Summer Playlists

With Summer just around the corner it is time to start creating or even just thinking about what to put on that summer play list. Some bands who frequent this list for me are The All American Rejects, Bon Jovi, Matchbox 20, and 30 Seconds to Mars. Now there are some new additions to that list, songs that are relatively new and give a sense of Summer with the music or with both music and lyrics, the songs are Junk of the Heart by The Kooks and We Are Young by fun.
Junk of the Heart:

We Are Young:

Along with these newer songs I tend to mix them with music from all over, but mainly mix them with '90's indie and alt rock like Feed the Tree by Belly, or Zombie by The Cranberries. There are songs from when I started to really get into a Sirius-XM station, such as the song Sail by AWOLNATION, and bands or artists featured on movie soundtracks such as Teddy Geiger who was feature on the soundtrack to and stared in The Rocker, one of the many songs being Bitter.
Feed The Tree:

Zombie:

Sail:

Bitter:

Matchbox 20

There are those bands that should be able to stand the test of time, Matchbox 20, had they stayed together, is one of them. I think it is very hard to dislike the band, I mean they give such passion to each song, the type of passion that is sorely missed in today's mainstream music. There are many fans of Matchbox and we all want them back so they can "save" mainstream music and save our ears from the nonsense on pop stations today. I mean I cant name one mainstream pop artist of today that has two major hits not to mention thousands, possibly millions, of fans wishing for their return. This sense of passion that is seen in songs like If You're Gone, Push, Back 2 Good, 3 AM, and Bright Lights.
If You're Gone:

Push:

Back 2 Good:

What people love is the fact that not only do they write songs like this, they also write peppy songs, can throw the peppy songs like Disease, Real World, and Black and White People in with the passionate songs and make an album that can get you through anything.
Disease:

Real World:

Black and White People:

As a side note, the song Black and White People is about people's personalities, the fact that most people's personalities can be taken at face value, that is if I remember correctly from their VH1 Storytellers special. Now back to videos that I didn't think I had room for before...
3 AM:

Bright Lights:

Styx

I think that Styx is a really under appreciated band in music history, they aren't really what I see as true alt rock, but by someone's standards or another they might. I mean without Styx the phrase "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" would have absolutely no entertainment value in any movie made since the song Mr. Roboto's release in 1983.

Along with subtle jokes poking fun at 80's songs, we would have never gotten such gems as Lady or Babe, two songs that could be seen as the band's love ballads in a decade where the power ballad reigned supreme. We also owe some of the greater guilty pleasure songs, you know, the songs you don't want to know but will sing along to when they come on the radio and no one else is around, that I know of out of the 1980's. There are two, maybe even more that I don't know that well, but two that come directly to mind, the songs being Renegade and Come Sail Away, both songs, if over played, get rather annoying to hear, but every once in a while, if by yourself, in the car, with the windows up, you might blast the song and sing along with the lead singer.
Lady:

Babe:

Renegade:

Come Sail Away:

Any way... Styx is on tour now through September 9th and if you are so inclined, click the tour tab at their web site, the link is set up through the highlighted names. For those readers in the Pittsburgh, Pa area around August 11th Styx will be having a post game concert after the Pirates game.

The Goo Goo Dolls

Ok so now it's time to dork out and start talking about one of my favorite bands, The Goo Goo Dolls. They came to fame in 1995 with their song Name which has some great lyrics that you can really dig into, the type that you can have one, or several different, meanings behind the song.

The band grew to superstardom with their song Iris which is really well known but just not by name, the song is off their Dizzy Up the Girl album and spent about 18 weeks at the top of the billboard charts. The song is another one you can dig into and find your own personal meanings to. I, along with many others, love the song and the band, which was evident in their Something for the Rest of Us Tour this past summer, a tour promoting their newest album. While Something for the Rest of Us is the name of their newest album it is also the name of another great track by this phenomenal band. I think they truly are a band to suit, what some might call, the common folk, or "the rest of us."
Iris:

Something for the Rest of Us:

I went to their concert in Bethel, Ny over the summer of 2011 with my brother, and after a comment about how normal or plain everyone looked at the concert, I either jokingly thought or said "Well that's because their 'Something for the Rest of Us.'" I laughed, at least to myself, I don't really remember how exactly it went down. Along with two of the three songs listed above people probably know the dolls for songs like Black Balloon, Slide, Broadway, a remake of the Supertramp's song Give a Little Bit, and Better Days. All of these songs just remind me of my childhood, considering the radio consisted of boy bands, girl bands, and what might be considered "Adult Contemporary" bands, which at the time were bands like The Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox Twenty.
Black Balloon:

Slide:

Broadway:

Give a Little Bit:

Better Days:

Never Shout Never

So I was on iTunes and looking for the Jimmy Eat World song Coffee and Cigarettes and stumbled over this band Never Shout Never, sometimes: NeverShoutNever. The band is actually one person, Christopher Drew Ingle, but he has a touring band who plays with him, and he has a song entitled Coffee and Cigarettes as well which is the first song I heard of his.

