Writers Collective
the online community for music enthusiasts
Thomas McNabb
8 February 2017
Gulag Orkestar - Beirut
"Gulag Orkestar" - Beirut: "They call it night, they call it night; and I call it mine" chants Zach Condon. This song was pretty much the soundtrack to my time travelling around Europe alone, just after I'd graduated from college (18 yrs old). This is really quite fitting as that is what Condon was doing when he in turn wrote most of this first album! I would listen to it every night as I lay in bed, in a different city, a different hostel, and it just perfectly described how I felt at that time. Rarely have I ever felt such serendipitous synchronicity with a specific song. The simple droning lyrics only come in quite late into the song, as most of the start is instrumental, with some beautifully layered brass fanfare to kick it all off, before some harmonised voices burst through, and finally the lyrics sung in an arrestingly haunting voice by Zach. The whole song has a real raw feel to it, and manages to express really deep emotion without bonking you over the head with convoluted metaphors and flowery language. Every time I hear it I am brought back to that period of my life, and I love every minute of it.
Hannah McVittie
13 January 2017
Songs and Association
I've been thinking about this for a bit, and although it might not follow exactly what you're asking because it was actually my mum's opinion of the song! But only a couple of weeks ago the song Band Aid - "Do They Know It's Christmas" came on for some TV documentary and we both disagreed with one another about liking the song. I really like it but my mum said that she hated it. Her reasons were because of what that song specifically represented to her. Because the year that it was released and obviously became very well known, the song reminded her of everything negative that had happened in that year in history. I think she mentioned the Berlin Wall and other such things. I just thought it was really interesting that a song could have that much influence and negative association to things and whenever you hear it, you instantly flash back with things the song reminds you of!
Akeel Shah
13 January 2017
My Way
I think for me, "My Way" by Calvin Harris had a really positive impact on me. With music, you can just go into your own little world and surround yourself with the beat. I really love this song and whenever I'm out in public, commuting on the train or bus, this song reminds me of someone special, someone dear and it's so satisfying!
Elizabeth Bright
11 January 2017
Above & Beyond
I'm generally very open about the genre of music I listen to, but my main interest lies in Trance music where I have religiously followed the producers Above & Beyond in numerous parts of the world. Their music is amazing! A couple of years ago, they decided to completely strip away everything that made their music what it was and decided to go FULL acoustic. They did it purely for their love of music and didn't expect to get any response from it but it absolutely blew up and became almost one of their best selling albums which they then turned into intimate tours around their world. It completely changed my perception of them as artists because they showed actually how musically talented they were and how a lot of musicians now put so much digital/technical help behind music that it makes you wonder if they really have what it takes or they were just lucky! The album can be found here... I seriously recommend it - it's so chilled and just amazing!
Kayleigh Hinsley (Blog Author)
8 April 2015
How I heard of The Cramps
People often ask me how I first heard of The Cramps (I'm not really old enough to have seen them live etc), so here's a short post with my story. I wish it was something spectacular; it's not but here goes… I first heard of The Cramps because I was into Jesse Jo Stark and she had a song called Dance To The Cramps and she’d mentioned them a couple times, so I thought I’d check them out.
The first thing I found was a live performance on YouTube, think it might’ve been Tear It Up, and obviously Lux could get pretty wild on stage (don’t think I need to explain further), so it kinda made me take a step back. It was like this wonderful-but-volatile thing that I wasn’t quite ready for yet, so I left it for a while. Then a couple weeks later I came back with this sort of impress me attitude, I think the first albums I heard were Flamejob and Psychedelic Jungle, and man did they impress me!
I loved the sound and the story and the aesthetic of The Cramps, plus I fell in love with Lux and Ivy as people too. I don't have a favourite Cramps song or album, it just depends on the day. I think the thing about The Cramps is that they didn't make one bad song or a song that wasn't as good in their entire career. The Cramps were the first band I really got and understood, plus they opened up a whole other world of rock and roll, and I’ve been hooked ever since!
No comments:
Post a Comment