1994 and Jeff Buckley

Took a long break, but here I am, attempting to get back into the routine of blogging about stuff. The last post I did was on the 30 day challenge, but that is what got me stuck, so instead of going back to that, I'm gonna go back to just doing album reviews of all the albums I have on my computer. That was the main purpose of the blog in the first place, right? So going back and looking at where I was, it looks like I'm going into 1994, and Jeff Buckley is the first on my list with his album Grace.

Grace is one of those albums that I don't think everyone will love, but it has grown on me, and it is now one of my favorites of all time, so if you don't at least give it a good try, I will have to kick you from my blog or something along those lines. I hope to be seeing plenty of comments that are along the lines of, AHHHHH I LOVE THIS!!!!

So anyways, here are a few of my favorites from the album, and I hope you enjoy them too.
This is Last Goodbye


I wish everyone I knew loved this guy, 'cause I personally think he made some truly fantastic music.And if I have any other Radiohead Fans out there, here's a fun fact for you: Thom Yorke was inspired to write Fake Plastic Trees right after he came back from a Jeff Buckley concert.

Here's Hallelujah, which I think everyone will recognize, because the song is on the Shrek soundtrack.


Hallelujah was originally done by Leonard Cohen, so this isn't an original of Jeff's, but Jeff did cover it before pretty much anyone else, and if I'm not mistaken it was his cover that really popularized the song.

And the last song for the post, Lover, You Should've Come Over


Jeff Buckley is one of those musicians that I really wish could have lived longer. He had only released one album, and was getting ready to record new material when he disappeared in a river and drowned.

Hope you all love it. Next up I have The Very Best of The Eagles, unless people want me skipping Best of CDs, then I have Four by Blues Traveler, so let me know in the comments, and I will try to finish the next post as soon as possible. I *should* be able to keep up on blogging now, since I'm out of school and and have free time in the evenings, so expect these posts to be more regular than they ever were before.

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

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?