Song of the Day: Dreaming Wide Awake (by Poets of the Fall)

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Arleigh

The latest “Song of the Day” comes from the Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall.

“Dreaming Wide Awake” is such a cinematic-sounding song. From the vivid imagery brought up by the songs lyrics to the band’s frontman Marko Saaresto’s singing full of emotional power. I was first introduced to this song when I came across one of my favorite anime music videos almost three years ago now in Chiikaboom’s “Against All Odds”.

The song is about one’s inability to cope and move past the loss of a loved one. How one tragedy could compound another as one loses their grip on reality in an attempt to try and return their dead loved one to them. While this is an extreme version of such an experience I’m sure everyone has felt a similar feeling when one has gone through a very emotional break-up with someone they care about for a very long time.

For a song that sounds wistful and somewhat full of hope in reality this song is actually quite dark.

Dreaming Wide Awake

Too late, the melody is over
The joke seems to be on me cos I’m the one not laughing
Down here on the floor

Deflate, the mystery of living
In the most heartless fashion I could ever Imagine
No pretense of decor

Another place and time, without a great divide
And we could be flying deadly high
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

Another place and time, without a warning sign
And we could be dying angel style
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

I’ll dream you… wide awake

With me, disaster finds a playfield
Love seems to draw dark, twisted pleasure tearing at me
Cos I can’t let you go

Mercy, like water in a desert
Shine through my memory like jewelry in the sun
Where are you now

Another place and time, without a great divide
And we could be flying deadly high
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

Another place and time, without a warning sign
And we could be dying angel style
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

I’ll dream you… wide awake

It’s like I’m racing to the sun, blindly face the blazing gun
Cos I’m afraid I will be left here without you
Like I’m racing not to run, give more when I have none
Cos I’m afraid I will be left here without you… wide awake

Another place and time, without a great divide
And we could be flying deadly high
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

Another place and time, without a warning sign
And we could be dying angel style
I’ll sell my soul to dream you wide awake

I’ll dream you… wide awake.

Song of the Day: Radioactive (by Imagine Dragons)

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Arleigh

Tonight’s episode of True Blood shares not just the title with Imagine Dragons’ popular track of the same name, but also used it to score their end credits for the season finale.

So, it’s no surprise that it’s the choice for the latest “Song of the Day”. This is not the first time the site has chosen something that uses this song. A recent “AMV of the Day” used this song to great effect. The video was “Radioakshun” and it matched the song’s lyrics which speaks of an apocalypse that has come and gone leaving a wasteland for people to sift through. This time around the song goes well with the time skip second-half of tonight’s True Blood season finale. No, there wasn’t an apocalypse that destroyed Bon Temps and killed everyone, but it showed that a sort of vampire apocalypse was on its way to Bon Temps and hints at what could be an epic seventh season for the show which started and ended a strong sixth season.

I’m going to take a flying leap and say that Imagine Dragons will be gaining quite a bit of new fans after tonight.

Radioactive

I’m waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I’m breathing in the chemicals
I’m breaking in, shaping up, checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa

I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my system blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, whoa, I’m radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, whoa, I’m radioactive, radioactive

I raise my flags, don my clothes
It’s a revolution, I suppose
We’ll paint it red to fit right in
Whoa
I’m breaking in, shaping up, checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa

All systems go, sun hasn’t died
Deep in my bones, straight from inside

Song of the Day: Mako (by Ramin Djawadi)

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Arleigh

Finishing off my Pacific Rim soundtrack trifecta is the Mako Mori theme by Ramin Djawadi.

The first two parts of this trio were the theme to Pacific Rim and the theme to Gipsy Danger. Both were composed by Ramin Djawadi (the film’s composer) and featured lead guitar work by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. My third choice and latest “Song of the Day” was simply titled “Mako”. This part of the soundtrack occurs primarily during a Drift sequence in the film that becomes the unifying thread to the relationship between Rinko Kikuchi’s Mako Mori character and IDris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost role. Ramin Djawadi has singer and songwriter PRiscilla Ahn join him in this song as we see an important backstory play out within the Drift. It’s Mako’s past history with the kaiju and Stacker and why she’s so determined to become a jaeger pilot despite her adopted father’s reservations.

With this track we see that Djawadi can handle emotional musical pieces as well as the more hard rock and chest-thumping sections of the film’s score. It helps to have Priscilla Ahn’s melodic harmonizing backing up Djawadi’s composition which starts off gradually and dream-like before it transitions into a soaring string movement that Djawadi’s mentor, Hans Zimmer, wished he could pull off.

To say that the Pacific Rim soundtrack was just as awesome as the film it was composed for would be an understatement. These three choices were just my personal favorites. There were more throughout the 25-track soundtrack and each and everyone of them fits the film perfectly.

Song of the Day: Gipsy Danger (by Ramin Djawadi)

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Arleigh

This latest “Song of the Day” will be the second of what will be a trifecta of my favorite tracks from the Pacific Rim soundtrack by composer Ramin Djawadi. The first one was the main theme from the film and featured Rage Against the Machine lead guitarist Tom Morello providing lead guitar work. This second track I’ve chosen is siply titled “Gipsy Danger”.

