Radiohead 101: Stepping inside an artist's mosaic that's outside the norm

I was there once, and I'm still there to a degree. I don't always know what to do with Radiohead.

They fall outside the comfort zone for many music fans I know, but at the same time the bizarre mosaic of their music is also what creates their appeal.

For those of you out there who are just simply "confused" or "confounded" by this band, you're not alone. They're DEFINITELY outside the box, there's no question; in terms of their recording approach and sound, in terms of their onstage presentation, and even in terms of even their album titles.

I mean, who in the hell names their album Kid A? Huh? It sounds like a half-baked idea that never fully took form. A more logical name may have been something like A Kid's Dream. ...and now that we're on the subject, what about OK Computer? WTF? Does that mean that the computer's working okay? Did the factory inspector give it the "ok" before shipping? What the hell are they trying to say? That's right, it should have been called The Computer's OK, Go Ahead and Ship It. We don't want any unsatisfied Dell customers out there, heaven forbid.

Let me stab this one to death... what about the title I Might be Wrong: Live Recordings? What do they think they might be wrong about? Are they the wrong recordings? Did they goof and give us the wrong version of the songs? Hell, am I even listening to the right band?

AAUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So maybe you get the idea. Radiohead is sorta wierd...and we've only chatted about album titles here. ...but if they intended it, their trick has worked on me. They've got my attention. They've made themselves stand out. I want to know more.

You think that's wierd? Listen to the friggin' music, dude! The music really defies description, but in a good way. There's the outside the box guitar elements to The Bends, the Chinese water torture "paper shuffling sounds" from Hail to the Thief, then the "cream pies hitting the speakers" drum sounds from their latest release, In Rainbows. Then there's the trippy Floyd-like feel to OK Computer, and the bizarre depressing feel to Kid A.

Then I don't even know where to begin with the short live recording of I Might Be Wrong...it's literally unlike anything I've EVER heard before. Holy trippin' daisies, Batman!

These are by no means complaints...but they can certainly involve some getting used to.

Radiohead is in my opinion a true art rock band, in its purest form. Everything they write and perform is with the intention of serving the song.

It's also evident that they are very talented musicians. Three of the five band members, from what I can gather, are multi-instrumentalists. Yet, despite this plethora of talent, they still insist on going minimalist with many of their songs. They often times avoid doing the obvious, which would be going for the big orchestral sound that they're capable of... listen to "The Gloaming" from Hail to the Thief. I mean, what the heck is that?

But I like it... because I've NEVER HEARD anything like it before. Anywhere. By anyone. Ever.

Radiohead's a bit of a throwback, but always moving forward with a very modern sound. They mix old technology with new.

The song structures are all over the place. Nearly every song has a feel to it like you can't tell where it's headed. They seem to scrap the typical predictable song structure, and go for arranged randomness over unique rhythms, but not in a chaotic sense. There isn't much in the way of guitar soloing either.

There's even odd stuff in the details... such as their insistence to place songs throughout various albums whose titles indicate a lean toward being in movies, but sound nothing like what you would ever put in a movie. "Huh?" you say? Take a look for yourself.

There's a tune called "Exit Music (For a Film)" on OK Computer (which might actually work in a film), and then a tune called "Motion Picture Soundtrack" on Kid A (a bit more bizarre). Just random songs thrown on the album. Totally baffling. Are they trying to advertise the songs so they may get picked up by some movie producer for use in a film?

Somebody help me here. Brainmelt imminent.

It's all probably a very delicate balancing act to get it all right, but somehow they do it. For a multitude of reasons, these guys are the cutting edge in rock these days. There's nobody out there like them.

It's all about the art. S

Radiohead keep pushing rock in new directions

A good friend of mine has totally gotten into Radiohead in the last year. I have to say that I really like their material too.

Of all the rock bands out there right now, these guys are at the forefront pushing the envelope in terms of sound, song structures, and the overall "mosaic" of the rock album if you like. The article from the AP following this post does an excellent job of explaining how.

I first started listening to these guys off and on in the mid-90s, and recall Creep when it first came out. At the time, however, it was easy to dismiss them as just another new band from the grunge /post-grunge period of the early 90s.

Mistakenly, I tended to lump them in at the time with bands like Blind Mellon and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't think I'm alone in making that mistake; there was simply no way of knowing how Radiohead was going to evolve.

...and evolve they have...

Obviously time proved me dead wrong. With their releases of The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, and my personal favorite -- a live recording called I Might Be Wrong (a total tripfest, unlike anything I've EVER heard!) -- they blew the lid off the top of the rock format.

If you're new to Radiohead, they can definitely make your head spin...you'll need to take them in doses. I've put on many a Radiohead record, and "confusion" has often times been the best word to describe a listening experience...confusion in that I'm trying to figure out where they're coming from with their sound and style, and what effect they're looking for among their audience.

After giving it some time, you'll be hooked. I also have a feeling you need to experience them live to "get it." More on this band again soon! S

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The breakthrough for Radiohead on "Reckoner" -- a song that underwent multiple incarnations on its way to "In Rainbows" -- came by way of what Jonny Greenwood calls a "big percussion fest."

The members of Radiohead say they're feeling much looser since ending their label ties.

