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Sep. 4th, 2006 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockWatched 4/5ths of the MTV Music Video Awards on my parents' DVR system. Yay for commercial skipping! Yay for annoying-performance skipping!
-"This dressing room needs...shelves!" Okay, Timberlake's voice is annoying, but he has good comic timing.
-I hope Jack Black never stops being famous, because his zeal never fails to amuse, and while I don't like everything he does, he targets the audience he's in front of well, and if it happens that he's playing to my kind of audience, he definitely makes me laugh. (I loved School of Rock, have no interest in Nacho Libre.)
-Is that Jack White?
-Blah blah blah rap blah blah
-I can't listen to James Blunt's song after hearing this and finding myself in agreement with it. Upload will soon be posted.
-That *is* Jack White!
-MTV *does* need to play more rock'n'roll music.
-Pink is so drunk. Or high.
-Jared Leto has a band? I'm so out of touch with my youthful peers. I liked his crack about orgies, though. And yep, I still think he has the prettiest eyes in Hollywood. Jared, babe, you don't need eyeliner. Trust me, YOU DON'T NEED IT.
-I don't care much for any of the songs on Viewer's Choice award. They're okay, but no thrills here.
Panic At The Disco:
I first heard "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" about a month and a half ago at a party full of mostly sophomore and junior college students. I was in a room with about 9 or ten people who all knew every single word. About a week later I started hearing it on the local rock station. I watched their performance at the VMAs, and though I haven't seen their video I get the general idea.
I'm puzzled why everyone seems to love this song so much. I kind of like it. But I also think it's not as good as everyone said it is... it's more like a demonstration of potential future goodness. I believe the band that wrote that song could write a real kick ass album in a few years. But that song... it's... I don't know how to say it. Sophomoric? Missing something. Kind of...spare?
It's got some really good things going for it. Firstly, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" is a great title. The band name's pretty good too, odd and more creative than "The Strokes" or someone's first name. There's a part of the song I really like... I don't know the music term for it, but I'll call it a "turn". It's that turn right when the chorus starts, when everything kicks in. That's a good turn. And the beat itself, especially the opening, is interesting. The subject matter of the lyrics is probably the strongest thing in the song-- it definitely stands out from the norm.
Unfortunately, not everything about it is all that great. I wish there was something more, but I'm not sure what. More production? Another instrument or two? Something. And I don't think dancing around in costumes is the right choice, given that the song is on the skimpy side. For big costumes you need lots of sound. A better choice for this song would have been something more low-key visually but at the same time more subversive. Something more acidic and insidious to match the lyrics and the tone of the song. When they were performing on-stage they had these huge costumes for a rather bare-boned song. It didn't work that well, because there just wasn't much to work with.
The lyrics are another issue. Some of them I like... I like the "I chime in with a 'Haven't you people ever..." and I like irreverence of the lyrics. But other parts annoy me.The phrase "poisoned rationality" annoys me quite a bit. It's... not quite right. As figurative language goes, it feels off somehow. Not the correct adjective choice, because you can't really infer anything from it. If it were "jaded rationality" you could infer lots of things... his sense of rationality was jaded by what normally jades people: experience and time. But "poisoned"? What does that MEAN? Put like it is in the song, it doesn't mean anything. It's a specific action used in a way where the actor is not named. Who poisoned him? What poisoned him? Why and with what was he poisoned? It's too literal to be used in a passive voice description like that. You can be jaded by nothing in particular. You can even be wounded by nothing in particular, because "wounded" has become a adjective on its own in English where you don't need to know who wounded the direct object. "He was looking wounded" is easier to infer things from than "He was looking poisoned." You can look at the statement "He was looking wounded" and take it as either literal injury or as a guy looking sad and emotionally hurt. But you can't take "He was looking poisoned" and think it's figurative-- you're going to assume someone actually poisoned the guy.
Anyway, it's not the word I would have chosen. It doesn't quite make sense, and not only is it nonsensical, but its not nonsensical in a cool song-lyric-rock-star-writer way, it's nonsensical in a "I think you could have picked a better word" way. Also, every time I hear it I get the feeling like "poisoned rationality" are two words they picked randomly to fill the space more than because they were an integral part of the lyrics. It reeks of someone who thought it would "sound cool." Unfortunately, at 15 the lead singer of Silverchair was writing better lyrics than these guys are at what I'm going to assume is early twenties.
