlMThe 1975 - The City
youtube.com/watch?v=UuihJInaeN4Polyenso - Falling in Rain
youtube.com/watch?v=zhNxRtvrSY8
Thanks for the recommendations… the above 3 made the cut. Do you have a favourite/go to genre?
Currently, I have no idea what I’ll be listening to tomorrow… one day it’s Himalayan or Swiss Folk-music, then DJ Urban-music sets the next.
I’m not averse to R&B, as long as it’s sung by a rapper, but not a boyband… as the former’s sentiment is more relatable, the latter’s… usually a one-hit-wonder, to me.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOeA7dDUIs[/youtube]
[tab]Uh, regulate nigga
Bravehearts nigga
Live for this
Some of y’all don’t live at all
Get yours nigga
Get yours baby
Uh, yo, yo
As the night close down on the Earth like gray dark rings
Light of cities in the nights, destination for Kings
With big dreams, like Castro, overthrew Bautista
From Cuba, and pointed nukes toward the U.S.
About to shoot us for revolution, that’s how you gotta move
A lot of rules, some locked in solitude
Curse the day of they birth confused, who’s to be praised?
The mighty dollar, or almighty Allah
I’m like the farmer, planting words, people are seeds
My truth is the soil, help you grow like trees
May the children come in all colors, change like leaves
But hold before you, one of those, prophetic MC’s
With blunted flows, seven hundred souls in me
Each channeling, from past to present times, heaven shines
Light on those, innocent to how the world grows
Some men become murderers, and some girls become hoes
And you accounted for, everything that you heard
Do not speak to fools; they scorn the wisdom of your words
My heart is wise, bloodshot eyes, the saga never dies
Ghetto prisoners rise rise rise [Repeat: x4]
Ghetto prisoners
Yo we gotta be God’s children, habitats in tall buildings
Rats crawl in filthy hallways, incinerators
Sinners who faithless, still there’s hope, pray it’s answered
Dreams turned real, what’s a wicked nation?
One with blind men, not taking charge of the situation
Empty arguments and real conversations needed
The world’ll need it, to hear it
Evil tries to weaken my spirit, it’s chronic herb
This hurt come from the honest word
I now try hardest to serve my maker, what I learned
Find it’s way on the paper, so I could dictate it
Articulate it, luckily, I was put on one of the ships that made it
Through strong currents and winds that left the others stranded
To sink in the Atlantic
Satan jigs the planet, not to get too religious, but
Who decides when and if your life is finished?
If Christ is in this, for the sake of your name, oh Lord
May we break away from the chains abroad
Ghetto prisoners rise rise rise [Repeat: x3]
Ghetto prisoners, get up, wake up, rise
Ghetto prisoners rise rise rise [Repeat: x3]
Ghetto prisoners
You want to buy time? I’m the seller of minutes
I give you every second low-priced, if I so lies; the truth is
Time waits for none of you, in fact
He can’t wait for the date to snatch the ground right from under you
Small visions of better life if cheddar was right
Lurk in the mind, of young ones ahead of they time
Trapped in the slums, begging for nothing but taking
Headed for nothing but the state pen, where they cousins be waiting
Judges is not relating to pleas, guns busting where the kids play
Richochet off lamp poles and leave damp holes
In bystanders, get canceled, D.O.A.
Around the way where we from
Hope the future reduce the rate of those buried young
Life is every man’s kingdom, a dyin man’s past
And a newborn’s, first time to be here at last
And shouldn’t have to grow up fast, and suffer our pain
Hustling harder than the generations here before he came
Going through the same bullshit as our fathers
Reading history, but who’s the authors?