Recording in an English country house, all five members of the group make a loud, cathartic racket -- a habit-busting trick the band has practiced since primary school, says bassist Colin Greenwood.
"And I'm happy to say that success hasn't changed us at all," joked Jonny Greenwood, who would rather leave the percussion to Phil Selway's drums and Thom Yorke's rhythm guitar.
Whether through the primal release of a "big percussion fest" or by severing ties with its record label, Radiohead is giving the distinct impression of a band that has exorcised something.
Since self-releasing "In Rainbows" as a pay-what-you-want digital download last fall, Radiohead has moved quickly with the tilt of innovation. They surprised fans with intimate webcasts; they offered one track, "Nude," in stripped down audio pieces for anyone to remix; they held a surprise concert so crowded that police insisted they move along.
On their seventh album, particularly on songs like the falsetto-rich R&B ballad "House of Cards" and the languorous "Nude," the music reflects the same sense of freedom. The prevailing tone of the new material is -- gasp! -- a melodic warmth.
And this is a drastic change for what many consider the gloomiest band on the planet.
Meet the born-again Radiohead.
------
In a recent two-part interview with the band -- first with the Greenwood brothers and Selway, second with Yorke and guitarist Ed O'Brien -- a lightness was unmistakable. Much funnier than you'd expect, the quintet bemusedly contemplate wearing Speedos while shuffling into a Washington, D.C., hotel room.
They had just performed in nearby Virginia, where torrential rain caused flooding and enormous traffic jams around the Nissan Pavilion. In the apocalyptic downpour, Radiohead functioned as a hearth, exuding their newfound glow.
Five shows into the first leg of their North America tour, they played confidently. At one point, Yorke urged the soaked crowd to "cuddle," an unthinkable prospect for a Radiohead concert.
Tuneful beauty has always been part of Radiohead songs (like the "rain down" climax in "Paranoid Android"), but such moments have seldom been allowed to linger. Asked the origins of the new mood, Yorke is as clueless as anyone.
"I don't know where it came from, to be honest," said the 39-year-old singer, laughing heartily. "I think ('In Rainbows') has its moments of fraught tension, like 'Bodysnatchers' obviously. But it ends up in a good space. It starts off pretty anxious, but the end of 'All I Need,' by that point, everything is like, 'Ahhh' -- getting it out of your system."
When the band completed 2003's "Hail to the Thief," they essentially got what O'Brien calls the "machinery" of the music industry out of their system. Their six-album deal with EMI Music Group expired and they declined all suitors for a new deal.
The band was at a crossroads and low on energy. They were disappointed by "Hail to the Thief," which they felt was unfinished.
"What was great about 'Kid A' was that it heralded a new period and it meant we went off in some cool new places," said O'Brien, 40. "But the downside was that in the whole period up until the end of 'Hail to the Thief,' we picked up some nasty habits."
The band, of whom all but O'Brien still live in their hometown of Oxford, had progressed steadily into more experimental territory after their 1993 debut "Pablo Honey" and the classic guitar rock follow-up, 1995's "The Bends." The unparalleled "OK Computer" (1997) elevated them to worldwide fame, but didn't tame them. 2000's "Kid A" and its companion piece "Amnesiac" followed.
The outwardly political "Hail to the Thief," something of a return to guitar-based rockers, was the first sign that Radiohead's path had become confused. Afterward, the band members occupied themselves with their families. Yorke released a solo album, "The Eraser" in 2006.
"We were going along in a certain trajectory and then suddenly with 'Hail to the Thief,' it was: we can't carry along in that way anymore," said Yorke. "To me the hardest thing was finding a reason to carry on."
------
As unified as "In Rainbows" sounds, it took years to complete. The band began recording it with producer Mark Stent, the first time in years they didn't work with Nigel Godrich.
The attempt was futile and Radiohead set out on tour to help bring the new songs into shape. When they returned to the studio, they went back to Godrich, considered the unofficial sixth member because of his importance in helping refine the group's sound. (Colin calls his wealth of gear "like Aladdin's cave.")
"The key thing in actually propelling it forward was Nigel coming back into the process," said Selway, 41. "The reality when we got in there was it still wasn't good enough. We really had to raise our standards quite a lot."
Typically, songs begin with Yorke writing something on piano or guitar with vocals and fleshing it out with the multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood. Then the band works together to find the right arrangement, a process that can be tortuous. "Videotape" underwent, Yorke jokes, hundreds of versions before finding the right minimalist sound.
"We still sometimes get overawed by the songs," said Greenwood. "We'll get very attached to a song as an idea in its very basic form, but we also know we can't really leave it like that. So that's what we spend our time talking about and planning and thinking about. Thom will sit and play 'Pyramid Song' on piano, for example, and it's obviously not finished. It needs a rhythm to propel it along. But what do you do with it and yet not mess it up? So that's the sort of enjoyable pressure we like to be under."
Though the method of release overshadowed the music of "In Rainbows" somewhat, it's been almost universally hailed as a masterpiece. Yorke has been quoted as calling it "our classic album, our 'Transformer,' our 'Revolver,' our 'Hunky Dory' " -- a statement he said is a misquote: "I do talk some ... but I didn't say that."
His point, he said, is that they strove to make a similarly concise work as those albums.
"In Rainbows" may be a departure, but it's unmistakably Radiohead. Yorke is still singing about disconnection between people, which he cheerfully acknowledges: "It's part of my repertoire. It's what I do. Some people go and work at something they don't like, others talk about disconnection a lot."
But the album still feels apart from the old Radiohead story line. For the first time, they don't sound self-conscious. The band says it all starts with being free of a record contract. (The album was also released traditionally on January 1 by ATO imprint TBD Records, topping the sales charts that week. The band has declined to release sales figures for the download.)
"When we weren't signed to EMI and didn't have a contract, that threw up all this mad(ness)," said Yorke. "In a way, your possibilities are endless and limitless and meaningless. You actually suddenly have -- I don't know why, it doesn't make sense -- but there was a complete lack of connection with our past."
------
The band has called the digital giveaway a "one-off" experiment, but they've also re-examined other ways they conduct business. They last year commissioned a report from the company Best Foot Forward to judge the carbon and ecological footprint of their touring.
Any adjustments are in the early stages, but the band has posted messages on their Web site urging fans to car pool to concerts. They caution that music is at the heart of any new endeavors.
And as might be expected for the ever forward-looking Radiohead, new songs are already in the works, though they are still just "on guitars," says Jonny Greenwood. He only hints that the songs explore "absurd musical ideas."
"When you hear Thom and Jonny in the soundcheck and they've come up with something and start playing it, it's good to hear," said O'Brien.
The process of finding the right instruments for the songs will soon begin. Greenwood would like to even throw a banjo into the mix, but said he gets "level looks" from his bandmates whenever he brings it out. "There's a ban on banjos," said his 38-year-old brother.
"What's interesting to me is very old technologies like orchestras and pianos and things and how they meet modern recording and treatment techniques," said Greenwood, 36, who also does classical work on the side, including the buzzing, unforgettable score to "There Will Be Blood."
Radiohead will tour Europe in June and July before returning for the second leg of their North America tour, which will kick off August 1 at the Lollapalooza Festival.
In the meantime, Yorke -- who said he still considers the album "the most satisfying format" -- has already envisioned the next innovation to deploy when they have new music to release.
"Let's leave it on the street corner with a little sign," Yorke jokes as excitement sweeps over his face. "Now that's a good idea! I like that idea. With a little photo on the Web: 'It's here.' A couple of clues. A little doggie bag."

