2008-03-03
Nine Inch Nails now join Radiohead as experimenting with alternative revenue models. The new album, Ghosts, is available to buy online either as downloads for five dollars or as a double CD for ten dollars. You can also download the first part of the album for free via BitTorrent.
I’m listening to it right now, and a review is most likely in a couple of days.
2008-02-06
Todays little indie-music spotting: The very cute and reasonably amusing game “Potty Mouth Ninja” has Architecture in Helsinki’s song “Do the Whirlwind” as background music. It’s a recreation with cheap synths, I think, it doesn’t sound exactly the same, but it’s good enough to raise the enjoyment of the game a couple of notches! Play it!
Oh, and if you haven’t heard Architecture in Helsinki, you should listen to them to. When it comes to cute quirky pop you don’t get much cuter and quirkier. Highly recommended.
Beneath the seven different reasons for satellites
Eleven different reasons for fists in fights
There’s never been a reason for shouting when
It’s quiet
But no-one’s ever listening.
— “Need to Shout”
2007-12-02
In Swedish indie rock there has long been a trend of having singers that can’t sing. This trend got started with Broder Daniel. A band that write pop songs with the same musical skill as your average twelve year old. But because they (or at least the out of tune singer) were cute and cool they got wildly popular, and the trend got started, and often propagated by Broder Daniel members leaving the band an starting a solo career in singing badly.
It is in fact, much easier to become a respected indie talent in Sweden, if you suck. Case in point, new Swedish mainstream underground indie pop megastars Laakso.
Laakso does have a singer who mostly sings horribly out of tune with a whiny annoying voice. But sometimes he forgets himself, and sings in tune. Also, the songs are often pedestrian in quality, but with occasional bright sparks. But most of all, the lyrics are so pathetic, immature and stupidly bad that it must be intentional.
Maybe it’s a trick? Songs like their single “Västerbron” has decent chorus. But the verses are so pathetic that it’s really hard to not turn off. But if you succeed, the contrast between the stupefying low mark of “You look great…thanks!” means that the chorus comes as a huge relief, and you are immensly happy to no longer be in pain.
I’m starting to suspect that the guy can sing properly, but doesn’t want to just to make it sound better when he actually does sing in tune. And of course, the suspicions of intentional patheticness doesn’t exactly get lower when considering the fact that they used to be quite good. Check this from 2003, for example:
Notice the lack of suckage. He sings pretty much in tune, the English accent is suddenly much better, and the decent lyrics.
Sure, it’s often said that mainstream music is bad. But by that is usually meant bland, uninteresting and manufactured. Not so in Sweden. There you can more easily get a hit if you intentionally sing and play badly and wrote daft songs with kindergarten lyrics.
It’s a strange country. I’m happy I moved.
2007-04-15
Another oldie from the hard drive. This is about a real person, and yes, she has indeed since gotten married.
The arrangement on this one was tricky to get right, but it worked out in the end. I tried to make a song that for once had a chorus you could sing along too, which I guess means, this is the “single”. Hah!
Again, it’s my friend Pär singing.
2007-04-14
I’ll start with some old stuff, to clear out the hard drive. This is an old, old song in an old recording and a not so old mix. The main singer is a friend of mine but the singing during the outro is me. I’m pretty happy with the slightly unusual arrangement on this one, and how it succeeds to be complex and sparse at the same time. The long outro was originally meant to just be a fade to silence, but it inspired me to add new lyrics to the end, and I liked how the recording in the slowly falls to pieces, so I kept all of it. It means the song is quite long, but that’s what happens sometimes.
2007-04-14
OK, so I have been thinking that it could be fun to have more people listen to my music. So I’m going to upload it here in irregular intervals. There will be sad sea-shanties and sad attempts of doing dance-music. There will also be a lot of whining about stupid music and daft lyrics. You have been warned.
A note on copyright: I’m way to old to longer harbor any dreams of being a rock-star, and the internet is making music free anyway, so you are welcome to download my songs and share as you like. But I still wrote the songs, so if you want to do a cover, a remix, or for some unfathomable reason, sample it, tell me first.
Thats it! Enjoy!
