Thoughts: Gagaville

The Main Time Wasting/Addictive Game of the Decade

Lady Gaga and All Her Scary Glory

Wow… two things that I really don’t understand in one location!

I have never played Farmville, I don’t have much of a desire to do so and I can’t seem to understand the addiction to it. I mean, I can play Tetris for hours on in and I know that’s an addiction. But this game? What is the appeal?

Reminds me of a rejected version of old-school Zelda. Now, don’t think I hate Zelda, because that is one of the greatest video games of all time. But Farmville is pretty much a joke to me.

But, oh wait… It gets so much worse.

Anyone who knows me can state for a fact that I cannot stand Lady Gaga at all. I don’t care for her ridiculously catchy music with nonsensical lyrics, her style of fashion scares the hell out of me, and she just can’t help but put her name into all of her songs.

The Madonna of our generation as she is called, which I won’t deny that. But she’s making our generation look like sex-driven, bright-colored idiots on crack.

So, what do you get when you put two things that I can’t understand together?

Gagaville. YEP, you read that right.

Apparently, Zynga, the company that founded such games as Farmville and Mafia Wars, will be allowing Lady Gaga to release music from her new album via the game from May 17th-19th. Players have to complete certain tasks in order to actually get free downloads of the music. They will also be able to win concert tickets and signed copies of the album with the points that they earn while playing the game.

As if we didn’t have plenty of ways for people to waste time trying to save their chickens from dying. Now, they can do that with pleasure of listening to “Judas” and “Born This Way” in the process.

Keep making that money and saving your cows.

Radiohead – Lotus Flower

No words…

And yes, that is indeed Thom Yorke dancing.

Watch it.

I bought the album. Expect a review later next week.

Music: REVIEW- Two Door Cinema Club

Alex, Sam & Kevin - Two Door Cinema Club

 

How I stumbled across this band was pretty simple.

I’m a fan of the band Tokyo Police Club, and they were on tour and just so happened to in a nearby city. However, I was not able to attend the concert due to work conflicts, but I was curious to know who was going to be touring with them. Quite glad I did.

Four Words to Stand On

Tourist History

Two Door Cinema Club is a band hailing from Ireland and is growing with immense popularity. Their debut album, Tourist History, was released on March 1, 2010 and was very highly rated on international charts. They are still currently on tour,  they are not touring with Tokyo Police Club at the moment.

This 3 piece ensemble band creates very poppy and catchy music, consisting mostly of tunes you would find in a club or during parties. The 3 members, Alex, Sam and Kevin, all play guitar or bass. However, they do not have a drummer. The drum line is created on a drum machine that accompanies the other instruments.

The band name comes from an error on the name of a local cinema, Tudor Cinema, and the band name was formed thereafter. Their 1st EP was Four Words to Stand On back in 2009 and it received positive reviews. The first single, “Something Good Could Work” charted, with another single, “I Can Talk”, doing the same right after.

4 Song I Recommend:

- Something Good Can Work

- Come Back Home

- I Can Talk

- Cigarettes in the Theater

Honestly, this band makes me giddy whenever I listen to them, and I don’t use that word often. Very upbeat, simple tempos and melodies and the lyrics are just the same. An impressive band. I’m really looking forward to their sophomore album.

Music: Utada Hikaru Documentary – “Hikaru Utada ~Ima no watashi~”

 

 

I’m on a Hikki kick lately. Its also her birthday today!

This being her last time on television before she goes on her indefinite hiatus from the music scene, Utada Hikaru gives one final gift to her fans.

Sitting down with Chris Peppler, Utada answers several questions in regards to her most recent works, the involvement of music in her  life and the reasons for her hitaus. She also gives two performances of her newest songs, “Goodbye Happiness” and “Show Me Love (Not A Dream),” which is also the theme song for the film adaptation of the famous manga, Ashita no Joe. There are also clips from her Wild Life concert performances as well. Its a great interview.

For translation of the interview, go to tokyohive.

Music: *Spotlight* – Hikaru Utada

Hikaru "Hikki" Utada

You should’ve known it was coming.

