Hip-hop/fashion show at the Student Pub

, originally uploaded by Jacob W..

I was invited to shoot a live music event combined with a fashion show this Friday. Check out some of the photos at my flickr account. A slideshow is also available here.

808’s isn’t so bad!

I feel like it’s time for me to make myself clear about an album opinion as seen in this post to weeks ago. As you can see I listed Kanye West’s new 808’s & Heartbreak as one of the “not so good” cds. After two weeks of listing I have to admit I was wrong, or maybe just not clear enough. The album (especially the first half) is really good. I still think that Kanye’s a better rapper than singer, and I’d love to hear a new album that’s more like Graduation. Nevertheless the new cd is an interesting and – at least for me – inspiring experiment. Some of the songs are catchy, but what I like most about this album is the artist’s determination in using the Roland TR-808 as drum machine for all the tracks. If you check out the info about the TR-808 you’ll notice that it’s a pretty basic piece of equipment with mainly 16 programable buttons for the drum sounds!

Now the best part: if you’re a Mac user you already have GarageBand. What I found out was that the TR-808 emulator is available as part of the Remix Jam Pack from Apple! So you can simply make the exactly same sounds and if you’re good enough, produce something that sounds very much like Kanye’s latest album. Now that’s why I love Macs!

My hits and shits of 2008

The year’s coming to an end, so it’s time to start summing it up, right? Let’s start with my favorite albums!

Good ones

4. The Roots – Rising Down

Overall a good CD, pleasant listing. Shows that new hip-hop doesn’t have to be sung using auto tune. 

 

Snoop Dogg's Ego Trippin' cover art

 

3. Snoop Dogg – Ego Trippin’

Let’s face it: Snoop is exactly what I try to stay away from – mainstream. And let’s face it: I still like this record a lot! Press Play is a great opener.

2. O.S.T.R. – Ja tu tylko sprzatąm

Contemporary, kinda ol’ school but still modern hip-hop, that’s still staying away from what’s trendy these days (auto tune, anyone?). Love it, especially Introgliceryna’s second part!

 

1. Coldplay – Viva la Vida

This one was difficult. Sure, Viva la Vida is a great post brit-pop record, but in my opinion not as good as the debut Parachutes a couple of years ago. Still, the track with the same title as the album is amazing and can for sure be compared to my all-time Coldplay favorite track, Don’t Panic.

Coldplay's Viva La Vida cover art

 

 

Not-so-good ones

 

Okay, that’s the good-stuff list. How about the other side? Here are my biggest disappointments of the year…

 

 

3. Kanye West – 808s & Heartbreak

Kanye's new record

 

Recently released and played in my iPod with huge anticipation. And what? Well… not much. Let’s hope this an artistic experiment, a side album, a spin-off from Kanye’s ideas, a test… Please Mr. West, turn off the auto tune and go back to rapping’, cause you do it well. More than well on 2006’s Graduation! I’m not saying the album is bad – if it’d have been anyone else, it would be good. But with Kanye’s rap talent… singing R’nB ballades is a waste of time. 

 

2. The Kooks – Konk

Gonk! Konk! It can be played, but you hardly notice the music. How could this happen after such an amazing debut with Inside In / Inside Out (2006)?

 

1. John Legend – Evolver

Finally, the biggest disappointment of the year. Seriously John, what happened? Get Lifted (2004) was amazing, Once Again (2006) was good, though I got tired of it sooner than with Get Lifted. This truly continues the backdown spiral of Legend’s. I’m afraid of the next record which statistically should arrive in 2010. Damn…

 

There’s one more album worth mentioning, namely Dig You Soul by Oasis. Recently released (November 2008), it is for sure the most Beatlesque record of the year. I haven’t been listing to it a lot, but I do like it for its sound and many references to the Fab Four. Still, Be Here Now (1997) is in my opinion the best Oasis record ever. 

 

So these are my biggest favorites and biggest disappointments of the year, in a retrospective opinion. But the statitics say something else. The most listined album during the whole year is… Veronica Maggio’s Och Vinnaren Är! Seriously, I have no idea how this could happen!

How about you?

Alright, that’s my opinion. Which are your favorites or most hated records of the year? Don’t hold back!

