Time by Pink Floyd This is about how time can slip by, but many people do not realize it until it is too late. Roger Waters got the idea when he realized he was no longer preparing for anything in life, but was right in the middle of it. He had just turned 28. The song starts with layers of clock noises that were put together by their engineer, Alan Parsons. Each clock was recorded separately at an antiques store, and the band blended them together. Parsons wanted to use the clocks to demonstrate a new quadraphonic sound system, but they ended up using it to open the song instead. This was the only song on Dark Side Of The Moon that all 4 members received a writing credit for. The album has sold over 34 million copies and was on the US charts for 762 consecutive weeks (14 years). It still sells around 8,000 copies a week in the US. On their 1973 tour, they played this just after a 4-foot model plane was released from the back of the venue, crashing into the stage and exploding. Floyd always used lots of visual effects at their shows, and had the money to make them very elaborate on this tour. The band played this live long before it was released. They played the whole album in February, 1972 at the Rainbow Theater in London, over a year before it came out. This contains a reprise back to the rhythm of "Breathe," which appears two songs earlier on Dark Side of the Moon. "On The Run", an instrumental, is in between. At the time of recording only a few tom-tom drums were available for the intro. To get the right mix and sound, the band had to tune each drum after hitting it, record it, and then blend and mix into a finalized percussion track. This was a time intensive process. The sound at the begining of the song is made by Waters' bass.
Lyrics for: Time
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking.
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.
Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
And when I come home cold and tired,
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire.
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells.
1.1.08
30.12.07
Sobre o Tempo (About the Time) by Pato Fu
Pato Fu is a Brazilian musical band from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The band was formed by lead singer Fernanda Takai, guitarist John Ulhôa and bassist Ricardo Koctus, in 1992. Their drummer, Xande Tamietti, joined the band in 1996, as did keyboardist Lulu Camargo in 2005. Their first album, Rotomusic de Liquidificapum, was released in 1993, followed, since then, by other eight releases: Gol de Quem? (1995), Tem Mas Acabou (1996), Televisão de Cachorro(1998), Isopor (1999), Ruído Rosa (2000), MTV ao Vivo: No Museu de Arte da Pampulha (2002), Toda Cura para Todo Mal (2005), and Daqui Pro Futuro (2007).. The band's popularity began to increase simultaneously with two other groups from Belo Horizonte, Jota Quest and Skank. The band plays in pop-rock style, but resorting frequently to electronic music elements. Pato Fu is frequently said as being influenced by Os Mutantes, a famous Brazilian tropicalist group from the 1960s, probably because of the experimentalism found in both bands' songs. Their music is influenced by Devo, The Cure, Radiohead, Pizzicato Five, Super Furry Animals and also Brazilian Popular Music, among various others. Takai and Ulhôa are married and had a daughter, Nina, in 2003. The band name is from a Garfield comic strip. Garfield attacked the mailman with his "Cat Fu" techniques. The band liked the wordplay, but decided to change Gato (cat) to Pato (duck). Coincidentally or not, the expression had also previously appeared in the Brazilian translation of the Howard the Duck movie; in it, Howard says he knows "Pato Fu" (Quak Fu in the original). With the release of Ruído Rosa, Pato Fu was elected in 2000 one of the best bands of the world by Time Magazine. The band made its 10th birthday in 2003 with the release of MTV ao Vivo: No Museu de Arte da Pampulha, a live performance with some of their most famous songs.
Link, here
Lyrics: Sobre o Tempo
Tempo, tempo mano velho
Falta um tanto ainda eu sei
Pra você correr macio
Como zune um novo sedã
Tempo, tempo, tempo mano velho
Tempo, tempo, tempo mano velho
Vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai
Tempo amigo
Seja legal
Conto contigo
Pela madrugada
Só me interrompe no final
ah ah ah ah ah ahh..
Lyrics: About the Time
Time, time, old brother
Is lacking a little, I know
To you run so softly
As sounds a new sedan
Time, time, time old brother
Time, time, time old brother
Go, go, go, go, go, go
Time friend
Be cool
I count you in
through the early morning
Just stop me at the end
ah, ah, ah ...