Considering my broad tastes in music, my first love of Japanese Rock/Pop was actually NOT Miss Hikaru. It was Camui Gackt (But that’s another entry…)

However, after hearing one song from her off her Deep River album, “Uso Mitai Na I Love You,” I fell in love with her. Unique music styles and distinctive voice, along with an ability to sing in 3 (Yes, THREE) languages, Hikaru Utada is deserving of all the spotlight.

First Love

Distance

Deep River

Ultra Blue

Heart Station

2 Single Collections, over 9 DVDs, 2 Photobooks, and 5 studio albums (8 if you count her 3 American releases), she is ranked as one of the top-selling female artists in Japan. Her first album, First Love, is the best-selling album in Oricon history. She even took the bold step into breaking American charts with two American albums, Exodus and This is the One. She is also known for creating and singing the opening  and ending songs to the Kingdom Hearts Series.

She was born in New York City to parents with musical backgrounds, her father a producer and her mother a famous enka singer. Considering the life around her, she eventually picked up an interest and love for music. Her first album was actually in English, under the name Cubic U. However, after such small success, Emi Japan noticed her talent and asked if she could sing in Japanese and her career was born.

Her first single, “Automatic”, broke records and every album since her debut, First Love, would go on to continue that tradition. She has fans all over the world and she adores them just as much as they do her. However, as of September of 2010, she announced that she will be going on a hiatus from music to focus on her personal life. Having known music most of her live and dedicating herself to it, it would only be inevitable she would need a break.

She married movie director Kazuaki Kiriya, who wrote and directed the movie Casshern. He was also the man who directed her music video from the Deep River and Ultra Blue eras. They divorced due to conflicting of interests, jobs and distance. She leaves her fans with a 2nd Singles Collection, two live concerts and a documentary that will be airing today, January 15th, in Japan.

5 Songs that I recommend (Although I could easily do 10):

- Automatic

-Final Distance

-Deep River

-Be My Last

- Prisoner of Love

Others that are just as good: Stay Gold, Show Me Love (Not a Dream), Wait & See, Flavor of Life.

Depressed that she is gone for the time being,  but I will patiently wait for her return to the music scene. Such a great and talented artist and she will always be ranked #1 in my list.

Music: *Spotlight* – Twin Sister

 

Twin Sister

 

 

I had to do an entry on this band.

Having only heard them once, and live for that matter, I instantly fell in love with their style. Very dream-like theme & feel, with mellow and gentle use of voices, very creative melodies and lyrics, Twin Sister is an impressive Indie band.

 

Color Your Life Album

Vampire with Dreaming Kids EP

Currently, this band only had one EP and an album. The band consists of 5 members: Andrea Estella on vocals, keyboardist Dev Gupta, bassist Gabe D’Amico, guitarist-singer Eric Cardona, and drummer Bryan Ujueta. They formed in 2008 on Long Island, but have since moved to Brooklyn. They are currently on tour.

They have a solid band and the use of instruments is amazing. Considering that they have only such a short amount of songs, all of them are just wonderful to listen to.

4 Songs I Recommend:

- I Want a House
- All Around and Away We Go
- Phenomenons
- Ginger

Pay them a visit at their website. They’re a real treat of a band.

Music: Special Review – The Morning Benders Concert (Wednesday 3 November 2010)

The Morning Benders

Oh YES.

Having missed the first round of tours due to the fact that they didn’t come anywhere near my state (And who could blame them… not much to see or do here, really), they surprised all of their fans by doing a second tour for the year. Lucky enough, they hit two cities in the Ohio/Kentucky area: Newport and Columbus.

Now, I would’ve went to both, but I had just gotten back from out-of-town (Went to the Rally for Sanity/Fear in DC, which I will blog about later) and had a small family emergency while being gone, so I could not hit up both concerts. However, I was lucky enough to hit Columbus and I was certainly quite glad that I did.

