I can never go past a good Regina Spektor cover, and nor should you. She covered John Lennon’s Real Love for a compilation entitled “Make some Noise: Save Darfur”. Yoko Ono donated the rights to John Lennon’s musical catalogue to Amnesty International, who used this to release a CD. The compilation aimed to raise awareness for human rights and raise money for the international movement. The second CD was specifically aimed at the campaign for Darfur and features Regina Spektor’s take on “Real Love”.

It’s a brilliant, simple, lilting song… pure Lennon magic. Regina has a talent for exactly the same sort of magic, but brings something else to the usually lulling guitar melodies. She transposes the music to her native instrument; the piano. She belts in her bluesy, powerful Russian voice, only to whisper the next few lines magically right into your ear.

I need not go on, for I’ll use every superlative and adjective in the English language, until my computer explodes due to intense gushing.

She’s. Just. Brill.

French band Cocoon cover Outkast’s Hey Ya in one of their acoustic sessions. It’s basically just numerous videos of them sitting on a couch while the guy plays guitar and they both sing, but it’s pretty magic. They’re amazing.

They have such natural harmonies, and their voices complement each other brilliantly. And they’ve taken this Outkast song and made it beautiful, and sad, and lyrical. And of course, being French means you automatically sound lovely and folky when you sing.

Only Glen Hansard (one half of The Swell Season, the Guy from Once) could cover a Britney Spears song and make it one of the best songs you’ve ever heard. Perhaps Neil Finn could as well… because they’re two of my most favourite songwriters of all time. Which is saying something, because Neil has held poll position for many years.

But still… I really love it when people do covers of popular songs and make them amazing; more amazing than they ever were before. Covers seems to be the theme for the week, what with last night’s 1am post. So perhaps it will be…

Moving to the point, I also love Glen Hansard for the emotion and intencity with which he plays every single song. It must be exhausting getting into every single song and feeling that emotion every single time you play it. I think all good performers get right into it, because that’s the only way to recreate the emotional intencity you had when you first poured it all out.

Plus, he has a mad beard going at the moment…

Acoustic Version of Signs, by Bloc Party. Not really a cover, just a rearrangement of their own song. I can’t decide whether I like this version or the original. I feel like the original is a bit ethereal; it’s the right sort of feeling for the song… it’s like emotion suspended in ice and winter… snow falling. I always think of snow falling and icicles when I hear this song. Because the effects of loss are like being suspended in winter: the cold, the emptiness and bareness. Depressing, but goo-ood.

This Video for The Fray’s cover of “Heartless” has some amazing animation in it… simple but very cool. And the cover is pretty awesome.

Goodbye Old England (Covered in Snow)- Laura Marling

I spose it’s the other way around for me, but I’m sure this is what I’ll be listening to in 6 months time, when my plane leaves the continent behind for the island. Beautiful. Probably the first in a series of London/Leaving related things…

Where are we? What the hell is going on?

It’s like that moment; that moment when you see the glass slip off the edge. You realised exactly what would happen the moment you felt the cool, smooth surface on your bare skin. You register the force with which you touched it, and you know what that much force applied to something so gentle and light can do. You turn, your hands partially outstretched, as if you could still reach out and pluck it from mid-air. Your eyes are wide; your breath catches in your throat. All you can do is watch its descent toward the hard, cold ground. It seems to be a lifetime, until… first contact. It seems to buckle under its own weight, shards of glass fan in every direction. The world slows down again as it folds under itself, disappearing. Then it has been completely destroyed, and once again the world regains its pace, but you cannot; still fixed to the same point, staring.

Imogen Heap’s ‘Hide and Seek’, from the album ‘Speak for Yourself’ was an unlikely first release. For the riff-hungry, pop-loving music consumers of 2005, it wasn’t something they were quite accustomed to. A layer of voices emerges from silence: “Where are we?” The listener is intrigued by the odd acapella harmonies. “What the hell… is going on?” They wait for something else; the music that they know must be coming. “The dust has only just begun… to fall… crop circles in the carpet. Sinking feeling…”

They are reminded of awkward conversations with acquaintances while waiting for the train; running into an old school friend and wondering what their name was, the tense back and forth about the weather with someone you know you should be better friends with, but aren’t. All that silence surely can’t be good.

For this reason, it was stuck in that silent, awkward elevator filled with people who don’t really know each other, trying to make polite conversation. It floated around; most of the world paid little attention.

