So Far So Good - Bryan Adams

So, a few days back I had a status that said I was reading and listening to sappy 90's music. This is the sappy 90's music I was listening to. 

This is another album that has been around for as long as I can remember. One of my older brothers found Bryan Adams and started listening to his CD so much that he drove my other older brother so mad that he grabbed the CD and took off, and they got in to a fight and literally started punching and kicking each other over it. So this cd definitely has some family history. Other than finding that hilarious, I think it's worth noting that you could either fall in love with this guy's music, or hate it so much you want to destroy it all.

Here are some links, because embedding is disabled for these videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7b37l_B4vI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pdQU87dc8&feature=channel

Me. I'm kinda in the middle. I love some of his stuff, and some of it I just have to skip when it comes on. I kinda enjoy sappy love songs though, and he does sappy love songs well.

I really don't have much to say about Bryan Adams, so I'm sorry this is so short, especially since it's been a few weeks since I posted. There really is nothing too interesting, just very straightforward music which is kinda nice to listen to sometimes, since most the time I try find music that has a bit more meaning. 

According to Wikipedia, Bryan Adams is actually really popular and has won a whole bunch of awards, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone bring him up during discussions about music. Maybe more people know about him than I think, but I always thought he was just one of those people that only the Evans' family and a few other people knew about. 

I wish I could make this post a little longer, but I really have to just get this one out of the way, since people are asking me when the next post will be. If you have heard about Bryan Adams before, let me know, and let me know what you think about him. And everyone else, I want to know what you think about the music as well. Do you like it? do you not like it? Are you impartial? I love comments and discussion, so comment away!

The next post is The Sign by Ace of Base, so that should be lots of fun. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and I hope you all have a happy New Years as well!

August and Everything After - Counting Crows

I love this album so much. I have been obsessed with this band for about the past month or longer. One of the things I really love about bands, is when they get really in to their music. I've known about the Counting Crows for a long time, but it was only a few months ago that I looked up anything of theirs live. The first thing I came across was a performance of Round Here, and that was when I really began to get in to their music. This performance almost made me cry, and it still gives me shivers. 

oh man... that part where he sits down at just a little past the 5 minute mark... gets me every time... When I saw that I realized there was probably more to the Counting Crows than I realized at first, and I've been trying to figure out how close these songs are to the actual singer, but I've actually been having trouble finding out much about their personal lives. The band changes the songs in this album a lot in all the live performances I've seen, and they tend to become more talking than singing like you saw in that last one a bit. Now I think of all of these songs as part of some bigger story. The band is constantly mixing lyrics together in their live performances, so it makes sense to me that their entire discography is just a big story

"Beneath the dust and love and sweat that hangs on everybody there's a dead man trying to get out." 

I think this song is about all the temptations that we have. Kindof along the same lines as Creep if you ask me. He knows that he has a ton of problems, and he wishes he could just be someone else and leave his old self behind. That's just the way I view it though, it could be about other things too. This whole albums seems to be about change, and trying to escape old problems just to find that there's problems wherever you go.

Sometime I want to just write out my thoughts on all the songs and see if they all make sense as a whole, because I'm pretty sure they would. I think this song is about falling in love again after a breakup. Maria is the first girl I think, and she was in Round Here. After nothing was turning out right he decided to escape, which is where the rest of the album focuses on. This song really makes you feel like he's completely fallen for this girl, but at the same time he can't bring himself to admit that he's fallen in love again. I love the line, "and every word is nonsense, but I understand and oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing"

This song is getting to the end of the album, and it seems like the problems are being faced head-on now. I think this must be Maria in this song, "If she remembers, she hides it whenever we meet." This is the last song I'm gonna post, but if I'm right and this was meant to be a concept album, than it looks as if Maria is with someone else now and the singer doesn't think he is right for her. It really just kind of ends with that, and it's not a very satisfactory ending.

It's never said anywhere that this is a concept album, but it really would make sense if it was.... so that's the way I like to see it. That performance of Round Here has some other things mixed in to it, and if you listened to the actual song you'd realize it is really different. At the end of that performance he starts screaming "CHAAANGE!" and that's how the album actually ends, and that's why I think the greatest summary of this album is how he is trying to deal with change. I think he was trying to sum up the album in that performance, and it blows me away. 

I would highly recommend listening to this album if you like all that you heard. This album alone made the Counting Crows one of my favorite bands.

I hope I can get some of you to like the Counting Crows, because I don't have know enough people who love the Counting Crows. Most the time when I see the Counting Crows in people's collections they'll only have a few songs, and it's kinda annoying. Most people either have Mr. Jones, Holiday in Spain, or Accidentally In Love. I love those songs, but to only have those is really sad to me... 

If you're a fan of the band already, let me know if you think I did them justice. If any of you are just beginning to like them and want more suggestions go ahead and leave me a comment. Remember that I love comments

Christmas Music!!!!!

Chris wanted to know what I liked to listen to for Christmas. I really should have thought of doing a Christmas post earlier... It really is a great idea, and now I'm excited. 

I don't know entirely what all I should put up. Our family has a huge stack of Christmas cds we get out each year, and I could go and grab them all and list them out for you since I don't have all of them on my computer. 

That sounds like a lot of work though, so I'll just say what I have personally been listening to. And what has to come first is this:



I LOVE the Charlie Brown Christmas album, and I always listen to it a whole bunch each year. The Charlie Brown Christmas movie is one of those movies I think everyone should have seen, 'cause it's that good.

This year I've actually been trying to find some new stuff to listen to as well, cause a lot of the CDs we have are starting to get a little boring to me, because we listen to them every year non-stop, so I really wanted to add something new to the mix of stuff. So I went and got Sufjan Stevens' Christmas collection. Sufjan has released 5 small collections of Christmas music, 42 songs overall, and I have really been liking most of it. I like Sufjans' stuff to begin with though, so being able to listen to him throughout the Christmas season is really awesome.



