Rate The Last Song(s) You Heard

[VeronicanPlay]

Yes another one of those 10/10 reviews. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tga6PgO2pqM

The this is the tune that appears in the credits of Megamind. I just can't stop listening to it.
It's not on the official soundtrack for some odd reason, which is a shame because it's the tune I like the most.

[StrongBrush1]

Looks like Sex- Mike Posner (YFM Remix)

I'm not the biggest fan of Posner ("Cooler than Me" was incredibly dull, and "Bow Chicka Wow Wow"... no. Just no.) but this song was actually pretty good. It's a remix of the actual song, which I haven't heard, so I'm just going by the remix here.

The beat is very catchy. I can imagine dancing to it, which already makes it better than most of his work. The lyrics aren't that much to write home about, but then again, there isn't much material to work with when your hook is literally "She Looks Like Sex." But I can kind of understand the message of the song. The girl looks like someone I'd love.

Overall, solid. 9/10

[Rather Dashing]

I've been listening to my favorite album on loop the past few days and have been solidifying a lot of my thoughts on it. I decided I might as well them here just in case anyone gives a shit.

"Favorite album", here, refers to the album which I personally like the most as a whole. A lot of things factor into making this my "Favorite album". I like the construction of tracks, as a whole, as an exploration of a theme and its thematic progression. The vast majority of the songs are ones that I enjoy as single tracks, and those that I don't I can respect as part of the overarching structure, even though I don't particularly attach myself emotionally to them. "Favorite" is used in a very subjective sense, I don't claim that it is by any means the "best" album, which might require looking at a lot more albums in a more objective way with consideration for what they accomplished and what they are within the framework of their genres and dealing more strongly in terms of musical performance skill, and I'm not doing that here at all. I'm just thinking about this album in terms of emotional effect and enjoyment on my part, which is very much divorced from what I'd usually consider a more objective critique, which is something I tend to try and strive for in most things.

With that out of the way:



Heretic Pride
the Mountain Goats
2008

Sax Rohmer #1

This song takes the atmosphere of Sax Rohmer novels, their harshness and antagonistic nature, and places someone right in it. There's a real desperation, but a despiration filled with this defiant energy, and I feel like he's really able to get across that prideful, desperate, defiant energy across in the way he sings these lines. Every song in this album has some element of being in a hostile cultural environment and how people react to this kind of situation, where a society has turned on someone for whatever reason. Here, the character faces an atmosphere that is naturally hostile, or that he thinks is, and reacts with defiance and hope.

Michael Myers Resplendent

Though at the end of the album, this song is very much Sax Rohmer #1's sister song thematically so I'm talking about it next. While Sax Rohmer #1 is filled with a defiant energy, this song takes the same theme and takes on a fatalistic acceptance. The energetic chords of the first song are replaced here with a somber piano . There's just a sense of defeat, there is no eventual victory in sight, none of that fervent, energetic hope that Sax Rohmer #1 owns and encapsulates.

The song references the end of Halloween 2, in which Michael Myers emerges from flaming wreckage and immediately falls over, defeated. He's no longer fighting. The song is told from a special effects point of view because, first, it provides really incredible imagery, but also shows a sort of preparation to walk through the flames. He knows it's coming and he's just setting himself up for it(I spent eight hours in my make-up chair/Waxed my chest and shaved off all my hair). That the album starts with defiance and ends with defeat is, I think, very powerful.

San Bernardino

A very powerful and emotionally touching story here, I think, in which an unwed couple gives a natural birth in a cheap motel off the highway. Yet another unexpected, unplanned, hastily enacted action in lives that, obviously, are ruled by these kinds of things. The album continues here with the theme of social/cultural rejection, people who find themselves in a situation that is culturally hostile. These are people who will be rejected, who will be scoffed at, who will be judged as promiscuous and irresponsible and rash for the rest of their lives. There's a sense of love that comes from deciding to go ahead with everything and take ownership of this, in spite of the pressure, or at least to find some beauty in that singular moment regardless of what the future brings. The tune here gives off a feeling of fond recollection, of light and joy in spite of the cheap and broken-down surroundings, which are retroactively given a sort of magical glow, an almost poetic beauty.

Heretic Pride

Here we, go, the titular song of the album, and arguably its thematic core. This song has a defiant energy not all that dissimilar from that presented in the opening track, but now warped, turned batshit insane and turned up to 11. The "heretic" is ostracized, like the other characters throughout, but he doesn't use it as a driving force like in the first track, or accept crippling defeat like in the last, nor does he find beauty or joy in his surroundings like the second track, nor does he feel shame. He owns it in a completely different way, he takes pride in his status as a heretic, as a hated individual, as someone that the community has decided is unworthy of life. He laughs at them, he laughs at their concepts of what is right, he laughs at the very concept that his life even matters. He defies everything and just takes on this really powerful, really energetic, almost infectious pride and zeal that has a contagious appeal. While other heretics and outcasts are at the edge of a flame and are menaced by it or find comfort despite the scorching heat, this song jumps right into the center of it and laughs its ass off, and that kind of raw power and denial is infectious and appealing and makes this one of my favorite songs.

