Music Update - August 2017

07 Oct 2017 monthly · music · update

Ah, so now, I can finally get to it! (I have been wanting to write this article since August 31, but something kept getting in the way. Also, writing it is sort of a hassle because I have to get the screenshots etc. So, maybe I was putting it away.) On with it!

Quickly: There’s a recommendations section at the end. It has 3 songs I think you should listen to. If you are not interested in my droning on and on about lyrics and throwbacks and percieved similarities, press END on your keyboard and check those three songs out!

This month was about two TV shows: the Atypical Season 1 soundtrack and a couple of songs that come up in Modern Family!

The first two tracks are from Modern Family. The first one’s really old and I hadn’t ever heard of it. It’s a beautiful story to listen to!

• Paint It Black from the Westworld sound track made a comeback. It has a great piano beginning. But the bass drum + violin accompaniment captured my imagination a lot more! I have no clue what Ramin Djawadi does, but whatever he does, I wish he keeps doing it.

  I rememeber he also did the one good thing about the Game of Thrones season finale: the soundtrack to that long scene in which Cersei burns buildings up, the king commits suicide etc. Come to think of it, that track also reminds me of this with the deep bass and the sustained note. There were vocals in that track (it’s called Finale). But the organ is still predominant. His style is unique!

• I recommend the Atypical Season 1 Soundtrack. I have linked a Spotify playlist of the songs that stood out the most to me. Heads will Roll and Love Struck were stuck in my head for days (still are!).

  White Lies was the one song I had already heard in this bunch! When it came on in the series, I remember the scene also. She’s walking down the steps and going to Nick’s bar, and then the song fades out as she says something. I was so excited to recognize a song from a TV show. It was like recognising Paint It, Black when it came on in Westworld.

• Before I go to the albums I heard this month, a couple of the outliers here. Trains by Porcupine Tree and Pokerface by Lady Gaga (the latter is not in the screenshot). Trains just came back as a whim, I sort of wanted to listen to the prelude to that song.

  Pokerface came to my mind because of HOW SIMILAR it sounds to Heads will Roll! The same aggresive female vocals, the similar drop. The resemblance was pleasant!

• Album 1: Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel

  

  I had a particularly good month in terms of the number of new albums I heard this month! Three in total, 1 I started last month but the remaining two were wildcards!

  Bookends is a really old album and I am certain that I am the last to get on the Simon and Garfunkel bandwagon. They are SO GOOD! I watched some of their live performances as well, nothing stood out.

  My favourites are quite obviously Track 10: Mrs. Robinson and Track 11: Hazy Shade of Winter! I am obsessed with Hazy Shade of Winter. It’s only 2:17, which sucks. There’s literally nothing else I can even think about. It’s a CLASSIC! The way I found it was also a really surprising and funny event. I heard the whole album mainly because I had played Mrs. Robinson from the album on Spotify and Spotify played the whole album.

  Sadly, apart from 6, 10, 11 and 12, nothing else really stuck. I am not sure why, probably just because it’s just so old and it’s from another era. Something like that.

• Album 2: Broken Machine by Nothing but Thieves

  

  I started with their debut album last month. And THIS MONTH! I started listening to it with Sorry and Amsterdam. But as I heard all of it, and repeatedly heard it all, I realised that I couldn’t find one track that I wanted to skip when I was listening to this album! It’s insanely time-consuming, but also so satisfying!

  This album is sort-of the reason that I have such disbelief at how good this month has been in terms of new music and the amount of GREAT tracks I found.

  From this one, I have to choose Tracks 1-7, 9, 11-13. There’s no going around the fact that I have left out Particles and two acoustic renditions. I really don’t want to leave anything out. Particles is like If I Get High and different from the other songs in the album and that’s why it sounded out of place to me. That is the only reason that I have left it out.

  4, 5, 6, 7 have such good lyrics. Especially, this particular passage from Soda:

  I’m an exception, it’s hard to accept because I try to be happy, but then I forget. They tell me I need to chill man, it’s all in your head Maybe I am paranoid

  …

  I once had a thought, but don’t know where it went coz I have been living on Soda and cheap cigarettes Maybe when I was a kid, I was dropped on my head, yeah, that would make some sense!

  I was on a 3-hour journey from Kharagpur to Calcutta when these lines first registered in my brain. I then selected “Repeat 1” in Play Music and heard the lyrics again and again and then the song clicked for me!

  This was a great throwback to the Petrol Bunk conversation that Aaron and Abe have in Primer.

  Aaron: Maybe your life is in disarray and you start to wonder, what caused this? How did things get like this? … As if, if their mother had breastfed them, their lives would have been different.

  Abe: Bunch of whiners

  Aaron: Yeah, they’re a bunch of whiners. … What’s worse? Thinking you are being paranoid or knowing you should be?

  (P.S. If you thought my Primer obsession had run it’s course, you’ve got another thing coming)

• Album 3: Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend

  

  I already said, this was one hell of a good month of music! Almost no repetition except for music I found this month and I liked most of what I heard.

  I have already talked about this a bit in the last music update,

  I found this album on Spotify Discover, which is KA-RAZY! My favourites are still tracks 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10! This album is the one I am going to go back to when I need something to brighten my day. The happiness in this album is contagious. A sample passage from Hannah Hunt, if you tend to not beleive me:

  A man of faith said, “Hidden eyes could see what I was thinking”, I just smiled and told him, that was only true of Hannah, and we glided on through Waverley and Lincoln

  Days were long and nights no longer, count the seconds, watching hours, though we live on the US Dollar, you and me, got our sense of time!

  Common! What did I say?

• Recommendations

  Song	Album	Artist
  Finger Back	Modern Vampires of the City	Vampire Weekend
  Reset Me	Broken Machine	Nothing but Thieves
  Hazy Shade of Winter	Bookends	Simon and Garfunkel

  About this section: I know everyone has songs that they want you to hear. I also know how hard it is to listen to something and be present and not just glide through it. So, I am starting this section on music updates where I get to pick 3 songs from that month which I absolutely want you to hear. (I figure this will give the posts a sense of structure that they miss right now!)

  I also plan to select from the less famous songs that I loved from that month, because I figure that you will eventually hear the popular ones. Like Sorry and Amsterdam from Broken Machine are blowing up on YouTube and you are probably going to hear it eventually!