Pato Fu is a Brazilian musical band from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The band was formed by lead singer Fernanda Takai, guitarist John Ulhôa and bassist Ricardo Koctus, in 1992. Their drummer, Xande Tamietti, joined the band in 1996, as did keyboardist Lulu Camargo in 2005. Their first album, Rotomusic de Liquidificapum, was released in 1993, followed, since then, by other eight releases: Gol de Quem? (1995), Tem Mas Acabou (1996), Televisão de Cachorro(1998), Isopor (1999), Ruído Rosa (2000), MTV ao Vivo: No Museu de Arte da Pampulha (2002), Toda Cura para Todo Mal (2005), and Daqui Pro Futuro (2007).. The band's popularity began to increase simultaneously with two other groups from Belo Horizonte, Jota Quest and Skank. The band plays in pop-rock style, but resorting frequently to electronic music elements. Pato Fu is frequently said as being influenced by Os Mutantes, a famous Brazilian tropicalist group from the 1960s, probably because of the experimentalism found in both bands' songs. Their music is influenced by Devo, The Cure, Radiohead, Pizzicato Five, Super Furry Animals and also Brazilian Popular Music, among various others. Takai and Ulhôa are married and had a daughter, Nina, in 2003. The band name is from a Garfield comic strip. Garfield attacked the mailman with his "Cat Fu" techniques. The band liked the wordplay, but decided to change Gato (cat) to Pato (duck). Coincidentally or not, the expression had also previously appeared in the Brazilian translation of the Howard the Duck movie; in it, Howard says he knows "Pato Fu" (Quak Fu in the original). With the release of Ruído Rosa, Pato Fu was elected in 2000 one of the best bands of the world by Time Magazine. The band made its 10th birthday in 2003 with the release of MTV ao Vivo: No Museu de Arte da Pampulha, a live performance with some of their most famous songs.
Link, here
Lyrics: Sobre o Tempo
Tempo, tempo mano velho
Falta um tanto ainda eu sei
Pra você correr macio
Como zune um novo sedã
Tempo, tempo, tempo mano velho
Tempo, tempo, tempo mano velho
Vai, vai, vai, vai, vai, vai
Tempo amigo
Seja legal
Conto contigo
Pela madrugada
Só me interrompe no final
ah ah ah ah ah ahh..
Lyrics: About the Time
Time, time, old brother
Is lacking a little, I know
To you run so softly
As sounds a new sedan
Time, time, time old brother
Time, time, time old brother
Go, go, go, go, go, go
Time friend
Be cool
I count you in
through the early morning
Just stop me at the end
ah, ah, ah ...
8.12.07
Black Orpheus - making the sun rise
A Testament to Black Orpheus, Bossa Nova and the Partnership That Started It All:
By now it should be apparent the lone, dissenting voice crying out in the Tijuca-forest wilderness belonged to that of Vinicius de Moraes, the country's best-known, modern-day bard; and the work that had wreaked such havoc with his fiery temper, if not his high blood pressure, was that of French director Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro, or Black Orpheus, his 1959 screen adaptation of Vinicius' musical play in verse, Orfeu da Conceição ("Orpheus of the Conception"), from 1956.
Filmed on location in Rio between the years 1957 and 1958, and based on a modern reworking - set during the city's renowned Carnival celebration - of the ancient Greek tale of poet-musician Orpheus, now transformed into a happy-go-lucky streetcar conductor, and his beloved Eurydice, the joint French-Italian and Brazilian co-production soon took on mythic proportions of its own.
As a cross-cultural phenomenon, for example, it proved an international hit with delighted movie audiences, not only grabbing the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes
Film Festival but sweeping all others before it, including major entries by the likes of Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard, in the Best Foreign Picture category at the following year's Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
Though not a homegrown product of Brazil by any means, Black Orpheus nonetheless opened the world's eyes to the newly emerging Cinema Novo ("New Wave") movement concurrently taking place there, which was a homegrown product, and about as "close" to the French New Wave as the talkies were to silent films, Vinicius' other pet passion. (In reality, it had a lot more in common with Italian neo-realism, the European avant-garde and Russia's pioneering moviemaker, the great Sergei Eisenstein.)
At any rate, it did help draw needed attention to such previously unknown figures as Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra and Carlos Diegues (more about his individual contributions later on), thus making straight the path to serious cinematic recognition via a cadre of influential reviews and opinions.
The film also caused real-life poet and musician Vinicius de Moraes no end of controversy, as evidenced by his bringing down the wrath of Zeus onto the hapless Camus and his producer, Sacha Gordine (who had befriended Vinicius during the poet's stay in Paris), for perpetrating such a travesty of his stage conception, with the deadliest of verbal thunderbolts hurled at screenwriter Jacques Viot - so much so that the Carioca native insisted his name be taken off the credits.
In view of the topnotch qualities of the work itself, why would de Moraes raise such a splendid ruckus over it, especially after previewing the end result in all its prize-winning glory? What did the film world's most respected award committees see in Camus' magnum opus that its originator found so offensive and untrue?