THE STAGE HECKLER: R.E.M. & Friends at the 2008 Sasquatch Festival

I didn't get to bed after the show until 3AM, but I didn't care...the experience was well worth it.

When we arrived in the afternoon at the Sasquatch Music Festival at the Columbia Gorge in the middle of Washington state, a band called The New Pornographers were onstage (despite the imagery of the name, no such activities were taking place). They were followed by M.I.A., and Mighty Mouse... sorry, I think I meant to say Modest Mouse...whose singer sounded like a shouting middle-schooler having a temper tantrum. Yikes!

Let's just say that R.E.M.'s attendance at this musical event was a good thing and upped the notch in quality a bit, to put it politely...but of course not until the weather decided that it wanted to monsoon on everyone and challenge the band for the night.

...but these guys are veterans and have played through it all! What's a little rain?

Scheduled for 10PM, at one point it was questionable on whether or not R.E.M. could even go onstage, as the lights were swaying in the wind and all the equipment was getting completely soaked. There's very little in the way of protection from the elements onstage at the Gorge Amphitheatre. Staff were out there until showtime wiping off the performer's areas.

The band came onstage at about 10:05 --- not very late when you consider what the elements were doing.

It was obvious that safety was on the minds of the performers. On several occasions lead singer Michael Stipe checked in with his bandmates, and mused with the audience about the possibility of slipping and falling onstage --- he directed the audience to heckle him if he slipped.

"If I slip and fall," said Stipe, "You have to yell to me 'I told you so!'" were his instructions. As the night went on he took off his shoes and sang onstage in his socks.

"If I go barefoot, does that make me a hippie?" asked Stipe later on in the set. In which I responded with a yell from the uphill peanut gallery: "But you're already a hippie!"

To my surprise and satisfaction, the choice of tunes was about 75% different from the set list the night before in Vancouver. Very nice.

Here's the R.E.M. set list for May 24 performance at the Sasquatch Festival

1. Living Well is the Best Revenge
2. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
   
3. These Days
4. Drive
5. Accelerate
6. Auctioneer (Another Engine)
7. Man-sized Wreath
   
8. Ignoreland
9. Hollow Man
10. Life and How to Live It
11. Houston
12. Losing My Religion
13. Harborcoat
14. The One I Love
15. The Final Straw
16. Let Me In
17. Horse to Water
18. Bad Day
19. Walk Unafraid
    
20. I'm Gonna DJ
21. Supernatural Superserious
22. Orange Crush
23. Man on the Moon

When compared to the set list from the night before in Vancouver, BC, it's clear that the band is going for a little variety on the tour.

http://remhq.com/blog_detail.php?id=47

So this was the third R.E.M. concert for myself. I caught them at the ASU Activity Center in Tempe, Arizona touring off the Green album in 1989, then again 10 years later off the Up tour at Bumpershoot in Seattle.

They're now touring off the newly released Accelerate, which has an edgier sound and an attitude akin to punk, like much of their material from the 1980s.

As a live act R.E.M. is a well-oiled machine, seasoned and polished. Unlike many bands out there who deteriorate with age and find themselves turning into novelty acts, this band ages like a fine wine.

For those of you who made it and braved the rain and wind, kudos to ya! S

1,000 albums to hear before you die

While taking a break from reading, I stumbled across this list and thought it might be of interest to share. Here's the link: 1000 album list.

I don't necessarily agree with everything on this list, but it's a compelling case study... and I noticed that they're listed in chronologically, which isn't obvious at all... I only picked up on that due to my late night soirées involving reading liner notes, and probably because I index my albums under artist in chronological order by recording date, NOT RELEASE DATE... done like a true music nerd.

While I might actually be enough of a schmuck to eventually go out and pick up 90% of the albums on this list, I plan on checking out the more exotic ones from the local library. S

The Enigma that is PINK FLOYD

I've been meaning to do a post on this band for quite some time, and didn't really know where to start.

To take on the task of writing about and giving an accurate portrayal of The Floyd --- in whole or in part --- is an insanely monumental and very complex task.

It's complicated in that it's difficult not to get siphoned into band dynamics and the back story to the music, so something that should be simple on the surface (pick any song from any album) is actually concealing more complex matters beneath. It makes for a high level of detail and work; I want to be delicate in how I spin my own opinion on facts where, when I go into them, I had better be dead-on accurate when I provide them.

There's so many aspects about this band that are utterly fascinating...and there's no good place to really start. Which album does one start with? ...or does it begin with an analysis of one of the band members...or in their case, former band members, which involves tragedy with perhaps the most mysterious figure in rock and roll history AND the most tortured soul in music history who has actually lived into his 60s to talk about it?

...or does one begin perhaps with producer Alan Parsons, the magician behind the recording to The Dark Side of the Moon --- the premier rock album for the ages by which all others after it have been compared? Experimenting with concept albums and studio technology and breaking free of conventional pop-song formats, Pink Floyd prefigured the progressive rock of the '70s and ambient music of the ’80s.

...and we haven't even begun getting into the visual brain melt of their live shows, from their innovation of psychedelia in the 60s to The Wall tour that spanned 1980-81. DEFINITELY more on that another time.

Pink Floyd is an enigma...I can't think of a more appropriate way to describe them. Going through the band's catalog reveals a journey with more operatic twists and turns --- not only in the music itself, but in the back-story of the band and its members as the catalog of the group unfolds. That's where things get really interesting.

EVERYTHING one can imagine happens, and EVERYTHING you can't imagine.

The band didn't "manufacture" it's mystery like lots of other bands try to do these days. With Pink Floyd, things just happened and events simply unfolded...and the right combination of the wrong personalities brought out the very best and very worst in what a rock band can offer.

So let's actually give a half-assed attempt at starting somewhere.

To understand Pink Floyd, you have to try to understand the story of Syd Barrett (noticed that I said TRY). He passed away in July of 2006.

Syd is the Rosetta Stone to figuring out the Floyd and what made it tick. However, the man is shrouded in mystery due to several factors. If you can figure out Syd, you're probably God.

Syd launched the band as it's primary songwriter and leader in the mid-1960s, culminating with the band's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which I consider to be the greatest psychedelic album of all time (a review of Piper is a post for another day).

As a result of experimentation with psychedelic drugs, coupled with a personality disorder of some kind, Syd essentially lost his mind. In this day his symptoms would have been identifiable and treatable, however in 1968 there was very little in the way of assistance available.

