inner sound network

August favs

2009-08-31T03:46:00.000-07:00

I dunno, this month seems to be brimming over with good tunes. Check these out!

Daniel Merriweather - Impossible

Athlete - Super Human Touch

Paloma Faith - New York, New York

Prefab Sprout

2009-08-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

We are currently going through some cultural evolution where all the bands from the 80's and 90's are reforming. I suspect it is to make a few bucks in concerts and festivals. Who can blame them - Take That have made a success of it and we await Spandau Ballet later on this year. Meanwhile, not sure if this band is reforming or

Really loved this track when it came out and haven't heard it for some 8 years!

This rendition of 'When love breaks down' is bloody good.

Transformed by rock-metal

2009-07-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

Check out the Transformer's Revenge of the Fallen album. A compilation of rock-metal songs for the newly launched Transformer's film. There's some fantastic tracks on this album, my favourites include, for me the recently discovered Linkin Park, New Divide; Theory of a Deadman, Not mean't to be; Hoobastank, I don't think I love you amongst others.

And if that isn't enough and you haven't exposed yourself to the original Transformer's 'music from and inspired by' compilation album do - it's just as good!

Both albums have been carefully stitched together and come ISN-recommended for that music collection of yours.

Band night

2009-07-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

The Tanster's band held a bbq last night and much discussion revolved around music, of course! Quite a few rock bands on the Pod, including: Rush, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple ...you see a trend here ;) Netherless it was a refresh back to my early teens when I was listening to these sorts of bands. If I recall, as schoolboys we used to invent legendry make-up band names (a bit like your invisible friend but sadder!) with additional album cover art for added status . Can't remember now what mine was called...But yes, last night recalled fond memories. Dream Theater, a contemporary band that seems to wrap up all these tunes played last night into one homogenous mix.

Of note:

Hall and Oates

2009-06-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

Excellent website, The Best of Hall and Oates serving up a delicious mix of H&O's best tunes. Fab!

http://bestofhallandoates.com/

Free music

2009-06-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

Check out the online jukebox we7 to listen to Top40 music and more. For example at time of writing Michael Jackson's recent passing and Glastonbury '09.

Some immediate favs, listen to:

The Veronica's - Untouched

New Divide by Linkin Park

we7 is a web-based service viewed through your browser and offers the latest music plus more.

Or, if you like, try out Spotify a downloaded software package which closely resembles iTunes. With Spotify just search what you want to listen to and press play - it's that simple. The service is paid for by discreet advertisement boxes which are not too much of an intrusion. While you can search for artists or bands, it's not so easy to listen to a particular album you can set up play-lists.

I read a comment in MacWorld mag that said iTune's was now dead but thinking about it - you cannot, unless you live in L.A. or San Fransico take Spotify or we7 with you, on the road in your car, on holiday or walking along the street. So, I guess iTune's and CD's will still be with us for a while.

2009-06-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Tanster, my girlfriend is jamming beside me on the sofa. One of her band collegues brought round a newish guitar for her to practice on. Sounds like it might need tuning in a bit but she managed to hang in their when we played Private Universe by Crowded House on YouTube followed by the superior live version.

Certainly a 5-star rated song, and the steel-lap guitar solo is excellent!

Interesting remarks on YouTube:

johnthefarmer:
Feck me, what a setting for such a great song...even a Kiwi would be impressed!

therrydicule:
... Feck???...Are you from Scotland?

mountainrunner808:
That would be Fick!

therrydicule:
... O.K

Foo Fighters: Learn to Fly

2009-05-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

The Foo Fighters belt this one out with great energy and drive. It's one of my all time favourite songs. The organic grunge-power cords are cool and the melody smashes along to some awesome drum-playing. It comes from the 1999 album Nothing left to lose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdX-RX5IHAU

Run and tell all of the angels
This could take all night
Think I need a devil to help me
Get things right

Hook me up a new revolution
Cos this one is a lie
We sat around laughing
And watch the last one die

Chorus
I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something help me burn out bright

I'm looking for complications
Looking cos Im tired of lying (trying in 2nd chorus)
Make my way back home
When I learn to fly (high)

Think I'm done nursing the patience
I can wait one night
I'd give it all away
If you give me one last try

We live happily ever trapped
If you just save my life
Run and tell the angels
That everything is all right

Chorus

Bridge
Fly along with me
I can't quite make it alone
Try to make this life my own (x2)

Some recent favourites

2009-05-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of recent catchy songs I like are:

We are the people by Empire of the Sun.

And Skeleton Boy by Friendly Fires.

EuroVision!

2009-05-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

I still think the 2008 Russian winning entry sung by Dima Bilan was catchy.

But check this out for 2009! Nelly Ciobanu sings "Hora Din Moldova". This year my vote goes to Moldover - they rock!

A cold cold winter

2009-04-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Stay on these roads is probably my favourite track of the band, A-ha. This song was almost certainly written in a bleak, unforgiving part of Norway.

Where joy should reign
these skies restrain

Feel the cold
winter's calling on my home

These lines can only be refer to the Norwegian winter surely. Maybe not though, maybe this is a mid-west North American road in winter.

But hey! This is what I like about this song - A-ha's swooping vocals sound like a blizzard sweeping in. It is so cold, so bleak and it allows you to create this remote desolate image of a road and trying to stay on it.

Ordered list

2009-03-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

New Order is another of my favorite UK bands. I bought a CD in the early 1990s called Substance (a compilation of their works). I remember listening to it on turnaround all the time. Must have driven my parents nuts. These are my best top New Order favorites:

No.1 Bizarre Love Triangle

No. 2 True Faith

No. 3 Shellshock

No. 4 State of the Nation

No. 5 Perfect Kiss (10min version)

Hear the sound of the jungle...

2009-03-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Intro: Thud, thud, thud. Shouldn't have left me by Ananda Project begins with thundering bass sufficient to bring out that jungle-spirit in you. It's one of my dance tracks which oozes plenty of synth. There is NO holding back - understand me!

http://www.discogs.com/Ananda-Project-Shouldnt-Have-Left-Me/release/543040

Richard Morel mixes this, Morels Pink Noise Vocal mix.

YouTube link. Apologies for the Japanese Girls on this one. Someone clearly has too much time on their hands...

The older time gets...

2009-03-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite albums is George Michael's Older. The tracks are subliminal, emerging from a dark, fog-lit urban-under-world. Of note are tracks one, Jesus to a child and Fastlove. The former underlines Michael's ability to ooze soul in the most gentle way possible. The latter a seedy tribute to a night life brimming with excitement.

Spinning the wheel comes over dreamily, like on a drive in the city on a late Friday night. Whilst, You have been loved, is wonderfully Sunday morning or maybe a song written through a mid-life crisis?

A fantastic album and one of my favs.

YouTube music videos

2009-03-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

YouTube has pulled music videos for Brits due to disagreements with the Performing Rights Society over royalties. As a result some changes might occur to Inner Sound Network for some blog viewers. Apologies for this inconvenience.

Inner

Shades of grey

2009-03-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

While I'm on a throw-back to the 80's do you remember this one, Visage, Fade to grey. Such a fantastically cool song, still! Check out the video, you are immediatley thrown back to the early 80's, it's almost like you're really there!

1984

2009-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

We all seem to have our year for remembering certain songs. Mine was 1984. I had just left school and some how my eyes had begun to open to the world and I was seeing and hearing things in a completely different light. So many songs from 1984 I rate as still as my favourites. Of 1984, these are my Top 10 favourites:

No.1 Big in Japan by Alphaville,
No.2 Self Control by Laura Branigan,
No.3 Uptown Girl by Billy Joel,
No.4 Girls just want to have fun by Cyndi Lauper
No.5 Time after Time by Cyndi Lauper
No.6 Against all odds by Phil Collins
No.7 Hold me now by The Thompson Twins
No.8 Borderline by Madonna
No.9 Here comes the rain again by The Eurythmics
No.10 Drive by The Cars

There are other songs which only just missed this list such as Adult Education by Daryl Hall and John Oates; I just called to say I love you, Stevie Wonder; Hello, Lionel Richie; Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Junior; When Doves Cry, Prince; 99 Red Balloons by Nena and more.