The song first broke through the great glass elevator when it aired on the season two finale of The O.C.. Marissa, in an attempt to save the life of her boyfriend Ryan, shoots his brother Trey, who is currently in the process of strangling Ryan to death. The shot fires, and their world slows as the song plays out. While it sounds exactly like what you expect to find on a teenage drama, the song gave it something more. It sucked you in and made you feel something; the way that any TV show director hopes you will.

The next thing you know, it’s everywhere. The silence is filling homes, workplaces, gatherings and celebrations. Now they get it. Now, they have an image to associate it with. It appeared in movies: The Last Kiss and Off the Grid. It emerged on reality TV shows, serials and soaps. It was remixed by Tiesto. It was sampled by Jason Derulo. It was covered, it was remastered, it was listened to over and over in a hundred different ways.

I remember that in high school, when I was 16, everyone knew that song. And everyone loved that song. It seemed like such an unlikely choice amongst teenagers who would be more likely to sing along to the latest rock song. But there we were, on a bus, the song blaring as loud as it could go, crackling through someone’s mobile phone. We followed the pattern of the lyrics effortlessly, as if tracing the route home from school. We divided easily between parts and harmonies, cringing at our attempts to emulate Imogen Heap’s immense vocal range.

For a 16-year-old, it’s hard to really say why you like a song as complex as Hide and Seek… it is just “cool, you know? I just, like, really like it.” And although not much time has passed, I think I’m closer to an explanation.

I was trawling the Internet for people’s responses to this song, and I came across the website Songmeanings.net. It’s a forum on which one user posts a song, and then everyone discusses what their personal interpretations. Quite a few toss around the idea of departure; whether it’s the narrator or someone else they have had to let go of. Another forum-goer suggests it’s a man breaking up with his mistress. Or maybe it’s someone looking at the traces of life and departure left in their new house. Whatever it is, they each seem to bring their own experiences.

In an interview with the website “Barcode”, Heap said she really hoped people could apply themselves to the song, and find their own meaning. “I would much rather listen to a lyric that enables me to find something within myself that I want to feel or be reminded about.”
But she also gives a few hints on what the song might really be about. “In a broad strokes way, it’s about losing something very dear to me and how much of an impact that person had on my life and about maybe how when something awful happens to somebody else, how other people react to it.”

She recounts the feeling she had when watching Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: a strange place to be looking for songwriting inspiration. In a powerful scene, the viewers see George W. Bush’s reactions to the news of September 11, and he carries on “as if nothing had happened…” Maybe that’s simple another way to look at it: an afterthought to 9/11.

This made me think; what was my personal interpretation of the song? I know that I love its unexpected originality, its bare honesty and clarity, and the powerful images it places in your head. I know that the times in my life were I have felt this song reach inside my chest and press on my heart and lungs were the moments when I was struggling; death, lost love, the feeling of being unappreciated or trapped.

It’s because in ‘Hide and Seek’, you are forced to face that feeling; the loneliness and emptiness that lie in the silence that Heap has chosen boldly not to fill. It’s a stark look at someone’s mind in the midst of chaos; it’s time slowing down in the moment before the glass falls, and the time lapse as you watch it plummet. And she draws you in, so it really is you, watching.

People are often observed in the most shattering moments of their life to be moved to absolute silence. They only have silence, and the silence becomes part of them. All they desire is silence that accompanies numbness. Like a cloak, they wrap themselves in it; feeling it’s uneven, indeterminate temperature; the way that it doesn’t comfort, but simply stills motion.

‘Hide and Seek’ is what I hear in silence. As the glittering glass shatters, I will wrap myself in that cloak, and watch.

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To the tune of John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over):

So this is the end-of-semester.
And what have we done?
Half a year over… and new half just begun.
So this is the end-of-semester.
I sort of had fun.
The….

I ran out of steam on the last few lines. And I nearly threw up because it was so disgusting. But seriously now folks. Blogging has been interesting. I was a little bit pleased when I heard I was going to be forced to blog. Having been a whiny-teenage blogger very briefly, I thought it would be nice to actually blog about something that was mildly consequential, or had a point. But I suppose all the writing we do when we are younger is a very important part in developing the writing you do as an adult, or young adult, especially when your career aspirations are intrinsically linked with it.

The experience gave me a little bit of html know-how, as my childhood foray into the world of the internet also involved some website publishing. Primarily through other platforms, my favourite being the widely unheard of “Matmice”, who provided websites with crappy designs for kids. Although, me being me, I had to spice them up, so I got html-literate inserted different fonts and scroll boxes and backgrounds. Crazy.