As he became more withdrawn and his state began severely affecting his live performance, the band brought on guitarist and schoolmate David Gilmour, who learned all the parts and filled in. After performing as a quintet for a very brief period of time, Syd and the band parted ways, and he wandered into obscurity...at least that's how the story goes.

Any other band would have fallen apart as a result of their lead guitarist, lead vocalist and primary songwriter falling off the map...but Floyd powered on, and Roger Waters became the band's de facto leader and songwriter.

However the spirit of Syd continued to inspire and power the band ahead in a variety of ways, much like the booster rocket propels spacecraft out of the atmosphere. Syd's momentum, looking in hindsight, only helped to propel the band to heights unimaginable. I must say to, well, as high as the dark side of the moon.

Syd's personality and story would resurface in encrypted ways on future Floyd records; notably 1975's Wish You Were Here and 1979's The Wall. Most of, if not all of the Syd-related portraits called out in the Floyd's music would be cast forth through the songwriting of Roger Waters.

As the other founding member of Floyd, Roger has never appeared to get over the guilt and sadness of losing Syd, his former bandmate.

With Syd's departure, and cast into the unlikely role of primary songwriter --- in a twisted ball of wistfulness, brotherly love, and in wrestling with his own demons --- Roger Waters would catapult his songwriting facility to a place where nobody else has ever gone: baring for the rest of the universe his tortured soul in ways that are unparalleled in rock music.

I can't think of another songwriter who has as artfully and visually allowed his listeners access to the inside of their mind and all it's dark places. With Roger, this exercise culminated through the process of two works: The Wall and The Final Cut, the latter of which was released in 1983 and was the last Floyd record in which Waters would participate.

Unfortunately, in the process of those works, the band split up due mainly to Roger's obsessive nature with his vision. However, stories seem to indicate there was a breach in the dam as early as the mid-1970s during the Wish You Were Here sessions, several years prior to those projects.

Unfortunately while the chemistry began to erode on the Wish You Were Here project, the Floyd kept powering ahead with the famous quartet that we all know for as long as it could --- as the members Rick Wright (keyboards, vocals, sax), Nick Mason(drums), David Gilmour (guitars, vocals) and Roger Waters (bass, vocals) understood the importance of the band and how special it was.

Following Roger's departure, David Gilmour would pick up what remained of Pink Floyd, dust it off the best he could, and power it through two more respectable albums and tours --- essentially retiring the band in the 1990s until a miraculous series of events would put the classic quartet (including Roger) back onstage together for one last performance in 2005.

The stories of this band and its dynamics are endless...maybe I'll get to move through a few of them.

Oh, and then there's the music itself! I might as well give a brief mention to that before I sign off...my all-time favorite Floyd song is the masterpiece "Echoes" --- taking up the second side of the record album Meddle --- clocking in at a whopping 23 and a half minutes. In my opinion, that tune combines everything experimental about their 60s work with their more progressive 70s work --- bringing out the quintessential Floyd sound...and the fact that they performed it live in the middle of the Pompeii ruins...

...that's YET ANOTHER story for another day! S

A rundown of the Pink Floyd studio album discography with original material (does not count soundtracks, live albums, or videos):

1. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
2. A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
3. Umma Gumma (1969)
4. Atom Heart Mother (1970)
5. Relics (1971 - mixed compilation contains "Arnold Layne," "See Emily Play" and various b-sides)
   
6. Meddle (1971)
7. The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
8. Wish You Were Here (1975)
9. Animals (1977)
10. The Wall (1979)
11. The Final Cut (1983)
12. A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
13. The Division Bell (1994)

ISSUES FOR IDIOTS -- Artist subgenre classifications with MP3 players

So this is an ongoing problem I seem to have...and it seems to have no end in sight.

First of all, I'd like to say that I'm generally not a fan of classifying music, as many artists defy category. I guess the fact that I listen to many artists that cross music categories I believe demonstrates how I have breadth and diversity in my music collection. That stated, my collection certainly can always use more (such as opera, classical, blues, and electronica).

As the line under the title of the blog states: "...the musical journey continues."

...but now we need you at the bridge, Captain! WE'RE HAVING ISSUES!!!

So, back to the subject of classifying artists. Those of us who have MP3 players (in my case, the 160GB iPod, of which I've filled so far with 104.90GB of music - that's 19,785 songs most of which are ripped at 192 kbps) obviously must deal with assigning a classification of music for our music artists when we helicopter the songs onto our computer program, which the MP3 device takes to set itself up.

Many folks don't care, or don't know to pay attention to those sorts of details and live in MP3 bliss without thinking about "music genres and subgenres." However, for those of us who have hundreds of artists and CDs ripped to our MP3s - and do actually care, because we know no other way - we have no choice. We must classify the artists by genre if we're to find them on the device...otherwise you'll grow gray searching for what you want to play.

So this classification of genre process has taken on a life of its own. Some of it's simple: John Lee Hooker goes under "Blues" while Louis Armstrong goes under "Jazz."

In other cases, I'll bump into an artist that was accidentally classified under one tab and recategorize them... for example I realized that my Joni Mitchell CDs Blue and Ladies of the Canyon were classified under Rock, when I thought that the Folk category was more appropriate - so after it passed muster with the music committee in my head, I issued an executive order and made the change.

The big issues I run into are with my extensive rock collection. The drama never ends, and some problems simply linger...so let's journey back to the beginning with this one.

A long time ago, in a land far, far away - an MP3 player was purchased...

To go back one step further to set up the rest of this post; my "physical" CD collection on my shelf has all rock artists together, alphabetically, without any rock subgenre divisions...so a punk CD by the Sex Pistols has a home next to a band like Santana, etc. Simple and easy...I know where to find the artist I want, when I want.

However, an MP3 is more interactive and the selection of music is more handily at your fingertips...so when you have over 1,200 rock CDs on the unit, you need to break them down into subgenre. In addition, some of the smart features on MP3 players such as shuffle and playlist options make you want to divide things out a bit so you don't get an Aerosmith tune playing when you're in the mood for Dire Straits, let's say.

So as things have evolved, I've come up with 8 genres of rock music, and recently decided that in order to keep track of all of them I had to label them starting with the umbrella genre of rock... for example, if you want to hear Kiss you must look under "Rock: Hard Rock." To hear The Beatles, you look under "Rock: Classic Rock."