The Basement is in downtown Columbus, not far from the renowned campus, The Ohio State University (I still have no clue what the hell “The” is in there for). It was a pretty cold night and a random, middle of the week concert at that. When a close friend of mine and myself arrived at the venue, we were pretty damn surprised at the fact that it was somewhat empty. I, having not been to the venue before, was surprised at just how small it was. It was, literally, in a basement. Concert posters were plastered over the walls, while a bar rested towards the middle of the room, the stage being placed towards the front of the entrance. The stage, itself, was up close and personal. The band was there for all to see. Considering that we got there pretty early, I had the perfect chance to get up front, as that had been my goal along, for this concert. I was happy that I did.

Oberhofer

Starting off the concert was a band called Oberhofer. I’ve never heard of the band before, but let me tell you that your ears are in for a very interesting mixture of music if you look them up. The sound is a mixture of wails and creative rhythms and melodies. It has a certain kind of innocence, yet truthful reality to the lyrics as well. The band is pretty friendly and loving towards the crowd from what I can tell. Jokes were made and the guitarist near the xylophone was talking to the crowd like it was normal. It was an interesting opener to watch.

Twin Sister

Now the next band was a bit of a surprise. I had heard so much about this band from many other fans, but I had never looked them up. After seeing them in this concert, I must say as soon as I got home, I looked them up all over the Internets. Twin Sister is a treat of an Indie band. Lovely voice from the lead singer, Andrea, with her range of vocals for each song, and the solid sounds from the band itself made me instantly fall in love. The sound was fantastic and definitely lovely to listen to. I hope they return to have their own tour, as I would gladly attend. My friend said the same.

Explains Itself...

Don’t get me wrong. The previous bands were quite nice and cool to see, even with not knowing much about them. But the whole purpose of me buying those tickets was strictly for what I have called my all-time favorite band, The Morning Benders.

If you haven’t looked them up, seriously. Do it. Since I reviewed their album that was released earlier this year, Big Echo, and having fell in love with them on the spot, it would only be enviable that I would try my damnedest to see them in concert before I died.

To give myself a personal surprise, I refused to look at any reviews of previous concerts that they have done. I was already in shock that I was able to actually see them so closely. I mean, I was right up front. If I wanted, I could’ve reached out and touched Chris Chu’s shoe, but I figured that would be uncool, so I held in my urge. They put on a wonderful show. They chatted with the crowd, had pointed out that they had seen some familiar faces from the Newport concert, asked for a bottle of water and got it from a fan, and enjoyed our ambiance.

Not really wanting to focus on any of their pervious works, this concert stayed on course with playing mostly songs from their Big Echo album. Two treats from Talking Through Tin Cans was put in that mix, Waiting for a War and Boarded Doors, with a new song called Virgins for an encore and an awesome cover of Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.

The Morning Benders

I must say that I was a happy camper that whole night. I sang along to pretty much every song, nearly had a heart attack when they played my favorite song off the of the album, Stitches, and I mean…. who would not nearly faint like some chick back in the 50s & 60s at a face like this?

Look at that lovely, yet tired face!

They ended off the concert with their well-known song, the song that pretty much made them famous all over the world, Excuses. It was a wonderful experience. Chris asked the whole crowd to sing along, using a maraca to single when we were all suppose to join in with “La La,” everyone pretty much singing along even after the song ended. He enjoyed the crowd so much that he proclaimed that they would return to Columbus for their next tour, and I pray that they do indeed keep that promise.

Taking a quick look back into the crowd, as I was curious to know just how many people were there, I found that it was packed. It having started off an empty venue and then a random explosion of people appeared after about a good hour. This picture explains it all:

Such a lovely crowd

It was a pretty well-behaved, chill and active crowd. Mixed with some pretty neat age ranges. There were humans from ages 16 to 35. That made it even more of a pleasant experience. After the concert was done, the bands headed towards the back of the venue to sign posters, take pictures, pass out music and t-shirts. I was able to snag a Morning Benders t-shirt, signed poster from Chris and a photo. I haven’t taken pictures of the shirt and poster yet, but I will update this as soon as I do. As for the photo with Chris, well… I need to get my friend to send me a copy of it (YOU HEAR THAT, STU?!).

A night to remember, I must say.

