tbeaver06

Historical Significance- 99 Red Balloons

The original '99 Red Balloons' was sang by the artist Nena in 1984. Nena was born in Hagen, Germany and the song was titled '99 Luftballoons' in German but the English translation is '99 Red Balloons.' There has been many covers made by English artists of this song and I will be posting a cover by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a punk cover band, since that's the only version that I have on my computer at the moment, and I certainly wouldn't want to be doing any illegal file sharing, plus, I don't know how many people would understand the original version in German anyways.
(I will post an English translation of the lyrics at the end of my post so no one has to go digging for them if they don't already know them).
So '99 Red Balloons' is an anti-war song and could be more specifically an anti-cold war song. Germany was the country that was stuck inbetween the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, during this period of tension and conflict.
I found the following opinion online while searching around about this song: "The fact that this person and her friend release 99 red balloons into the sky and a programming malfunction (bugs in the software) perceives it as a threat is a reference to the neurotic attitudes of the 'superpowers' during the cold war.
All throughout the song there is a crisis happening all the while these 99 red balloons innocently float above everyone.
The end of the song is the result of a nuclear holocaust caused by the reactionary decisions of the leaders in the world. Supremely melancholy, bittersweet and on the right track, no matter whether some of the lyrics are a bit blown out of proportion" (www.songmeanings.net).
I find that, judging by the lyrics, the previous quote does seem to be an accurate description of this song and it's historical significance; since that person articulated their interpretation of the song better than I probably could, I will let those words speak for my thoughts as well.
Direct English translation:
If you have some time for me
Then I'll sing a song for you
About 99 balloons
On their way to the horizon
Perhaps you think of me a bit
Then I'll sing a song for you
About 99 balloons
And that something [the war] comes from such a thing [the balloons]
99 balloons
On their way to the horizon
Seemed like UFOs from space
So a general sent
A flying squad out there
To raise the alarm if it were true
Yet there on the horizon were
Only 99 balloons
99 jet hunters
Each one was a great warrior
Thought that there were Captain Kirk
There were great fireworks
The neighbors didn't understand anything
And felt immediately "pissed off"/provoked
Yet there they shot on the horizon
At 99 balloons
99 war ministers
Matches and petrol cans
Thought that they were clever people
Already smelled greasy loot
Shouted: War, and wanted power
Man, who would have thought
That one day it would come to this
Because of 99 balloons
99 years of war
Don't leave a place for victors
There are no ministers any more
No jet engines either
Today I'm doing my rounds
Seeing the world lying in ruins
Found a balloons
Think of you and let it fly

Third Eye Blind- Good Production

Here's Self-Righteous, it only took me about a week to finally get it uploaded.

Third Eye Blind- Good Production

I still don't think I quite have the ear nor the understanding to pick out good production from mediocre production at this point, but I will make a valiant attempt at it.
The band I chose for good production is Third Eye Blind. 3EB released their first, self-titled, album in 1997 and have since released two more; their last full length album was titled Out Of The Vein and was released in 2003. The band's frontman and lyricist Stephan Jenkins produced all three of their albums. The band built their own recording studio in San Francisco before the recording of Out Of The Vein and did all of the recording and producing there that is on the album.
I was doing a little bit of research and found that the band wanted to have more of an organic and raw feel to their newest album, which after reading that made a lot of sense in regards to how the cd sounds. So what I want to do is compare two tracks from the album; one having more of a bigger, fuller, and more pure and 'finished' sound, while the other having the more organic and raw sound to it.
The first song that demonstrates the sort of full and rich sound is called Misfits. The song, at least to my untrained ear, has a good bit of complexity to it. Starting with the chirping and atmospheric sound of the grasshoppers at the beginning and continuing with backing tracks, and layered guitars throughout and it. Furthermore, it has a lot of width with the different sounds and instruments coming from different channels.
The song that I want to compare Misfits to is called Self-Righteous. This track is a duet with Kimya Dawson from the Moldy Peaches and has the more raw feeling to it without all of the chopping, editing, and procesing. Stephan and Kimya's voices don't sound like they've been altered a whole lot like some of the other tracks on the album; they seem rather unrefined and just more natural than what Stephen's voice sounds like in Misfits. If I were to guess about height I would say it's more high than low. I don't think there's much bass in the song but I am also listening to it through headphones right now since the amp blew to my computer speakers recently.
Like I said already, I don't really know if I fully understand how to pick out the different dimensions of tracking and mixing. I can repeat what they are but to actually hear them and point them out is another thing. So, I may be way off with what I said but that's the best I could do...Now if only I can upload both songs we'll be in good shape.
Actually, I could only get one song to upload so here is Misfits and I hope to get Self-Righteous in my next post.

Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz- Roll Call

So it's pretty hard for me to classify music as bad because I am very open to listening to new things and generally approach all new music with an open-mind.
So yet again I head back to the iTunes library (and I swear I find something I didn't know I have everytime I search through it) and I stumbled across this song by Lil Jon; I then proceed to listen to it and almost vomit on my computer immediately.
How can someone get paid so much money to "sing" (There's no way in hell anyone can classify this as singing) but I digress. So I don't understand how these people make all these millions of dollars for standing around and laying down music (which I'm sure was made by someone else, but you know more about that than I) and then to douse it in F Bombs and 'Ya'll hoes can't fvck wit my niggas' just boggles my mind.
How can these people be considered 'popular' and how do people actually listen to this music? I guess my question should be, do they even listen to it? Maybe it isn't popular like I think but I do know Lil Jon has put out a few other songs that were extremely popular, but not to me of course. The lyrics are horrendus, and I admit I do weigh the music I listen to about 70/30 lyrics to beat and tonality. I would rather listen to someone lay down extremely talented lyrics and hooks over some dry and redundant music than listen to a good beat that's filled with horrible words, unless of course 'i'm gettin crunk in da club.' (/sarcasm)
Anyways, I just think there is more to music than my niggas, your niggas, fvck the police, and so on and so forth. If you call this talent than I should definitely get into the business because all I can see is dollar signs.
That's about all I can think of for now...Let's recap, horrible lyrics layered with a pretty good beat (I have a nice 2.1 system that definitely shakes the walls, so that's probably the only reason I like the beat because I can annoy my roommates when they piss me off) but beyond that there is no reason in the world I would sit down and listen to something like this. So going back to my 70/30 scale; I give the lyrics a 0 and the beat a 6 or 7, but in the end that's only like a 20% or something.
Signing off....

The Spill Canvas- Self-Conclusion

The original song that I wanted to post wouldn't upload properly and I didn't really know what other song to use so I just went to my Top 25 Most Played list in iTunes and found the most played song and figured I'd write about it.
The Spill Canvas has been one of my favorite bands for the past couple years now and while I know it's not the kind of music your (Ian) in to, but it really seems to captivate me each and every time I listen to it. First off, I think Nick's (vocalist) voice is pretty smooth sounding which makes it easy to listen to. On top of that, I think he is one of the most profound lyricists I have come across.
I think it's especially cool how he is kind of telling a story throughout the whole song between two other people, and while on the surface it may seem like your typical Emo song (my girl left me, I'm now going to kill myself) but there's something else about it that keeps my attention. One of my favorite lines is, "settle precious I know what you're going through cause ten minutes before you got here I was gonna jump too." The line just gets me everytime I hear it, maybe it's the passion behind it, I don't really know.
There's a lot about this song that I really like but I seem to be having a hard time putting it into words. The way the song sounds and the way it's written just combine to make this song very enjoyable for me. I think the lyrics are put together very well and I also particularly like, "alright you win but I only give you one night, to prove yourself to be better than my attempt at flight" because the attempt at flight is more or less suicide.
Sorry I couldn't put the reasons why I like the song into words better, I just really really really like the song.