The subgenres under "Rock: " that I have are:

1. Alternative,
   
2. Art & Progressive,
   
3. Classic Rock,
   
4. Hard Alternative,
   
5. Hard Rock,
   
6. Heavy Metal,
   
7. Southern Rock, and
   
8. The 1950s.

Of course, much of this is dictated by the makeup of my music collection, and what I want to hear in a specific subgenre... however, there are some distinctions I ignore that might be important to others. For example, I don't recognize what some might refer to as "80s hair bands" or "pop metal," simply because I don't own enough of that sort of thing in my collection to dictate my rock genre expanding into those kinds of subgenres.

Then there's the artists who make a compelling case for being categorized into more than one subgenre. Neil Young comes to mind... I have his solo albums (despite their wide range unto themselves) under "Rock: Classic Rock" while I have his collaborations with Crazy Horse under "Rock: Hard Rock." There's an intended and obvious difference in his sound between those two worlds he roams between, so that's easy.

Other artists aren't so easy... for example, I still can't figure out what in the hell to do with Lou Reed, and the Velvet Underground for that matter. Currently I have solo Lou and VU under "Rock: Hard Rock," which I know is very disputable... I decided to put them there not so much due to their band sound being heavy as much as the heavy hit with their thematic elements. I find that the themes in the music do factor into the overall package, and therefore what classification I ultimately determine.

Again, the classification for Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground is totally disputable. In some ways, the VU may have been the Godfathers of alternative music, considering how outside the box they were at the time against the 60s counterculture...but did alternative music really spawn out of the mid-1960s? That's very hard to absorb, let alone believe.

All this considered, as an interesting side note; I believe I only have ONE artist filed into THREE OVERALL GENRES, which would be Bob Dylan (country, folk and rock: classic rock).

In the case of alternative music, I found I had to research exactly what "alternative" means in my subgenre accuracy endeavors on my iPod... and I got a VERY interesting overview of it on Wikipedia, which is totally worth your time to review, if nothing else you might learn something you didn't consider: Alternative rock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. In the end, I divided my alternative rock into two subgenres: "hard alternative" (to umbrella punk, grunge, and harder post-grunge alternative) and simply "alternative" (80s new wave, weird bands like They Might Be Giants, and bands like No Doubt).

So that's the deal...please feel free to comment with your MP3 classification issues, especially if you've spent as much time as I have pondering all the subgenres and experiencing the "Clash of the Titans scenarios" in your head. S

How I Helped Usher Change in the Audio and Music Industries

That's right. I kid you not...and I did it without even realizing it at the time.

...and the full effects of my contributions haven't really been felt yet, nor have they even been fully realized by the industry and the public at-large.

It happened when I purchased my Sony HDR-SR5 hi-def video camera last fall. That's all it took.

Try to follow the logic here; this is the deal...

When I purchased that high definition camera, I was a bit of an idiot; in that I didn't realize it supported a new hi-def format called "AVCDH." This format, when the user goes through the process of creating hi-def discs to play home movies on, is only compatible with Blu-ray video players...

...for those of you who don't know the context of what that means; Blu-ray has been in a format struggle, competing with HD DVD. Industry insiders and folks who pay a little bit of attention on the blogs (like me) know that one of the major catalysts in helping Blu-ray to win that format war in the last month was the consumer-driven sale of hi-def hard drive camcorders, which create the AVCDH files, which are only compatible with Blu-ray and not HD DVD.

So I was a dummy here on several levels...

1. I bought the hi-def camera having no idea what AVCDH was or what it was compatible with. For all I know, it could have been compatible only with HD DVD, then I really would have been screwed.
   
2. I bought it without a clue as to what software I was going to use to make home movies, or what precisely that entailed.
3. I bought it not realizing that when I did figure out it was compatible with Blu-ray, that means I need to have a computer with a Blu-ray burner on it... ohhhh, now he gets it.
4. ...and moreover, that means purchasing Blu-ray burnable discs (BD-Rs), which sell right now for about $15 a pop... yikes... might be riding the economics of that out for a few more months... YA THINK?!?
5. Of course, none of this means anything unless I ACTUALLY OWN A BLU-RAY PLAYER, ALONG WITH A HI-DEF TELEVISION!!! HUH? YA THINK?!?
   
6. While the knuckleheads at Best Buy weren't much help either, but in the end it was my fault for not doing my homework like I should have... I was just dazzle-blinded by the prospect of the hi-def camcorder.
   

Simply put, I got REALLY lucky... in a "Gilligan trips over the Skipper to fall into Ginger's tent to catch a look at her nude" sorta way... as much of the issues I just listed are on my radar screen to be purchasing in the near future anyway.

So anyway, let's get back to how I helped to usher in the end of the long format war with my purchase...

Once again, try to follow my logic here...

The end of the format war, and with the consumer market running out to grab every Blu-ray machine in sight, seems to put the music industry in a special position.

Hey, WAKE UP!!! We're talking about the music industry now... you know, those guys who made you revamp your CD collection in the last 15 years with "remastered" CDs? Uh huh, we're talking 'bout those guys.

The music industry has been having an identity crisis in the last 5-10 years, as it can't decide how it wants to move into the world of better quality recordings... and it hasn't known what to do with the format known as the "CD," otherwise known as the compact disc... until now.

The CD will soon be obsolete. The higher quality picture definition of Blu-ray carries with it the capabilities of 5.1 and even 7.1 surround sound... and that also means it raises expectations not just for video, but also for audio. The music industry is going to need to start pushing its product into an arena where it can offer a quality of product that is comparable to where video is headed.

That means moving into an absolute market world (eventually) of 5.1 surround sound recordings... which means going to the DVD audio format and abandoning the CD, simply because the CD can't hold enough information on the disc. Blu-ray players are reverse compatible, meaning that they can also play DVDs and CDs... but NOT SACDs (super audio compact discs).

The SACD format has been another hi-fi offshoot from the CD, and while it presents uncompressed sound quality through a 5.1 system, it can be copied, especially the hybrid discs... and moreover, a Blu-ray player won't be able to play it and give it the 5.1 SS experience. Which means, in my opinion, that the SACD format will soon be abandoned, because folks who are on a budget with their audio-video setup at home aren't going to go out and purchase an additional disc player - in addition to their Blu-ray player - just so they can play SACDs.

Confused now? Uh, yeah.