Autoclave

Another real favorite of mine. I really like the metaphor here, with an autoclave being compared to a heart that just destroys anything that gets inside it. I mean, we've all known(or been) at least one person like that. Someone who just won't, or perhaps can't, let anything positive or real get inside of them, or maybe that's just the way they see it. Every extension of love or kindness feels false and filled with the potential for betrayal.

I love the way this is portrayed, there's a sort of matter-of-fact admission that this is the way it is. It's a warning, trying to push someone away, because the character here identifies themselves as unlovable and untouchable and unsafe for others. This character's ownership of their isolation creates an almost pathological distrust of others comingled with a hatred of the self, a mixture of shame and blame, distrust and longing, and a self-perpetuating loneliness that I can personally identify with in a very real way.

New Zion

This is the first song that I more respect than enjoy personally. It ties into something that I never really was a part of, as it links into a "Cultmania" sensation that I never personally experienced. Still, the cult imagery with this spin emotionally is fairly interesting to me, and I respect its place in the album's overall theme of cultural rejection.

So Desperate

This is a song that, on the first listen, I didn't care for all that much. My first reaction was that it felt "whiny", and this was a fairly shallow, surface-level judgement on my part. I first heard it as a song about being desperate, about being sad, with no real message to it. Thing this is that it's not really about the desperation itself, so much as it's about how desperation forces people together who really have no good reason to be together. Apply the album's themes to this song, and you have people who deal with their ostracism and rejection by grabbing on to anyone who will let them, and often that brings desperate people together for the sole reason that they're desperate, and it creates couples that never should exist in the first place. I personally love the way he's able to convey that weakness of spirit and the corresponding emotional hunger in the way his voice strains as he sings.

On the Craters on the Moon

Another one of those "More respect than enjoy" songs. It's about locking yourself away from others, isolating yourself, guarding against some unknown and ill-defined disaster, and finding yourself in a state where that dread is the only comfortable emotion you have.

Lovecraft in Brooklyn
(ignore the shitty video content, it's the only one available)

This is a lot harsher than the usual Mountain Goats sound, but I still enjoy it. The song obviously preys on H.P. Lovecraft's time in Brooklyn, where he lived for a few years. What not everyone knows is that he lived in Brooklyn during the height of immigration and was, to put it bluntly, a racist xenophobe. This song soaks itself in that fear and suspicion and gives itself a harsher, fearful, conspiratorial feeling that has a powerful allure. Like the character in Heretic Pride who snaps and reduces everything to a joke, this character elevates everything to a pressing, urgent threat. It's a powerful image and a stark atmosphere that really gets inside you.

Tianchi Lake

This song almost acts as an instantaneous 180 from the last song. It is as though the relatively harsh feeling of the last song strained them and let go, and this song relishes in lighter imagery. This song is about the Tianchi Lake Monster, and features some really pretty lyrics. The Tianchi Monster is alone, and ostracized, but it doesn't really care. It relishes in its beautiful surroundings, taken in by the lovely nature around it, its proximity to the heavens, and the beauty of the cosmos by the moonlight. It's a really peaceful, lovely song that counteracts Lovecraft in Brooklyn in every way despite fitting into the same thematic structure.

How to Embrace a Swamp Creature

A song about fucking someone you recently split ways with, in the sort of encounter that you'll say that you never meant to happen afterwards. You don't know why you showed up, things get tense, and you end up in bed. The imagery isn't particularly clear to me without the explanation that he gave at a show I went to, but once that context is given it makes a lot more sense to me now than it did on the first listen. "I try to tell you/Why I've Come/It's like I've got/Molasses on my toungue!". He doesn't know why he showed up. He's just there, and filled with a powerful mix of emotions that doesn't let him have a cohesive, understandable voice or even a known reason for doing..anything that he does. I think most of us have been there to some extent or another.

Marduk T-Shirt Mens Room Incident

Another song that deals with sex, directly. Specifically, anonymous sex in a Men's bathroom. This song resonates strongly with a sense of shame(And when I washed my hands/I ran the water hotter than I could stand; Face hidden from my view/I let myself imagine she was you, etc). The chorus line, (Weightless, Formless, Blameless, Nameless) shows an attempt to keep from becoming "material", from being "real", from seeing the other person as a "person". The song's title refers to an "incident", a thing that "happened", not a "person", and the song itself tries its hardest to remove "her" from the character's mind. The palpable shame of the act of anonymous bathroom-stall sex permeates the whole song and gives it a really creepy vibe, as the "weightless, formless, blameless, nameless" qualities are romanticized to try and keep away the shame.