Matmice no longer exists, but it has a wiki page, and a petition for it to reopen. I feel like I was part of a well-loved institution, now faded into the cyber-crypts and catacombs of the internet.

This blogging experience rekindled many of these memories; things I had forgotten. I found it completely natural to use a hyperlink or embed an image; change the font or photoshop myself a sweet header and host it on photobucket (although I’d forgotten my old login, and had to create a new page).

The challenge was, at first, finding a niche, or a subject. I toyed with many ideas, looking for something to let myself go broad, and talk about anything. But then, I settled for music, which I realised I was very capable of rambling about for millennia. I love going to gigs; seeing music I’ve heard through my earphones come straight out of someone’s mouth. Seeing the creator display his or her masterpiece. I have always walked away loving them more than I ever have before.

Next challenge: not finding things to write about, but fulfilling the assessment criteria. I was just so into it that it was hard to switch from just spewing long words and thoughts onto the web about stuff I loved, to writing critical reflections of what I was doing. I did learn a few things from it though.

Firstly, that copyright was automatic. Who would have guessed??! Secondly, that people who comment on music blogs are mostly wankers. Thirdly, that long tail does make sense, and is much easier to understand if you just read Chris Anderson’s article. Seriously, wiki makes it way more complicated than it should be. And it’s actually an interesting concept, and a very valid one. Fourth, analysing my niche does help. Even if it seems irrelevant. At the very least, it gave me some ideas, and that is always useful.

So I’m just a closet blogging-lover. But I’m coming out. And I’m starting with a loud, clear declaration.

Quote, Hannah Duke, 30th May, 3.02pm: I actually love blogging.

Luckily, no one reads this blog, so this coming out party will be relatively low-key…

The first time I heard this, I died and went to heaven. I hadn’t even seen the movie. The music is all by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (minus one song by Interference, of which Glen is a member anyway), who now form part of the band the Swell Season. Glen was formerly a part of the Irish band The Frames, who released one of the title tracks of the film: Falling Slowly. I can’t really choose a highlight, but I have played “Falling Slowly” too many times to count with friends, and it’s a crowd-pleaser every time; every person who hears the song instantly feels a connection to it.

One of current absolute favourites was, funnily enough one of my least favourites when I heard the album. “Say it to me now” just sounded like a guy yelling when I first heard it. It made me uncomfortable and I did not enjoy listening to it. Then, I saw the film. A lot of people say that they don’t appreciate or love a song or genre of music until they see someone play it. They see how much that person is engulfed and immersed in the music, and their deep love for what they are playing. My opinion of that song changed when I saw Glen Hansard play that song in the movie. Unlike many movies, it doesn’t use the soundtrack version dubbed over his live singing. Glen is standing on a street in Dublin at nighttime, watched by Marketa, as he sings “Say it to me now” at the top of his lungs. And it really is him singing on that street at night, not him singing in the studio. You see the emotion of the song, and really feel it; as one youtube user puts it: “He is so into his music he loses himself when he is playing…..goes to another world”. Now it is definitely my favourite.

The rest of the music is songwriting at its very best. I think everyone has to listen to this album at least once in their life, however it is very rare that this would ever occur. If you’ve heard it once, I’m certain you’ve listened to it a thousand times after.

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2. Garden State

So many amazing songs from this soundtrack became absolute favourites. It made me discover The Cary Brothers and Nick Drake; and appreciate the brilliance of the Shins and Frou Frou. Zach Braff won a Grammy for the compilation, and I have to say I have great faith in his music taste. I firmly believe we are music soulmates. I can’t list the highlights, if I did I’d just be giving you a track listing. It references old (Nick Drake, Colin Hay, Simon and Garfunkle) and new or semi-recent, and even both at the same time (Iron and Wine’s cover of the Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’). The movie itself was good, not incredible, but held many poignant and comic moments. The Wallpaper/shirt scene is probably one of my favourites ever, just because of the look on Zach Braff’s face:

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3. (500) Days of Summer

When I saw this movie for the first time, I spent the entire time nudging my friend and saying “Oh! It’s Regina Spektor! It’s Temper Trap! It’s Feist! It’s The Smiths! It’s Temper Trap again!” I love movies like that. I love movies that give you one amazing song after another, a lot of whom you already know and love to death, plus the few that you will know and love to death soon enough. I loved the movie too; mostly for the reason that it was so hauntingly close to home I could only love it or hate it. I loved it also because it could be so easy to hate the main characters, but the screenplay and direction are genius in that it makes blatant fun of their wallowing or shallowness, while still endearing them to you. And it wasn’t clichéd, and had so many layers both visually, in filming styles and narrative-wise. It was such a well-tied together film. And the music really supplied the glue. Highlights for me were Hero by Regina Spektor, which accompanied another amazing scene perfectly. And then of course, there is the ingenious Hall and Oates scene, that could be horribly cheesy, but works too well.

