Music Meme, Day 20
Directions: EVERY DAY ANSWER ONE QUESTION AND POST A VIDEO OF THE SONG ON YOUR WALL. Label it as... Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc., then that day's question and the Artist and the Song title. HAVE FUN!! :D
Well, I'm rarely one to actually follow a meme's directions.
Looking over the original categories, I can't answer (or don't care) about half of them. So I think I'll go with a bit more free-form style of just picking 30-some-odd songs and writing up a bit about them.
I should say at the default that I have no particular musical tastes or knowledge. I listen to trashy pop most of the time. Still, I will make an attempt to pick reasonably good music.
Meme Masterpost
Yesterday's post: Daft Punk, “One More Time”
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry -
My first thought when I read this prompt was death metal of varying sorts. I mean, when I'm really pissed, all I want to do is crank up the scream-y music. I think I mentioned dir en grey's “Vulgar” in an earlier post. That sort of music is made for blasting. Take the first song of the album, “Audience Killer Loop”. That dark, dropping note, the big scream...delicious.
But I've done dire en grey already.
Looking voer my music, I noticed I don't actually have a lot of scream-y music. Pity.
But, since I need something to write about...the second OP/ED of Death Note should suffice.
Maximum the Hormone, “Zetsubou Billy”
Of the two, the ED is definitely my favorite. The music video cheekily suggests that “Kira” would kill off all the cutesey pop acts, gansta rappers, and over-the-top visual kei types, while allowing the purity of metal to survive.
The lyrics...well, really, do you need lyrics to scream-y songs? All Ie ver remember is them screaming “I am Kira! We are all Kira!” in the middle.
Maximum the Hormone, “What's Up People”
Okay, you know how, one paragraph up, I said lyrics don't matter?
Sometimes they do.
Now, I wish I had the actual clips for these, but they've been pretty much stripped from youtube. But, ah, if you read the Japanese lyrics-i.e., the ones that were used for fan translations, the chrous goes something like
“Hey hey human sucker
her hey human fucker”
Now, the version that was aired on American tv chose to translate that line as
“Hey hey a hymn to humanity”
That was...eyebrow-rise inducing, to say the least.
This was the first translation I found on short notice. Doesn't look much other translations I've seen, but I'm fond of this translator, so I'm inclined to think she's got them at least partially right.
~Bonus~
It suddenly hit me that, inf act, I have an important song to share, and it does fit into this category nicely.
hide, “Pink Spider”
How could I forget this song? It was my anthem in bad times.
So, there's a lot of story behind this one. hide was the flamboyant guitarist of X-Japan, who you should remember from my favorite song/band post. If you don't though...well, unfortunately, the most famous thing that happened to the band was that, a year after they broke up, hide and Yoshiki (the main composer/drummer) were planning on getting the band back together, but hide died before it could happen. Depending on what you believe, he either died accidentally while drunk, or killed himself.
This song was set for release mere weeks later, and the entire song is essentially a massively long metaphor for someone who tries to ascend to greatness, fails, and ultimately crashes to his death. The PV explicitly shows references suicide. And “pink spider” (or at least “pink,” it's been a while and my memory is shaky) was hide's nickname.
Yeah.
Little wonder there's a contingent of people who think the song is a suicide note.
I always found the lyrics rather brilliant. There are several voices, all smashed up together. Essentially, the speaker is observing this spider. The spider, more than anything, wants wings, so he can fly into the sky. One day, a bird of paradise comes down and advises him to tear the wings off the butterfly caught in his web. The spider begs for its life, claiming that the spider doesn't really understand what it's trying to grasp. But the spider takes the wings any way - only to end up crashing as soon as he jumps.
Not exactly cheerful. But there's something about the aggressiveness of the spider that tends to grab me.
“My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
to quote Edna St. Vincent Millay.