Where the main theme has been everyone’s favorite in the entire soundtrack it’s difficult not to enjoy the motif for the main character of the film. Let’s be honest and just admit to ourselves that the main character in Pacific Rim is the jaeger christened Gipsy Danger. The track which introduces her theme in the film actually precedes the main theme. We actually hear the “Gipsy Danger” theme right from the start of the film. It combines some of the hard rock melodies and chords from the film’s main theme, but also expanding on the deep bass tone (sounding like a fog horn blowing) that punctuates throughout this theme more than it did in the main theme. This deep sound I always thought of as the “monster arriving” musical cue. It appears not just when Gipsy Danger makes her initial appearance but also whenever a kaiju emerges from the ocean and makes landfall to cause destruction. It’s a sound cue similar to classic giant monster flicks from Japan that announces either Godzilla or one of his kaiju brethren which was followed-up by the iconic monster scream.

We get both the rock and roll and heroic sound from the main theme combined with the more ominous musical cue in this chosen track. It pretty much focuses on one of the film’s taglines about creating monsters to fight monsters. The Gipsy Danger jaeger is a monster in her own right. But then she’s our monster and we always have a fondness for monsters as long as it’s our own.

Song of the Day: Tool – H.

Posted on July 20, 2013 by necromoonyeti

For those of you who have yet to get the memo, music industry giants in 2013 decided that it was time for the 1990s to be cool again. I’m pretty goddamn stoked about it myself, and I hope the sort of neo-grunge/alternative that’s going to be really popular 3-4 years from now inspires a lot of talented musicians to crawl out of the woodwork and start producing quality uncastrated rock again. In the meantime, I’ve been dusting off my neigh-forgotten guitar and revisiting a lot of the bands from my high school days to see if they were really as great as I remembered. (Alice in Chains? Check. Rage Against the Machine? Holy mother of Check. Sublime? Bzzzz, back to the “nostalgia” m3u and dusty jewel case with you.)

There have been a few 90s bands that never really left my playlist all this time. Smashing Pumpkins’ catalog from Siamese Dream though Machina kept on rolling like they were all just released yesterday. Pearl Jam and Nirvana still found their way into Winamp from time to time. And I never quit listening to Tool. My Tool selection for the past decade though has consisted almost exclusively of the Opiate EP and Undertow–those nostalgic recordings that were inevitably rolling in the background every time I ever skipped school to play paintball, experimented with a new drug (I haven’t done any “drugs” since high school, but I must say tripping on shrooms completely changed my perspective on life in a positive way), or got drunk when it was still a novel experience.

When I was a teenager though, it was never Opiate or Undertow that I listened to at home. They were the party albums that all of my friends would play ad pleasant nauseam. In private, I listened to Ænima. I’d all but forgotten about it until a week ago. I’ve kept it on repeat while engaging in the oh-so-rebellious task of remodeling my kitchen, and wow… Fast-forward from having naively experienced a few hundred mass-marketed bands to having researched and intelligently engaged thousands of different acts, I have to say Ænima remains one of the greatest recordings I have ever heard.

Right now I’m peaking on Pushit. It was, alongside Jimmy and Third Eye, one of the tracks I pretty much ignored as a kid, and I’m now hearing it in a new light as one of the most overwhelming tracks on the album. I want to showcase H. though, because it was my favorite Tool song prior to the release of Lateralus (the way I connected with the lyrics to Lateralus’ title track at the time is difficult to describe and sadly lost to me now), and because I do still regard it as my favorite track on the album (Ænema comes pretty close).

The way Maynard’s vocals interplay with the instrumentation is absolutely beautiful; I think Ænima represents Tool’s peak as innovative song-writers, bridging the gap between their earlier edginess and their later brooding experimentalism, and no song captures that quite so extensively as H. The crushing chorus acts as cement to piece together Maynard’s vocals and Adam’s guitar at their most mutually fragile peak. The lyrics present a simple clash between emotions and wisdom under a veil so deliciously esoteric that it might feel personally and uniquely relevant to each individual listener in a legitimately different way:

What’s coming through is a lie.
What’s holding up is a mirror.
What’s singing songs is a snake,
Looking to turn my piss to wine.
They’re both totally void of hate,
But killing me just he same.
The snake behind me hisses what my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me, open up my heart again.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again.
Venomous voice tempts me, drains me, bleeds me,
Leaves me cracked and empty,
Drags me down like some sweet gravity.
The snake behind me hisses what my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me open up my heart again.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again.
I am too connected to you to slip away, fade away.
Days away I still feel you, touching me, changing me,
Considerately killing me.
Without the skin,
Here beneath the storm,
Under these tears,
The walls came down.
At last the snake has drowned,
And as I look in his eyes,
My fears begin to fade,
Recalling all of the times
I could have cried then.
I should have cried then.
As the walls come down,
And as I look in your eyes,
My fear begins to fade,
Recalling all of the times
I have died,
and will die.
It’s alright.
I don’t mind.
I am too connected to you to slip away, fade away.
Days away I still feel you, touching me, changing me,
And considerately killing me.

