Covers

Pues creo que me daré la oportunidad de darle un pequeño giro a este patético blog que he dejado en el olvido desde hace ya tiempo...y empezaré de nuevo a escribir sobre música.
No me importa a quién le interesa, quién me lee, ni quién concuerda con mis opiniones, lo haré por mí, porque Twitter sólo me permite 140 caracteres y sería injusto para los valientes que me siguen, estar leyendo mis babosadas musicales.
Así que, primera entrada de la nueva era de este blog, qué felicidad!
Y quisiera hoy tratar el tema de los covers, ya que últimamente he escuchado varios de ellos que me han cautivado, por buenos y malos...
Comenzaré con el rey de los covers malos: Islands de Shakira...
Personalmente tengo un tema pendiente con Shakira, el cual en la posteridad ahondaré con amplia abundancia, pero lo que me parece más patético y ruín de su nueva era de teibolera come hombres, es que todavía intente ser rockera, o al menos intente decirle a la gente que aún la venera, que Nothing Else Matters puede ser tocada en un concierto minutos antes de mover el trasero al ritmo de Rabiosa, Loca, Zorra, o cualquier otro adjetivo calificativo.
En fin, Islands, canción magnífica de la casi perfecta banda The XX, no merece ser covereada por cualquiera, al menos no por una pop star...
Simplemente al escucharla duele el cerebro, sobre todo porque ni siquiera la linda rubia con poca ropa se preocupó por conservar los acordes y la pausabilidad de la canción...error garrafal, ojalá se arrepienta, y ojalá The XX nunca la escuchen, o caerán en el alcoholismo por depresión.
Por otro lado, es difícil pero no imposible conseguir buenos covers, recordando siempre que son precisamente COVERS no una nueva versión de la canción, ni mucho menos, reemplazos de la misma.
Un excelente ejemplo es el atrevimiento que tuvieron los Flaming Lips y amigos de recrear nuevamente, con ritmos frescos pero muy atinados, el tan afamado Dark Side of The Moon.
Obviamente nunca jamas en la vida la versión de los Flaming Lips será ni cercanamente superior, similar o comparable a la obra de arte de Waters y sus cuates, pero es un muy buen cover, disfrutable a más no poder, quizás excepto por The Great Gig In The Sky, la cual, bueno, dista mucho de la realidad.
Otro ejemplo es el soundtrack de la película Across The Universe...proponerse realizar covers de los Beatles siempre será un reto, pero creo que en varias canciones los protagonistas de la película salieron bastante airosos, sobre todo a mi parecer en Happiness Is a Warm Gun, All You Need Is Love y Don't Let Me Down.
La voz de la mujer que hace el personaje de Sadie es impresionante, y los demás se llevan su mérito por lograr en momentos olvidar que lo que se escucha es una canción de los Beatles, puesta en escena.
Habrá miles de covers más, algunos malos y otros que pudieran convertirse en canciones favoritas de la gente, pero en mi opinión, hacer un buen cover merece aplausos por parte del "covereado", pero desatinar drásticamente en un cover, o hacerlo de manera patética y denigrante, merece definitivamente ser cagado por un pájaro.
En fin, ya hablaremos de otros covers malos, mientras los vayamos descubriendo...

Like a Friend

The song that hurts the most, at some time in our lives. Who hasn’t had a terrible relationship, in which you are way too involved, that being friends isn’t enough, even when it seems that no power in the world will transform a friendship into love?

Why do we have to bump into people that does not know (or simply doesn’t want to) how to love us? Are there people in this world that just can’t love, or is it that they don’t want to?

We all know this kind of relationships are the ones that leave a mark in us, even more than relationships that lead us to love and happiness…but why are we still exposed to those? Is it worth it?

Why are we still willing to have a “cheap magazine” relationship, when we can be learning something… isn’t it just better to look for real love, the one that makes us grow, not to cry every time we listen to this song?

I believe the only way to really enjoy “Like a Friend”, and Pulp please forgive me, is when you have found a person that is truly willing to love you, a person in which you can trust, a person that at some point, will not act like a friend…

Death to Los Campesinos

Hold on now, youngster, I have a new review!
If you have ever been an indie true lover, even for 15 minutes, you must know that once indie bands are known and played on the radio, they automatically lose their indie tag, and most of the time, their originality. However, and I feel deeply sorry for Los Campesinos!’ fame and money, this haven’t happened to them, and it has been a gorgeous gift for us indie lovers.

Death to Los Campesinos is the perfect opening theme of a very nice and joyful album, also one of my favourite power songs.

The song doesn’t relate any understandable yet interesting ideas…being their main and most powerful phrase “I invented you, and I will destroy you” ; as if love could be destroyed, as if memory could be erased, as if music could be forgotten…

But beware, songs like these, even when can be easily slight and suitable to be forgotten within the arks of music in a short term, could CTRL-ALT-DEL former music taste, for better or worse.

