My education is pretty delayed

Have you guiys seen these tootsie roll style Werther;s Originals? Weird. My Brain and Behavior professor, Dr. Henke, describes pretty much every structure of the brain as looking like a tootsie roll. Doesn't matter what the structure is, or what view we have of it, it still apparently looks like a tootsie roll. I almost agreed with him once, and could have compromised and called it a Ho Ho.

So, Brad assigned me to listen to The Clash to further my musical education, and for what turns out to be a very good reason. A lot of The Clash I didn't know that I knew, the most major example of that being Should I Stay Or Should I Go. I mean there was stuff that I did know was The Clash: London Calling, Rock the Casbah, ...I Fought The Law and Brand New Cadillac were also a surprise.

Why does everyone and their mother seem to think that The Clash did Come On Eileen? Seriously, google "The Clash" and come on eileen, and you'll see it.

Anyways, I like The Clash. Who doesn't. I don't feel very compelled to sit around listening to them, though, other than Rock the Casbah. And about halfway through London Calling I get sick of it. What I did have explained by reading up on The Clash is that they played a ton of different styles, which I guess accounts for their incredibly different sounding songs.

And that, my friends, is what I thought after listening to The Clash.

Just going with it on Joy Division/New Order

Okay, this is a new post in my musical education. Brad has assigned me Joy Division/New Order. I think that these posts are probably like Brad's baseball posts. I skim them (sorry, Brad!) but you can all feel free to not read these at all. No worries!!

The poor guy in the middle right of this photo looks so out of place. Where's his slide rule?

Listening to Joy Division, and my first thought as there were just instruments was--this is pretty okay. But then the singer came in, and I was basically repulsed. The song is Dead Souls.

This is very eighties. So, I know that Joy Division was sort of the original band, and then the lead singer (whose voice I hate) committed suicide, and they reformed as New Order. I think that's nice of them. Pretty respectful. I can't get past this guy's horrible voice.

The guitar on She's Lost Control reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It's hard for me to keep listening when I think that there's an unheard Wait Wait Don't Tell Me podcast sitting in my iTunes...right there...within reach.... Every song that Joy Division has starts out okay until his voice comes in. I'm giving up on Joy Division. However, apparently they switched more to the dance scene as New Order. That, combined with the new singer, is giving me hope. He's not even in tune! It doesn't sound like the out of tuneness is on purpose....

So, Joy Division: is "post-punk." I swear, modern musicians are as terrible with naming styles as any periods in art or literature. I think saying that their songs were dark and melodic (as wikipedia says) covers it better. Though I actually don't think this is very melodic. :)

What a depressing song Isolation is. I like the instrumentation on Disorder. Disorder might be my favorite Joy Division song so far.

Okay, moving on to New Order:

Singer: Better.

I'm liking this. Hehe, soo synth-y. So many different beats everywhere! Aaaah!

I guess this would be labeled as "accessible."

Shell Shock is fun and quirky. Nevermind. It starts out fun and quirky and then gets boring. It doesn't have what it takes to last six minutes.

Okay, the song Blue Monday. This is what I've been looking forward to. Oh, this sounds really familiar...but unfamiliar. This might sound silly, but this sound really reminds me of The Faint, especially the vocals and synths in the background. You can definitely tell that the drummer got started on drum programming. I liked the older drumming better, though.

Straight off Love Vigilantes is my favorite of New Order. Fun guitar towards the end of it.

Summary: Thumbs down on Joy Division, thumbs mostly up for New Order.

That's it for this week's musical education of me!

Big Star

This is the first part of my Modern Musical Education, as directed by Brad. He is going to give me one band a week to research and listen to, with a few key songs pointed out to be sure I don't miss them, and then I'm going to write up a short (very short) post about it.

I told him not to get his hopes up.

So! This week is the band Big Star.

Facts:
-Formed in 1971
-Chris Bell and Alex Chilton co-wrote most of their music
-The band disbanded and reformed a lot
-Weren't much of a sensation while they were around and writing
-Popularity grew afterwards
-Apparently bridged 1960s guitar-pop and alternative rock in the 1980s
-I don't really know what guitar-pop means
-I especially don't know what "power pop" means, which is I guess what Big Star plays

What I think:
I like their music. It doesn't really knock me off my feet, but it's definitely worth listening to. I really like Thirteen and Back of a Car. There's something about Watch the Sunrise that feels a little too kitschy for me to like it.