So, my point again was that the camera purchase helped Blu-ray win the format war, and will push the music industry to adopt the DVD audio format so that folks will only need to purchase ONE player (because that's all they're willing to purchase) for their home systems to play it all at the quality they expect.

Allright, enough of that... good luck and good night. S

ISSUES FOR IDIOTS -- Keyboards & synthesizers according to Sweva, Part 1

It's a very long and complicated debate.

They have the power to enhance a listening experience to ethereal levels that defy description, and can also come in from left field to obliterate a perfectly crafted song like a bulldog in a china shop.

They're called synthesizers...love 'em or hate 'em.

There's a wide variety of "synth" out there...today I'll put my spin on what is "cool synth" versus "cheesy synth."

...and don't think for a minute that there isn't a difference.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE, DAMMIT! Don't question me, gentle reader, until you read what I have to say.

Generally speaking, the following are "cool" synth instruments that tend to have a minimal cheese factor:

1. The piano. Classic, elegant, beautiful, indisputable.
   
2. Most organs, specifically the Hammond B3. Not the one at the ballpark.
   
3. The mellotron. Some may find it a bit dated, and yes it's out of the 60s, but I think it sounds really cool. It can bring great emotion to music; it's sorta the cello of the electric keyboard family.
4. Most electronic synth since the 1990s. I don't know if the sound improved, or if it was the way bands employed the use of synthesizers since the 1990s...maybe a little of both...but the cheese factor seemed to essentially go away around the mid-90s. The emergence of hip-hop and post-grunge alternative rock bringing the use of some more obscure keyboard sounds into the mainstream may have helped to eliminate the stigma that cheesy synth was associated with prog-rock bands in the 1970s and 80s. You could probably draw several variations on this from many variables...ask me again in 10 years; perhaps I will have changed my mind on this.
   

The following synth instruments tend to "bring the cheese out" in any artist, for the most part:

1. The mini-moog. Sadly, this instrument has destroyed more songs than I care to name. Whoever invented this should be shot.
   
2. Most MIDI mechanisms from the 1980s. That thing that makes a song sound like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
3. Most loops and sequencers out of the 1970s. Generally I'm not much of a fan of these, due more to the fact that they stifle creativity and show laziness on the part of the musician, unless they have NO hands and feet free, then using them sparingly might be understandable. Generally, however, they annoy too...especially something out of the 70s.
   

The following are examples of "cool" synthesizer use.

1. Anything by Jimmy Smith. The jazz master of the Hammond B3... he's the one who brought the instrument into the jazz forefront, which in turn heavily influenced other music mediums.
   
2. "The Speed of Sound" by Coldplay. Great example of colorful synth use that adds incredible depth and mood to a song.
   
3. "Lazarus" by Porcupine Tree. Modern song using the good 'ol piano...beautifully and artfully, I might add.
4. "Good New First" by Rush. A good example of the mellotron being dusted off and brought back into modern rock for great effect. It's in the background, but adds to the dark flavor of desperation in the tune.
5. Voyage 34 by Porcupine Tree. I hate to bring up a band twice in the same example, but Porcupine Tree's 1993 album focused almost completely on synthesizers, in a new age sense. An excellent example of well-crafted synth as it was emerging out of the 80s and into new frontiers in the 90s.
   
6. Enya's catalog. I can think of no other artist who helped to "de-cheese" electronic synth in the 1990s more than her. Enya gave key instruments an almost ethereal quality.
7. "Green Onions" by Booker T. & the MG's. A perfect example showcasing the soul of the Hammond B3, and how it works in a classic rock setting.
   

The following are examples of "cheesy" synthesizer use.

1. "Magic Man" by Heart. The best example I can think of where a great song is rolling along minding its own business, and BOOM! It gets broadsided by a tidal wave of dated synth cheese that makes a Packer game at Lambeau Field seem like mere topping on nachos. My only question to Ann and Nancy Wilson would involve this and something to the effect of "WTF?!?!"
   
2. "In the Beginning" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Another perfectly good song - a LOVE SONG to boot - and then it takes a turn for the worse as this cornball outer space synth jam takes over the outtro like flying saucers square dancing across the sky.
3. "Dream Police" by Cheap Trick. A perfect example of a cheesy loop and artist laziness. Not that the song is that great, but... Why? Why use this? Whenever I hear this all I can do is mock the synth loop and pretend that there's actually a keyboard player in the band by having my fingers dance over whatever's in front of me at the time...otherwise I'd probably go nuts and chew on plastic flashbulbs.
   

The jury is still out on the following examples... mainly because these are classic songs. I would argue that part of what makes these songs classic is good songwriting, and the fact that in most cases the synth is used sparingly.

1. Elton John. The best example I can think of. There was a definite display of cheesy synth that he employed in the 70s, and he seemed to relish in it...this is where showmanship trumps everything else, obviously (see photo at top).
   
2. "Baba O'Rielly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. These are classic songs, and Pete Townshend was an innovator. He employed something unique in those tunes, but they are a bit dated, no argument there.
   
3. "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. Two debatable issues here... there's the opening "meeoooow" (as a good friend of mine likes to refer to it), which appears through out the tune. I actually find that to be very cool and unique. Then there's the synth jam right before the guitar solo, which was actually taken from Geddy Lee's old warmup routine. I could take it or leave it.
   
4. Duran Duran's 80s catalog. 80s MIDI was the central part of their sound...but this is the ultimate 80s band, so it's hard to imagine the D's (and the 1980s, for that matter) without this sound.
5. Bon Jovi. I'll try to keep a straight face here, as the name conjures up scary imagery of metal hair band members running rampant. Yes, it's the 80's once again, but in more of a metal sensibility (just a bit). Again, this was the synth decade, and the keys are part of the Bon Jovi sound, but sheesh. Arguably OK, but still barely tolerable. "Livin' On a Prayer" brings back memories of a friend in college who used to grab the mic at parties when he'd had too much, and a terrifying version of The Wedding Singer would ensue...I think I have permanent brain damage from that...
   
6. Yes' catalog. It's a big part of their sound, and some of it does in fact sound cheesy, but Rick Wakeman and many of the other keys players in Yes were masters at their craft so it's hard to knock them. This is one of those rare cases where the virtuoso element trumps much of the cheesyness, and many of Yes' thematic elements were enhanced with the use of the cheesy synth...listen to Tales from Topographic Oceans...thematically it's a total brain melt, which tends to trump the way synth is used. It actually blends in with the overall music very well.
   

