Category: music [rss feed]

I’ve always liked the song The Devil Went Down To Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band.

[iframe align=”center” width=”320″ height=”240″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/FgvfRSzmMoU?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen artist=”The Charlie Daniels Band” piece=”The Devil Went Down To Georgia”]

What I didn’t know was Primus made a version with a great claymation video.  I still like the original better, but it was interesting to hear it done in the Primus style and I really like the video.

[iframe align=”center” width=”320″ height=”240″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/X9uk9IcoQ0w?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen artist=”Primus” piece=”The Devil Went Down To Georgia”]

It turns out the Muppets also told this story.  I’ve always liked the Muppets, especially the two guys in the balcony.

[iframe align=”center” width=”320″ height=”240″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/Hq4KcI9AGl0?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen artist=”The Muppets” piece=”The Devil Went Down To Georgia”]

Did you know the devil went back to Georgia?

[iframe align=”center” width=”320″ height=”240″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/L0XUTD7QYcs?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen artist=”Mark O’Conner, Charlie Daniels, Johnny Cash” piece=”The Devil Came Back To Georgia”]

I was listening to my I Love Rock and Roll station on Pandora as I drove to work this morning and I heard Good Enough by Evanescence for the first time in a long time.  It reminded me how much I enjoy Amy Lee’s voice and how she throws herself into their performances.  While I like the operatic singers in Nightwish and Within Temptation and the pure voices in Delain and Sleepthief, Amy Lee’s voice has much more character and sounds better to me.

And then every once in a while she lets you know she can have one of those pure voices as well…

I enjoy the music of Krypteria, especially their Bloodangel’s Cry album.  The music is excellent and Ji-In Cho’s powerful voice fills it out nicely.  In addition, on this album they’ve added a choir which really adds to the drama.

Bloodangel’s Cry tells the story of a woman tempted by the devil.  I read somewhere it is loosely based on a personal experience. (Was it on the CD insert? I don’t remember.)  I don’t know how true this is, but the story is a nasty agent, known for exploiting artists, tried to lure Ji-In away from the band for a solo career.  His offer was viewed as a deal with the devil and the idea for this album was born.  Ok, maybe that’s not what happened, but it’s a good story.

The images in the second
video are not from Krypteria.
It was the only video I could
find with this song.

I have to believe these guys had a lot of fun with this.

This is Earl Scruggs playing his banjo with his sons Randy on acoustic guitar and Gary on harmonica, Steve Martin on banjo, Vince Gill and Albert Lee on electric guitar, Marty Stewart on mandolin, Glen Duncan on fiddle, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Glenn Wolf on bass, Harry Stinson on drums, Leon Russell on organ and Paul Shaffer on piano in a November 15, 2001 appearance on the David Letterman show.

Once in a while I go music surfing.  This is when I listen to a Pandora station until I hear a song I like.  Then I create a station based on that song and listen to it until I hear a song I like.  Rinse.  Repeat.  This is a great way to be introduced to new music I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Normally though I just pick one of my permanent stations that fits my mood and let it play. Therefore, I like to have a set of stations that I know will play music I enjoy.  I put some care into keeping them full of good music while mostly excluding the bad.  Sometimes I’ll find a song or artist that makes a station good enough that it doesn’t need any modification. For example, I like the station I created based on the band Delain as is.  I haven’t modified it in any way.

Most of the stations I create need some expansion.  You can get this a little bit if you give songs you like a thumbs up, but that is rarely enough.  You can greatly expand a station by using the Add Variety feature to add more songs or artists as station seeds.  However, this often makes the station much too broad.

I’ve found a little trick that works for me.  Once in a while if I’m going to be at my computer for a while I’ll take one of my existing stations and use the Add Variety feature to add more songs or artists as station seeds.  As the station plays I’ll give new songs I like a thumbs up. Then before I leave the computer for the day I’ll edit the station and remove the extra seeds I added at the start of the day.  That will remove the influence of those seeds, but the songs I gave thumbs up will still play and once in a while a similar song will play.  This allows me to slowly expand a station without the dramatic effects of adding new seeds.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fan of Pandora and use it all the time.  Lately, one of the stations I’ve been listening to is a new one I recently created based on the band Delain.  It ranges all the way from soft Celtic ballads with gentle vocals from bands like Blackmore’s Night and Celtic Woman all the way to symphonic metal (orchestral gothic metal?) with dramatic choruses and death growls from bands like Leaves’ Eyes and Epica.  The surprising thing is Pandora has managed to choose songs with enough similar characteristics they actually sound good together despite being from such a wide range of styles.  I’ve found if I’m paying attention to something else I don’t even notice the song changes much of the time.

While that station does play some slow, soft music it tends much more to the harder end of the spectrum. You can get a similar station on the other end with much more soft music by basing it on the band Sleepthief.

I’ve been posting some pretty heavy stuff in the music category here, so maybe I should play some softer music as well. Hayley Westenra’s redition of Enya’s May It Be is one of my favorite slow, soft songs.

I actually prefer Enya’s voice a lot more, but I find in Enya’s version the music covers her voice too much. At times it sounds muddled. Try listening to both and decide for yourself.

The Lord of the Rings soundtrack is full of interesting music. It’s not something I listen to every day, but once in a while when I’m in the mood I can enjoy it.

Do you listen to Pandora?  If not, you should.  It’s an awesome service, especially if you are willing to pay for the commercial free service at $36 per year.  I use Pandora on my commute via my iPhone and at home on my PC.  You can also get it through various set-top devices, tablets, etc.

I got so sick of listening to commercials and talk on the radio during my commute.  I am so glad I now have a way to listen to music and just music as I drive.

The idea is you provide a song, album, or artist you like and Pandora plays a bunch of similar music.  You can create as many of these “stations” as you like.  To expand a station’s selection of music you can add more songs, albums, or artists and Pandora will add a bunch of similar music to your station.

I create new stations all the time, whenever the whim strikes me.  Many of them I listen to for a short while then discard when I find something more interesting.  Some of them I keep coming back too from time to time. For example, I have one named “Hard (Leaves’ Eyes)” based on the band Leaves’ Eyes that I enjoy visiting now and again.

I also visit “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” whenever I’m feeling nostalgic since it covers songs from many different times in my life. It has music I’ve heard on the radio, Solid Gold, Friday Night Videos, MTV, VH1, or I’ve heard on friend’s 8-track, tape, record, CD, or mp3 players. If you don’t know what an 8-track is or you think of vinyl as a soft, rubbery material instead of a hard, black disk, you may not recognize many of the songs on this station. This station covers so many decades and is so wide it does have some crap in it, but hitting fast forward a time or two usually gets it back on track.

In addition to getting to listen to all sorts of commercial free, talk free music, Pandora introduces me to lots of new music I never would have heard otherwise.  Most of the music I listen to now I discovered on Pandora.  I periodically just pick another song or band I like and create a new station.  Every time I do I get introduced to music I never heard.

I love the way Amy Lee, lead singer of Evanescence, throws herself into her singing. The combination of her voice and emotions with the male voices and hard instruments in songs like Bring Me To Life on the albums Fallen and Anywhere But Home makes for an awesome sound.

The lyrics of Carolina Drama by The Raconteurs on Consolers Of The Lonely are seriously dark, but I enjoy the sound of the song.  If you can ignore the meaning of the words or if you enjoy dark stories, maybe you’ll enjoy it as well.