Our Music Is Better Than Yours

The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry

First of all, this is first and one of the only CDs I’ve ever bought in my life. I remember being about 12 years old and driving around with my aunt and she would have this CD playing in her car all the time. So I went ahead and bought it for myself. All the car rides with my parents anywhere I would be sitting in the backseat with my earphones glued to my ears and this album playing on my little cd player like as if it was the soundtrack to my life at that moment. I’m sure you listened to the first song on this album titled “Boys Don’t Cry” at some point in your life, it’s one of my favorite songs and it’s also an 80’s classic. I would say this is the gateway album that opened my eyes to bands in general. If you are just entering the world of music I highly suggest you go ahead and get this album or even if you just haven’t listened to the Cure at all.

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The Specials // The Specials

Oh ska, pickitup! pickitup!

I still remember the first time I ever heard The Specials. It was in the precious third grade, it was a weekend and my Pops just taught me how to use a vinyl player. I saw this sick vinyl cover with a bunch of guys in suits and sunglasses with check print everywhere and I thought it was the most bad ass thing ever. Of course I exclaimed like a little kid “WHATISTHISTHISISAWESOMEOMGOMGOMG!” to which my Pops replied “I don’t know, it’s my brother’s record…go ask your uncle”.

I never did ask my uncle, but I’ll tell you jammed on it the whole weekend.

Fast forward my life to 2004, middle of my freshman year in high school. My good punx friend William “Cito” Vivas told me I had to start listening to ska because all the music I listened to at the time was really lame.

Side-note: At the time I was really into 90s and early 2000 pop-punk, along with a lot of electronic dance music and some alternative rock. It was a very weird point in my life. I just graduated from middle school no more than a year ago and the big thing going on at the time was like Sum 41 and Good Charlotte. Don’t get me wrong, Sum 41’s Half Our of Power and All Killer, No Thriller are two fucking awesome albums, just…you know.

Anyway…

Cito burnt me a mix of ska songs, and holy shit. I swear to you my life changed from then on out. I’m talking about real ska shit, not any of this mid-90s ska pop rock crap. The Specials, Bad Manners, The Beat, The Selecter, and hell, even some early 90s ska, because it was still pretty bad ass and wasn’t ruined yet (Isaac Green & The Skalars, Skavoovie & The Epitones, [early] The Toasters).

I have to say that it was really ska that started to get me into music as a life style. Being a rude boy was the coolest thing to me in my mind, and going to ska shows on weekends breaking up all the skanking circles and and skanking in place was like the most bad ass thing to do.

The thing was brought me to ska and made me bond with it the most was it was just so fun, and was all like: let’s be unified with our friends, have fun, get drunk, fuck shit up together, and worry about everything later…or you know what? Not worry about anything at all. It was the whole “life’s too short…” premises, you know? And honestly, ska is is what made my high school years so fun and great. It opened me up to a lot of new things, like the whole local music scene in general and all the people with it.

I soon became tight with all the local ska bands and jammed with them on stage at all the shows. Hell, even some of the members of a former local band down here circa 2006 (Three Beef Burritos) are still my closest friends to date.


Figure 1: A flagrant example of me taking ska too far.

Anyway, The Specials self-titled was the ska album to jam to. Hands down, no questions asked, no could debate it because everyone knew you were right, and everyone couldn’t help but jam.

Review:

Every song on the album could be a single if it wanted to, the album is just that good. A majority of the songs are just re-works and different arrangements of older first wave ska songs done twenty years earlier, but they’re just done so well and so different that they really do a fantastic job of turning them into their own (Copyright infringement wasn’t big or even heard of back then, especially for early Jamaican song done in the 40s.) Plus the whole album is produced by Elvis Costello, what more could you ask for!?

The album opens up with a A Message To You, Rudy (a rendition of Dandy Livingstone’s Rudy, A Message To You), which is the song that can best define the tone of the album. While the album does touch on old and new politics of Jamaica and the UK, they take themselves seriously in the most non-serious way possible. The album is just so fun to listen to, it’ll probably be something I show my kids when they’re old enough to be badasses.

Don’t get me started on the track Monkey Man. Possibly my anthem through out high school. There was nothing more fun than putting that song on in the background while you were doing something NUTS, like donuts in your car in at the Killian high school parking lot, or riding around smashing mailboxes with bats in rich neighborhoods, gluing friends doors shuts, apoxying orange street cones on busy roads and making traffic go in the weirdest detour’s ever.

I mean, not to say we did any of that…or anything…if anyone ever asks…like the cops.

Anyhoo, this album really has something for everyone. Whether your just looking to chill out to the sweet rock steady sound of Too Hot or Doesn’t Make It Alright, to the high energy and super fun tunes of Monkey Man or Little Bitch. I can honestly say this the review above does no justice for the album at all (ESPECIALLY if you’ve never heard it before), so the only thing I can tell you all is download it.

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Chi-Ali - The Fabulous Chi-Ali

I first heard this little rapping extraordinaire on a track of the hip-hop group Black Sheep’s A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing and I was impressed. I later found out this dude had his own rap record at the age of 14. It’s very 90’s hip-hop and has very interesting samples. This kid at one point in the album raps about how it doesn’t matter what age you are but that it’s all about maturity and of course he’s talking about how he is with the ladies.