So let me know your thoughts on this critical issue. This post was inspired by constant ribbing over the years from various people in my life who find my pet peeve with cheesy synth to be amusing... especially one person in particular, who insists on harassing me with voice mails and text messages to the effect...so Shindog, this is for you.

...and this debate has ONLY JUST BEGUN, so I'll leave it here. To be continued... S

Rush & The Foo Fighters jam together at Toronto's Air Canada Centre

THE REVIEW CORNER -- Miles Davis: Kind of Blue. Orig. issued 1959. Columbia, 2004 DualDisc reissue.

Here it is. The ultimate jazz masterpiece sounding better than ever.

The album is available in the DualDisc format, which means that it's one disc that's two sided. On one side is the remastered CD version of the album, and the other side is a DVD with the 5.1 Surround Sound version.

Usually the DVD music discs have other goodies on them, and this one doesn't dissapoint as it has a mini-documentary Made in Heaven - The Story of Kind of Blue, in which there are interviews with Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes, Me'Shell NdegeOcello, Q-Tip, Shirley Horn, Jackie McClean, John Scofield, Jimmy Cobb and others. There's also a historic photo gallery to boot.

The track listing goes as follows:

1. So What
2. Freddie Freeloader
3. Blue in Green
4. All Blues
5. Flamenco Sketches
6. Flamenco Sketches (alternate take)
   

I recommend hearing this work for the first time when you have some chill time.

The album is simply ethereal, with all the qualities that make jazz music great. It all begins with the mysterious first minute of "So What," where you don't quite know what direction the tune is going to take, and then it settles into a bluesy groove that's best described as a knife through soft butter. The rest of the opening track, and the album for that matter, follows with too many twists and turns to mention. It's a journey. It's an experience.

Take a listen for yourself and feel the magic...and I can't wait to hear this monster on 5.1 Surround Sound.

I give this 6 OUT OF 5 STARS. An ESSENTIAL recording that should be on any desert island list...and if you ever own ONLY ONE jazz album in your lifetime, this should be it.

Hopefully you'll own more than one, however. We'll keep our fingers crossed for you. S

FILLER FOR AUDIOPHILES -- 5.1 Surround Sound investment is worth every penny

I was recently doing what I do best with my exceptionally valuable time; perusing through the racks of a used CD store...what can I say, it's a pastime of mine.

While some old habits die hard, some other habits will never die...God willing.

For those of you who are new to the 5.1 Surround Sound format, you've all heard it in the theaters - especially if you're into sci-fi stuff like Star Wars. It's where the sound seems to journey around the room and spin around your head.

Some out there think the term "5.1" is some sort of secret industry code, as if it needs to be decrypted...it actually means "5 speakers, 1 sub woofer." Meaning 1 speaker at front center, 1 front right, 1 front left, 1 rear right, 1 rear left, and the sub usually goes to the side of the entertainment center (or even behind it if it's in the way).

Some of you may have heard it on a friend's home stereo; but again, it's been geared mainly towards the viewing of movies...your friend's media collection probably reflects that unless you know someone who is a total audiophile and has a collection of 5.1 Surround Sound music CDs (actually they're technically DVDs)...then why bother reading this article, right?

Uh, yeah...right. Sure. Yabetchya. Whatever.

Well it so happens that those DVD players that are set up for 5.1 Surround Sound movies will also play the music DVDs, which are set up the same way. That all being said, most consumers these days know to purchase a DVD disc player since it plays both DVDs and CDs... the only remaining question at the time of purchase, of course, being whether or not the unit also plays HDCDs, but that's "audiophile filler" for another day...

So at this time I have no 5.1 Surround Sound system set up at home, nor have I ever had one set up, period. Ever. I'm in the middle of packing the condo for a move into a house, which hopefully will occur sooner rather than later. The most hi-fi I'm getting is through an old bookshelf stereo system with one CD player and two cassette decks, my computer, a trusty 160GB iPod, a SwimP3 I use for doing laps at the pool (a very very cool little gizmo, made by Finis), a 6 CD changer in my 13 year-old vehicle with blown out speakers that occasionally bark at me, and the speakers of the standard television in the living room...a real hi-fi experience, I must say.

Completely apathetic for someone who dedicates a blog solely to the subject of music.

...so meanwhile, back in the CD racks...this all being said, I decided to take an investment risk. I picked up a copy of Porcupine Tree's 2002 release In Absentia in a 5.1 Surround Sound DVD format. Remember, I don't have a 5.1 Surround Sound arrangement at home.

Yes, I'm a dummy.

I decided that when I move, the killer stereo setup is inevitable and therefore will happen; and when it does, looky here...I'll have a handful of discs that can play to the 5.1 format.

Actually, I'm a genius. Thank you very little.

Now that I think of it, so far I've purchased two 5.1 DVDs without ever having heard what a 5.1 DVD sounds like.

So scratch the genius thing, I'm back to being a dummy again.

A Circuit City was nearby the record store, so I decided to stop by there to play my new disc and see what it sounded like...and I was COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY!!!

5.1 Surround Sound is everything I've dreamt of, and more. It makes you feel like you're on stage with the band. I hear acoustic guitars coming out of the rear speakers, voices coming out of the front, and electric guitars in the middle with the drums...I have information coming at me from all over the room.

For you old school folks out there who once thought you were hearing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on what was called "quadrophonic sound," this is essentially what that myth claimed to be...

...so needless to say, I highly recommend this format, but only if you're set up for it... Unless, of course, you're going to be set up for it "soon," then go ahead and buy 5.1 Surround Sound music DVDs and haul your friggin' collection around audio stores and play them on friends systems around town.

Yeah, that's it!

Then you'll get raised eyebrows wherever you go, and they'll say: "Hey look, there goes the 5.1 Surround Sound Music Fairy." S

THE REVIEW CORNER -- Remaster of U2's Joshua Tree album brings old memories & the mythical American Southwest to life

In my opinion, it was the most significant music project of the 1980s, by any rock band.

The Joshua Tree, U2's 1987 epic, just got even better when it was released last November in a remastered edition to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of its release.

You can pick it up in a single disc version, a 2-CD version with B-sides, outtakes and different versions of songs from the album sessions, or a 3 disc boxed set with the 2 CDs and a concert DVD from the tour that followed the original album release...

