I was listening to different radios online and I found this artist.
Her name is Rachael Yamagata. She has a beautiful soulful, alto voice.
Her style of music is blues, indie and alternative.
At
first I though that I have never heard of her before but then I listened
to her song called "Worn me down" and I knew exactly who she was.
Anyways many of guys probably know that song. I also added a second
video that has different song called Saturday morning. It's really such a
pretty song. Enjoy.
-Rosalie
When the golden age of hip hop ended in the early 90s and became over run with gangsters, guns, and sex, the earlier styles of rap continued over seas. There are artists around the world creating amazing hip-hop music, keeping the earlier traditions of creativity, lyrical agility, and good backing music.
One of these artists is Keny Arkana, a rap artist of Argentinian heritage. born in Marseilles, France, she is one of the most popular rappers in France at this time. The focus of her songs are poverty, corrupt government, and protests.
In the middle of a popular Pakour video I found, my ears were assaulted by a high pitched, almost prepubescent voice, rapping with violent, acidic delivery. It sounded like each word in the song was threatening to punch me in the face if I didn't listen to it.
Back then I couldn't tell if the artist was a girl or a guy (lol), but the song was impressive, and even though I couldn't understand what she was saying, I was floored. After much searching and translating, I found the song featured in the video, and I was so impressed with her other songs that I bought one of her albums on Amazon.
Steve Roach has made a masterpiece in Dynamic Stillness. This album is inspired by nature, especially the ocean at night. Roach essentially created a minimalist musical accompaniment to the on goings of the night-time beach; the waves, the intermittent stillness, and the unending darkness all figure into his composition.
If you have never sat and watched the waves while contemplating our human existence, this album will make you open to it. Listen to his montage of the first song on the ablum, "Birth of still places", here on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naf_GCi5B0M&feature=fvst
Sara Bareilles is a really great artist some people consider her music to be popular. Others say it's alternative or even adult alternative music. Many of you might know her most popular music such as, "Love Song" and "King of Anything" which are really great songs. However, she does so much more than that. She also well known for her soulful voice and jazzy sound.
Here's are two videos that show some of her not as well known music but sometimes it's the undiscovered music that's really the best. The first video is a song, "How I am I gonna get over you". It's such a fun catchy song that I can't get it out of my head. I think that it's a song that we can all relate to. The second video is where this artist does Beyonce cover song called, "Single Ladies". I think it a really interesting video because she turns a very popular well known song into really cool jazzy song with the use of the piano.
Hope you like it.
-Rosalie
There was a time when I was totally obsessed with Takuro Yoshida. "Who the f--- is that?" you may ask. Well I'm happy to tell you. Takuro Yoshida is one of Japan's most famous folk-guitar musicians. He has an illustrious career spanning at least 40 years. I discovered his music while I was watching an anime and the opening song was so catchy and smooth and creative. He has a gentle voice and thoughtful, inspiring lyrics. The opening song "Jun" is about overcoming adversity and moving on in life.
After I heard this song, I enjoyed it. It gave me the feeling of "wow, I finally found something new and awesome to listen to". I checked out another song that was featured in the show that was also created by Takuro Yoshida. This song was the song that immediately cemented my obsession with Takuro Yoshida and all forms of 70s to 80s japanese folk music. I had to have more. I was plunged into a genre of music that I never knew existed, and I was happy to explore it.
For over a month, I inundated myself into the world of this awesome music. I couldn't read many of the characters on the videos, and I had almost no clue who the artists were, so when the videos were removed I would never be able to find them again. I made sure to save every link I could, and even went as far as translating the names of the artists in Google so I could find more videos of them.
I currently have a Youtube playlist of this amazing music. To this day I still add songs to it.
Sigur Ros is a rock/pop/ambient band from Iceland that has a very surreal feel to their music. They combine haunting vocals, bowed guitar, and classical as well as minimalist elements to their composition.
You get a very other world feeling from their songs. They have this strange power to transport you somewhere far away; be it outer space or the deep depths of the ocean using samples that sound like star bursts, submarine echolocation, and whale calls.
With the weather warming and the nights soft and beautiful, Sigur Ros is a great accompaniment to dinner, background music for lounging around, or a long walk to clear your head. Check them out at Youtube.com.
This song hit the bill boards in 1959 and was originally preformed by The Searchers. Love Potion No. 9 has been covered by many bands and be heard in the movie American Graffiti.
The covered version of this song was not played by all radio stations because of the lyric about a man who falls in love with everything he sees eventually causing him to kiss a cop.
Songs and videos have evolved since the 1950's. Music helps shape our culture and set the trend for people all over. People everywhere relate to music.
Looking at this song and listening to this song who today would even give this catchy tune a second chance?
When you watch the video you can see the difference in artists. Artists today are not just singers but entertainers and dancers. In the 1950's the artist were singing and playing the guitar because any extra movements wouldn't have been appropriate.
This is the original Love Potion No. 9 being preformed.
This a video of the original preforms preforming in more present time
Lady Gaga is very well known artist. Her music is always on the radio. We all know her style of music to be techno music. This is the most popular music that is really good to dance to. The music sometimes is voice generated it so you can't always hear what her voice really sounds like.
