After a break for the 4th of July last week and sunny skies with temperatures in the 80's, I was curious to see how many people would show up today. In the end it was 9 students! However, it was 8 guys and 1 woman: I warned her that the music selections today might be a bit more hard rocking than usual.
We started with me asking if any of the students had any stories from the 4th of July, especially what they thought of the fireworks. There were no great stories, thankfully no reports of firecrackers damaging fingers or eardrums, but no one seemed really impressed by the Seattle official fireworks.
One student said that at a 4th of July party he heard about a Seattle band called Helms Alee (Facebook page). The student had never yet actually heard the band and I have never heard of them so we looked to see we could find on YouTube. The song with the most views is "8/16" (video) so we watched it to see what the band is like. Clearly the band is very creative, but the song didn't really seem to grab us: it's like a lot of songs all thrown together in a blender. The video to this song is kind of funny as they do parodies of famous videos.
I have liked the Silversun Pickups for a few years now. I like how their music is progressing, but I have to admit that I like their earliest songs best, for example "Well Thought Out Twinkles" (video, lyrics, song info) and "Lazy Eye (live on tv)" (video, lyrics, song info).
If you like what you've heard here, Silversun Pickups are playing an outdoor concert at Marymoor Park in Redmond on 6 September 2012 (info).
While I like the Silversun Pickups, the truth is that they are really just an updated version of the Smashing Pumpkins (info), with the mix of heavy-and-light parts to songs. And they even have a woman bass player! I really liked early Smashing Pumpkins songs in the early 90's, especially "I Am One" (video, lyrics, song info) and "Siva" (video, lyrics, song info). They had good songs, and bigger hits later -- and are even still active, though the only original member is the singer -- but the earlier songs had more musical bite for me.
At this point I asked one of the new students to pick a song. He chose "Rack City" (video, lyrics, song info) by Tyga (info). When I asked him why he likes this song he said he likes how rhythmically Tyga raps and he likes that he can understand the lyrics.
Speaking of speed of rapping, someone suggested we watch "Pale Kid Raps Fast" (video with lyrics) by George Watsky (info).
I noticed on the video that the guy is touring and while it's entertaining to hear the guy rap fast with funny lyrics, but really, can he keep an audience entertained for more than an hour? If you want to find out, he is doing a concert at the Crocodile Cafe in downtown Seattle on 26 July (info).
I asked the class if they are familiar with Andy Warhols's "15-minutes of fame" statement. Watsky is clearly trying to make the most of his 15-minutes, maybe even stretch it to 16. Better hurry up, Watsky, the clock is ticking!
The next song chosen was a big stylistic change: "Lucky" (video, lyrics, song info) by Jason Mraz (info). Why this is such a nice summer song is self-explanatory.
BTW, Jason's part of this video was shot in one of my favorite cities in the world.
The next song chosen was "Risingson" (video, lyrics, song info) by Massive Attack (info). The student who chose this song said he had listened to a it a lot over the past week when the weather was so bad.
The next song was "Sex On Fire" (video, lyrics, song info) by Kings Of Leon (info). The student who chose this song said he become aware of Kings Of Leon when they played the Grammy Awards.
The next song was "Beautiful Girls" (video, lyrics, song info) by Sean Kingston (info). The student who chose this song said that he likes it because it's addictive and easy to sing along to.
I pointed out that the name "Sean" in English can be spelled three different ways, all of which sound the same: Sean, Shawn and Shaun.
The last variation reminds me of the movie "Shaun Of The Dead" (info), which is very funny.
The next song was "Call Me Maybe" (video, lyrics, song info) by Carly Rae Jepsen (info). Apparently I am the last person on the planet to hear this song. It's quite catchy! We could have started the whole "15-minutes of fame" discussion again about Ms. Jepsen's future, but I decided against bringing it up.
I went around the room asking all the guys if they would call Carly if she gave them her number. The answers will remain secrets to our class :-) .
Though I hadn't heard the song before I *had* seen news headlines about "Barack Obama, Call Me Maybe" but didn't know what it was about. So next we watched the with videos of Obama spliced together to make it sound like he's "singing" the song (video). Pretty funny!
The next song was "A Leap Into The Dark" (video, lyrics) by Aequitas (band website). What is special about this song is that it is a collaboration of people adding their parts via the internet.
The next song was "I Can Talk" (video, lyrics, song info) by Two Door Cinema Club (info). Apparently this song is very popular in France.
The last song of the day was "Nothing Else Matters" (video, lyrics, song info) by Metallica (info). The student who chose this song said he feels that it is the best song for introducing people to heavy rock/heavy metal who have never heard it before.
With that our discussion time for the day was done.
That evening I went to see a concert by a band who I had heard a lot about, but I actually didn't know their music: Novalima (info) from Peru. It was a *great* concert! Here's an example of what the concert was like: "Festejo" (video).
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