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4. Amélie

Two words: Yann Tiersen. He is my composer dreamboat. Despite the fact that I could give you the formula used in every single one of his songs (Main tune, main tune in octaves, bridge, main tune octave above) and this would make him seem predictable, he’s just not. I still want to hear more. It’s beautiful, or haunting, or evocative and simple. And who cares if you repeat the same theme 3 times, varying the amount or type of instruments playing? Not me, because the music is incredible. And he makes me want to play the songs myself, which is great because it means I practice piano! The most famous piece of music from the Jean-Pierre Jeunet film would be “La Valse D’Amelie” (Amelie’s Waltz), which Tiersen translates from accordion and xylophone to piano then to orchestra. My other favourite is “La Comptine d’une Autre Été: L’après-midi” (Rhyme of another summer: The afternoon), also used in the film “Goodbye Lenin”. You can hear the passing of time, the memory of time gone by, and the pace at which it all moves in this one piece of music. It’s so simple, and repeats on itself a few times, but is no less beautiful every time I hear it.

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5. Marie Antoinette

A lot of people think this movie is boring as hell. “But nothing happens!” They tell me. I don’t care. It’s pretty to look at. And it has some very poignant moments. And it taught me a bit of French history. The music is an eclectic mix of classical, modern classical and 80′s new wave. Director Sofia Coppola decided to place modern music into a period film especially to bring out the frivolity and decadence that was the French aristocracy of the time. It melds with the vibrant, mouth-watering visuals seamlessly. Highlights are again hard to pinpoint; but if it was the guillotine or a forced decision (bad metaphor, I know) I would have to say hearing the Strokes, The Cure, Sixsousie and the Banshee, and Bow Wow Wow in a movie on the French Revolution; the ethereal serenity and beauty of “Jynweythek Ylow” by Aphex Twin; and “Trists Apprets, Pales Flambeaux” composed by Jean Phillipe Rameau. Some opera just does things to me, and this is one of those times.

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6. New Moon: The Twilight Saga

So I know any mention of Twilight has most people curled up in a ball screaming, but to be honest, this soundtrack is really great. Triple J actually played songs from it, and didn’t lie about where they came from. Due to the fact that a good half of the movie involves heartbreak and large amounts of wallowing, the soundtrack is suitably depressing, and I’m a sucker for melancholy music. I am deeply in love with the music of Death Cab for Cutie, and have been for some time, so I am always excited when they release new music in any capacity; and “Meet me on the Equinox” does not disappoint. It puts the Death Cab spin on badly-written vampire romance and does a pretty damn good job of it. I am also in a irreversible love affair with Bon Iver, and his haunting song “Roslyn” made me fall in love all over again. I was so excited that an Australian band made it in Eskimo Joe; producing the amazing song “Thunderclap”, but was disappointed in equal measures when I didn’t actually hear the song when I saw the movie. Is it at the end of the credits or something? Hmm. Other highlights: Lykke Li’s “Possibility”, Editors, Grizzly Bear, Anya Marina’s “Satellite Heart” and Black Rebel Motorcycle club; so basically, the whole album.

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7. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

I think Michael Cera is one of the coolest people around, and that’s why I watched this movie. Based on a novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, it traces the stories of two teenagers (Nick and Norah) who end up on a ridiculous adventure with an amazing soundtrack. Some of my favourites feature: Band of Horses (“Our Swords”), Vampire Weekend (“Ottoman“) and We are Scientists (“After Hours“).

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8. Across the Universe

No, don’t worry, it’s not Beatles blasphemy. It’s actually quite good. A musical movie based on a huge amount of Beatles songs, set in the 60′s and 70′s: the time when the Beatles were chronicling for their generation and the changing world around them. It has bowling, the Vietnam War, drug trips, Funerals, Prudence coming through a window, lots and lots of Strawberries, and Nixon. Jim Sturgess does a haunting rendition of “Girl“, one of my favourite tracks from the movie; along with another favourite scene in the film: “I’ve just seen a face“.

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