Hyping up Hype Machine

Yeah so I'm still a pretty poor blogger but I'm trying as of now!!

I've used lots of musicy websites. My first was Pandora, which I loved, I was on it constantly then they changed it so you can't listen to it from the UK which sucks big toes! Then got into Last FM which I know is pretty much exactly the same but something about the interface and the adverts meant it never appealed to me in the same way as Pandora.

But I have recently been reunited with hype Machine through Last FM so it suppose it has its uses.
I apparently joined Hype Machine in 2009 but i can't really remember how or why.

So ok, you don't get music generated to suit your tastes but you search an artist or a song you like or are curious about and you can find fantastic, obscure covers or new material when you though you'd heard it all. Being able to spy on what other users are 'loving' and being able to keep tabs the the most popular music is a nice feature but I don't think I'll ever properly use it. I've found some fantastic bits to keep me entertained without that for now.
I see Hype Machine as a Spiderweb of blogs taking you from something you know you like to find something else. You have a music library full of things you enjoy, pop a song you like into it and you listen to a cover of that song, that takes you to another artist and their own songs or covers of their songs or collaborations.

To say the least I'm having great fun with it, and it will defiantly fuel my blog  and hopefully make me slightly more competent at this.

Aye it's a pretty boring one but more to come!!

This is a song a discovered on Hype Machine last night and kinda fell in love with it
Matt Hires-State Lines

“The FCC won't let me be”

I remember the first time I watched the film Footloose, I laughed at the idea of being told what music we can or can't listen to, I believed it was just some notion that was dreamt up for the purpose of this fantasy world in the film. It never occurred to me that it used to be an everyday issue, particularly in 50's and 60's America, and is still, to a lesser degree, practised today.

There are obviously current day examples of extreme music censoring around the World such as in North Korea where music is only considered worthwhile if it praises the leader. And until recently , under the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, musical instruments were banned and hung from trees as effigies as it was believed this was a distraction from the teachings of the Koran.

In the UK have the watershed that means Cee-lo Green's song 'Fuck You' will be played in it's original form after about 8/9pm but before this will magically have changed to 'Forget You'.

Many artists employ this form of self censoring by recording an alternative version of their songs if they contain obscenities, it's like they've created extra hassle for themselves by including 'inappropriate' language and then not standing by it.

Other options include bleeping it out, discounting the word all together, looping a different part of the track or adding extra sounds to hide this or just distorting the word for example 'shit' often becomes 'shhhh'. It's more of a case of money than anything else, if they refused to bleep out or rerecord this song it would only be played after the watershed and so not be making as much money.

Surely they should have more conviction in what they are trying to express in their music than how much is going into their wallets?

What really gets me though is that these words are bleeped out but inappropriate phases are allowed before a watershed. I don't believe in music censorship but I also don't believe in the double standard, if I didn't want young children singing 'fuck you' I also wouldn't want them singing ' I want to have sex on the beach', 'I touch myself' or 'Chains and whips excite me'.

I think that if these are allowed to be heard prior to the watershed then a few swear words wont do any damage as long as children are told that it is wrong to use these words themselves, just as they would be if they used such phases picked up from songs. After all they will hear them already in the playgrounds and it is part of our up bringing that we are taught what is and what isn't apprpriate to say.

I am shit at this blog malarkey

Right, so...I haven't blogged in an age!
I have no excuse other than I am a procrastinating plebeian.

In order to keep myself blogging and getting into a routine I am going to do a few blogs in the style of the Facebook '30 day song challenge'.

First up the interweb is telling me to find my 'favourite' song. YIKES!!
Favourite ever song?!
That is a tall order.
iTunes tells me
that my most listened to song is Rosie by  Young Rebel Set

It's a good song even if it spreads nasty rumours about someone who shares my name, but it's definatly not my favourite of all time. I would get tired of it after a while.

My favourite song would have to be timeless, have brilliant lyrics as well and a fantastic tune and conjure up positive emotions/thoughts etc.