It's a terribly depressing song. I thought of saving it a couple of days for the “songs that make you sad” post, but it doesn't make me sad, not entirely. It's just...futility. It's this dark hopelessness that fits better with my pissed off moods than my sad ones.
Well, I'm rarely one to actually follow a meme's directions.
Looking over the original categories, I can't answer (or don't care) about half of them. So I think I'll go with a bit more free-form style of just picking 30-some-odd songs and writing up a bit about them.
I should say at the default that I have no particular musical tastes or knowledge. I listen to trashy pop most of the time. Still, I will make an attempt to pick reasonably good music.
Meme Masterpost
Yesterday's post: Daft Punk, “One More Time”
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry -
My first thought when I read this prompt was death metal of varying sorts. I mean, when I'm really pissed, all I want to do is crank up the scream-y music. I think I mentioned dir en grey's “Vulgar” in an earlier post. That sort of music is made for blasting. Take the first song of the album, “Audience Killer Loop”. That dark, dropping note, the big scream...delicious.
But I've done dire en grey already.
Looking voer my music, I noticed I don't actually have a lot of scream-y music. Pity.
But, since I need something to write about...the second OP/ED of Death Note should suffice.
Click to viewMaximum the Hormone, “Zetsubou Billy”
Of the two, the ED is definitely my favorite. The music video cheekily suggests that “Kira” would kill off all the cutesey pop acts, gansta rappers, and over-the-top visual kei types, while allowing the purity of metal to survive.
The lyrics...well, really, do you need lyrics to scream-y songs? All Ie ver remember is them screaming “I am Kira! We are all Kira!” in the middle.
Maximum the Hormone, “What's Up People”
Okay, you know how, one paragraph up, I said lyrics don't matter?
Sometimes they do.
Now, I wish I had the actual clips for these, but they've been pretty much stripped from youtube. But, ah, if you read the Japanese lyrics-i.e., the ones that were used for fan translations, the chrous goes something like
“Hey hey human sucker
her hey human fucker”
Now, the version that was aired on American tv chose to translate that line as
“Hey hey a hymn to humanity”
That was...eyebrow-rise inducing, to say the least.
This was the first translation I found on short notice. Doesn't look much other translations I've seen, but I'm fond of this translator, so I'm inclined to think she's got them at least partially right.
~Bonus~
It suddenly hit me that, inf act, I have an important song to share, and it does fit into this category nicely.
hide, “Pink Spider”
How could I forget this song? It was my anthem in bad times.
So, there's a lot of story behind this one. hide was the flamboyant guitarist of X-Japan, who you should remember from my favorite song/band post. If you don't though...well, unfortunately, the most famous thing that happened to the band was that, a year after they broke up, hide and Yoshiki (the main composer/drummer) were planning on getting the band back together, but hide died before it could happen. Depending on what you believe, he either died accidentally while drunk, or killed himself.
This song was set for release mere weeks later, and the entire song is essentially a massively long metaphor for someone who tries to ascend to greatness, fails, and ultimately crashes to his death. The PV explicitly shows references suicide. And “pink spider” (or at least “pink,” it's been a while and my memory is shaky) was hide's nickname.
Yeah.
Little wonder there's a contingent of people who think the song is a suicide note.
I always found the lyrics rather brilliant. There are several voices, all smashed up together. Essentially, the speaker is observing this spider. The spider, more than anything, wants wings, so he can fly into the sky. One day, a bird of paradise comes down and advises him to tear the wings off the butterfly caught in his web. The spider begs for its life, claiming that the spider doesn't really understand what it's trying to grasp. But the spider takes the wings any way - only to end up crashing as soon as he jumps.
Not exactly cheerful. But there's something about the aggressiveness of the spider that tends to grab me.
“My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.
to quote Edna St. Vincent Millay.
It's a terribly depressing song. I thought of saving it a couple of days for the “songs that make you sad” post, but it doesn't make me sad, not entirely. It's just...futility. It's this dark hopelessness that fits better with my pissed off moods than my sad ones.