Frodo form on coldplay, PSP, and waking up alone
(Another) New running installment that lets me post little bits. I'll call it Frodo form writing.
Bought the new Coldplay album. I don’t like to review or comment on new albums until I have listened to them for at least 10 days. You just don’t get the snap judgment with other media like TV and movies or books as you do with music. Perhaps because it’s the way we ingest it, while we are doing something else (driving, working, playing on the computer or videogames – which is one reason I love madden, I can go through a season and a bunch of albums in a night).
But early thoughts
· The band has hit a new high in terms of musicianship. Just smarter, more coherent and sometimes brilliant structure.
· Martin sounds a lot more mature on this one. This is not really that welcome or bad. It is just a little bit different. He fits with the band more than before, but somehow he’s a little bit lacking. More skill, less soul.
· They are lacking patience somehow. I just do not hear the thoughtfulness or longing as in the first album, and somewhat in the second.
· There are a couple of songs where the guitar line is the same as the vocal track, note wise. I have never liked this, and it’s why I never liked Alice In Chains.
· Fix you is a keeper. Even with lyrics you see coming lines before Martin sings it, it has a fantastic melancholy sense about it. The organ permeates the first half, making you think that it’s a mood track in comes slight acoustic guitar that seems more harmonic then part of the melody. And the song takes off, full blast. This is my favorite type of song. Songs that have a build that comes out of nowhere, and take over the song. It’s why I love Radiohead. Plus the climax completely redeems the awful writing in the beginning (when you try your best and you don’t succeed / when get what you want but don’t what you need, just horrible. I expect better from Rob Thomas. On his worst day.)
Their writing is atrocious. It is too simple. It has always been their style to not overwrite, and to stream together lines. But somewhere around the second album they started writing really simple lines and putting them in with other lines. For instance, Clocks:
Singing come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease
The first two lines are great. The last two always made me cringe.
Even with a song likes spies on the album; I still think that Parachutes was one of the best-written albums ever made. They are coherent in a simple, yet difficult way. Yellow is a great example. The lyrics are a perfect compliment to the song, and they look good on paper, even if they are simplistic. It’s not quite the Smiths, but it’s not as homosexual as well.
But the new album is full of lines like the second bit of the Clocks stanza. Just miserable clichés passed off as songwriting. Drives me nuts. And it’s part of the reason I am unable to sit through the entire album yet.
You wait for albums to be fully ingrained in your mind, this one is almost too familiar, and that is not a good thing. Thats why I am writing about it. After 3 listens I feel like I already have heard the lryics.
There is a wide gap between underwriting for songs and overwriting, and the middle is almost impossible to get right. There is Radiohead for the under part, stringing together bits and pieces, and Dylan for the over writing, where you look at a long sheet of lyrics that are seemingly disconnected but it paints a picture all together. Dylan’s skill is so far beyond anyone (Paul Simon and Morrissey being a distant second and third) you take it for granted. Look at Vision’s of Johanna.
Inside the museums Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.
But even Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues,
you can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze.
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze,
Hear the one with the mustache say "Jeeze, I can't find my knees."
Jewels and binoculars hag from the head of the mule,
But these visions of Johanna they make it all seem so cruel.
The jewels and binoculars line is one of the most cited as Dylan’s ability. It’s almost nonsense, but instead of being hippy mash like his contemporaries (think sometimes Dylan coverers Fairport Convention) it’s part of a larger picture.
Radiohead lyrics are so minimal it takes some deciphering. Black star is not really about the cosmos, but about a girl who keeps cheating on the singer.
Both, in all real senses of the word, are poetry. They aren’t Geography 3, but they are done well enough it takes an intelligent person to get the true meaning, yet can be enjoyed by most. We just tend to discount them as we become more learned. But I can tell you this, we will see 10 Frosts before we see another Dylan.
The happy medium between underwritten and overwritten is almost impossible to hit. The beatles did this better than anyone. Smart but not too smart or hard to get (though Harrison tried for the latter). Drive By Truckers can do this, and do it in a slice of life way that is nothing short of amazing. The Clash were great at this. As are the Strokes. It's one of the reasons I like and adamantly defend them. They may sound a lot like television and be too hipster, but they can write some solid lyrics.