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Baths // Cerulean

Now I know this week I’m doing the albums that have had the greatest impact on my life, but this is just a side note to it all.

I got to put this album up on OMIBTY as I’ve been listening to it SO hard. The only way I can describe the sound is if the guy from Washed Out met up with the dudes from Passion Pit, one of them underwent some kind of mutation so they can get it on, got it on, and then raised their child to make awesome music all day and all night, but then sadly the hybrid Passion Pit and Washed Out parents died, and then that child went to live with the two guys from Ratatat from 2004 until present day.

For those of you unfamiliar with the whole shoe-gaze kind of feel, don’t be scared. I mean, at first it may be a little “…wut?” (especially with the first track Apologetic Shoulder Blades, but once you get to Maximalist and ♥, it’s pretty much an over all chill fest for long drives and late nights.

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Sigur Rós // Untitled

I really can’t remember the first time I heard Sigur Rós, I can’t really remember who showed it to me and I can’t really remember where I heard it. All I can remember is that there have been countless moments in my life to where I have laid down in some kind of dark abysmal state either severely under the influence, completely at rock bottom, or slipping in and out of conscious sleep while Sigur Rós’ Untitled has been blaring in the background.

This is the kind of music that has made me gleam into my soul and really think about life, the universe, and everything in between. There has not been one time where I’ve listened to this album, at any time and location, and feel like a little part of me has changed or felt enlightened.

Review:

Clear an hour and twelve minutes out of your day, because this album has to definately been listened from start to finish with closed eyes, as it is a emotional story and rhythmic journey that you will be taken on. All tracks interlink and pass through each other conveying one emotion to the next, all while making you feel like the happiest soul of earth or in the deepest, darkest place you could imagine on Earth.

I’ve read that the album is supposed to be divided into two halves, the first half being AM, and the second half being PM, each to obviously resemble the times of days and the feelings that they bring.

The whole album is sung in Vonlenska, which is a made up language resembled closely to Sigur Rós’ native language of Icelandic. Since I’m more of a music guy (and sometimes completely void the lyrics for songs in general), I can really connect with even deeper with all the songs. It just feels so right and appropriate, and nothing feels over done. The listener is supposed to give their own interpretation of the lyrics, and with all the track names being untitled, a name for all the tracks. Even the album booklet consist of blank pages for you to jot down lyrics and feelings that may come to pass.

In all, this is probably the album that really taught me how to feel music, it was the first album I was able to connect with and be moved by.

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Mates of State - Team Boo

One of the few husband-wife indie pop bands that rule. Listening to this album makes me feel like I’m at a circus filled with with elephants and peanuts and shit. Their easy to sing along lyrics and fun synth lines makes this album a memorable experience. If you like Matt and Kim you’ll love this quirky duo.

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Sublime // Sublime

I can hear my friend Sergio face-palming already.

I know this is such a cliche album to start my first review with, but I was young (well…younger.) and still in high school (circa 2006) when I heard my first Sublime track.

I remember trying to have my friends burn me any Sublime albums they had, I soon got my hands on 40 oz. To Freedom which didn’t leave my CD player for about for as long as I can remember, and then once I got my hands on the self-titled, it was over…

I probably listened to that CD on repeat on my iPod, no joke, more than 500 times. Sublime would be everywhere I went: parties, friend’s houses, friends of friend’s houses, friend’s cars, kids at school’s CD players. It was like my guardian-fucking-ghost that just wouldn’t leave me alone and I was so glad to have.

Sublime faded and I moved on to new and better music, but it sure as hell had it’s rebirth when I met and started regularly chilling with my good friend Tim and Jeff in 2008 (We also had a weird Scrubs obsession going on at the time.) All the illegal and illicit activities we did, all the most chillingest moments, all the feel good and rock out songs, cooking in the kitchen to just partying with the peeps. It defined a couple of awesome points in my life that were just plain out, well…awesome.

Review(sorry for the long sentimental crap before):

Let me just start off by saying if you’re looking for musically complex arrangements  and deep emotional lyrics for you to bond with, get the fuck out.

This album has some of the most simple and catchiest music that I could ask for, with rhythmic baselines and one liner lyrics that will probably be stuck in my head till the day I die. For being such a self-funded and independent band (besides for distribution), the album has some of the most amazing production value I’ve seen. Starting off with quite possibly the perfect song to open up the album with (Garden Grove) and ending with my favorite ever summer months jam Doin’ Time. The 14th track on the album, Get Ready is probably my most favorite jam to date. I can honestly vouch for countless times being in my car, packed to the doors with people, jamming so hard to this song. Also, I can totally say that Caress Me Down has taught my more useful Spanish than all my years in middle and high school.

On the more lean back side of the album, Pawn Shop will honestly do everyone good, opening up with one of the most guitar riff’s that I associate with “Oh shit, here we go”. This is the perfect song to jam to while being blitz out of your mind or in the process there of.

In the end, it’s a good solid album over all with much jamming to do you good for a while.


(…I still can’t believe I wrote that much about Sublime.)

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Denali - Denali

I think as soon as I heard the vocals of this album I was in love. The female lead singer of this indie rock band has one of the smoothest female vocals I’ve heard. This is one of those CDs you just throw in your CD player on a cold rainy day and just lounge around in your room by yourself. If you’re into trip-hop I’m sure you’ll enjoy this.

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