I thought there might be quite a few people around here who would be interested in a compilation of nerdy remixes that dropped yesterday, since there are quite a few names on it that should be familiar to all of you.
The ensuing round of musical mayhem is a collection of remixes, mash-ups, and re-orchestrations of geeky tracks from across the spectrum. There’s nerdcore, of course, and Wizard Rock, geek rock (or, grock, as it’s come to be called in some circles) and even a dash of foreign language goodness on the menu, reworked by a delightfully eclectic collection of DJs, producers, and musicians. I owe each of these participants an equal measure of thanks, as this is really their album.
Happy St. Paddy's Day to everyone! Here's playlist for today, which will most definitely put you in the spirit for green beer and corned beef and cabbage.
Christy Moore is a well-known Irish folk singer/songwriter, and guitarist, "known for his political and social commentary, which reflects a left wing Irish Republican perspective." The Pogues, performing the same song, are also use a lot of political commentary in their music (politically themed songs are very common with Irish musicians, it seems.) The Pogues have a punk rock sound but used traditional Irish instruments such as the mandolin and tin whistle."This song is not a rebel song, this song is Sunday Bloody Sunday." Another example of politically themed Irish music, a terrific cover of the classic U2 song which describes "the horror felt by an observer of The Troubles in Northern Ireland". Now for something a little less serious... House of Pain, an Irish-American hip-hop group that was very popular in the mid-90s, just as I was finishing college. Oh, those were the days. What St. Paddy's Day would be complete with out a song about drinking pints?Ro Tierney is an extremely talented singer/songwriter from Ireland. We have something in common too. His favorite book is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and so is mine.Conan Brophy is from the West of Ireland. I instantly liked Conan's sound when I heard it at The Sixty One. His voice reminds me of Ian Brown's. Conan's music runs the gamut from happy pop to more folky stuff and even electronic and he pulls it all off with finesse.Analogue Mindfield blends elements of Trip-Hop, Reggae, Drum and Bass and Ambient sounds and they're from Dublin. Check out their MySpace for more music, since they only have one song on The Sixty One at this time.West of Eden are the charming folksy pop duo, Kenn Davis and Cindy O'Keeffe from County Wicklow, Ireland and Dublin. Fern Knight is a Philadephia based singer songwriter. This song seemed fitting enough to include for today's festivities.
I have always harbored very strong opinions on Live albums and Covers of other songs. In this post, I wanna focus on the Covers!
When an Artist does a Cover of another song, they are in fact doing one of two things: either paying homage to the original, or are just out of ideas and need filler of a popular song! To pay homage to a song is great, but I think that it takes little talent to do it exactly like the original... what value does that add? On the flip side, to do a cover and to interpret it with your style, approach and sound, and by doing that, to bring a new dimension to a song, is the greatest form of homage that can be paid to the original, while at the same time demonstrating the creativity and vision of the Artist covering the song.
Having spent countless hours on thesixtyone, I have noticed a lot of covers. Some of them are just a rehash of the same song and they make me wonder what value is added here? Others are great re-interpretations, where the Artist deconstructed the original song, reformed it and created something truly extraordinary. Below are some examples of songs that add new dimension to an already well known song and some of my favorite covers on the site:
