Songs of the Week Volume III!
Welcome to Songs of the Week Again! For the third time! Here is the playlist. Here is the playlist with all of the Songs of the Week. Submit your songs in the comments for next week!
Demetri Cassidy:
Pond - Moth Wings
I don't know what to say about this. Just listen to it. It's weird, it's aggressive, and it's totally awesome.
Aphex Twin - Rhubarb*
This song is one of the most calming things I've ever heard in my life. It's the perfect song to listen to when stressed out and under pressure. Listen to it, and you'll see what I mean.
Richard Moore:
Adele - Skyfall
Adele utilizes a very wide range of instrumentation to obtain the musical quality and style she believes a song should have.
Ellie Goulding - Burn
Ellie Goulding Goulding always tries to create very good music without sacrificing her band for computers.
Kyle Sousa:
Stevie Wonder - Superstition
This song is a great song with an eerie feel to it. It is also a great pick with both Halloween coming up and this song's 43rd anniversary coming up after being released on October 24, 1972.
Sam Minton:
Kendrick Lamar - i
This song is the first single off of Kendrick's 3rd studio album "To Pimp A Butterfly." At a time where mainstream rap and the media is focusing more on the negative, Kendrick turns the focus to the positive. Throughout the song Lamar focuses on telling listeners to love themselves for who they are, and to be confident in themselves.
Edgar Castro:
Slint - Breadcrumb Trail
Continuing our exploration of the post-rock genre, Slint's Breadcrumb Trail takes, like Mogwai's Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home, a very different approach from that of "typical" post-rock bands like GY!BE and Explosions in the Sky - like Mogwai, Slint's songs are very focused on electric guitars as the main instruments and a dynamic of interchanging screeching and tame segments. The tame segments are also somewhat reminiscent of the tame segments of Mogwai's Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home with their bright electric guitars, which I appreciate a lot. It is a bit heavier, though, with some semblances of post-hardcore music. I like this song because it takes a very whimsical look at what is considered to be a fairly casual and uneventful activity: spending a day at the carnival. The notes, the screeching segments, and the lyrics - "Far below, a soiled man\ A bucket of torn tickets at his side\ He watches as the children run by\ And picks his teeth" - suggest that there's something sinister about the carnival, while the tame segments suggest that it's just, as we would expect, a normal day at the carnival, albeit a sort of theatrical one: "We walked across the deserted lot, alone ... The carnival sign threw colored shadows on her face." The whole song is just very interesting. The lyrics sort of make you feel like you're a small child again, looking at the world in a unique way, as if everything is new and different.
Sun Kil Moon - Duk Koo Kim**
There's just something special about songs involving boxers. Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer is the famous one. This one mentions Kim Duk-Koo, a korean boxer who died after fighting Ray Mancini due to a brain hemmorage. The song isn't just about Kim, though it does feel like an homage to him and a mourning of his death; like your typical Sun Kil Moon song, the lyrics are largely composed of slices of life and wandering thoughts, with wandering guitars to complement them. That wandering begins to reach its peak around two thirds of the way through the song, where the song's second part - my favourite one - kicks in. The melody and rhythm change, and the song focuses on an acoustic guitar as instruments slowly start to layer on top of it and build to the song's second climax, if it can be called that, reminiscent of a post-rock song. Kozelek's lyrics mention angels often, and, fittingly, "angelic" is probably the best way to describe the second part. The whole thing is just very peaceful - Kozelek's voice is soothing and the instruments are very calm.
Austin Sullivan:
John Lennon - Imagine
Because last Friday was his birthday and John Lennon is so iconic that he should be remembered.
Sam Feinstein (Alum.)
No Video (click the title)
*cough cough* my bands newest single *cough cough*
Matt Smith:
C.W. McCall - Convoy
Grab your HAM radios and find the biggest 18 wheeler you can find because we got ourselves a convoy. Convoy from C.W. McCall that is. A chorus that just wants to make you want to smile and a comical story behind it makes this one the most enjoyable songs I know.
A Single Pill - Say Geronimo
Whether you’re about to do something incredibly awesome (or stupid) or just want to quote my favorite doctor. Say Geronimo by A Single Pill is an uplifting new favorite of mine. Can’t really think of anymore clever descriptions, but you still check it out.
Fernando Francisco:
BØRNS - 10,000 Emerald Pools
I like the relaxing vibe where I can just lay down and listen to the song.
Connor Murphy:
Rivers Cuomo - I Was Made For You
This has to be one of my favorite songs by Rivers Cuomo, frontman of Weezer. This comes from the first of his three Alone albums, which were designed to be compilations of Cuomo's ridiculous amount of unreleased material. This song has a very 50s rock n roll love song feel to it, as a lot of Cuomo's music does.
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
This is almost definitely my favorite Gorillaz song. It comes from their first album Gorillaz, which is part of their first phase, titled Celebrity Takedown. This is the virtual band's debut single, featuring Del the Ghost Rapper(voiced by Del Tha Funky Homosapien) in addition to the usual lineup of 2D(voiced by Damon Albarn), Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel. The instrumentalists have varied through the years, but Damon Albarn, originally of Blur fame, and Jamie Hewlett, the illustrator and animator, have remained through the duration of the project's three phases so far (and Phase 4 is rumored to be in the works). Del, the main subject of the song is featured because he is no longer stuck inside the mind of Russel, the drummer of the band. Russel is possessed by the spirits of his friends who were killed in a driveby shooting outside a Brooklyn high school. This song is Del's advice to the living, having learned what he has from his life, death, and afterlife. Without this single, Gorillaz may have never reached the level of fame they have today. But despite it's popularity, I feel as though many people fail to hear the message of this song.
Rebecca Dubois:
OneRepublic - Secrets
It's hard to keep everything in and sometimes you just have to let it out. That's exactly what is happening in this song. This woman is tired of keeping everything in and waiting for this guy, so she wants to stop waiting and give all of her secrets away. It doesn't matter who it hurts, she just can't hold in all of the pain and misery any more. That's why this song is entitled "Secrets".
Sam Neumann:
Don McLean - American Pie
I like this song because it has a lot of deeper meaning.
*Not on Spotify
**Alternate version on Spotify