1 Act Play

Lana Del Rey

So I know she's been around for a while, but to be completely honest I wasn't interested in Lana Del Rey at all until she had a main track on The Great Gatsby album. She has a song called "Young and Beautiful", which I think is absolutely perfect. Her voice is super distinct like you would definitely remember it. She has a variety of kind of alternative with a hip hop beat in some of her songs, I don't even know. Spotify calls it retro-pop which I guess is pretty accurate. Her sound is just super interesting, and makes you want to keep listening. Plus her lyrics, are pretty strong, and I normally don't even listen to lyrics but hers just stick out. My favorites are "Young and Beautiful", "Radio", and "Blue Jeans".

"Young and Beautiful"

"Radio"

















"Blue Jeans"

Radiohead

Radiohead is a band that I don't love but I don't hate. The songs that I don't like are okay, like I'm not all "Turn it off now", but I'm never like "wow I need to hear that again for sure". I'm one of those people who, when I like an album, will listen to it over and over just because I need to keep hearing it it's so awesome. But I feel like that would never happen with a Radiohead album. I sing along when it comes on the radio but I don't deliberately get the album and listen to it again. I think some of the issues I have with Radiohead is that their tone is kind of creepy. Some of their songs like "How Do You?", "I Can't", and "Thinking About You" are some exceptions, but other than that a lot of the songs from the album Pablo Honey are just eerie to me. So, not negative but not overly positive either, Radiohead is just alright in my opinion.

"How Do You?"

"Thinking About You"

The Great Gatsby- Soundtrack

I saw the early showing of The Great Gatsby Thursday night, and I really enjoyed the movie. I thought the music added to it so much. Whoever thought up the soundtrack for that movie was a really smart dude because I felt that almost every song that was played just went along with the whole theme of The Great Gatsby and the 1920's mixed with modern influence and keeping you interested. Every song would fit the situation, and just went along perfectly. The whole idea behind the book was the outrageous extravagance of everything in that time period, and everyone's crazy way of life, and the music just made it sound so much cooler. It was a wide variety of artists with a variety of styles but all kind of flowed together. Some of the artists include Lana Del Rey, JAY Z, Beyoncé, Gotye, and Florence + the Machine. And a bunch of other really cool people. I know the songs that stuck out and I absolutely remember the parts they played in and just fit perfectly were "100$ Bill" by JAY Z, "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody" by Fergie, Q-Tip, and Goonrock, and "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey. The first two songs play in some party scenes that look so cool and the last song is played throughout the movie. Overall, whoever did this did an awesome job and the movie rocked.
"Young and Beautiful"

"A Little Party Never Killed Nobody"

"100$ Bill"

Smashing Pumpkins

We listened to Smashing Pumpkins today in class and I recognized one or two songs but for sure do not know them fully. After listening to them a lot more, I'm starting to really like them. They have a really laid back sound but at the same time it's unique. I especially like the singer's voice just because it sounds so good while being different at the same time. I really like they're style because it's definitely the kind of music I'm into normally with a little bit of variety. They aren't really hard core like some of the bands that were out at the time (in the 90's) and in a way I feel like they kind of brought back the really good alternative music into style. I like that it also kind of has a rock edge to it sometimes though. Overall the Smashing Pumpkins are really good and my favorite songs of theirs are "1979", "Tonight Tonight", and "Today".

"1979"

Kenny Chesney-Life On A Rock

Kenny Chesney came out with a new album called Life On A Rock this week and I think it's pretty good but not his best. There's like a reggae song on it and he's country so I don't really think that mixes well but he kind of pulls it off. It's a weird mix of his islandy/reggae music with his country but I've found that the more I've listened to it the more it grows on me because I think it's so different than anything that it just stands out a lot and becomes super catchy. My favorite song from the album is one that he released early called "Pirate Flag", which has his classic country as the majority but adds a little bit of island feel and that's the mix that I like the best, not when it's heavy on the island side and not on the country side. The reggae song is called "Spread the Love", and to be honest, I don't think it sounds country at all except for Kenny Chesney's voice. So I wish, since he's more of a country artist he would have mixed the different genres a little bit better but other than that I really like the album. My favorite songs are "Pirate Flag", "It's That Time Of Day", and "Marley", because they're the most laid back songs with the good mix of country and islandy sounds.

"Pirate Flag"

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Okay for one, I thought this album was wayyy to long. I really liked a lot of the songs, but after a while, it got really old and I was really tired of listening to it, unless it was a really good song that stuck out. I thought that a lot of the songs were weird lyrics wise, but I really liked all the music behind the singing. The lead singer's voice was not my favorite because it was a little too rough in this album in my opinion, but I like a lot of their later stuff when he sounds a lot softer. Like for example in "The Power of Equality", the chorus is what I like, but it kind of sounds like a version of the Beastie Boys in between that. My favorite songs from this album were "Breaking the Girl", "Funky Monks", "I Could Have Lied", "Give It Away", and "Under The Bridge". These songs were softer or had a cool beat and I like them a lot.

"Give It Away"

 

"Under The Bridge"