To better comprehend the rage behind the poet's unforeseen departure in Rio we must look to how the idea for his play first came about - and who better to communicate the history behind it than the Brazilian Renaissance man himself:
"It was around 1942, that I began, one night, after rereading the [Orpheus] myth in an old anthology of Greek myths, to sense the structure of an all-black Carioca tragedy subtly taking shape [before me]. The legend of the artist whose power over music was such that he was able to descend into the Netherworld and bring back his lost love Eurydice.could most definitely be transported to a Rio de Janeiro shanty town.
"I started to jot my vision down into a few verses, which then became a full act, finalizing it just as the sun rose over Guanabara, now visible through the window. It was another six years after that, while living in Los Angeles, that I was able to add the last two acts, and even later [1953], after misplacing the third and having to rewrite it, in Paris, before it was completed."
-Vinicius de Moraes, in the preface to the book Orfeu da Conceição: A Carioca Tragedy, Rio de Janeiro, 1960.
In 1954, at the urging and insistence of his good friend, the poet João Cabral de Mello Neto, Vinicius entered the finished draft of his play in a contest commemorating the Fourth Centennial Celebration of the founding of the city of São Paulo. It won the top prize. Notwithstanding that fact, Vinicius' representation of the Thracian minstrel Orpheus as an Afro-Brazilian of suitably "humble" origins (the direct result of his friendship with American writer and social critic, Waldo Frank), and Jobim's depiction of favela ("slum") life through the pulsating sounds of 1950s street samba, were not as novel a choice of material as might initially have been suggested by the above writings.
According to musicologist Richard Taruskin, in The Oxford History of Western Music, Volume Three: The Nineteenth Century, it was clear the allegorical Greek figure was the subject of numerous elaborate stage treatments long before de Moraes got a hold of his mythical lyre: "Orpheus was present.at the creation of opera. Several of the earliest 'musical tales' that adorned Northern Italian court festivities in the early seventeenth century were based on his myth."
Taruskin then took this notion a step further, emphasizing his strongly-held belief that
"The Orpheus myth was a myth of music's ethical power, the supreme article of faith for all serious musicians.whenever the need was seen to reassert high musical ideals against frivolous entertainment values."
That might have worked for opera's founding fathers, but how would it play with Rio's common folk? Indeed, whatever "high musical ideals" our serious-minded Brazilian poet intended for his poor-bound black Orpheus would have to wait, due to his participation in some of those very same "frivolous entertainment values" Taruskin had just railed against.
In essence, what Vinicius had failed to recount for readers were the subliminal influences the work of another close companion would have on the final scope and scenario of his play.
A Testament to Black Orpheus, Bossa Nova and the Partnership That Started It All:
By now it should be apparent the lone, dissenting voice crying out in the Tijuca-forest wilderness belonged to that of Vinicius de Moraes, the country's best-known, modern-day bard; and the work that had wreaked such havoc with his fiery temper, if not his high blood pressure, was that of French director Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro, or Black Orpheus, his 1959 screen adaptation of Vinicius' musical play in verse, Orfeu da Conceição ("Orpheus of the Conception"), from 1956.
Filmed on location in Rio between the years 1957 and 1958, and based on a modern reworking - set during the city's renowned Carnival celebration - of the ancient Greek tale of poet-musician Orpheus, now transformed into a happy-go-lucky streetcar conductor, and his beloved Eurydice, the joint French-Italian and Brazilian co-production soon took on mythic proportions of its own.
As a cross-cultural phenomenon, for example, it proved an international hit with delighted movie audiences, not only grabbing the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes
Film Festival but sweeping all others before it, including major entries by the likes of Luis Buñuel and Jean-Luc Godard, in the Best Foreign Picture category at the following year's Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
Though not a homegrown product of Brazil by any means, Black Orpheus nonetheless opened the world's eyes to the newly emerging Cinema Novo ("New Wave") movement concurrently taking place there, which was a homegrown product, and about as "close" to the French New Wave as the talkies were to silent films, Vinicius' other pet passion. (In reality, it had a lot more in common with Italian neo-realism, the European avant-garde and Russia's pioneering moviemaker, the great Sergei Eisenstein.)
At any rate, it did help draw needed attention to such previously unknown figures as Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha, Ruy Guerra and Carlos Diegues (more about his individual contributions later on), thus making straight the path to serious cinematic recognition via a cadre of influential reviews and opinions.