The Blower's Daughter

"And so it is"...you'd be lying if you'd tell me that you hated Closer's opening song, a sad song from some Irish guy named Damien Rice (unknown at the time, and for many of us, still unknown).
Its chords could evoke the purest love feelings a person can have, but can also recall the melancholic spirit that arises when meeting the love of your life...
Its music consists basically in only a guitar and some other sounds that could easily come from an electronic music device, but yet helps to build an excellent song, another one that can drive you to sadness when listened...
Personally, my favorite part of the song is the only verse sang by a girl "oh, did I say that I loathe you, did I say that I want to leave it all behind"...followed by a loving..."I can't take my mind off you"...would that mean that loathe is driven by love? Or that love simply ends from one moment to another?
Anyway, a great song, to be avoided when a heartbreak just happened...because when you feel sad and blue, you just want to be alone...but believe me, after some time, you end up thinking that regret and sadness will last, as this song cries at its very last verse...'til I find somebody...

Space Oddity

My first review of a song that’s older than me!
I have to admit, shamefully, that I heard this song for the first time on October 12th, 2009, the day I went to U2 360 concert…and it was their opening song, the most unheard one of the concert, because it’s the one that is playing when lights are turned off, and everyone is just shouting and eager to see Bono and Co. step onstage…
But the verse “THIS IS GROUND CONTROL TO MAJOR TOM, YOU’VE REALLY MADE THE GRADE” was so loud, that I started thinking that it was one of the greatest pieces I had ever listened.
Once out of the concert, I asked one of my friends about it, and he told me it was some tune from David Bowie. I turned on my ipod, seek David Bowie, and guess what? The song was already there!!!!
It is a weird story about spaceships and astronauts, and as long as I have read, there is a part two of this song…was Major Tom able to re-communicate with ground control? Perhaps we’ll never know!
But these amazing 5 minutes of heaven, always make me wonder how the Earth would look from outer space, how would your life be while living in that kind of “tin cans”, how different would the stars look, what I’d do if I, out of the sudden, would lose touch with ground control…
Anyway, aside from being of the greatest songs from yore, this song is another proof that no bad thing or feeling can come from being a U2 fan…

Take me Out

Wow, you have no idea what this song meant, means, and will mean to me.
It makes me remember being young, and going to cheap bars with my friends, to have a few drinks and listen what we called at the time “indie” music, which included songs from Radiohead, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand (some new band with hip funny amazing lyrics and powerful guitar), The Cure, among others.
None of them are or were indie, it’s just that we were sooo young and rookie, that any rock music was indie for us. Fortunately, good taste increases with age, and now I love rock music, but I definitely know that indie is way more than this, and a very different genre I’m not sure if I love yet…
This was the first song I heard from Franz Ferdinand, the first “indie” band I had ever heard about, and it opened to me a door that will never close; so please, if you ever go to my wedding and suddenly listen The White Stripes or Muse instead of cumbias or salsa, blame Take Me Out.
I have listened to this song a million times, sometimes when I run, sometimes when I feel blue, sometimes when I’m driving, and every listen is different than the other.
However, this song is not one of my favourites, and I am pretty aware Franz has better masterpieces, such as The Dark of the Matinee, Auf Achse (no one knows it, but it’s their best in my opinion), Lucid Dreams (what a great way to close a concert!!!!!!!) and Do You Want To; but Take me Out just has to be in every ipod, in every person, in every heart.
We all know Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, and then World War was originated; but some years later Franz Ferdinand was heard, and then a passion was originated…my most important passion…

Sometimes in the Fall

Ah Phoenix…suddenly becoming one of my favourite bands…I have to admit this band is one of the best I’ve ever seen live…with no significant changes from what you listen in the CD and what you listen live...

This can only mean that the band doesn’t need great technology in their music to make it sound great, it’s just “plain music”.

I still cannot decide which CD is better, I loved Wolfang Amadeus the first time I listened to it, and I swore no ever record had been better than that one…until I listened to It’s Never Been Like That. Seriously, someone please give me a word of advice on this…

Sometimes in the Fall makes me get up and dance, it makes me think of death and love, it makes me smile, it makes me shout, it makes me sing…even in spring, winter or summer…

It actually is a long long long long song (a little shorter than 6 minutes), but every second is enjoyable and makes the impression that it actually lasts 2 minutes, because when listened can easily be repeated with no objection from anyone.

I wouldn’t say this is the best song from Phoenix, but perhaps is the one I’ve enjoyed the most, and as far as I remember, it wasn’t even played when I went to their concert, but God, I love it.

I just wish I could ever have a band as cool as them…I just wish more French were like Phoenix…