Anyway, Parachutes was a great effort that hit the mark perfectly on the middle ground. They were able to stretch simple lines into choruses and connect them to other lines to make a sum greater than the whole of the parts. That was why I liked Coldplay.
I can’t help the feeling though, that X Y misses the middle, and does so in a terrible fashion. It’s really rotten in parts despite the bands improved sound. Even if it sounds better, it lacks something of a soul. I can only hope it gets better. Emphasis the hope part.
Well, that was supposed to be shorter.
Anyway.
Two other notes:
My PSP. I am a little under whelmed because there aren’t any great games for it. I have not spent more than 2 hours on any game where I am not doing anything else. Which is not as bad as it seems. The games I like are simple and easy to pick up. It’s fantastic to play while watching the news or a baseball game. Talk about ADD.
For society, it’s a bad thing. For me, ehh, I like it but it’s probably not too good.
The Cubbies.
They are starting to get hot. And they are doing it without their three marquee players. But above all, they are playing the Red Sox. Never in your life will you see a series like this where the fans and the teams actually feel like brethren. As much as I would love to see the Cubs win it all, I came upon the realization a bit ago that I just love the cubs, for all of they represent. And quite frankly, I’ll die happy if I can live to 80 and still watch the Cubs play in Wrigley Field, even if they never win. Because it’s not a curse that rules the team, we only think of it now because of the Sox hype and how bad the 03 loss was.
But you don’t watch the Cubs to watch them win. It’s because you love them. I can’t think of any other club in the world like that.
One last thought (which is not a note)
One of the things I miss most about college is waking up to find people in your house. I don’t mind living with only one person, esp. one who is a contributor to this blog and a good friend, but I miss having other people there who force you to do things. Peer pressure is probably as good of a reason not to recover from your hangover than anything else. I think life gets more boring as we get older because we don’t have enough people to come up with enough ideas to act on.
Too often I try to get people to stay at my house, if only for the next morning. I like being shaken from my routine. Twice I have asked someone to stay at my place this week, one male one female. It’s not really that I want their company for the rest of the night, it’s that most of the truly enjoyable meals I have followed a night of drinking or hanging out. It’s a sweet coda I miss too much.
Bought the new Coldplay album. I don’t like to review or comment on new albums until I have listened to them for at least 10 days. You just don’t get the snap judgment with other media like TV and movies or books as you do with music. Perhaps because it’s the way we ingest it, while we are doing something else (driving, working, playing on the computer or videogames – which is one reason I love madden, I can go through a season and a bunch of albums in a night).
But early thoughts
· The band has hit a new high in terms of musicianship. Just smarter, more coherent and sometimes brilliant structure.
· Martin sounds a lot more mature on this one. This is not really that welcome or bad. It is just a little bit different. He fits with the band more than before, but somehow he’s a little bit lacking. More skill, less soul.
· They are lacking patience somehow. I just do not hear the thoughtfulness or longing as in the first album, and somewhat in the second.
· There are a couple of songs where the guitar line is the same as the vocal track, note wise. I have never liked this, and it’s why I never liked Alice In Chains.
· Fix you is a keeper. Even with lyrics you see coming lines before Martin sings it, it has a fantastic melancholy sense about it. The organ permeates the first half, making you think that it’s a mood track in comes slight acoustic guitar that seems more harmonic then part of the melody. And the song takes off, full blast. This is my favorite type of song. Songs that have a build that comes out of nowhere, and take over the song. It’s why I love Radiohead. Plus the climax completely redeems the awful writing in the beginning (when you try your best and you don’t succeed / when get what you want but don’t what you need, just horrible. I expect better from Rob Thomas. On his worst day.)
Their writing is atrocious. It is too simple. It has always been their style to not overwrite, and to stream together lines. But somewhere around the second album they started writing really simple lines and putting them in with other lines. For instance, Clocks:
Singing come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease
The first two lines are great. The last two always made me cringe.
Even with a song likes spies on the album; I still think that Parachutes was one of the best-written albums ever made. They are coherent in a simple, yet difficult way. Yellow is a great example. The lyrics are a perfect compliment to the song, and they look good on paper, even if they are simplistic. It’s not quite the Smiths, but it’s not as homosexual as well.