He does a whole bunch of the normal Christmas songs, and he also has some of his own original songs for the Christmas season, so it's been a lot of fun listening to him. While listening to some of his Christmas stuff on Youtube, I decided to start looking to see if other artists I liked did any Christmas stuff, and like the Radiohead addict that I am, I decided to see if Radiohead had done anything for Christmas. Sure enough, they did do something, but it wasn't really anything official, it was just them having a bit of fun, so I won't post it, but you can look it up if you really want. In the suggestions box for that however, I found that A Fine Frenzy has some Christmas stuff.



Some other songs that I've been listening to for years are Jack Johnson's version of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and David Bowie and Bing Crosby's duet Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth



I really like that version. It's just so happy and chill sounding, like Jack Johnson always makes things sound. The little bit he added to it was really good too, about Rudolph not accepting their praise because they had teased him before.



I couldn't believe that David Bowie and Bing Crosby did a duet when I first heard it. It's been one of my favorite Christmas songs for a while now.

I hope that helped you a little bit Chris. Now I really want to find some more Christmas music.... I would definitely recommend Sufjan Stevens' Christmas stuff, it's really awesome in my opinion.

This is also another good time for me to ask if anyone else has any favorite Christmas songs other than the stuff played on the radio all the time.

Pablo Honey - Radiohead

WOOHOOO!!!! Radiohead enters in to the music biz. Can you tell I'm excited a little bit? I LOVE Radiohead, they are my favorite band. This is not their best cd, but there are definitely some songs on here to be recommended. The first one I want to mention is "You"

I love that performance so much.... It's just so epic compared to most live performances by other people. I really love how Radiohead really can perform their songs live and make them just as powerful, if not more powerful than the album versions. When Radiohead first started out, and started getting some attention for Pablo Honey, they played over 150 concerts in 1993, and then continued touring for part of next year as well. Needless to say, they got really good at performing, and also started to loath some of their songs.... 

This next song is one that most everyone knows, because it was their first "hit." I love the 20 second "run" at about 2:20. I wish I had the same kind of breath control... it always blows my mind when he does what he does.

The band really hated Creep after performing it so many times. Even though everyone loved the song, they stopped playing it in their concerts for several years because they despised it so much. Eventually they wrote "My Iron Lung" which is about "Creep," and how much they hated it, but also loved it for boosting them in to fame. There have been so many covers of Creep it's almost ridiculous, it's almost as bad as how many people have covered Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

This next one is called Lurgee. I couldn't decide which one I liked best off this album after You and Creep, but this one is up there. If I had to recommend a Radiohead cd, I would recommend the later ones, but this cd really isn't that bad. There are some pretty good songs on there. 

Some other songs that are pretty catchy are Stop Whispering, Thinking about You, and I Can't.

It took me a long time to listen to this cd, cause I heard it was Radiohead's worst album, and I was worried about what I would hear. I was actually pretty happy once I finally got the courage to listen to it, because there were some really cool songs on it.

Radiohead is one of those bands that either you really love, or you really don't like all that much, and the only way you can be impartial is if you haven't heard very much I think. I know people on both ends, and I also know a ton of people who have barely heard Radiohead at all. Hopefully I can get some new people into them. I think I know what most people following me think of Radiohead, but I don't know if you've heard the songs on this album other than Creep, or if you ever went back this far in to their career. As always, comment and let me know what you think. Do you like it? If you have heard Radiohead's other music and not this, how do you think it compares?

A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band - Rich Mullins

Rich Mullins has been a favorite of the Evans' family for as long as I can remember. I don't know whether Mom or Dad found his music, or if one of my older siblings did, but I grew up listening to him. I have tried listening to other Christian music, but I haven't liked any of them nearly as much as Rich. I really don't listen to any Christian music at all other than his anymore, because the rest of it is just boring to me. Rich Mullins' music arrangements are really cool, and he really has his own style, instead of sounding like any of the artists that were his contemporaries. His lyrics are generally really thoughtful and aren't as boring as all the popular Christian songs that just repeat "Great is your power" or "great is your mercy" or "how great is your love" over and over and over again.  There probably are other good thoughtful Christian musicians out there, but I haven't found any that I think are as good as Rich Mullins. 

The songs I love most by Rich Mullins are his stories. Most of my favorite songs of his are off of the next album of his that I have, which is Songs , but I still love this album. He saw such beauty in the world, and his music really shows that. "And if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling, I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of North New England."

I love the little talks he gives. From as much as I've heard him say or sing, I don't think I've heard anything that I really disagree with. As far as I can tell, his theology was sound, and he preached it in a way that I think everyone can relate to. I wish Rich Mullins were still around, I would love to have more music by him. 

I wouldn't mind listening to other Christian artists if anyone has some REALLY good suggestions. I find it really hard to like Christian music if it just sounds like any normal pop or rock group, so normally I just stick to Rich Mullins, or old Choral music. Sufjan Stevens is another one I really like.

This is the last song I'll post for Rich Mullins. It's his version of The Apostles Creed. I think the Hammered Dulcimer sounds really awesome. 

Every Sunday Dad used to turn on either Rich Mullins or Michael Card, and it would be playing the entire time we were getting ready. I don't know when he stopped doing that, but I think I'm going to start doing it again, 'cause I really do think it set a good mood for Sunday mornings.

How many of you have heard of Rich Mullins before? do you like his stuff? and are there any other Christian artists that you really like? 

Also, some people said they didn't like the design very much, so I made some minor changes. Does that help? or should I keep changing it?