A great year. See a more comprehensive list here:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/28/163619.php
http://www.80sxchange.com/80s_charts/1984.htm

Be afraid

2009-03-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

Afraid by Nelly Furtado. This song leaves you cold and unemotional. Nelly, splutters out her lines like a machine gun. A sense of fear runs through the song. The lyrics don't make you think but they do reinforce their message. But this song is from an album that is emotionally darker than Furtado's prior recordings. In God's Hands, shows Furtado at her lowest when all is lost; Say It Right, at her most steeliest.

Matrix: Beauty never fades

2009-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

See a glimpse inside the pool, it's hollow,
Come to know a time when he will haunt you.
Snapping at my heals made me live,
Someone take me back to the angel realm, today.

Each step I take the shadows grow longer,
Padded footfalls in the dark I wander.
Come to steal your lifeblood away,
Looking for a beauty that never fades.

Dark zombie-like lyrics to zombie-like vocals works its mystical, raw magic from the Animatrix. See a glimpse inside the pool, it's hollow. The human soul removed, the logic inserted, the robotic nature divine.

Original version Junkie XL mix with visual stimuli added!

Matrix version with clips from the Animatrix.

Matrix: Hands around my throat

2009-02-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

Your hands around my throat, your hands around my throat, your hands around my throat..

This song by Death in Vegas is absolutely timeless, gothic, dark, raw, unemotional, mechanical, clog by clog, gearing by gearing building up into a cresendo. Classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7oMqpjIYLk

Another girl, another planet

2009-02-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

The Only Ones, 1978. Not much to say, otherthan fantastic guitar work on this song!

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Girl,_Another_Planet

Run

2009-02-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

Leona Lewis' rendition of 'Run' by Snow Patrol came out in December 2008. The two versions are quite different from one another. Leona's style is to woo her audience with silky vocals and the simplicity of a piano (over that of an electric guitar for SP) in the opening bars. It comes over as quite a depressive song, the deep notes on the piano, "I'll sing it one last time for you, then we really have to go". The next line changes that and the listener then understands this as a song on commitment and enduring love, "You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done". Lewis then adds a weight of faith to this song that it requires with, "Light up, Light up".

Snow Patrol's original version:

The video for both versions could have been a lot better. Both seem to a lack a story line. Leona walks around aimlessly on moorland. Snow Patrol play with emergency flares.

African Beat

2009-01-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

African Disco - Deep Disco from the 1970s is such an upbeat, funky album! The good thing I like is the few real stomping tracks coming in over 10mins long (Afro-Disco-Beat by Tony Allen/Afrika '70 and Money is the root of evil by Dan Boadi and The African Internationalists)!! Cool stuff. The mix of tracks have all been crafted into place well and the album rattles along slowly but graciously. Well worth the investment.

A.I.E (A'Mwana) by Black Blood is so playable, a great timeless track. YouTube link (part video):

Cocoon, Eric Kupper presents Xenon feat. Bonny Baily

2008-12-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

Just listening to this track right now while in a late night melancholy mood.

A Hero comes home

2008-12-15T06:06:00.000-08:00

Idina Menzel sung A hero comes home which was from the soundtrack and film of Beowulf. The reason why I like this song is because it is powerfully sung but to simple melody and lyrics, maybe typical of the time. Well, ok, it sort of sounds as if it is from the dark ages!

Boomtang by Habibi

2008-12-10T13:54:00.000-08:00

Boomtang by Habibi does just that, booms out in the first opening bar and carries the song throughout. I love it! It's an unruly behaviour of bass and exotic, mellow vocals. These are over-layed silkily. Later the synth breaks out but in simple not over-powering way. It's provocative timeless world dance mix.

My version was on ArabianNights, Club & Chillout Classics, The Casbah.

First post

2008-12-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

I've set up this blog to discuss what music I like as I have nowhere else to chat about it.

It will be a blog to record what music I like and when I play.

Thanks for now.