Song of the Day: Orion (by Metallica)

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Arleigh

Been more than a bit listless and tired of late so what do I do to fix that than listening to some classic metal. One can’t get any more classic metal than one of the best metal instrumentals ever: Metallica’s “Orion” off of their Master of Puppets full-length album.

“Orion” would mark one of the the last great works by Metallica’s great bassist, Cliff Burton. He would pass away while on tour to promoting this album. Details of his passing could be read anywhere so will bypass that to instead celebrate one of his great achievements with this extended instrumental which just showed how great a metal bass player he was, but also just one of the greatest metal musicians of his time.

Fans of metal always wonder just how much more he could’ve contributed to Metallica’s success if he had lived. Would their later albums have been up and down in quality? Would he have gone along with the changes wrought by the band’s producer after his death, Bob Rock, whoguided the band out from their thrash metal roots and into a more pop-friendly hard rock sound. Metal will never know the answer to these questions, but if Burton had lived and remained with the band it’s more than likely that Metallica wouldn’t be the one we know now after their many stylistic changes, but probably still considered by their early, loyal fans as being pure thrash.

One thing for sure, we probably would’ve been given more extended instrumentals like “Orion”.

Song of the Day: Pacific Rim Theme (by Ramin Djawadi feat. Tom Morello)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Arleigh

Ok, to say that my latest musical obsession comes directly from Pacific Rim shouldn’t be quite a surprise. I’ve been so hyped about Guillermo Del Toro’s valentines card to all things mecha and daikaiju that it is only logical that it should progress right to it’s soundtrack. The latest “Song of the Day” is the awesometastic and auralgasmic opening theme song to Pacific Rim composed by Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi featuring the lead guitar stylings of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.

The “Pacific Rim Theme” is quite the homage to the classic mecha and giant robot anime series of the 70’s and early 80’s. It doesn’t go for the recent trend of classical-based opening credits song with the latest mecha series from Japan, but it instead goes for the full-on rock’n’roll treatment. It’s mostly brass and strings with some cameos from the horn section. It also makes great use of the electronic style that evokes early John Carpenter and some of the scifi action films of the early 80’s.

It helps to have Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine doing lead guitar duties throughout the piece.

In the film, the Jaeger pilots were seen as rock stars by the public and this theme made damn sure that we know that when it plays out in the beginning.

Song of the Day: Haunted (by Rob)

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day is an instrumental piece from the latest horror remake, Maniac. Composed by the French musician Rob, Maniac‘s score is just as important to the film’s unlikely success as Elijah Wood’s disturbing performance in the lead role. Reminiscent of the scores composed and performed by Goblin for the films of Dario Argento, Rob’s work here results in one of the best horror scores ever recorded.

Here is Haunted.

Song of the Day: Isolated System (by Muse)

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Arleigh

World War Z premiered over this past weekend and as I mentioned in my review the film was better than expected and showed something which previous zombie films have never truly shown and that’s the epic nature of just how a zombie apocalypse would look. While the film probably has disappointed fans of the novel for it’s massive and major deviations of the novel it was adapted from it was still a fun film.

It was from the opening title sequence of World War Z that I was first introduced to the song that comes in as the latest “Song of the Day”.

The song “Isolated System” from Muse’s latest album, The 2nd Law, really comes off as a nice precursor to what will be an apocalyptic event just around the corner. The whole song is an instrumental piece that’s interspersed with voice clippings from news reports that just have a hint of something ominous about to happen. The song looks to have have been influenced, whether by accident or on purpose, by another song which works well as a soundtrack to the apocalypse: Godspeend Ye! Black Emperor’s “East Hastings”.

Even if one didn’t like the film World War Z, this song was at least a nice find for those who haven’t been introduced to it.

Song of the Day: Never Forget (Midnight Version by Kazuma Jinnouchi)

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Arleigh

It looks like I have finally reached a personal milestone on this very site which I began on an overcast morning the day before Christmas 2009.

With E3 in full swing and video gaming sure to dominate pretty much everything entertainment throughout the week I thought it best that the latest “Song of the Day” come from one of the best video game soundtracks I’ve heard since I began listening to them these last 20 or so years.

“Never Forget (Midnight Version)” is the reimagining of the classic song from both Halo 2 and Halo 3 by the franchises original composer Martin O’Donnell. This time 343 Industries in-house composer, Kazuma Jinnouchi takes the “Never Forget” song Halo fans have come to love and gives it new life and adding some minor touches to make it fit the bittersweet end to the very emotional ending to Halo 4.

There’s a bit more electronic instrumentation to Jinnouchi’s reimagining and the nice touch of putting some extra emphasis on the brass section of the orchestra to give the song a martial feel to it.

I love O’Donnell’s version, but after hearing this reimiaging by Kazuma Jinnouchi I do believe that it’s the best version out there, IMHO.