The film also caused real-life poet and musician Vinicius de Moraes no end of controversy, as evidenced by his bringing down the wrath of Zeus onto the hapless Camus and his producer, Sacha Gordine (who had befriended Vinicius during the poet's stay in Paris), for perpetrating such a travesty of his stage conception, with the deadliest of verbal thunderbolts hurled at screenwriter Jacques Viot - so much so that the Carioca native insisted his name be taken off the credits.
In view of the topnotch qualities of the work itself, why would de Moraes raise such a splendid ruckus over it, especially after previewing the end result in all its prize-winning glory? What did the film world's most respected award committees see in Camus' magnum opus that its originator found so offensive and untrue?
To better comprehend the rage behind the poet's unforeseen departure in Rio we must look to how the idea for his play first came about - and who better to communicate the history behind it than the Brazilian Renaissance man himself:
"It was around 1942, that I began, one night, after rereading the [Orpheus] myth in an old anthology of Greek myths, to sense the structure of an all-black Carioca tragedy subtly taking shape [before me]. The legend of the artist whose power over music was such that he was able to descend into the Netherworld and bring back his lost love Eurydice.could most definitely be transported to a Rio de Janeiro shanty town.
"I started to jot my vision down into a few verses, which then became a full act, finalizing it just as the sun rose over Guanabara, now visible through the window. It was another six years after that, while living in Los Angeles, that I was able to add the last two acts, and even later [1953], after misplacing the third and having to rewrite it, in Paris, before it was completed."
-Vinicius de Moraes, in the preface to the book Orfeu da Conceição: A Carioca Tragedy, Rio de Janeiro, 1960.
In 1954, at the urging and insistence of his good friend, the poet João Cabral de Mello Neto, Vinicius entered the finished draft of his play in a contest commemorating the Fourth Centennial Celebration of the founding of the city of São Paulo. It won the top prize. Notwithstanding that fact, Vinicius' representation of the Thracian minstrel Orpheus as an Afro-Brazilian of suitably "humble" origins (the direct result of his friendship with American writer and social critic, Waldo Frank), and Jobim's depiction of favela ("slum") life through the pulsating sounds of 1950s street samba, were not as novel a choice of material as might initially have been suggested by the above writings.
According to musicologist Richard Taruskin, in The Oxford History of Western Music, Volume Three: The Nineteenth Century, it was clear the allegorical Greek figure was the subject of numerous elaborate stage treatments long before de Moraes got a hold of his mythical lyre: "Orpheus was present.at the creation of opera. Several of the earliest 'musical tales' that adorned Northern Italian court festivities in the early seventeenth century were based on his myth."
Taruskin then took this notion a step further, emphasizing his strongly-held belief that
"The Orpheus myth was a myth of music's ethical power, the supreme article of faith for all serious musicians.whenever the need was seen to reassert high musical ideals against frivolous entertainment values."
That might have worked for opera's founding fathers, but how would it play with Rio's common folk? Indeed, whatever "high musical ideals" our serious-minded Brazilian poet intended for his poor-bound black Orpheus would have to wait, due to his participation in some of those very same "frivolous entertainment values" Taruskin had just railed against.
In essence, what Vinicius had failed to recount for readers were the subliminal influences the work of another close companion would have on the final scope and scenario of his play.
22.11.07
The Joshua Tree remastered
U2 - The Joshua Tree 20th Anniversary Edition
Still fresh and clean after all these years.
November 21, 2007 - Hard to believe that it's been 20 years since U2—Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen—first released Joshua Tree, arguably their breakthrough to the big league album. Sure, both War and Unforgettable Fire thrust the band into arena rock territory, but it was JT that truly made them stadium stars the world over. It was also a turning point album, showing them moving even further away from their post-punk roots and into more streamlined, albeit lushly so, sonic terrain. Bono and company began experimenting more with the Blues and Gospel intonations, mixing those elements into their harmonically saturated guitar spectrum and taught rhythm structures.
For the 20th Anniversary celebration the boys have released two versions, one a double disc package, the other a double disc + CD package. Both feature the original 11 track album, which holds up surprisingly well all these years later. Seminal tracks like "Where The Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and "With or Without You" still resonate with that hit status the enjoyed upon release. Meanwhile "Bullet the Blue Sky" is still one of the most incendiary things the group has ever kicked out, rumbling with turgid intensity. "In God's Country" still manages to conjure up spine tingles thanks to Edge's scratchy guitar theatrics and Bono's raggedly impassioned yelping, not to mention Clayton and Mullen's steady back beats. And both "One Tree Hill" and "Mothers of the Disappeared" still reverberates with the ghost of "40," a quiet, progressive number that bubbles with hidden smolder. Even the lesser known numbers ("Exit," for example) burn brightly upon rediscovery.