But the new album is full of lines like the second bit of the Clocks stanza. Just miserable clichés passed off as songwriting. Drives me nuts. And it’s part of the reason I am unable to sit through the entire album yet.
You wait for albums to be fully ingrained in your mind, this one is almost too familiar, and that is not a good thing. Thats why I am writing about it. After 3 listens I feel like I already have heard the lryics.
There is a wide gap between underwriting for songs and overwriting, and the middle is almost impossible to get right. There is Radiohead for the under part, stringing together bits and pieces, and Dylan for the over writing, where you look at a long sheet of lyrics that are seemingly disconnected but it paints a picture all together. Dylan’s skill is so far beyond anyone (Paul Simon and Morrissey being a distant second and third) you take it for granted. Look at Vision’s of Johanna.
Inside the museums Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.
But even Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues,
you can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze.
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze,
Hear the one with the mustache say "Jeeze, I can't find my knees."
Jewels and binoculars hag from the head of the mule,
But these visions of Johanna they make it all seem so cruel.
The jewels and binoculars line is one of the most cited as Dylan’s ability. It’s almost nonsense, but instead of being hippy mash like his contemporaries (think sometimes Dylan coverers Fairport Convention) it’s part of a larger picture.
Radiohead lyrics are so minimal it takes some deciphering. Black star is not really about the cosmos, but about a girl who keeps cheating on the singer.
Both, in all real senses of the word, are poetry. They aren’t Geography 3, but they are done well enough it takes an intelligent person to get the true meaning, yet can be enjoyed by most. We just tend to discount them as we become more learned. But I can tell you this, we will see 10 Frosts before we see another Dylan.
The happy medium between underwritten and overwritten is almost impossible to hit. The beatles did this better than anyone. Smart but not too smart or hard to get (though Harrison tried for the latter). Drive By Truckers can do this, and do it in a slice of life way that is nothing short of amazing. The Clash were great at this. As are the Strokes. It's one of the reasons I like and adamantly defend them. They may sound a lot like television and be too hipster, but they can write some solid lyrics.
Anyway, Parachutes was a great effort that hit the mark perfectly on the middle ground. They were able to stretch simple lines into choruses and connect them to other lines to make a sum greater than the whole of the parts. That was why I liked Coldplay.
I can’t help the feeling though, that X Y misses the middle, and does so in a terrible fashion. It’s really rotten in parts despite the bands improved sound. Even if it sounds better, it lacks something of a soul. I can only hope it gets better. Emphasis the hope part.
Well, that was supposed to be shorter.
Anyway.
Two other notes:
My PSP. I am a little under whelmed because there aren’t any great games for it. I have not spent more than 2 hours on any game where I am not doing anything else. Which is not as bad as it seems. The games I like are simple and easy to pick up. It’s fantastic to play while watching the news or a baseball game. Talk about ADD.
For society, it’s a bad thing. For me, ehh, I like it but it’s probably not too good.
The Cubbies.
They are starting to get hot. And they are doing it without their three marquee players. But above all, they are playing the Red Sox. Never in your life will you see a series like this where the fans and the teams actually feel like brethren. As much as I would love to see the Cubs win it all, I came upon the realization a bit ago that I just love the cubs, for all of they represent. And quite frankly, I’ll die happy if I can live to 80 and still watch the Cubs play in Wrigley Field, even if they never win. Because it’s not a curse that rules the team, we only think of it now because of the Sox hype and how bad the 03 loss was.
But you don’t watch the Cubs to watch them win. It’s because you love them. I can’t think of any other club in the world like that.
One last thought (which is not a note)
One of the things I miss most about college is waking up to find people in your house. I don’t mind living with only one person, esp. one who is a contributor to this blog and a good friend, but I miss having other people there who force you to do things. Peer pressure is probably as good of a reason not to recover from your hangover than anything else. I think life gets more boring as we get older because we don’t have enough people to come up with enough ideas to act on.
Too often I try to get people to stay at my house, if only for the next morning. I like being shaken from my routine. Twice I have asked someone to stay at my place this week, one male one female. It’s not really that I want their company for the rest of the night, it’s that most of the truly enjoyable meals I have followed a night of drinking or hanging out. It’s a sweet coda I miss too much.
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2:15 AM
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