Edit: Apparently the lyric is "poise and rationality" which makes way more sense. Thank you![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaina for your clarifying brilliance.
I don't know how old the band members actually are, but the song just sounds... young. Like a demo tape from a garage band, before they sit down and rewrite it into something fantastic. I keep wanting to hear the better, more professional version.
My overall opinion? It shows promise. I'm not going to give them an award for it, but come back in three years when you've let your sound and your style mature a bit, and I might just want to hear your whole album.
-"This dressing room needs...shelves!" Okay, Timberlake's voice is annoying, but he has good comic timing.
-I hope Jack Black never stops being famous, because his zeal never fails to amuse, and while I don't like everything he does, he targets the audience he's in front of well, and if it happens that he's playing to my kind of audience, he definitely makes me laugh. (I loved School of Rock, have no interest in Nacho Libre.)
-Is that Jack White?
-Blah blah blah rap blah blah
-I can't listen to James Blunt's song after hearing this and finding myself in agreement with it. Upload will soon be posted.
-That *is* Jack White!
-MTV *does* need to play more rock'n'roll music.
-Pink is so drunk. Or high.
-Jared Leto has a band? I'm so out of touch with my youthful peers. I liked his crack about orgies, though. And yep, I still think he has the prettiest eyes in Hollywood. Jared, babe, you don't need eyeliner. Trust me, YOU DON'T NEED IT.
-I don't care much for any of the songs on Viewer's Choice award. They're okay, but no thrills here.
Panic At The Disco:
I first heard "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" about a month and a half ago at a party full of mostly sophomore and junior college students. I was in a room with about 9 or ten people who all knew every single word. About a week later I started hearing it on the local rock station. I watched their performance at the VMAs, and though I haven't seen their video I get the general idea.
I'm puzzled why everyone seems to love this song so much. I kind of like it. But I also think it's not as good as everyone said it is... it's more like a demonstration of potential future goodness. I believe the band that wrote that song could write a real kick ass album in a few years. But that song... it's... I don't know how to say it. Sophomoric? Missing something. Kind of...spare?
It's got some really good things going for it. Firstly, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" is a great title. The band name's pretty good too, odd and more creative than "The Strokes" or someone's first name. There's a part of the song I really like... I don't know the music term for it, but I'll call it a "turn". It's that turn right when the chorus starts, when everything kicks in. That's a good turn. And the beat itself, especially the opening, is interesting. The subject matter of the lyrics is probably the strongest thing in the song-- it definitely stands out from the norm.
Unfortunately, not everything about it is all that great. I wish there was something more, but I'm not sure what. More production? Another instrument or two? Something. And I don't think dancing around in costumes is the right choice, given that the song is on the skimpy side. For big costumes you need lots of sound. A better choice for this song would have been something more low-key visually but at the same time more subversive. Something more acidic and insidious to match the lyrics and the tone of the song. When they were performing on-stage they had these huge costumes for a rather bare-boned song. It didn't work that well, because there just wasn't much to work with.
The lyrics are another issue. Some of them I like... I like the "I chime in with a 'Haven't you people ever..." and I like irreverence of the lyrics. But other parts annoy me.
Anyway, it's not the word I would have chosen. It doesn't quite make sense, and not only is it nonsensical, but its not nonsensical in a cool song-lyric-rock-star-writer way, it's nonsensical in a "I think you could have picked a better word" way. Also, every time I hear it I get the feeling like "poisoned rationality" are two words they picked randomly to fill the space more than because they were an integral part of the lyrics. It reeks of someone who thought it would "sound cool." Unfortunately, at 15 the lead singer of Silverchair was writing better lyrics than these guys are at what I'm going to assume is early twenties.
Edit: Apparently the lyric is "poise and rationality" which makes way more sense. Thank you
jaina for your clarifying brilliance. I don't know how old the band members actually are, but the song just sounds... young. Like a demo tape from a garage band, before they sit down and rewrite it into something fantastic. I keep wanting to hear the better, more professional version.
My overall opinion? It shows promise. I'm not going to give them an award for it, but come back in three years when you've let your sound and your style mature a bit, and I might just want to hear your whole album.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-05 12:38 am (UTC)