Therefore I have chosen a song that was released in 1968 by the Small Faces on the Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake concept album. The album is without a doubt my favourite album of all time and this song just simply makes me happy. You can't help but dance like a cockney geezer to it and I defy anyone to not find it gets stuck in your head.

The b-side, which holds my song of choice, is a fantastically crazy and humourous fairytale about the adventures of Happiness Stan. Combined with the accompanying narration delivered in marvelously crafted gobeldegook by Stanley Unwin, it is something I never tire of.

Without anymore gushing about it, my favourite song is 'Happy Days Toy Town' by the Small Faces

'Life is just a bowl of All-Bran
You wake up every morning and it's there
So live as only you can
It's all about enjoy it 'cos ever since you saw it
There aint no one can take it away.'

"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion"

The quote I have used as the title for this post is from German philosopher and inventor; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

It is true for every aspect of culture throughout time, half arsed jobs are rarely those great works that are remembered and revered, but, in today’s fast paced attitude toward churning out new content and product, is passion being forsaken for the sake of quantity over quality?

One of the big album releases of this year is Elbow's 'Build A Rocket Boys!' set for release on the 7th of March. There has been, almost exactly, a 3 year gap between this album's release and the release of their previously acclaimed 'The Seldom Seen Kid' which reached #5 in the UK chart.

In the case of most popular music today an artist must be seen to be constantly at work, whether it be touring or recording, or they risk becoming over looked or even irrelevant, with a lot of artists releasing albums annually (and in some cases more frequently than that), with multitudes of singles released throughout that time.

Before the single 'Neat Little Rows' was released 28th Feb this year, their last released single was 'The Bones of You' released 29th Sep 2008. Yet this silence does not seem to have diverted their fans' interest in any manner.

I myself often find a song from their back catalogue popping up on shuffle from my music collection and don't enjoy it any less because it's a few years old. After all these are songs that had real work behind them, you can hear the thought and construction within both the lyrics and the music.

Any 'great', well crafted song that has had passion in its corner during it's conception will generally be timeless. Artists like The Small Faces, Metallica, Jonny Cash and other such icons are enjoyed by members of generations way after those in which their songs were created and will continue to be listened to still.

Some popular music today which is churned out quickly and with little craft behind it, despite being popular today, will no doubt struggle to stand the test of time.

Elbow are a band that first played together in 1990. They are a well oiled machine when it comes to working together and have described  this upcoming album as the album they have been aiming for their entire careers so far.

If three years of work isn't passion enough to make this album of interest a quick listen to the song 'Lippy Kids' performed live is definatly something to convince you to look forward to this next album release and to illustrate the difference between truely crafted work and that which is churned out or the sake of having huge volumes of work.

Listen on youtube here > 'Lippy Kids' - Elbow

I can't wait to get my hands on this album and let you know if the passion in it can be felt. 

WHY!? The Blog Maifesto

So...
I'd like to start my blogging life by saying that I dislike blogs. I love magazines. Real glossy publications you hold in your hand and really get into.
However, I don't remember the last time I felt like that with a music magazine, they're generally pretty boring and uninspiring.
So here I am, it's not a new, revolutionary, fantastic music magazine but it's a step in that direction.

So that goes someway towards explaining my choice of title for my blog, it is also a lyric in the 'song' (though that word doesn't quite seem 100% appropriate) Thou Shalt Always Kill by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.

This duo is a personal favourite of mine, I am, after all, a sucker for well written, witty lyrics against a beat that you find yourself moving to. They almost defy being handed a set genre, my iTunes has them listed as 'Electonica', 'Hip Hop/Rap', 'Pop' and 'Alternatywna' whatever this might be.

That is what I set out to do with this blog, it will be music based with some random pieces thrown in for good measure, it will be an eclectic mix of all sorts of music styles included.
For anyone who has appreciation for music in general, I'm talking real music not that X-Factor churned out fake shit, I will hopefully keep you relatively entertained and provide you new bits and pieces to keep your ears amused.

Let's do this thing!