New album available

There’s a new CD out there today. When I read my usual RSS for today, dagensskiva.com listed something I found intresting. The official website of the… erm.. artist (?), Jeanette Lidén is probably as sophisticated when it comes to web design as her album is when it comes to music. Just take a look. 

When you’re done with that and have prepared yourself (cause you should be prepared before you start listing), you can go to her myspace site and listen to a couple of the very… original songs. 

Guess it’s time for me to release my music next…

Three obvious revelations

I spend the last night in the cozy flat of my good friend “oh-I-really-love-Microsoft-but-they-still-haven’t-came-up-with-anything-as-good-as-the-iPhone-so-that’s-why-I-use-an-Apple-product”-Viktor. That made me realize a few things:

Revelation no. 1: Watching TV can be fun

Alright, this headline might sound bloody obvious, but let me explain. Those of you who know me somehow well must have noticed my – what should I say – ignorance of television. I don’t like to watch it, and I almost never do – except the news in the morning, for a short period during my second college year. In fact, I don’t even have a TV in my apartment anymore. And I’m good with it! This morning however, I zapped a bit between Discovery Channel, National Geographic (both in HD!) and VH1 and got kinda stuck… I really felt like I wanted to watch more and more, and couldn’t help myself checking those three channels (which just happened to match my expectations of what I wanted to see and hear that morning). It got worse: I couldn’t get away and do what I really wanted to do (and that was to eat breakfast – those of you who know me at least a little know how important that is to me). So here’s the strange conclusion, which might be obvious to pretty much anybody except me (till this morning): watching TV can be fun! But hey, I noticed something else: it’s really easy to get stuck, not realizing the time going by and end up with nothing done! Have you noticed that?

Revelation no. 2: Music videos may have an impact on the song’s popularity

As I watched VH1, they played a lot of familiar songs, among them Amy Winehouse’s “I’m no good for you” and Coldplay’s “Viva la vida”, both of which are on records I recently enjoyed. The funny thing was that the music video kind of exaggerated my reception of the music – it seemed even better than what I expected it to be. Yeah.. sure, I know that people since 1639 say “seeing is believing”…

What I realized through my own experience led me to an thought-provoking conclusion: music videos may have an impact on a song’s popularity. That might explain why it is so important for artists to get air-time on MTV, Viva or VH1, but also why popular music aired on those channels gains so much popularity! Now, this is of course just one of many other reasons, among which social impact of the music video’s air-time might be crucial (that is when you – or your subconsciousness - go like: “hey, since it’s aired on the TV, many others must think it’s good, and if other’s like it, I might as well give it a go and listen to it”). So that might be the solution to the mystery of popular music. Or… perhaps I’m just over-analyzing it a little…?

N.B. Even now, I can hear “Viva La Vida” playing at a party somewhere nearby. Guess they watched VH1 this morning too…

Revelation no. 3: Sofas can be comfortable

Yes, they can. 

Well that was it, three damn obvious facts, for your reading pleasure. Something you never thought about. But I did. And I wrote it down. And that’s the difference between me and you! Peace out

Guajira y son

I just finished watching the 1999 movie “Buena Vista Social Club” (IMDB). I love watching it over and over again, even though the spoken language is Spanish while the subtitles are in French. Since it’s a documentary about Cuban musicians, most of the movie consist of recordings and live performances, so it doesn’t really matter that I (officially) don’t understand what they’re saying/singing. I think that when it comes to music, there’s always a way of understanding each other. So, I highly recommend you watching it, although it can be hard to get your hands on a copy Good music is (with some exceptions) not the same as popular music, but we all knew that already.

Tomorrow’s the P-Day (“P” as in Presentation. Funny, huh…? Erm…whatever). I’m kinda excited about it, especially what our opponents will say. It’s really hard to know if we’ve done the entire project “the right way” (if there’s any “the right way”). Well, guess I have to wait and see. Time for a break, ciao!

Some latin chords

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a couple of great CDs from a label named Putumayo World Music. As the name suggests, the label’s CDs feature international artists – all of them previously unknown to me. I particularly like the latin CDs, such as “Baila – A Latin Dance Party”, “Nuevo Latino” and “A Mediterranean Odyssey”, as well as others, including “Gypsy Caravan” (a compilation of gypsy music from different European countries) and the untipped “Mali” (from the African country of Mali – this CD is actually much better than what one would expect!).

I couldn’t hold myself back from playing along, and since that resulted in a transcription of some songs, I’d like to present the chords for two tracks today.

The first one can be found on “Nuevo Latino”. It’s by Raul Paz and the track is called “Mulata”. I can’t find the lyrics, unfortunately, but the chords are pretty easy. Here they are:

Verse:
Am Fmaj7 – 2x
Dm C Dm E7
Stick/chorus:
Am G Fmaj7 – 2x
Outro:
Am Fmaj7 E7 till fade

The other one is from “A Mediterranean Odyssey, Athens to Andalucia”. It’s written by (I think…) a french artist named Tekameli and the track is called Que Son. I couldn’t find the lyrics for this one either (although I’ve tried searching for not only “lyrics” but also “líricas” and “lyrique” ). The chords are really basic (though I’m sure one could go on with some more advanced grips). The hard thing with this one is to catch on with the rhythm, so listen carefully before playing!

Verse:
Em D C (not so sure here) B7
Pre-chorus:
Em B7 a couple of times, listen to the CD
Chorus:
B7 Em – Try to keep up with the rhythm!

That’s it for today, have fun!

(Update 1: Ooops, the chords were eaten up by HTML-markup tags since I put them inside <>, fixed!)

Showtime!

The Mando Diao show last night was great! The show was at a local club located in a basement so the whole thing wasn’t too big which resulted in a special atmosphere inside, between the band and their fans. Mando played about 13 tracks (though I didn’t count so this is probably wrong) from all three albums released so far. I had the feeling the volume of the show was at some moments to high. Or was just the place too small? Nevertheless, it was a fun night well worth the money spent!

Två artister

Ett tag sen jag skrivit. Vad ska man säga, har haft en del för mig. Men inte det jag tänkte prata om. Jag tänkte “presentera” två artister för er. Vi kör i kronologisk ordning…

För någon vecka sen hörde jag en låt på någon musikkanal på TV och insåg att jag hört den innan vid ett tillfälle men han inte uppfatta artistens namn riktigt. Låtens titel – “For Real” – var knappast tillräcklig utmärkande heller för att hitta artisten den vägen.. Men så såg jag videon igen och den här gången var jag mer uppmärksam. Resultatet blev att jag hittade till Ninsun Poli och lyssnade igenom det som fanns där (även videon finns för nedladning där). Grymt bra soul/r&b med vissa influenser av funk (iaf i en av låtarna). Ninsun har en helt grym röst och feeling för bra musik, jag skulle bli mycket förvånad om det här inte resulterade i en skiva snart (idag finns bara EP:n med fyra låtar). Hur som helst: en artist som ännu inte har fått den uppmärskamhet hon förtjänar, men se till att lyssna på henne nu för snart lär man få höra henne mer eller mindre överallt.

Såvida hon slår igenom som mainstream, vill säga.. För hennes musik är knappast mainstream så som det ser ut idag på mainstreammarknaden (tack och lov för det!). Men ärligt talat, Idol och sånt… Om folket verkligen tycker att dessa pseudoartister (med all respekt) är bättre än riktig musik (där man verkligen kan lyssna på musiken!) så bekräftar det bara min tes att mänskligheten generellt sett är tondöv.

Den andra artisten jag hade tänkt nämna här behöver knappast presenteras. Laleh har blivit nominerad till si sådär 7 MTV Nordic Music Awards, eller om det nu var P3:s guldbagge… Hon har i alla fall slagit igenom får man väl säga. Men bra, orginell och nyskapande musik som agerar fläkt på den annars så stilla och insnöade svenska (eller västerländska för den delen) musikmarknaden var efterlängtad. Kul att hon uppmärksammas så mycket också, för i och med det så blir man så att säga popartist (även om hon inte spelar pop i första hand, men pop står ju för popular, och nomineras man till så mycket som hon nu gjort så är man väl populär). Kanske blir det en förändring inom mainstreammusiken så småningom ändå. Man kan alltid hoppas.

Men nu vet ni vad som är värt att lyssna på!