For some the game is easy, for most of us the game is much harder
But never lose faith; through the years just get smarter
Ghetto prisoners, ghetto prisoners
[Chorus][/tab]
my debt to steely dan for carrying me through my twenties is immense, and every memory without exception associated with the period in which i discovered a particular album, is joyful. there is a unique dynamic to their music that allows it to have great depth without any descent of mood. that is to say, they are capable of producing tragedy and have in minor terms, but insofar as the tone becomes existential and expresses anomie in any of its various human forms- some of that is in ‘aja’ for example - it never loses it’s upbeat and lofty spirit and remains more of a kind of stoic and analytical ‘report’ on the human condition rather than the expression of plaintive despair we hear in other bands. this is why the free spirited intellectual cynics might perhaps appreciate the rock-n-roll journalistic feel of the human condition in the music. there is not a hint of first-person weakness or real suffering in any of it. it may be because these guys have… what could you call it, tempo of spirit. that means that whatever they write, you’ll leave the song refreshed and renewed. they are simply incapable of producing a depression of mood, as i said. i remember reading something written by fagen and becker in the liner notes of pretzel logic (i think it was), in which they expressed a brief mission statement of the band. i can’t remember the detailed content… only that i was surprised by how smartly it was written. and then it made sense why the music as so smartly written. it reflected the minds of these two brilliant if odd guys who produced music nothing else of the time (or ever, for that matter) was comparable to.
just look at em. ‘cool’ isn’t the word.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxXfNZWjot4[/youtube]
Donald Fagen vocal harmony. Nailed it.
time for some new shades, bruh
nah they good. they ain’t scratched or nuthin.
"At age eleven, a cousin recommended jazz music and Fagen went to the Newport Jazz Festival, becoming what he called a “jazz snob”: “I lost interest in rock ‘n’ roll and started developing an anti-social personality.”
Lol these two went through at least eight dudes before they got the right musicians to do the song. (McDonald talks about how difficult it was to get the backing vocals right.)
nah they good. they ain’t scratched or nuthin.
you all remember hearing this one. from fagen’s first solo project. not until now did i know what the song was about…
The “I.G.Y.” of the title refers to the “International Geophysical Year”, an event that ran from July 1957 to December 1958. The I.G.Y. was an international scientific project promoting collaboration among the world’s scientists. Fagen’s lyrics sarcastically discuss the widespread optimistic vision of the future at that time, including futuristic concepts such as solar-powered cities, a transatlantic tunnel, permanent space stations, and spandex jackets. The song criticizes this vision and offers a humorous critique on the naïveté of postwar optimism in America and the Western world.
another stroke of fagen’s genius and engineering perfection. ‘sparkling’, as becker called it. incredibly crisp and clean.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueivjr3f8xg[/youtube]
Standing tough under stars and stripes, we can tell
This dream’s in sight
You’ve got to admit it
At this point in time that it’s clear
The future looks bright
On that train, all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well, by '76 we’ll be A-OK
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
Get your ticket to that wheel in space while there’s time
The fix is in
You’ll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we’ve got to win
Here at home we’ll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There’ll be spandex jackets, one for everyone
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
On that train, all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
(More leisure for artists everywhere)
A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision
We’ll be clean when their work is done
We’ll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
let me show you something rather interesting. when you listen to IGY now… after learning what the song is about… a strange kind of paradox emerges. the song’s intent is to make a caricature out of the idea of this ‘beautiful world’, but in listening to it… or as you listen to it, it builds in your mind an image of such a possible beautiful world… so at the same time you are disposing of the idea of the possibility of such, you are in fact designing one in your mind. now watch, if you put those same lyrics on a categorically different kind of groove, you’d not have the same effect. to divine the image of this beautiful world you’d need a particularly nuanced musical composition, one which is as sophisticated, fresh, joyful, and in the best taste, like you’d imagine this world to be.
anyway the paradox is that the song makes possible as an idea the very thing it calls into question with its mockery and sarcasm. in your head you’re seeing this world as the song carries you along, and it’s working.
But the million dollar question is… what would a backing vocal track for the chorus sound like if it were done by Michael McDonald. I surmise it would sound something like this.