Well, here you can listen to Lady Gaga in whole different way. I have two videos. Lady Gaga sings Poker Face. There's no techno and it's just her playing on the piano singing this song in a completely different way. Also many of you may not know that this singer actually started as a Jazz singer. So the second video shows Lady Gaga jazzy side.
-Rosalie
I have to say, this unlikely mix of musicians made beautiful music together. Serart is made of "System of a Down" lead singer Serj Tankian and folk musician Arto Truncboyaciyan. These two Armenian men blended traditional folk music, added a little more of a tribal element, and infused some metal and "avant-garde" elements as well.
You can check out this track from their album. It starts a bit slow but gets interesting. Enjoy!
This post is inspired
by my mishap at Webster Hall last weekend. I went to see RJD2 live, but on the wrong day. The concert was Friday, but in my planner I wrote Saturday. That's twenty-five dollars I'll never
get back.
Oh well. at least I'll still be able to enjoy his interesting music.
RJD2's music
falls in between the category of old school hip-hop, jazz, and vinyl record crate-diggers. His most
recognized work is the instrumental song "Ghostwriter".
Since his early
sampling roots, he has moved to creating a more original sound, incorporating instruments and even singing. His live concerts include guitarists, a pianist, and a drummer, while RJD2 stands atop his
DJ throne orchestrating the event.
I'm still annoyed I missed the concert. I'll try again next year.
If you liked the previous songs then you may also like:
Florance and the Machine is great music band that does very unique music. It's very difficult to describe the music style. I guess you could say that the music genre is alternative-alternative. The lead singer Florence Welch, has very beautiful unique voice very folk yet soulful at the same time. The band uses very different musical instruments, such as harps and violins.
Here are two videos that you can listen to. The first one is called, "The dog days are over". I wanted to post this video because it's one of her most popular songs. It might even help you recognize who she is. The other video called, "Cosmic love". I hope you enjoy the music as much as I do. -Rosalie
This is Himmler, and for my first blog post I felt it would be important to explain what I mean when say I'm listening to "70s Turkish Funk".
Selda Bagcan is one of the most famous singers from Turkey. She was a noted political activist, with many of her songs reflecting times of strife, famine, and political corruption in Turkey. She also was inspired by American rock music that was popular at the time, and interpolated musical motifs of that time period into many of her songs.
The best example of her American inspirations being translated into Turkish-themed songs is this song: Ince Ince Bir Kar Yagar, which in English means, "A Wispy Wispy Snow Falls".
In this song she references the intense economic disparity between the rich capital of
Istanbul and the impoverished villages neighboring the capital, mentioning dilapidated roads, lack of schools, and droughts all attributed to these villages.
I'm sure it's startling to discover that such a kick-ass song has such a sad connotation to it. I was surprised when I learned the real meaning of the song after enjoying it for many months without even thinking of the lyrics.
Not all of Selda's songs are as intense as the one above. Her debut CD has a near 50-50 split of exuberant, twisty funk compositions and softer, sadder ballads. The softer songs sound more traditionally Turkish than the stronger ones. This next song is a cover by Selda of an old Turkish Folk song: 'Katip Arzuhalım Yaz Yare Böyle', or in English: "My Saz Is Being Played in Sivas"*.
In recent years, Selda's music has entered the mainstream, being sampled by rappers and DJs, bringing her keen hard rock asthetics and Turkish flair from the 1970s to the modern day.
This instrumental remix of Ince Ince, renamed "Heavy", was created by DJ OH NO. It was then used by Mos Def in the song above.
This same remix was also used in the official commercial for the video game Skate 2. It is also featured in the game as a playable track.
I have noticed more modern day artists mentioning Selda Bagcan and the influence of her music. In Rosalie's post, she discusses the band Florence + The Machine. The lead singer of the band, Florence, spoke about Selda Bagcan's music as well. I'm interested in the other ways Selda's music will surface in the near future.
If you liked the previous songs then you may also like:
*A Saz is a Turkish string instrument similar to a guitar. *Sivas is a city in East-Central Turkey
Robert Rich makes some amazing ambient music and he is takes it to a whole new level in Somnium. This album is intended to enhance the sleep experience and is suitably seven hours long to accommodate a good night's sleep. This is a blend of soft flutes and lap steel guitar that sounds natural as a moss covered forest. It is reminiscent of softly falling rain and hidden elements behind bark and rocks.
Robert Rich is famous for his sleep concerts, where people gather with sleeping bags to spent the night in a sate of light sleep punctuated by intense dreams. I strongly recommend giving this a listen on a night when sleep won't come easily. Waking up in the middle of the night to these gentle sounds invokes something very peaceful and rarely explored. If you're looking to venture into your own mind, Somnium will take you there.
The number one POP song of 1961 was Run Around Sue. This song is part of a lost genre known as "Do Wop". Do Wop began in African American communities, its composed of rhythm, nice beats, and blues. Run around Sue is a song enjoyed by many. The following link is a video of Dion and The Belmonts preforming Run Around Sue I enjoy listening to the beat in this song! This song is something different then what is repetitively playing on the radio.
How many people out there have heard this song before?
