#93: "The Hardest Button to Button" - The White Stripes Release Date: 2003 Director: Michel Gondry Fun Fact: 32 drum kits, 32 amplifiers, and 16 microphone stands were used in this video. The drum kits were then donated to a music school!
What can I say about this video that, if you've seen it before, that you don't already know? It's just a great video that uses pixilation animation to fantastic effect. Even if you don't like the song, you're mesmerised looking at the video - you just can't help it! Another interesting fact about the video is that Beck has a cameo towards the end - he's the man who gives Jack White the "box with something in it". I never knew that until recently! It's just a great video that if you haven't seen it before, you really need to!
Here's the video for your enjoyment!
Click here to see #92 on the list or here for #94!
Hey, and welcome to the newest entry of The Rock and Metal Double Feature Show. I'm starting to put these up intentionally a week late, so it reminds people to tune into the next show later today. Speaking of the show on later today, that's actually going to be up at around 3:30pm as I have plans this evening. Last week's show I promoted a local band for the first time. It was Lucy Was a Decoy, who were based in North Wales. Check out their other stuff at www.facebook.com/lucywasadecoy. I'll be promoting another local band on today's show and I actually have an interview with them. If you want to listen to the show at 3:30pm check out www.mixcloud.com/johnnymercyside. Here's last week's show:
The Rock and Metal Double Feature Show: 2/3/14 Track listing: The Rock Show Coffee and TV - Blur Nobody Told Me - John Lennon Heroes and Ghosts - The Coronas Kathleen - Catfish and the Bottlemen Guilty Pleasure - Lucy Was a Decoy Bat Out of Hell - Meat Loaf Love Rollercoaster - Red Hot Chili Peppers Sweet 16 - Feeder Comfort Eagle - Cake Little Monster - Royal Blood Tick Tick Boom - The Hives Bad Blood - Beck Psychosis Safari - The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster
The Metal Hour Johnny - System of a Down Iron Man - Black Sabbath I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance Children of the Korn - Korn feat. Ice Cube Stand for Something - Skindred Voices - Disturbed Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag - Marilyn Manson Beneath Black Skies - Paradise Lost Don't Fear the Reaper - HIM A Bed of Roses - QueenAdreena Dragula in the Deep - Rob Zombie vs Adele For Fucks Sake - Nailbomb Born to Raise Hell - Motorhead Total running time: 02:00:00 Other entries you might want to read: Supernatural Special - DJ Show Big News Regarding My DJing - Personal Blog My Top 50 Favourite Video Game Villains - Listing
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“I’m With You” is just that – the Chili’s being with us,
on CD, but definitely not in spirit.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ tenth major effort is called “I’m
With You”, and was released three months ago. “I’m With You” is the first album
since “Stadium Arcadium”, which was released five years ago, and was met with
decent acclaim and excellent sales. It marks the longest break between two
albums by the band, who have been active for twenty-eight years. Only Anthony
Kiedis, lead singer, and Flea, bass guitarist, have been active for that long.
The album marks a major landmark in their career;
influential guitarist John Frusciante left the band two years ago. He was with
the band for a total of thirteen years, from 1989 to 1992, and then from 1999
to 2009. It’s safe to say replacing him was difficult, but the Chili’s chose
Josh Klinghoffer, someone the band were very familiar with, as he had worked
with Frusciante many times beforehand. Klinghoffer has been a tour and session
guitarist for many bands, including PJ Harvey, Butthole Surfers and Beck.
The album starts off with “Monarchy of Roses”; the beginning
is pretty cool with some distorted guitars and a nice drumbeat, but then it
turns into every other Red Hot Chili Peppers song. That sounds critical, and in
a certain way it is, but it isn’t a bad song, it’s just nothing different you
would expect from the Chili’s. The disappointment really is that this is the
second single off the album, and you would expect better when you compare it to
other songs the band has released. After the balanced opener, we get “Factory
of Faith”, which features a lot of the funk you’d expect from the band, without
it ever getting past second gear. It’s one of the better tracks on the album as
it sounds quite cool, but as I said, it just doesn’t step up at all, and
remains a relatively upbeat song.
And that’s the problem with this album on the whole; it
never goes to third gear or beyond. What’s on this album is fine, it truly is;
it’s what you would expect from a Chili’s album, apart from that it lacks that
spice that their singles usually pack. There’s no fantastic and funky song on
here, like a “Give it Away” or a “Can’t Stop”, nor is their a truly beautiful
and heart-pulling track like “Breaking the Girl” or “Otherside”.
The best song on the album is probably track three,
“Brendan’s Death Song”, it’s a beautifully written, beautifully sung and
beautifully composed song. The song builds up slowly as it goes on, once again
it never takes off, but in this instance you don’t want it to. It’s very
similar to a lot of the other slower songs on other albums, in the respect that
it remains a rock song, but also has certain elements of ballad in there. It’s
just a great track.
The seventh track, “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie”, is
the main single off the album but if you didn’t know that you wouldn’t have
thought so. The song has no redeeming features that other main singles off
other albums has. Compare it to “Dani California”, “By the Way”, or “Scar
Tissue”. It’s not even in the same league.
The album is jam-packed full of dare I say it, generic
Chili’s material. I can barely comment on most of the songs without stretching
myself, something I don’t really want to do, as it sounds desperate. But I find
myself doing so; track eight is “Did I Let You Know”, and it sounds quite good,
but it’s further emphasis to the “slightly upbeat” Chili’s song. Oh, and there’s a nice guitar
solo in “Goodbye Hooray”. See? I’m stretching myself.
Track ten, “Happiness Loves Company”, is one of the songs
that stand out a little more than the others, it has some nice work on the
drums and Kiedis’ vocals are particularly good here. “Even You, Brutus?”, which
is track twelve, features some almost preaching vocals by Kiedis and it has a
slightly on the cuff feeling to it and the chorus is quite fun, especially in
comparison to what else is available on here. The album’s ending, “Dance,
Dance, Dance” ends in a way that’s fitting for this album, a slightly upbeat
(yes I used the term again) track that suggests you dance all night long. And
if you want to dance half heartedly, then the song is definitely apt for it.
I don’t want to come across as bitter and disappointed but
I’ve got to be honest, I am. This album was very disappointing for me. I’ve
reviewed many younger artists than the Chili’s and I’ve reviewed artists that
have been going on for longer than the Chili’s. And I can honestly say that
this album feels the most lacking in effort that I’ve reviewed. Now, the Red
Hot Chili Peppers are a great band, and the quality is here. But it’s like a
firework past its explosion. I find the album lacks the energy, the drive and
imagination that their previous work has. I don’t want to call the Chili’s past
it. I don’t even want to say it’s the departure of iconic guitarist John
Frusciante that leads to this disappointment. It just feels the band haven’t
tried very hard, and in turn, it leads to me not trying very hard to review it.
“I’m With You” is just that – the Chili’s being with us, on CD, but definitely
not in spirit.
Rating: *** stars
Stand out tracks: “Brendan's Death Song”, “Even You,
Brutus?” “Factory of Faith”
Here's the video for the second single "Monarchy of Roses"...
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An inspiring soundtrack, one that follows the blueprint for a TV series soundtrack perfectly.
True Blood hit our screens (not literally, although I wouldn’t be surprised too far down the line) in 2008, following Twilight and The Vampire Diaries as the newest breed of vampire themed television series' and movies to pave way. The difference between True Blood and the aforementioned two however is the grimy, sexy and very gory Southern state atmosphere, with the makers deciding not to aim for the young teenager audience but would rather give us a TV series that adults would be more accustomed to. It’s been very successful, not in the vein of Twilight, but it’s received critical and commercial acclaim, so much that it has three series’ under its belt. The thing that stands out most for me about True Blood however, is the music, it has a tremendous soundtrack, one that it’s quite obvious a lot of thought has been put into.