(Pictures were taken by a girl who also attended the concert, Ada G. Matusiewicz. She was a cool looking chick quietly maneuvering through the crowd with her fancy camera. She captured my views of the concert without me having to ask. I don’t even know the girl and I must say that she had to be reading my mind or something. Lovely pics, dear).

Music: *REVIEW* Born Free – M.I.A.

First off: I do not like the song. The “Born Free” is the only part of the song that I can tolerate. I know M.I.A. is creative and vibrant, but this does not seem like her at all. And you can’t tell me that I don’t know what she sounds like. I own both her albums.

Second: Someone is going to have to explain some parts of the video to me. I mean, I get the overall concept of the video (Which was that of illegal immigrants coming into America, etc.), but why the use of red-headed children and teenagers? I just… found that a bit odd.

Third: She needs to release a new album pronto.

But this better not be on it.

Music: *REVIEW* Solider of Love – Sade

2010 is seriously the year for great music right now. I cannot help but make reviews and comments towards some of these fantastic artists. And its only April!

I grew up listening to Sade. My mother is an avid fan of her work and the band and I own all of the albums. My first song I heard as a child was “Is it a Crime?” and that is still a song that I play on my IPod from time to time.

I was not expecting Sade to drop an album this year, really. I plan to review it because it is just so good that I would be crazy not to.

This song, however, if impressive. My goodness, since it’s the title track, I wasn’t expecting much but this song is cleaver and wonderful as hell.

The instrumentation is unbelievable and the lyrics are very quirky and simple, but convey the message perfectly. Video is even pretty amazing. She is a very beautiful lady and always has been. Her voice is just so smooth and sexy, that I can’t help but swoon when I hear her sing.

It follows so well with the rest of the album too. The album is great and it’s already sold over a million copies. That’s highly impressive.

I’m not sure if I’m gonna have any money left this year, really because there are so many artists coming out with music that I just have to buy them. This one from Sade was a very unexpected surprise, but I’m glad it appeared. I will always be a fan of her.

Music: *REVIEW* Window Seat – Erykah Badu

A lot can happen when school starts. You miss out on so much stuff, but I’d rather miss it and find it than not at all.

First off, I’m going to review the song before I do anything else.

This song is beautifully composed and the lyrics are fantastic. I haven’t been listening to Erykah for a while, and I must say that I am very disappointed in myself that I haven’t. She is a wonderful artist with so much talent and her music is always so great and enjoyable to listen to. I’m gonna have to see if my mother still has most of her music and get it from her because I need to add her back to my music library. I’m really wondering what the rest of this album sounds like now.

As for the video itself, well I’m not sure how to take it. Overall, I’d have to say that I support it.

The concept behind it is very clear if you watch it all the way to the end. “Groupthink” appears and is stated in the video as well, along with the explanation of the idea behind it. The theory is very interesting to ponder over:

They play it safe. Are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. This is what we have become. Afraid to respect the individual.”

The controversy surrounding this video is what makes her point valid. However, I will say that there were some small concerns that can also be valid with the other side of the argument (Children being around, not having a permit, and the symbolism with JFK which I still think are all very silly things to consider in this video and I can argue why they’re ridiculous accusations), but there is an underlying point to this.

Groupthink is indeed what we have become. We cannot think for ourselves. We have to follow the crowd and try to find some place to fit into or try to understand the point behind things in a blinded view instead of seeing the truth. I’ve felt that our society has been this way for many, many decades and its about time that someone has finally made a statement about it in the best known possible way: Through Music and Art. Quit all the crap about how it traumatized children and how it involved nudity and such. Tell me why this video was bad without information that has already been spewed by other sources.

And Lady Gaga and her Telephone video shows that she is a musical genius… yeah, right. That was sarcasm in case no one caught that.

As for her body, hell, I saw nothing wrong with it. After having some kids and getting a little older, I think she still looks good for her age. Take a look at your mother’s nude body and then comment. I wonder if you’ll feel the same about Erykah’s.

Everyone has seen this video by now, and if they haven’t, then I’m quite sure that they will. Maybe it’s because I think outside of the box, but I thought it was a very creative and beautiful video and a fantastic song. Get rid of the controversy, people. Move on.