A low turnout today: only 6 students. Perhaps due to mid-terms?
One of the students, from Saudi Arabia, was new to the class. I started by asking him to give us an example of the kind of music he likes. He chose "The Show Must Go On" (video, lyrics, song info) by Queen (info). When I asked the student why he chose this song he said he chose it because it is lyrically a very powerful song as it is Freddie Mercury's (info) way of saying goodbye to the world before he died of AIDS.
The next song was "Bizarre Love Triangle" (video, lyrics, song info) by Frente! (info). The student who chose it said she just likes the melody, but doesn't pay attention to the lyrics of the song.
In fact, this song is a cover of a New Order (info) song. So we listened to the original version (video, lyrics, song info).
The student who chose the Frente! version said she likes the sad, Frente! version over the New Order one: musically, the New Order version feels too "up".
My personal favorite New Order song is "Crystal" (video, lyrics, song info). I particularly like the background vocals which just say "hey" and "woo hoo".
The next song was "A Boy" (video, lyrics, song info) by G Dragon (info) who is from the boy band Big Bang (info).
The girls in the class were talking about how cute G Dragon is so I asked them to vote for who is the cutest one in Big Bang. They agreed G Dragon is also the cutest in Big Bang.
I asked if the girls in the class would have a problem dating a guy with tattoos. They aren't against tattoos, but they said it would have to be small, subtle tattoos, ones that had a purpose or meaning, rather than showy, big tattoos.
One of the students wanted to hear a Santana (info) song. Though Santana started in the 1960's, I thought the students would recognize "Smooth" (video, lyrics, song info). I think they recognized it, but they didn't seem impressed.
The student who wanted to hear Santana wanted to hear the song "Into The Night" (video, lyrics, song info) because he prefers the singer (Chad Kroeger (info)).
One of the students has often said she likes jazz. That made me think that there was a really good jazz concert in Seattle last week by Esperanza Spalding (info). She is originally from Portland, OR, so she is kind of a local artist, but she won a Grammy Award (info) for "Best New Artist" in 2011 so she is getting more and more popular around the US. Her concert was in a big theater, the Paramount Theatre (info).
To give an example of Esperaza Spalding's music I played "Grooves"(?) (video).
But the student who likes jazz didn't like that song -- it's too mellow. She said she prefers stuff like "The Lady Is A Tramp" (video, lyrics, song info) by Lady Gaga (info).
Then we watched a version of the same song by Tokyo Jihen (info) with Ringo Shiina (info) singing: "The Lady Is A Tramp" (video).
One of the other students observed that by "jazz" the one student probably means more like "Broadway" style jazz. I think she's right! There is a very popular band from Portland that often plays in Seattle that plays music like that -- the band is called Pink Martini (info). My favorite song by them is "Sympathique" (video, lyrics). The song is sung in French and repeats the line "I don't want to work".
One of the students remarked that she is going to see Coldplay (info) in concert this evening. That's a great cultural experience for her! Her favorite Coldplay song is "Viva La Vida" (video, lyrics, song info) because the tempo of the song is strong.
I am curious to hear her report on the concert next week. For now, here was the concert review in the Seattle Times.
With that we had to end class a little early because FIUTS needed the projector for a different event.
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