So there's something for everyone; just have your pick and enjoy the superb remastered sound quality! It's a big improvement, in my opinion. A HUGE improvement. Now they just need to release it in a 5.1 surround sound version, but that's another "filler for audiophile story" for another day...

For me, this recording has a very personal leaning. I'll focus on that right now and leave the other angles on the subject matter of the album to the next guy...

The album came out during a time of my life when I was in transition; graduating from high school and experiencing the gift and freedom of going out of the Seattle area, out of state to Arizona, for my freshman year of college. The summer of 1987, when I first heard The Joshua Tree, was also a bittersweet time for me as I'd lost my maternal grandmother the day after graduation. The music, with its southwestern themes, beckoned me and enhanced the possibilities that lay ahead as I got ready for the day I would fly to Phoenix to start a new chapter in my life.

The Joshua Tree helped provide a soundtrack for my introduction to Arizona and the American southwest as I began my first year of college at Arizona State. For me, the imagery of The Joshua Tree is the beautiful desertscapes of Arizona and the drive through the desert along Interstate-10 as you go west toward Los Angeles. I've lost count of the number of times I've spun the disc on that drive... it's a required listen on that stretch of I-10, and you can usually fit it in during the near-7 hour trip.

It brings back that summer after high school and my first year of college... the transitions that took place, and the people that affected me at the time. It's part of the soundtrack of my life.

If you're headed west on I-10, try to throw it on when you cross the state line into Arizona and the saguaros of the Sonoran Desert start coming into view... it will send shivers up your spine.

So those are my thoughts... here's an excerpt from the disc booklet that's of interest. S


The Joshua Tree made U2 into international rock stars and established both a standard they would always have to live up to and an image they would forever try to live down.

Both things have been very good for the band. With The Joshua Tree U2 reached the top of the mountain.

Some artists get to the top of the mountain and come back down. Some fight to stay there. U2 got to the top of the mountain and used it as a place to build a launching pad.

U2 were barely out of their teens when they released their first album, Boy, in 1980. October followed the next year and then War, with its fist-in-the-air anthems, alerted the guard dogs of the rock world - radio, press, and retail - that a big new act was blooming.

Bono has pointed out that U2 benefited here from the coincidence that most of the other bands who were ahead of them in the punk /new wave queue - The Clash, Talking Heads, Police, Pretenders - chose this moment to take a powder. An audience for new rock music had been building for more than five years and suddenly U2 were at the front of the line. They grabbed that energy and used it for rocket fuel.

But first they took a step sideways. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) was not the anthemic stadium rock monster that the group's label - and perhaps a lot of their fans - had expected and hoped for. Rather than go in and make a Who /Led Zeppelin record, U2 chose to work with the conceptualist producer Brian Eno and his confederate, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Lanios to do something more subdued and experimental.

It turned out to be a smart move - it deepened U2's relationship with their audience before the big step forward and served notice that this was a band with ambitions beyond record sales. Unforgettable Fire was a bigger hit than U2 had enjoyed to date - the group's momentum was unstopped - and it contained their first big hit single, "Pride (In the Name of Love)."

"Pride" - a rousing celebration of the vision of Martin Luther King - was slightly out of place on The Unforgettable Fire, but it provided a blueprint for the broad-shouldered, big screen American visions of The Joshua Tree.

U2 had spent a tremendous amount of time in the USA in the first half of the eighties. What they saw through bus windows and in the gas stations, motels and theaters along the way shaped the new music they wrote. Bono and Edge were influenced by the wasteland western plays of Sam Shepard as well as the European lost-in-America imagery of films like Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas.

What came out were songs that dealt less with America the country than with a mythic America of the imagination. In that way, U2 were following in the footsteps of their fellow Irishman Sean Feeny - who as John Ford made films like Fort Apache, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, that turned the desert vistas of the southwest into a landscape for stories about temptation, redemption, and the power of myth to ennoble or destroy.

The hit singles from The Joshua Tree - "Where the Streets Have No Name," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and "With or Without You" all have titles that sound like lines John Wayne would say in a John Ford film. They suggest a quest, a journey out into the territories...and yet the heart of the album is two songs that were not hit singles, but which have endured over twenty years as the centerpiece of countless U2 concerts - "Running to Stand Still" and "Bullet the Blue Sky." One is a whisper, the other an explosion and together they demonstrated how deep U2 were prepared to go.

"Running to Stand Still" was inspired by an epidemic of heroin use in Dublin. The story in the song is of a couple who decide to risk everything on a big drug deal. They pretty much know going in that they don't have a chance of coming out. "Bullet the Blue Sky" is about the American-backed insurgency that was at that time trying to overthrow the leftist government of El Salvador. Bono and his wife Ali got caught on the edge of a firefight during a visit to Central America, and he came back with the idea for that song - an indictment of U.S. power turned against its neighbors. Famously, Bono asked Edge to put the war through his amplifier.

What makes those songs stand up twenty years later is that you don't need to know any of that history. "Running to Stand Still" is for anyone who feels trapped in an impossible circumstance by overwhelming responsibility. "Bullet the Blue Sky" is as true in Iraq as it has been in Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda or Darfur since the music was first played.

Produced by Eno and Lanois (with some umpiring by U2's original producer, Steve Lillywhite), The Joshua Tree sold more than twenty million copies, won the Album of the Year Grammy, went to number one around the world, and put U2 on the cover of Time magazine - but it did a lot more than that.

The Joshua Tree put U2 into a pantheon that very few bands of their generation ever reached and that no other band of their generation stayed in. It put U2 on the mountain with The Stones, The Who, Hendrix, Springsteen and Zeppelin. It put them on top of the world.

It is to U2's great credit that when they got to the top of that mountain, they refused to be set in stone. They wanted to see some other views. So after the victory lap that was Rattle and Hum, they headed for the new horizons of Achtung Baby and Zooropa. Asked what the sound of their new record would be in 1992, they famously said, "It's the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree."

by Bill Flanagan, 2007

A video follow-up to the "21 Reasons" post

After all that babble in the last post, I thought I'd follow up with some video.

Think of it as your reward for all your hard work in reading my stuff...

It starts out with Rush performing "Freewill" at the SARS Festival in their hometown of Toronto in 2003, then to the Pink Floyd reunion with Roger Waters at Live 8 in 2005 and "Comfortably Numb," and finally to an acoustic Neil Young performance with "Old Man" in 1971.

After the videos play, you can surf the menu at the bottom of the video box to play other songs by the same artist.

Enjoy! S