On the whole this is one of the last truly great—from start to finish—albums that U2 put out at what was arguably the peak of their career. Sure, they've gone on to bigger fortune, fame, and social consciousness since, but this album, without question, was a benchmark in their aural legacy to the world. If you have yet to discover the wealth of passionate material that this album has to offer, then this will be a worthy treat indeed. And if you just needed a reminder of how great the band was at this particular moment in time, well here it is.
While revisiting the original album is worth the price of admission, the real treat here lies in Disc 2, which features a number of B-Sides (back in the day U2 were great about releasing singles packed with bonus outtakes and rare tracks, many of which were often as inspiring as those that actually made it on to their albums).
Things kick off with "Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)," one of the B-Sides from the "With or Without You" single. The track is built around piano and rippling drums that caress Bono's whisper croon. It's a melodramatic, slow-burn number that is much more PoMo Romanticism than perhaps anything else they've ever done. "Walk To The Water" is the other number sniped from the "With Or Without You" single. It's mostly Bono waxing poetic in a loping spoken word style over hollow drums, lulling basslines, and a droll, crystalline guitar riff of a circular nature. It's an interesting experiment, if nothing else (Bono doing "beat").
"Spanish Eyes," taken from the B-Side of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," brings back that O.G. U2 vibe thanks to upfront harmonics and Bono cajoling his lyrics at the outset. Then it dips into neo-Glam territory (think Bowie, Pop, and Ferry all mixed into a blender and spilled into a too small glass). In the end it dissolves into a hodge-podge of various U2 stylistics and suffers from a bit of identity crisis. The other B-Side from "I Still..." is "Deep In The Heart." Sounding not unlike something leftover from Unforgettable Fire it unfurls with drifting harmonics, lumbering bass, taught drums, and Bono's signature breathy vocal croon. It's mesmerizing.
"Where The Streets Have No Name" almost dominates the second disc thanks to several B-Sides, a single edit, and an alternate version of one track. First up from the flip side is the Blues intoned "Silver and Gold," which signals the sound that The Edge would begin exploring more in-depth post Joshua Tree, utilizing a much grittier guitar tone and going for big, sprawling riffs with an obvious Link Wray infatuation. Then there's "Sweetest Thing," which was one of those rare B-Sides that went on to be a hit in its own right and with good reason. Bono's lilting croon bobs from being smoothly alluring to a beguiling yelp in the drift of a moment. "Race Against Time" again sounds like something leftover from Unforgettable, dwelling much more in that ambient slipstream than anything on JT (it's more or less a bass and conga driven slice of shifting tonality). The single edit of "WTSHNN" will take a discerning ear to notice the differences between it and the original. And the Sun City version of "Silver And Gold" is a rambling, ramshackle Country Blues shuffle thanks to the presence of Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Steve Jordan. Raspy, ragged, and gritty to the core.
The final five inclusions on this disc are outtakes from the Joshua Tree sessions, providing a glimpse into some of the music that was left on the proverbial editing room floor. "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction To Songs Of Experience" is rife with ambient textures, utilizing Brian Eno's drifting temperament expertly (although the track was produced by the band and not the Eno/Lanois combo most noted for their lush enhancements to the music). In many ways this track sounds like something Peter Gabriel would have kicked out circa Peter Gabriel III. Bono's whisper rendition of a William Blake poem creates a really hypnotic vibe that is light years away from anything that ended up on JT.
"Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland)" is built around piano and synth and produced by Lanois and Eno. It's a stripped down piece of quietude and melancholy. Meanwhile "Desert Of Our Love" puts Mullen's drums and Clayton's bass upfront, wrapping themselves thickly around Bono's tentative vocalistics. It's stripped down Blues-meets-Testifying Gospel that slowly brings in piano and lets Bono flex his vocals from croon to yelp to shouting passion, though most of it unintelligle mumbling (as if he were channeling early Michael Stipe). It's rough around the edges, sounding a lot like something that they were working on loosely in the studio, which adds greatly to its appeal.
With "Rise Up" the group continues to extrapolate the Country/Blues elements that are sprinkled throughout the bulk of JT. As with "Desert Of Our Love" this track feels rough around the edges, showing the band in a looser, almost jammier light as they work through the track (though it's mostly Bono who seems tentative and working out the vocal kinks more than anything else). Still, it's the overall loose nature of the track that makes it so appealing.
