When Videos and Music Don't Match Up

I find it very funny when there is a large discrepancy between a music video depicting people playing music and the actual music that is playing. For example, a song that features an electric guitar but only shows someone playing an acoustic one!

I was reminded of this when I looked up the video for "The Space Between" by Dave Mattews Band, as I am performing it tomorrow night at an open mic night. Here is the video:




This video definitely has the electric/acoustic mixup I just mentioned (pretty sure there's not a single note played on an acoustic on this song), but what's more glaring here is that the most prominent instrument in the chorus--the glossy piano--is not shown at all. We see the rest of the band jammin--a sax, a violin, Dave on guitar--but you can't really hear any of those things in the song! The thing you hear is the piano, and it's not shown. Funny. I can forgive DMB, though, because they are amazing musicians, and aren't some whatever-band that isn't actually good and has tracks recorded for them.

Another video that I found very funny in depicting an acoustic guitar with the implication that it is producing an electric guitar sound (and I'm quite certain the humor in this is intentional, but I'm curious as to how many people notice it) is, well, I'll just let you watch:




Does anyone else think about this stuff?

Like Indecision To Call You...

In the past couple of days I remembered how much I like the song "I Miss You" by blink-182. It's really pretty hard to believe that such an amazing song can be developed from such simple components. The bass only plays 4 notes in the verse, and the guitar (which is acoustic and therefore understated) is, I believe, during the verse, always only playing one of two notes, one note at a time (the same note on two different strings). The music of the chorus is just a stepwise scale. The piano, too, is very linear rather than broad and colorful, usually only playing one note at a time.

And yet I can't really think of many songs whose melodies make me feel better than that of this song. Whenever I hear the piano in the beginning I get the sense of someone calming me, getting ready to tell a story that I've heard before, a love story, and they sense that I don't want to hear it, but they know without a doubt that they way they will tell it this time will captivate me. The song is just so personal with its confessional lyrics, and yet it testifies to the beauty of very very deep emotional intimacy, of two people who have each other and that is more than enough ("and we'll have Halloween on Christmas, and in the night we'll wish this never ends...")--it testifies to this so assuredly and confidently for any ears to hear.

The second verse and the chorus pretty tragic in content. I feel like I can relate as of late...but I'm starting to appreciate these things more for their beauty than for their pain. Or for the beauty in the pain. It sounds so strange, but when you can feel it, don't question it, I suspect is the way to go.

Even the strange intonation on the vowels ("stop this pain to-NOIGHT") can't even come close to ruining this song for me.

I feel pretty good right now.

Methinks I'm going to listen to it as I fall asleep tonight.

Brandon Flowers Is The Man!

Yesterday was my birthday, and one of the gifts I got was Brandon Flowers' (The Killers lead singer) new solo album, Flamingo.

I had heard the single "Crossfire" before and it's grown on me, but I was a bit nervous that the rest of the album was going to sound kind of poppy and hooky like the single (which is, however, better than basically any other hooky-sounding pop song out there). Let's just say my fears were wiped away within a few minutes.

Brandon and his collaboraters put together a masterpiece. I'm quite surprised at how much flexibility Brandon shows on the album--for a while he sounds like regular old, long, open-voweled Brandon Flowers, but the further you get in, the more you hear him sounding like--something very different, something edgy, something country in some cases--my roomate likened one of the songs to Johnny Cash's voice. It really is quite remarkable to me how Flowers is capable of using his voice as something so compelling. We're so used to singers that are just singing a melody; Flowers' voice is like an electric guitar--technically, we've heard it many many times before, but the effects applied to the performance make it something different each time. I love the moaning he does in the background of "Crossfire."

I intend to talk more about this later, but for now it's time for bed.