Random Music Talk XXXVIII: robin-hood-brings-a-rainbow.gif

[bono_212]

Spoiler

 

[LemonMelon]

I find that gif pretty funny.

 

[LemonMelon]

Spoiler

That solo killed any of Bono's past work.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

 

[bono_212]

There was a question about her music that I wanted to ask you the other day, Gaf-man, and now I can't remember what it was. Fuck.

EDIT: I think it was something along the lines of how you feel about her debut album. I'm not sure we've ever discussed it much.

 

[LemonMelon]

I like what I've heard from it, which is impressive, since I hate modern country more than most things. Tay-Tay is just great like that.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

There was a question about her music that I wanted to ask you the other day, Gaf-man, and now I can't remember what it was. Fuck.

EDIT: I think it was something along the lines of how you feel about her debut album. I'm not sure we've ever discussed it much.

Mobvok and I were talking about her first two albums a few months ago, because I think Mobvok at the time had only heard Speak Now, so I'll just copy/paste my words from there:

I've actually been finding myself very reluctant to go back and listen to anything she recorded pre-Speak Now. I honestly feel that the album completely blows most everything else she's done out of the water. It's streets ahead of Fearless and the debut. I feel she really, truly settled into her comfort zone with this one, and it kinda makes the first two look a bit weaker in retrospect.

Which is really strange for me to say, because I absolutely fucking adore her first two albums. The debut knocked me on my ass back in '06. It was sonically/stylistically/thematically very much in the vein of all the other modern "country" stuff that was out at the time. But there was something different. Something better. A breath of fresh air in that genre that is so often (and rightfully) shit on and ignored. There was energy and life and personality there, whereas so much of that genre right now is cold and lifeless and made-to-order. And she wrote the bulk of that album when she was 14 and 15, which is just fucking insane. There's a song on there ("The Outside") that she wrote when she was 12. I mean, come on. That's ridiculous. Who does that?

"Tim McGraw," if you put a gun to my head, might still be my favorite song of hers. It's the song that made me fall in love, and I've got a lot of great memories associated with it. Right along with the lyric of the song, that was a really great summer for me personally and I've always thought that the song was really fucking poignant. Simple, but beautiful. It's also probably my favorite song of hers to sing and play on the guitar. Simple G, Em, C, D progression the whole way through the song.

The other singles are great, too. It's a fun listen, if a bit too easy in spots. The two non-singles I really love on the album are "A Place In This World" and "Stay Beautiful." I don't dislike anything on there, though, by any means.

Also, there are a couple of songs she wrote at the same time of the debut that didn't make the album proper, that are up there with my favorites. "I'd Lie" kicks a large amount of ass to say the least, and "I'm Only Me When I'm With You" (which was a non-album single) is a song I try to remember to listen to every Friday night before going out drinking, because it puts me in a good mood. And because I'm a nerd. Shit rocks hard.

 

[bono_212]

Awesome. I was, for some reason or another, afraid you might now care much for it.

Reading all of that is pretty great, to be honest. I love how much you really love her music.

When I was in my first year of college, my roommate used to play like five or six songs from the debut almost incessantly and I really wanted to hate it, because I used to be really closed-minded to some music, especially country. But, very quickly, I came to realize that I loved those songs, and ended up downloading them for myself. It was still like three years before I became interested in her music properly, and now well, yeah, I'm a pretty big fan.

 

[lazarus]

Wow. Fastest Random thread completion ever?

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I'm gonna try and get some sleep, but I'll just leave you all with a bombardment of .gifs of the world's greatest living songwriter dancing like a complete geek:

 

[lazarus]

I'm sure John Mayer taught her some better moves.

 

[bono_212]

Hey-O!

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I'm sure John Mayer taught her some better moves.

 

[mobvok]

I need a Lucille reacting to Gene Parmesan GIF

The sound of her closing the door on GOB was seriously one of the funniest things I've heard

Taylor

what is this

"Tim McGraw," if you put a gun to my head, might still be my favorite song of hers. It's the song that made me fall in love, and I've got a lot of great memories associated with it.