Like most musical experiences in my life made me wonder what his sound was like. Never Shout Never's sound seems to be consistent throughout the songs of his I listen to, a string instrument is a staple in his music like in his song Harmony and in This S**t Getz Old.
Harmony:

This S**t Getz Old:

Anyway it seems that Never Shout never is touring this summer, and is bringing his talents to Allentown, Pa. If in the area, the band will be preforming at the Crocodile Rock Cafe, and then is heading out to The Bamboozle Festival in Asbury Park, NJ.

Young the Giant

Young the Giant seems to be getting some good air play, at least on the alt stations I listen to, first stumbling on them when their song My Body came blaring through my speakers while driving with the windows down.

This song intrigued me making me want more from them almost to the point where I where I lusted after hearing more tracks from this somewhat unknown band. You know the feeling when you here a song and can see a bright future for the band. This summer Young the Giant is internationally touring, with a few dates set in Italy, but most of the dates set in the states, they are even coming to Bethlehem, Pa for music fest. Knowing how concerts generally work, they will probably scatter the two songs I know, My Body and Cough Syrup, throughout the performance, and I am hoping to see them live so I can get to know a lot more of their music, with many other fans.

Despite the seeming hype behind the band from some Alt Rock stations I actually think that Young the Giant has the right vibe to stay in the music industry for a while, I hope to here more from them and not have them fall off the face of the earth, so to speak, as does with many Alt Rock bands and musicians.

Blues Traveler

Most of us know the band Blues Traveler for their 1995 hit song Run-Around:

or maybe a hit that followed it on the same album by the name of Hook:

but I asked myself what could I, as a huge music fan, what could I be missing just by listening to their hits. Well I found out, and as it turns out, I was missing something substantial. I really think that they are, and were, an underrated and forgotten band. If you remember watching the movie Blues Brothers 2000, Jon Popper, the lead singer and harmonica player of Blues Traveler was the one who asked Elwood Blues to listen to his band and then the movie cut to him singing and Elwood never showed. But I digress, there are so many songs I felt I had missed which were really good and had catchy riffs with catchy lyrics. Songs such as Canadian Rose and 100 Years both have great riffs and great lyrics.
Canadian Rose:

100 Years:

I didn't put together either of these videos. On a different note Blues Traveler, along with The Barenaked Ladies, are touring this summer, tour entitled Last Summer on Earth, their tour is actually bringing them to Sands in Bethlehem, Pa on August 17, and tickets are on sale now, just follow the first, and only, link on this article and click on the tour tab. The Barenaked Ladies are famous, of course, for One Week and little do some know they were the band who sang If I Had $1,000,000 which was used for a little while to promote the lottery, the lottery only changing the million dollars part for the actual amount the jackpot was up to that particular week.

One Week:

If I Had $1,000,000:

Songs you think you know the meaning to

We all have those song, songs we think we know the meaning to. Take Green Day's Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) most would think it is about the passage of time and trying to hold together a long distance relationship, when in all reality, it is Billy Joe Armstrong's way of telling off his ex-girlfriend.

There are those that seem so blatantly obvious that we actually may talk ourselves out of the right meaning, such as Good Charlotte's Hold On a song about holding on "when you feel like letting go" was actually written after several of Good Charlotte's fans wrote in to them, feeling very comfortable with the band, about contemplating suicide, which one reason there is a video on suicide featuring the band, suicide survivors and the song, a video which has become increasingly hard to find online.

There is also the R.E.M. song Losing My Religion which some know the meaning behind the phrase but most don't, members of R.E.M. said that the phrase "Losing my religion" in some area's means that one is losing his/her shit, mentally at least.

And then there are songs such as The Kill by 30 Seconds to Mars, which seems like a bunch of questions one might ask or want to ask at the end of a relationship with another person, possibly a lover, but it is said that the lead singer of the band, Jared Leto, said it was about forming personalities within yourself.

It's kind of funny because the music video slightly resembles the movie version of The Shining. But the great thing about good music, is that no matter what the true meaning behind the song, every person who listens to the song can hear the same words you do and have their own opinion as to what the song is actually about.

Green Day

We all know, or have come to know, Green Day for their songs usually telling us to rebel against the herd of dunces that seem to be running this country into the ground, as in Warning:

or in American Idiot:

Both of which tell us to rebel against what the government tells us to do if it seems against what you want to do, American Idiot also telling us to rebel against the obviously limited information that the media, weather left or right, always seems to be leaving a majority of the info out. Green Day came to main-streem popularity in the 1990's due to the main-streem success of their song Good Riddance (Time of Your Life):

This song never ceases to make me laugh because when it came out the song was on every mix tape for a particularly sad moment, such as graduations, but what people don't ever realize is that the song was the lead singer of Green Day, Billy Joe Armstrong's way of telling his girlfriend off after she dumped him. Well 25 years after formation and 15 years after their big commercial break through Green Day is still at it, their American Idiot Tour started off on March 13 in Los Angeles and has a few more dates in California, Arizona and Texas while at the same time moving throughout the United Kingdom.