The final inclusion is "Drunk Chicken/America" in which Bono recites chunks from Allen Ginsberg's epic poem, "America." It's kind of weird to hear Bono affect an quasi Ginsberg-meets-Burroughs intonation to his speaking. Instrumentally, the track is all jagged guitar, bouncing drums, whiffs of organ and bubbling electro rhythms. It's an interesting take on beat attitude, that's for sure, and continues to highlight the group's fascination with the good, old U.S.A. (as also evidenced on core JT tracks like "Bullet The Blue Sky").
For someone who already owns the original version of Joshua Tree and is a U2 completist (i.e. they have all the singles, B-Sides, rarities, 12-inches, and whatnot) then this release might seem a bit redundant. But for somebody who is looking to update their well-worn copy of JT or a young'un who might not as of yet discovered the joy that lurks in the U2 back catalog, then this release is essential indeed. The original album is still teeming with emotion, running the gamut from anger and frustration to emphatic jubilation. The secondary disc is equally packed with all manner of music from the profound to the profane, the artful and the arcane, which is exactly how a disc of B-Sides and Rarities should be.
Download Worthy:
1. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
2. "Bullet The Blue Sky"
3. "Running To Stand Still"
4. "In God's Country"
5. "One Tree Hill"
6. "Silver And Gold"
7. "Sweetest Thing"
8. "Race Against Time"
9. "Silver And Gold (Sun City)"
10. "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction To Songs Of Experience"
11. "Desert Of Our Love"
12. "Rise Up"
ign
U2 - The Joshua Tree 20th Anniversary Edition
Still fresh and clean after all these years.
November 21, 2007 - Hard to believe that it's been 20 years since U2—Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen—first released Joshua Tree, arguably their breakthrough to the big league album. Sure, both War and Unforgettable Fire thrust the band into arena rock territory, but it was JT that truly made them stadium stars the world over. It was also a turning point album, showing them moving even further away from their post-punk roots and into more streamlined, albeit lushly so, sonic terrain. Bono and company began experimenting more with the Blues and Gospel intonations, mixing those elements into their harmonically saturated guitar spectrum and taught rhythm structures.
For the 20th Anniversary celebration the boys have released two versions, one a double disc package, the other a double disc + CD package. Both feature the original 11 track album, which holds up surprisingly well all these years later. Seminal tracks like "Where The Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and "With or Without You" still resonate with that hit status the enjoyed upon release. Meanwhile "Bullet the Blue Sky" is still one of the most incendiary things the group has ever kicked out, rumbling with turgid intensity. "In God's Country" still manages to conjure up spine tingles thanks to Edge's scratchy guitar theatrics and Bono's raggedly impassioned yelping, not to mention Clayton and Mullen's steady back beats. And both "One Tree Hill" and "Mothers of the Disappeared" still reverberates with the ghost of "40," a quiet, progressive number that bubbles with hidden smolder. Even the lesser known numbers ("Exit," for example) burn brightly upon rediscovery.
On the whole this is one of the last truly great—from start to finish—albums that U2 put out at what was arguably the peak of their career. Sure, they've gone on to bigger fortune, fame, and social consciousness since, but this album, without question, was a benchmark in their aural legacy to the world. If you have yet to discover the wealth of passionate material that this album has to offer, then this will be a worthy treat indeed. And if you just needed a reminder of how great the band was at this particular moment in time, well here it is.
While revisiting the original album is worth the price of admission, the real treat here lies in Disc 2, which features a number of B-Sides (back in the day U2 were great about releasing singles packed with bonus outtakes and rare tracks, many of which were often as inspiring as those that actually made it on to their albums).
Things kick off with "Luminous Times (Hold on to Love)," one of the B-Sides from the "With or Without You" single. The track is built around piano and rippling drums that caress Bono's whisper croon. It's a melodramatic, slow-burn number that is much more PoMo Romanticism than perhaps anything else they've ever done. "Walk To The Water" is the other number sniped from the "With Or Without You" single. It's mostly Bono waxing poetic in a loping spoken word style over hollow drums, lulling basslines, and a droll, crystalline guitar riff of a circular nature. It's an interesting experiment, if nothing else (Bono doing "beat").
"Spanish Eyes," taken from the B-Side of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," brings back that O.G. U2 vibe thanks to upfront harmonics and Bono cajoling his lyrics at the outset. Then it dips into neo-Glam territory (think Bowie, Pop, and Ferry all mixed into a blender and spilled into a too small glass). In the end it dissolves into a hodge-podge of various U2 stylistics and suffers from a bit of identity crisis. The other B-Side from "I Still..." is "Deep In The Heart." Sounding not unlike something leftover from Unforgettable Fire it unfurls with drifting harmonics, lumbering bass, taught drums, and Bono's signature breathy vocal croon. It's mesmerizing.