Sept 15 1983

This one is, honestly, pretty simple. I feel like this song's place in the album is to use the story Prince Far I(Michael James Williams) to show how sometimes people who try to do good and exhibit real emotional honesty are often violently attacked by the world around them. The whole track takes on a feel that is closer to Reggae which, considering what it's a tribute to, really fits. It makes it a really nice track to go before Michael Meyers Resplendent, which is the final track which ends the album in acceptance of defeat.

I really love this album. It encompasses...every idea, really, about being a true outcast. It fits together really well to give off messages that can really reach a certain type of person emotionally.

[Remolay]

Kizuna, Go-Busters: 1/10

Starts with a Secret Agent feel fitting for the show then OHMYGOD SO MUCH AUTOTUNE!

[Chyron8472]

End of Silence album by Red

I give the whole album 10/10

Pieces by Red

I'm here again,
A thousand miles away from You.
A broken mess,
Just scattered pieces of who I am.
I tried so hard,
Thought I could do this on my own.
I've lost so much along the way.

...Then I see Your face.
I know I'm finally Yours.
I find everything I thought I lost before.
You call my name,
I come to You in pieces,
So You can make me whole.

I've come undone,
But You make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your hand,

Then I see Your face.
I know I'm finally Yours.
I find everything I thought I lost before.
You call my name,
I come to You in pieces,
So You can make me whole...

I tried so hard! So hard!
I tried so hard...

Then I see Your face.
I know I'm finally Yours.
I find everything I thought I lost before.
You call my name,
I come to You in pieces,
So You can make me whole...

So You can make me whole.

[Doggleganger]

Boulevard of broken dreams by Green day

over 9000/10

[taumel]

rhythm and sexiness

[Darth Marsden]

The Art of Zen. 10/10. Out of an album of awesome music, this is one of my favourites.

[VeronicanPlay]

Rejection in the Rain from the Megamind soundtrack - 10/10

An outstanding musical score from Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, the song is so full of emotions even if it is quite short. But when you watch the movie the music really adds on the the emotions going on in that specific scene.

[RetroVortex]

Originally Posted by VeronicanPlay

Rejected in the Rain from the Megamind soundtrack - 10/10

An outstanding musical score from Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, the song is so full of emotions even if it is quite short. But when you watch the movie the music really adds on the the emotions going on in that specific scene.

That is one of my favourite parts of the movie.
Pretty clever how they managed to really get you into that scene, but also manage to get a laugh in as well with a running gag.

[VeronicanPlay]

Originally Posted by RetroVortex

That is one of my favourite parts of the movie.
Pretty clever how they managed to really get you into that scene, but also manage to get a laugh in as well with a running gag.

Haha, exactly.

But not to forget the emotions they put in to the characters faces, some of the best facial animations I have ever seen in a movie. No one in real life could show that much emotion in one face.

The little gulp Megamind does gets me every time

[taumel]

butcher william bones

[Darth Marsden]

Standpipe Valve. Another 10/10, sorry. Friggin' love this tune. I'd love to see a serious fight scene set to it.

[taumel]

ding dang dong

[taumel]

berlin münchen (meine stadt, ja!!!) düsseldorf

[taumel]

david manu udo

[taumel]

l i v e

[Hayden]

Transatlantic - "Dancing with Eternal Glory/Whirlwind (Reprise)" - 10/10
I got a really good chance to have a close listen to this on the drive home from a friend's place, and finally gave it the opportunity to sink in properly. I now really, really appreciate it. One of the best ways to describe it is 'grand'. It's a strong meld of several of the song's previous movements, but a very strong piece of music in itself, and a piece of melodic mastery, in a sense. Also, the piece features a very prominent sense of joy, but without sporting a cheesy 'happy vibe'. This displays a strong sense of songwriting skill on the band's part. The lyrics may contain too much of a blatant Christian message for some people's tastes, but, given my personal beliefs, this is no concern of mine (and, besides, they are well-written). Overall, it's a piece that I found quite profound and encouraging to listen to, whilst also being entertaining and enjoyable musically. A perfect way to conclude such a tremendous album.

Originally Posted by taumel

berlin münchen (meine stadt, ja!!!) düsseldorf

Originally Posted by taumel

david manu udo

Originally Posted by taumel

l i v e

I'm not seeing any ratings here, Mr. taumel.

[gamer247]

Born To Hula by Queens Of The Stone Age

10/10 - Out of all the songs in QOTSA's back catalog of b-sides and rarities this is easily the standout track with it's hypnotic guitar playing and just plain odd sound.

[taumel]

@Hayden
If you're more into numbers, you can look at this one.