ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Deftones - Koi no Yokan

A lot of great albums were released in 2012 but the one that tops off all of them is alternative metal band Deftones' latest offering entitled Koi no Yokan. The Sacramento five-piece have released what fans and critics are proclaiming as one of the band's best albums, if not their best album. Personally, this is my new favorite album by Deftones. They have finally made the magnum opus they've been striving to create. This will go down as their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, their OK Computer, their Pinkerton, their Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, their... well, you get the idea. Just listen below, you won't be disappointed.

Happy New Year and see you in 2013!

恋の予感

ALBUM OF THE DAY: DIIV - Oshin

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Coldplay - Christmas Lights

ALBUM OF THE DAY: Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?!! OST

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Rage Against the Machine - Bullet in the Head

VIDEO OF THE DAY: U2 - With or Without You

Top 10 Albums of 2012

10 Albums of 2012

#10: Dead Can Dance - Anastasis

#9: Sigur Rós - Valtari

#8: Beach House - Bloom

#7: The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

#6: Bloc Party - Four

#5: Miike Snow - Happy to You

#4: Hot Chip - In Our Heads

#3: Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city

#2: DIIV - Oshin

  

#1: Deftones - Koi no Yokan

Honorable Mentions

Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania

Muse - The 2nd Law

Mumford & Sons - Babel

ClariS - Birthday

Skullgirls Original Soundtrack

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Human League - Human

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Prodigy - Breathe

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Keane - Silenced by the Night

SONG OF THE DAY: Bacon Pancakes (Ryden Ridge Remix) (Adventure Time)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Dredg - Information

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Nutcracker Suite (Fantasia) (Happy Birthday to Me!)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes

SONG OF THE DAY: Escape from the City (Sonic Adventure 2)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Björk - Hyperballad

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Adele - Skyfall (Lyric Version)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Cure - The Funeral Party (Live: Reflections Tour)

SONG OF THE DAY: Coldplay - Up in Flames

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Deftones - Tempest (Lyric Version)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes

The Cure - Charlotte Sometimes from Nexus on Vimeo.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Utada Hikaru - Final Distance

SONG OF THE DAY: Deftones - Leathers

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Bloc Party - Flux

SONG OF THE DAY: Gorillaz - November Has Come

Top 10 Goth Albums

Happy Halloween everyone! In celebration of Halloween, I will be posting ten of what I think are the best goth albums of all time. I am a fan of dark music and I've been meaning to do a list like this for quite a while so here it is: the ten greatest goth albums.

#10: Joy Division - Closer

#9: Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

#8: The Cult - Love

#7: Siouxsie & the Banshees - Juju

#6: Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

#5: Bauhaus - Crackle

#4: Dead Can Dance - Dead Can Dance

#3: The Mission - God's Own Medicine

#2: The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland

#1: The Cure - Pornography

COMING SOON: Top 10 Goth Albums List

Since Halloween is coming up this Wednesday, I'd figured it'd be a good time to listen to dark music once again. After browsing my music library, I found some stark yet beautiful treasures so expect a top 10 list of my favorite goth albums of all time. In the meantime, please check out Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus, the song (and band) that single-handedly invented the gothic rock genre.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: M83 - Steve McQueen

Rage Against the Machine - XX Reissue

Remasters and reissues of older albums are very common nowadays and it can be overwhelming. However, there are some classic albums that definitely deserve the treatment and this is one of them. Rage Against the Machine is an alternative/funk/rap metal band that most certainly stood out from other bands that were blowing up back in the 1990s. They are one of the most politically-charged artists to have ever existed and despite their short discography, music fans and critics still proclaim them as one of the best bands in musical history. They only released three albums (technically four if you count their covers album, Renegades) and the self-titled album, their first, is their most critically acclaimed album to date and it's not hard to see why. Not only is it their highest selling album, but it has their best songs like Bombtrack, Killing in the Name, and Bullet in the Head (my personal favorite). The lyrics are well-written, the vocals are amazing, the instrumentation is phenomenal, and the production is one of the best I have heard on any album. The greatest thing this album has going for is the emotional conviction. Rage Against the Machine is a band so angry beyond recognition. They want you to believe they are pissed off and I can definitely say that they have done just that. I've listened to some aggressive and heavy records in my lifetime but I have never listened to one that has topped the anger and brutality that this record delivers. I can't say enough about how amazing this album is. It's easily one of my favorite albums of all time and after twenty years, it doesn't sound dated at all.

