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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
February 12, 2014 at 2:44pm February 12, 2014 at 2:44pm
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DAY 12
Song: "World Behind My Wall"
Artist: Tokio Hotel
Album: Humanoid (2009)
Tokio Hotel is a band that's never quite taken off in the U.S. (except for an MTV Music Video Award in 2008 for "Ready, Set, Go!"), but is extremely popular in Europe, particularly in their native Germany where the band has had a string of number-one singles and albums, and has sold nearly five million albums to date. In 2007 they recorded their first English-language album, Scream (the album featuring "Ready, Set, Go!"), and then followed it up with Humanoid which features the song I picked today.
I honestly can't remember how I first came to hear this song, but it totally stuck with me and I've been a fan of the band ever since. They're working on another studio album now for release later in 2014, and I'm excited to see where they go in their careers. I really respect the fact that they have a plan for branching out into music that's more accessible to the rest of the world even though they're originally from Germany, and I really respect the fact that - at least for Humanoid since Scream was more of an English-version of their hits from past albums - they made an effort to create both an English and a German version so they can try to reach new English-speaking fans while not completely leaving behind the audience that made them so popular in the first place.
I have a few of their other songs on my iTunes, including "Automatic" and "Darkside of the Sun" and I really like the industrial sound mixed with the almost haunting-sounding vocals (especially in the case of "World Behind My Wall"). I'm trying to expand my horizons into more world music and I'm really happy with what I discovered in Tokio Hotel. |
February 12, 2014 at 2:19pm February 12, 2014 at 2:19pm
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DAY 11
Song: "Explosive"
Artist: Bond
Album: Classified (2004)
Apparently 2004 was a good year for music, because this is the day in a row I'm featuring a song from an album released that year.  I didn't actually discover Bond until a few years after that, but ironically I had an album of theirs in my collection for years. I used to work at Borders Books & Music and having a friend working in the music department meant I got to grab a few promo CDs every once in a while, when the store was done playing them (or decided not to play them at all). One of the albums that I grabbed was Bond's first album Born (2000), but I never got around to listening to it until almost a decade later.
And thus my love for "classical crossover" begun. 
I've always loved classical music; I studied a bit of music in college and I've always been impressed by the arrangements of classical pieces, especially when they involve a whole orchestra of instruments or even - my personal favorite - a string quartet. There's just something so impressive about being able to combine compositions for multiple instruments into a cohesive piece, and there's something relaxing about a piece of music with no lyrics, where you can just appreciate the instrumentals components. The problem I have with a lot of classical music, though, is that a lot of it sounds alike to my untrained ear. Sure, I can usually pick out the Beethovens and the Bachs and the Mozarts and the popular pieces from Vivaldi, but if we were playing the "who composed that tune" game, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between a piece from Puccini, Brahms, or Debussy... they all sound kinda equally somber and slow to me.
So imagine my surprise (and delight) when I finally popped that Bond CD into my player and heard a vibrant, energetic instrumental music from a string quartet of classically trained musicians! I think Born is their better album, but "Explosive" is my favorite song they've done. I think it's really cool that a band like this (and others, of course) have found a way to take their passion and expertise in classical music and combine it with popular arrangements that really showcase the versatility and range of these instruments that are so often forgotten in modern music. Seriously, when was the last time you heard a cello, or a viola on the radio? 
I think the video is kinda cheesy (and their label definitely exploits the fact that this Australian/British string quartet is composed entirely of attractive young women), but the composition is great. It's one of the few instrumental songs that I can put on a workout playlist right next to my high-energy rock and hip hop.
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February 12, 2014 at 1:56pm February 12, 2014 at 1:56pm
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DAY 10
Song: "Numb/Encore"
Artist: Linkin Park & Jay-Z
Album: Collision Course (2004)
Collision Course is probably one of my favorite albums from the past 10 years. Originally, MTV has a feature called "MTV Mash Ups" where they would combine the tracks of two popular artists (this was way before the Glee made the mash-up concept popular, BTW  ) to great - and sometimes not-so-great - effect. But when they approached Jay-Z and he, in turn, approached Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park about the idea, the decision was made to actually re-work and re-record the songs to make them fit together better rather than simply mixing two existing tracks together. The result was an album (or technically an EP, I suppose) with six tracks that mixed some of Jay-Z and Linkin Park's most popular songs into brilliant new arrangements.
"Numb/Encore" is probably the most popular on the album and I think it was the only single that was released. I actually like "Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer" a tiny bit better, but I think trying to mix three songs together was a little overly-ambitious and I usually end up losing a bit of interest in the track halfway through. "Numb/Encore" never gets old though; there's so much energy in both tracks that I think they really work well together.
I really wish more artists would take risks like this with their work. It's great that everyone focuses on making their own music and their own albums, but I would really love to see more of this kind of collaboration, where rockers and rappers, or other musicians of different types were willing to collaborate and try to come up with something new and exciting for audiences to listen to. |
© Copyright 2025 Jeff (UN: jeff at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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