Random Music Talk CXXVII: Crickets

[LemonMelon]

Use Somebody is still overproduced maudlin garbage with horrible vocals and lyrics.

Sex on Fire is dumb but it's fun and has grown on me a lot over the years. I'm just tired of it from going to karaoke bars.

 

[the tourist]

Still hate both. Meh.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I think they’re generally a terrible band in terms of their personality and it makes me hate their music that I want to like.

 

[lazarus]

Fuck The Strokes.

The first album isn't even that great, outside its context. You can listen to Nevermind, for example, and appreciate it on its own merit a lot more than Is This It, which is punchy and has a few memorable tunes, and that's about it.

They couldn't have chosen a more appropriate album title for posterity.

 

[Hewson]

Fuck The Strokes..

But what about Kings of Leon?

 

[lazarus]

Let’s discuss a 2000s band actually worthy of attention, namely the one that dropped a new single today:

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Thank you for that, didn’t hear they dropped something and I do love Phoenix quite a bit. Sounds smooth.

 

[Axver]

Something very odd has happened to me in the last week or so. Last week I heard Sex on Fire for the first time in like seven years, and then Use Somebody today. Now, I fucking HATED these songs because they were absolutely everywhere for like three or four straight years. But I hadn't heard them in forever and I was like... both these songs absolutely rule. I just hated them because they were overplayed.

Lockdown really is doing a number on you, hey.

 

[cobl04]

Paul's part in "A Day in the Life" sucks arse and nearly ruins the song.

 

[lazarus]

Wow. I give Macca a lot of shit but that's just beyond the pale.

 

[cobl04]

I thought you of all people would back me up.

 

[LemonMelon]

Paul's part in "A Day in the Life" sucks arse and nearly ruins the song.

Are you trying to get flamed

 

[cobl04]

you have these wonderful, wistful verses from John and then Paul makes panting noises and ends a line awkwardly

 

[phanan]

One of the most friggin’ moments ever.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

while I almost understand where you are coming from Paul's verses lead perfectly into John's "Ahhh's" which are one of my most all time favourite moments in recorded music so I disagree.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

That approach from McCartney has been grating on other songs, but it works really well in that context on A Day in the Life.

 

[lazarus]

If Cobbler was talking about Paul's "Out of college/money spent" minstrel singer nonsense nearly ruining You Never Give Me Your Money, I'd be nodding my head in agreement, as I've called that out before.

I'm also not sure which line Paul is supposedly ending awkwardly.

 

[cobl04]

I'm being a little over the top, it's still a fantastic song and I don't hate that verse, but I don't think it's the genius everyone claims it is. I love how his verse starts, coming out of that orchestral swirl, the piano and the drumming that comes in as he starts singing. But the panting is so fucking stupid, and I find it really off-putting that third, fourth, seventh and eighth lines of the verse don't follow the rhyme pattern set up in the first, second, fifth and sixth. And then it completely shifts tone again at the end and goes back into the hazy, orchestral tone. And I think, because it's The Beatles, and The Beatles are untouchable, people fall over themselves to talk about the verse as this genius bit of songwriting that places the listener in a schizophrenic dream or whatever. But it's lyrically silly and incongruous with John's more grounded verses.

 

[LemonMelon]

Nobody would lift up A Day in the Life as an influential masterpiece without Paul's verse. The lovely, downtrodden verses from John are, of course, the backbone of the song. But the switch to Paul illustrates the existentialist perspective of the song, the idea that our daily concerns are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that no matter how deep into our own sorrow we may be, there's someone else just going on about their business like nothing is wrong. Connecting the two narratives, the tempo change then cleverly colors John's verses, leading us into the song's iconic crescendo.

A Day in the Life has groundbreaking songwriting because it considers tone and mood as an aspect of storytelling and utilizes the studio as an element of the arrangement. With a little creativity, you didn't have to stick to one through line anymore! If all we were given was John's story, it would certainly communicate the daily life of one man, but the way it juxtaposes two of them says so much more about the human experience.

 

[DaveC]

Nobody would lift up A Day in the Life as an influential masterpiece without Paul's verse. The lovely, downtrodden verses from John are, of course, the backbone of the song. But the switch to Paul illustrates the existentialist perspective of the song, the idea that our daily concerns are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that no matter how deep into our own sorrow we may be, there's someone else just going on about their business like nothing is wrong. Connecting the two narratives, the tempo change then cleverly colors John's verses, leading us into the song's iconic crescendo.

A Day in the Life has groundbreaking songwriting because it considers tone and mood as an aspect of storytelling and utilizes the studio as an element of the arrangement. With a little creativity, you didn't have to stick to one through line anymore! If all we were given was John's story, it would certainly communicate the daily life of one man, but the way it juxtaposes two of them says so much more about the human experience.

hear fucking hear.

 

[lazarus]

Nobody would lift up A Day in the Life as an influential masterpiece without Paul's verse. The lovely, downtrodden verses from John are, of course, the backbone of the song. But the switch to Paul illustrates the existentialist perspective of the song, the idea that our daily concerns are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that no matter how deep into our own sorrow we may be, there's someone else just going on about their business like nothing is wrong. Connecting the two narratives, the tempo change then cleverly colors John's verses, leading us into the song's iconic crescendo.

A Day in the Life has groundbreaking songwriting because it considers tone and mood as an aspect of storytelling and utilizes the studio as an element of the arrangement. With a little creativity, you didn't have to stick to one through line anymore! If all we were given was John's story, it would certainly communicate the daily life of one man, but the way it juxtaposes two of them says so much more about the human experience.

Down goes Cobbler! Down goes Cobbler!

 

[Axver]

I am sure the song in question sucks.

 

[gump]

It’s bad opinions week here on interference.

 

[iron yuppie]

I'm usually down for a good iconoclastic take, but that one is several steps too far.

Also that Phoebe Bridgers record sounds like what would happen if April from Parks & Rec made an album.

 

[cobl04]

Following on from my ~take~ above, I listened to Sgt Pepper for the first time in forever, my fucking god the Love version of Mr Kite has completely destroyed any love I had the original, which is so disappointing now

 

[bono_212]

Even when I, for whatever reason, actively disliked The Beatles, I knew that "A Day in the Life" was an incredible song. The impact it had on music later is one of the more obvious moments of the Beatles being extremely influential.

Referring specifically to the effort that went into creating the outro of the song, of course.
Here's a quick summation from Rolling Stone:

10. The song’s final chord took three men to play.
The Beatles were masters at the iconic chord – consider the opening of “A Hard Day’s Night” – but there may be none to match the final chord of “A Day in the Life.” It was achieved at a special overdub session on February 22nd, at which Mal Evans made his second recorded contribution to the Beatles canon, as he, John and Ringo Starr sat at three pianos, simultaneously striking E major. This took nine takes to get right, because the players had a hard time hitting the note at the exact same moment. The last take was dubbed best, and then overdubbed thrice, so the effect is that of nine pianos played by 12 men. Engineer Geoff Emerick kept lifting the volume faders, and it is possible to hear the studio’s heating system on the finished recording. Aptly, considering the track’s now-mythic status, the sound simply goes on, and on, and on, with seemingly endless sustain.

It's something that's so easy to do now, but at the time was pretty spectacular. The whole song is basically what the Pet Sounds and subsequent sessions with Brian Wilson ended up being.

Anyways, it's funny, I don't care THAT much for the song, but I've always considered it among my favorite tunes by them because I find it pretty damn incredible from a recording perspective.

 

[namkcuR]

While we're on the subject of the Beatles - a question I've been thinking about:

If you could only have either the psychedelic period(Revolver/Sgt. Pepper/MMT) or the post-psychedelic period(White Album/Let It Be/Abbey Road), which would you take?

You may include appropriate non-album material for each period(so psychedelic period gets Paperback Writer/Rain/Only A Northern Star/It's All Too Much and post-psychedelic gets Lady Madonna/Hey Jude/electric Revolution/Don't Let Me Down/Old Brown Shoe/Ballad Of John And Yoko etc.)

 

[cobl04]

Definitely the latter

 

[bono_212]

That's tough, because I love Let It Be and Abbey Road, but I fucking hate the White Album.

Meanwhile, I enjoy all three of the former albums.

 

[bono_212]

It's something that's so easy to do now, but at the time was pretty spectacular. The whole song is basically what the Pet Sounds and subsequent sessions with Brian Wilson ended up being.

Anyways, it's funny, I don't care THAT much for the song, but I've always considered it among my favorite tunes by them because I find it pretty damn incredible from a recording perspective.

Clearly I did not confirm release dates, because I've been informed that Pet Sounds was before this, so good on Brian Wilson. I was thinking more of the Smile Sessions, or whatever all is covered in the film Love & Mercy.