The reissue of Rage Against the Machine - XX will be released on November 27th, 2012 (is it a pure coincidence that this is being released on my birthday?).

SONG OF THE DAY: Dan Siegel - Feelin' Happy

SONG OF THE DAY: DJ Shadow - Building Steam with a Grain of Salt

VIDEO OF THE DAY: M83 - Midnight City

VIDEO OF THE DAY: R.E.M. - It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

VIDEO OF THE DAY: The Gaslight Anthem - "45"

SONG OF THE DAY: DIIV - Wait

This is a track from the debut album Oshin by DIIV, an indie rock band with an interesting style of music. Featuring jangly guitars and tons of reverb with a stark and cold aesthetic, Oshin turned out to be one of my favorite albums of this year and Wait demonstrates best what the band's sound is like. Think of The Cure and My Bloody Valentine mixed with dream pop.
 

VIDEO OF THE DAY: DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Mumford & Sons - I Will Wait

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Michael Jackson - Bad

SONG OF THE DAY: Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

From the highly praised album of the same name, this is Purple Rain by Prince with his backing band at the time, The Revolution. Known as one of Prince's signature songs, this nearly nine minute track is one of those tracks where you can't believe that a single musician wrote it. Combining rock, pop, new wave, gospel, and orchestral musical genres into one song, it always moves me every time I listen to it. The second half of the track, right when the guitar solo starts, unleashes one of the most emotional and passionate performances I have ever heard in my life. This is, without a doubt, one of the greatest songs ever written.

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Miike Snow - Devil's Work

SONG OF THE DAY: Beach House - Myth

This is the first track from Beach House's fourth album, Bloom, which came out in early April. It's a pretty damn good album and this track, in particular, is absolutely amazing. I love the textures and atmospheres of the song and the vocals are quite haunting but soothing.

CLASSIC ALBUM REVIEW: Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra - Fantasia

Do you ever wonder what a film would be like without music? Me neither. Since the beginning of time, music has always been an integral part of films. I would even say it is the main ingredient when it comes to any film whatsoever. The first movies were silent but the actions, emotions, and stories were told simply through the power of music. Cue to the year 1940 and after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio saw Walt Disney's third full length feature, Fantasia. The movie was a daring and risky film, combining classical music and animation to tell stories and convey the emotions in each and every one of us. The film is certainly in my Top 3 favorite Disney films and the score is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and powerful pieces of art my ears had the pleasure listening to.

The score utilizes classical pieces ranging from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. However, some of them are abridged, the most notable examples being Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Nevertheless, the music remains to be a seminal masterpiece when it comes to film scores. Each of the eight pieces have a purpose in Fantasia.

Firstly, Bach's Toccata and Fugue paints like the music suggests: it exists for its own sake. The music is vague, it has no set story, and it relies heavily on your imagination. The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky is one of the most famous pieces in classical music, even though the composer completely disowned it during his lifetime. Arguably the softest composition in the soundtrack, the music is very gentle, light, and has a soothing tone to it. The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Dukas is the most famous piece of music in the score because of the critically acclaimed Mickey Mouse short that accompanied it. It's a wonderful piece due to how the music builds up gradually, becoming louder and louder during the climax and softening again by the very end. 

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is my favorite composition in the score and coincidentally, this reflects my favorite segment in the film (it was the beginning of life on Earth with the existence and demise of the dinosaurs). The Rite is Spring is easily one of the darkest pieces in the score and musically, it is the most complex. The beats and rhythms have no set pattern and just change constantly, becoming progressive-like. I've listened to this composition multiple times and even I can't decipher its pattern but that's what's so fantastic about it. Next is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, a musical piece that starts off light, giving a naive feel to it but it suddenly takes a dark turn during the storm act. However, it cools off and it ends on a wistful note. Dance of the Hours, from Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda, is exactly what the title says. Numerous dances take places during the morning, afternoon, late afternoon, and night. Each of these dances represent a different feel to the music and all of them suddenly combine together to form one huge musical finale. 