Interesting Music Videos

So I was mindlessly watching video's for the music I have been hearing on the radio. It has come to be the norm that the videos generally tell the story behind the song or tell a story similar to the song such as in R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts.

Now this video doesn't tell just one particular story it shows that everybody does have a bit of misery in their life, and things could be worse. One of the more interesting videos I have seen in a while is the video to Of Monsters and Men's Little Talks.

The video seems to tell its own story of people on a journey through different perils while the song seems to talk about a journey through life bigger peril, which is the joys and pitfalls of love. These videos that seem to have nothing to do with the music behind it have been around for a while, just look at songs like Broadway by The Goo Goo Dolls. Broadway's video is kind of a commentary that each generation is the same as the last.

There is also the video for Internet Killed the Video Star by the post-newwave band The Limousines, which can be seen as a play on the fact that no matter how much people try and forget about the rock bands, from The Beatles up through Bon Jovi, we cannot forget them, because there works keep coming back to haunt us like zombies.

Another great video holds some of the more haunting guitar riffs, at least for me. The guitar riffs and the vocalization haunts you in a good way and the music video plays into the haunting affect the lyrics, vocalization and guitar riffs have together. The song is Dreams by The Cranberries which is most recognizable by the either the intro guitar riff or the vocalization on the exit of the song.

Alternative Remakes

In the Alt World there are many remakes that have either defined a band or have given said band a stepping stone into the field. The idea behind a remake of a past song, in most minds, means something along the lines of taking the original lyrics and setting them to different music. This happens so much that we probably don't realize it. The more famous Alt Rock remakes are probably of Don Henley's Boys of Summer redone by The Ataris:

and Go West's King of Wishful Thinking redone by New Found Glory.

These two are just are just an example of the known remakes in society. Greg Lawell, an indie singer took Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want To Have Fun and completely transformed it and put the song on the soundtrack of a couple of movies.

There are also remakes of songs in which people didn't take the lyrics or the music at all, some bands, such as The Limousines, took the concept behind the song and made their own, new song. The Limousines took The Buggles' 80's classic Video Killed the Radio Star and kind of updated it for the modern era with their song Internet Killed the Video Star.

There is also the remake of Jack Hylton's Body and Soul, not necessarily a alternative track, but a song that has been redone many times throughout the years while most recently being redone as a duet by Alt Rocker Amy Winehouse along with Jazz singer Tony Bennett.

The song is by no means an Alt Rock song but there is an Alt Rocker who had, before her untimely passing, broadened her horizons from just being a one act artist, or in this case a one genre artist.

Jack's Mannequin

So I set my iPod on the random setting while listening to my entire music collection and I stumbled over Jack's Mannequin, a band I had heard of from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and instantly remembered why I downloaded their music, it was that good. The song that they did on The Daily Show that made me look them up, and get deeper involved in listening to their work was their song Swim.

This song, for me at least, went past the ears and had me zoning out and begging for more of their work, and thanks to the internet, I found it and downloaded those works that I previewed and liked and didn't download those that I didn't. Other works including such works as The Resolution

and Dark Blue.

These are just a small number of the songs that have turned me onto Jack's Mannequin. I feel that there is almost a sense of urgency in the lead singer Andrew McMahon's voice, maybe it's just me. I think it is this seeming sense of urgency that gives each song a unique sound, even though the band does have its own distinctive sound. It also turns out that Jack's Mannequin have a tour date set for April 15, 2012 in Erie, Pa and no future dates as of now.

Darius Rucker

Does anyone else think that Darius Rucker should end his career in Country Music and hit the recording studio and road with his previous gig as the lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish. No offense to his most recent work, I'm sure it excellent work, but I think we need some of our 90's bands to get back together, go on tour and make millions, or at least one person, very happy. I mean who doesn't love singing along, in the car, by yourself, with the windows closed to such gems as Let Her Cry

and Only Want to be With You.

If Hootie got back together, they would be the first band I would suggest for Lehigh University's Sundaze, the celebration for the end of the scholastic year. I think people would be happy to have them play because everyone knows at least one song by them between the two listed above, but there are so many more songs that I and many other fans love. This is why I think they should get back together, even if it is for a short while for a reunion tour type deal. At the moment my favorite song by Hootie seems to be their song Time.

I love Hootie, mainly because Darius Rucker's voice melds so well with the instruments, as well as his band members on back up vocals. I think he has a voice from which you can hear the joy behind some of the music and the pain behind other songs, Darius has the voice to do that. All I can really say is that at least he is still in the music business.