I’ve heard both this soundtrack, and the first series soundtrack. The first series also had some fantastic stuff in the programming, with Jace Everett’s now cult classic “Bad Things” paving the way for country music to be cool again. Also on the programme were songs by Marilyn Manson, The Eagles of Death Metal, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. That’s why when I got the actual CD, I was most disappointed. None of the previously mentioned artists feature, bar Jace Everett, and none of the songs on the CD I can actually remember as part of the great background music heard in the show. I think Gary Calamar, the music supervisor, really missed the ball with the first soundtrack.
However, I got the second series soundtrack roughly the same time as the first, and I’m telling you, there’s a huge difference in the quality of the soundtrack for both series’. Let’s start my review on the second series soundtrack.
The album starts off with "Howlin' for My Baby" by M. Ward (who has worked with Zooey Deschanel in the past), a track full of rock ‘n’ roll nostalgia. That is, until the fantastic riff comes in at the end of the bridge, a riff Jack White would be proud of. It really sets the tone for the album and is actually the album in a nutshell – a mixture of modern alternative metal, country and rock ‘n’ roll.
The second track, “Evil” is a very different sounding Jace Everett working with C.C. Adcock and does possibly one of the most dirty sounding songs of all time. It’s fantastically raunchy, with a mucky baseline behind the chorus of kids saying the title track. It's not the same country artist who's signature song has become a global cult hit.
The third track is a song by the ever-ambiguous Beck, doing one of his most diverse songs, full of electronic guitars and a thudding base. Beck’s voice is scarcely heard through most of the track, with the singer preferring his music to do the singing mostly.
After the three opening tracks, the album takes it down a notch with "Clairvoyant" by Robbie Robertson, a song that Lionel Ritchie would be proud of. This change in genre and sound really shows Gary Calamar's diverse album collection, choosing to continue this trend of new and old music, with track five, a proper jazzy and soul number by Jr. Walker and the All Stars. Track six is the fantastic Screamin’ Jay Hawkins at his best with Frenzy, the sleeper hit from the fifties. So that’s three newer artists followed by three older artists.
The musical trip Gary Calamar wanted us to go on with this soundtrack was never going to be easy or steady. This roller-coaster ride then starts to take another twist in the direction of some alternative country with Lucinda Williams, Buddy and Julie Miller and Chuck Prophet, with the latter also using funk and soul in his music. It’s a tremendous selection of songs, chosen in an order that really makes sense. 13th Floor Elevators is next with a Rolling Stones inspired song called “You’re Gonna Miss Me”. Eels, being the ever odd band, make an appearance with the gothic sounding “Fresh Blood”.
After these tracks however, we start to really enter the obscure, with a lot of references to the actual series. Track twelve is a tribal dance track quoting from the series (“I know what you are…”, “What are you?”) over and over again to mesmerising Indian music. A very odd track follows called “New World in My View” by a DJ named King Britt, accompanied by Sister Gertrude Morgan. In this song, Gertrude rambles on about Christianity, she talks of an inspiring story how her religion will fit in a modern day world. This is not directly part of the series, but the concept of religion, and more emphatically, the potential corruption of Christianity is evident in the series. The album finishes with a nice step back into normality with Bob Dylan doing a decent track named “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'”. What a rollercoaster eh?
And rollercoaster is definitely the right word for this album. It’s got some fantastic stuff on this CD, and it covers all the bases for what a soundtrack to a TV series should – songs from the programming, songs inspired by the series, songs that have reference to the storyline, everything. However it falls short towards the end, with some of the songs, albeit working for the TV series, just aren’t good enough quality tracks. But the beginning, definitely the first half, is chock-a-block full of ditty and dirty licks. It’s a vast improvement over the first soundtrack, and if you want to listen to some American bands that you may or may not have heard before, past and present, I’d recommend you get this. It’s an inspiring soundtrack, one that follows the blueprint for a TV series soundtrack perfectly.
Rating: ****
Stand out tracks: Bad Blood by Beck, Evil (is Going On) by Jace Everett and C.C. Adcock, You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp) by Chuck Prophet