And then there's "Change." Which is easily her best pre-Speak Now song and may still be my favorite Tigga Swift song. It signaled some of the attitude and style we'd see on Speak Now. It's a BIG song, a banger, and it's about her and the journey she'd gone on with her tiny record label and how they figured out how to kick everybody else's asses. It is, to me, a wonderful encapsulation of her career to that point and hugely empowering.

i don't know you anymore

 

[cobl04]

I bet Troy listens to Tay-Tay.

 

[mobvok]

I bet Troy listens to Tay-Tay.

It's his private secret

 

[cobl04]

I can't see him listening to Childish Gambino.

 

[mobvok]

I see you in the active users, GAF. You'd best be justifying this treachery.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I was gonna say, shit, maybe Troy should listen to Taylor, because the human who portrays him doesn't make very good music and could learn a thing or two from someone who does.

what is this

Ha, I was actually thinking about that as I wrote out the post earlier. A guy can't have more than one favorite song by an artist?

But, for real, the reason I said "if it came down to it I'd pick Tim McGraw" is because it was the first song of hers I'd ever heard, it was the introduction, and thus radically changed my life for the better. The two songs are completely different in style, too. "McGraw" would be my pick for nostalgia and romantic reasons, and "Change" would be my pick for anthemic, rock the fucking fuck out, make you honestly feel like anything's possible, punch a hole through the ceiling shit.

 

[mobvok]

I guess that'll do.

Mine and Sparks Fly are #s 7 and 10 on my itunes 25 most played btw

actually heck lets see the rest of the list (apologies if this is self indulgent)

The 2 - Discotheque
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Duke Spirit - Send A Little Love Token
Franz Ferdinand - Lucid Dreams [Single]
Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning
LCD S - All My Friends
Taylor Swift - Mine
Caesers - Strawberry Weed
The 2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
T Swift - Sparks Fly
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
R. Stones - Doo Doo Doo Doo
K. West - All of the Lights
Modest Mouse - Parting of the Sensory
Duke Spirit - The Step and the Walk
The 2 - 1989-10-20 Sydney - All I Want Is You*
LCD S - Dance Yrself Clean
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
Oasis - Wonderwall
Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous
Fallout Boy - I Don't Care
Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place
RATM - Sleep Now In The Fire
Beatles - Help!
Fischerspooner - The Best Revenge (Alex Gopher Retaliation Remix)

*thanks Axver! Paired with Bad, but I don't listen all the way to the end of the song so it doesn't register

Looking at this list it tend to have a bias towards energetic songs since I listen to my music player whilst running

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Sparks Fly was just released as the new single a few days ago. I hope it does well. Shit bangs the fuck out.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I don't know how they got them all there in the same room to pose together with the surfboard.

 

[mobvok]

Sparks Fly was just released as the new single a few days ago. I hope it does well. Shit bangs the fuck out.

Awesome. I guess it has been a while since Better Than Revenge.

 

[mobvok]

Billboard

Bono's face looks like how I'd imagine a Mets fan

 

[bono_212]

Mobvok, that list is actually a pretty great list of music period.

I can't even come close to doing a most played list off of iTunes anymore and my last.fm one is kind of embarrassing

 

[bono_212]

I don't know how they got them all there in the same room to pose together with the surfboard.

Holy shit, that's genius. To have been a fly on the wall at that photo shoot!

 

[LemonMelon]

Bono's lost a lot of weight. Must be from carrying that surfboard around.

 

[bono_212]

Eh, what the hell:

Spoiler

1 U2 – The Unforgettable Fire
2 The Killers – Read My Mind
3 Peter Gabriel – The Book Of Love
4 U2 – A Sort Of Homecoming
5 U2 – Elvis Presley and America
6 U2 – So Cruel
6 Okkervil River – Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe
8 U2 – Pride (In The Name Of Love)
9 Bruce Springsteen – I'm On Fire
10 U2 – MLK
11 Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers
12 U2 – Acrobat
12 The Killers – When You Were Young
14 The Cure – Just Like Heaven
14 U2 – Running To Stand Still
16 U2 – The First Time
17 U2 – Promenade
18 Bruce Springsteen – Radio Nowhere
19 U2 – Bad
20 The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It
21 U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
21 Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
21 Muse – Starlight
24 The Killers – Human
25 Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run
25 The Killers – Sam's Town

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Are we human?
Or are we Dalton?
My pants are vinyl
My headdress gold

And I'm on my knees
Lookin for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we Dalton?

 

[bono_212]