The last two compositions, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain and Schubert's Ave Maria, are extremely different in tone and mood but they play off each other so perfectly it's unbelievable. The former is the darkest piece in the score but unlike The Rite of Spring, this piece gives off a very claustrophobic and dramatic feeling. It's so dark that it's like being in hell. However, the bell chimes, signaling the beginning of the latter piece. Ave Maria is the only piece that has vocals and they are just stunning. The composition has a very mournful and sentimental quality to the music and right when the final vocal chords make their appearance, they just strike you in the heart. You get a feeling of redemption and you know that a perfect closure has been made.

I really can't say any more of the soundtrack for Fantasia. It's just breathtaking and incredible beyond words. An absolute must-listen.

http://www.mediafire.com/?42c63jrs8s1w3h0

TRACK REVIEW: Muse - Survival

Survival is the first single from Muse's upcoming album, The 2nd Law, which will be released in early October. This song has created a lot of buzz due to the fact that it became the theme song for the London Olympics that occurred over the summer. The reception has been mixed about the track but I personally think that it's another strong track in Muse's discography.

What I like about this track is the constant "building up", for a lack of a better phrase. The track starts off quiet and slow but it gradually grows louder and more intense. Towards the finale, the guitar becomes noticeably heavier and it alternates between soloing and chugging with the aggressive drumming and distortion of the bass guitar helping intensify the mood. Other than Matthew Bellamy providing his trademark falsetto voice, a choir provides additional voice work in the background to further create the "pumped-up" feeling.

My only gripe with the song is the lyrics. While not entirely awful, one can tell that this song will only be relevant to the Olympics and not anything else outside of it. The lyrics are not as groundbreaking as those from Muse's previous work like songs about the government (Ruled by Secrecy), the end of the world (Apocalypse Please), and religion (Megalomania).

Overall, this is a solid track and I can't wait to hear what the band has in store for us when the album drops next month.

Update/Blue Lines Reissue

Welp, it's been a while since I've payed any attention to this blog but I really want to post weekly updates on here regarding new album releases, reviews of old/classic albums, reviews of new albums, track reviews, song posts, and other good stuff. Please check back here for music goodness, you won't be disappointed.

Bristol band Massive Attack, known famous in the United States for their song Teardrop being used as the theme song for the drama series House, announced that they will release a reissued and remastered version of their seminal debut album, Blue Lines. The album was arguably the first to introduce the sound that Bristol became known for: trip-hop. Trip-hop is a hybrid of hip-hop and downbeat electronic music. It's the type of music that is known to be slow, dark, depressing, and relaxing. When Blue Lines first came out, it spun people's heads. Critics gave large amounts of praise to the album's eclectic style. It combined electronic, hip-hop, dub, '70s soul, and reggae among musical genres and it had vocals ranging from feminine soul singing to rapping. It also utilized breakbeats and sampling. The amazing thing about this album is that despite its eclectic nature, it never loses focus or steam. Each and every song connects with one another and they all matter.

The reissue of Blue Lines will be released on November 20th, 2012.

Classic Album Reviews Coming Soon

I have one more quarter at college and since it's going to be much easier than the previous quarters, that means I will have more time to pay attention to this blog here. In the upcoming weeks, I will be reviewing some albums that I believe are classics, and I am unsure if this will be an ongoing series or not. Anyways, here are some albums I plan to review:

-The Bends, OK Computer by Radiohead
-Loveless by My Bloody Valentine
-The Queen is Dead, Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths
-Abbey Road, The Beatles (The White Album) by The Beatles
-Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins
...and many more

So... I decided to start blogging...

Yes, indeed. This blog will mostly focus on music as it's my number one love out of anything else. In this blog, I will talk about upcoming releases, new album reviews, old/classic album reviews, song previews, and many other interesting things. In the meantime, here's a song from my favorite anime series of all time: Cowboy Bebop.