"Where The Streets Have No Name" almost dominates the second disc thanks to several B-Sides, a single edit, and an alternate version of one track. First up from the flip side is the Blues intoned "Silver and Gold," which signals the sound that The Edge would begin exploring more in-depth post Joshua Tree, utilizing a much grittier guitar tone and going for big, sprawling riffs with an obvious Link Wray infatuation. Then there's "Sweetest Thing," which was one of those rare B-Sides that went on to be a hit in its own right and with good reason. Bono's lilting croon bobs from being smoothly alluring to a beguiling yelp in the drift of a moment. "Race Against Time" again sounds like something leftover from Unforgettable, dwelling much more in that ambient slipstream than anything on JT (it's more or less a bass and conga driven slice of shifting tonality). The single edit of "WTSHNN" will take a discerning ear to notice the differences between it and the original. And the Sun City version of "Silver And Gold" is a rambling, ramshackle Country Blues shuffle thanks to the presence of Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and Steve Jordan. Raspy, ragged, and gritty to the core.
The final five inclusions on this disc are outtakes from the Joshua Tree sessions, providing a glimpse into some of the music that was left on the proverbial editing room floor. "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction To Songs Of Experience" is rife with ambient textures, utilizing Brian Eno's drifting temperament expertly (although the track was produced by the band and not the Eno/Lanois combo most noted for their lush enhancements to the music). In many ways this track sounds like something Peter Gabriel would have kicked out circa Peter Gabriel III. Bono's whisper rendition of a William Blake poem creates a really hypnotic vibe that is light years away from anything that ended up on JT.
"Wave Of Sorrow (Birdland)" is built around piano and synth and produced by Lanois and Eno. It's a stripped down piece of quietude and melancholy. Meanwhile "Desert Of Our Love" puts Mullen's drums and Clayton's bass upfront, wrapping themselves thickly around Bono's tentative vocalistics. It's stripped down Blues-meets-Testifying Gospel that slowly brings in piano and lets Bono flex his vocals from croon to yelp to shouting passion, though most of it unintelligle mumbling (as if he were channeling early Michael Stipe). It's rough around the edges, sounding a lot like something that they were working on loosely in the studio, which adds greatly to its appeal.
With "Rise Up" the group continues to extrapolate the Country/Blues elements that are sprinkled throughout the bulk of JT. As with "Desert Of Our Love" this track feels rough around the edges, showing the band in a looser, almost jammier light as they work through the track (though it's mostly Bono who seems tentative and working out the vocal kinks more than anything else). Still, it's the overall loose nature of the track that makes it so appealing.
The final inclusion is "Drunk Chicken/America" in which Bono recites chunks from Allen Ginsberg's epic poem, "America." It's kind of weird to hear Bono affect an quasi Ginsberg-meets-Burroughs intonation to his speaking. Instrumentally, the track is all jagged guitar, bouncing drums, whiffs of organ and bubbling electro rhythms. It's an interesting take on beat attitude, that's for sure, and continues to highlight the group's fascination with the good, old U.S.A. (as also evidenced on core JT tracks like "Bullet The Blue Sky").
For someone who already owns the original version of Joshua Tree and is a U2 completist (i.e. they have all the singles, B-Sides, rarities, 12-inches, and whatnot) then this release might seem a bit redundant. But for somebody who is looking to update their well-worn copy of JT or a young'un who might not as of yet discovered the joy that lurks in the U2 back catalog, then this release is essential indeed. The original album is still teeming with emotion, running the gamut from anger and frustration to emphatic jubilation. The secondary disc is equally packed with all manner of music from the profound to the profane, the artful and the arcane, which is exactly how a disc of B-Sides and Rarities should be.
Download Worthy:
1. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
2. "Bullet The Blue Sky"
3. "Running To Stand Still"
4. "In God's Country"
5. "One Tree Hill"
6. "Silver And Gold"
7. "Sweetest Thing"
8. "Race Against Time"
9. "Silver And Gold (Sun City)"
10. "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction To Songs Of Experience"
11. "Desert Of Our Love"
12. "Rise Up"
ign
4.11.07
STING - FRAGILE:
"It's Probably Me" and "Fragile" (Sting). And speaking of Brits, even the Demolition Man himself, that sturdy-old stand by Mr. Gordon Sumner, a.k.a. Sting, got into the act with "It's Probably Me," taken from the soundtrack to the Mel Gibson-Danny Glover action vehicle Lethal Weapon 3, released in 1992, and boasting the assistance of Eric Clapton, on guitar, and jazz-pop staple David Sanborn, on sax. It resurfaced a year later, with a totally redone rhythm arrangement, on Sting's excellent Ten Summoner's Tales (A&M), and joins an earlier achievement, available on Nothing Like the Sun (A&M, 1987)-the achingly beautiful "Fragile" ("On and on the rain will fall / Like tears from a star / On and on the rain will say / How fragile we are")-as his two most convincing forays into this area. Mixing sincere concerns for the environment with a lovely guitar-arpeggio interlude, "Fragile" is the one to get, and his finest all-around effort to date, as it all-but incorporates the basic bossa formula I've been hinting at throughout. There's also a version for the Latin American market, sung in excruciatingly bad Portuguese, on the otherwise all-Spanish-language Nada Como el Sol., from 1988 (A&M). From there Sting wandered perilously close to "lounge lizard" territory, most of all with his Mercury Falling (A&M, 1996), a dreary affair whose few highlights do not include the risible "La Belle Dame Sans Regrets," sung en français, naturellement, and patterned after the oeuvre of the late Tom Jobim. He has yet to fully recover from that misguided conception. Let's hope his concerts with ex-Police band-mates Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers can repair the damage done to their musical integrity and turn things around for the eclectic songsmith.
"It's Probably Me" and "Fragile" (Sting). And speaking of Brits, even the Demolition Man himself, that sturdy-old stand by Mr. Gordon Sumner, a.k.a. Sting, got into the act with "It's Probably Me," taken from the soundtrack to the Mel Gibson-Danny Glover action vehicle Lethal Weapon 3, released in 1992, and boasting the assistance of Eric Clapton, on guitar, and jazz-pop staple David Sanborn, on sax. It resurfaced a year later, with a totally redone rhythm arrangement, on Sting's excellent Ten Summoner's Tales (A&M), and joins an earlier achievement, available on Nothing Like the Sun (A&M, 1987)-the achingly beautiful "Fragile" ("On and on the rain will fall / Like tears from a star / On and on the rain will say / How fragile we are")-as his two most convincing forays into this area. Mixing sincere concerns for the environment with a lovely guitar-arpeggio interlude, "Fragile" is the one to get, and his finest all-around effort to date, as it all-but incorporates the basic bossa formula I've been hinting at throughout. There's also a version for the Latin American market, sung in excruciatingly bad Portuguese, on the otherwise all-Spanish-language Nada Como el Sol., from 1988 (A&M). From there Sting wandered perilously close to "lounge lizard" territory, most of all with his Mercury Falling (A&M, 1996), a dreary affair whose few highlights do not include the risible "La Belle Dame Sans Regrets," sung en français, naturellement, and patterned after the oeuvre of the late Tom Jobim. He has yet to fully recover from that misguided conception. Let's hope his concerts with ex-Police band-mates Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers can repair the damage done to their musical integrity and turn things around for the eclectic songsmith.
3.11.07
Astrud's Contribution - The Bossa Nova territory. If ever any singer lacked the goods to make it in the music field, that person was undoubtedly Astrud Gilberto. In hindsight, most Brazilians still owe a profound debt of gratitude to her ingenuous language skills: she built up a solid career-footing on the flimsy foundations of one fortuitous recording session - a session that eventually gave rise to an entire generation of pop idols. As luck would have it, Astrud was asked by Verve Records to perform the English verses of the songs "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars" (Corcovado) in her patently awful Brazilian accent. With her then husband João Gilberto on acoustic guitar, starting off in Portuguese in his typical rambling style, the legendary Stan Getz, as winsome as ever on tenor saxophone, and composer Tom Jobim in the background, strumming away on his rhythm guitar or gently stroking his piano, the tunes instantly caught the imagination of a hit-starved world audience - and catapulted every one if its Brazilian participants, including drummer Milton Banana, to the front ranks of jazz-pop artists, way back in 1963. It would do well for us fans of Música Popular Brasileira to remember, then, that if it had not been for Astrud Gilberto's allegedly "bad" American English, many of the songs and composers we now honor and take for granted would never have been recognized at all, let alone recorded, by such greats as Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, and Ella Fitzgerald, just to name a random few. An adventurous Foreign Sound - in view of the foregoing, it's really not so "foreign-sounding" after all.
This is a video 'Call Me' a tribute for films with phonecalls:
This is a video 'Call Me' a tribute for films with phonecalls:
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