Friday Five: 5 favourite songs from TimeOut KL’s 100 Best Popular Songs

5 favourite songs from TimeOut KL’s 100 Best Popular Songs

Also putting together their own Top 100 list is TimeOut KL in their recent October issue. There were quite a few that were similar to NME’s Top 100 Best Songs lists, which I have decided not to repeat my favourites again in this week’s fiver, as well as the few beloved ones from the 90’s I have gone through. So, here I am again, having my own fun. Come join me.

#1: Yellow by Coldplay (#93)

#2: Belaian Jiwa by Innuendo (#78)

#3: Song 2 by Blur (#29)

#4: Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley (#26)
Others Hallelujah covers here.

#5: Zombie by The Cranberries (#)

The list of 100 Best Popular Songs is available in TimeOut KL’s October 2012 issue, currently available at the newsstands.

Keen for Keane

Event: Keane live in concert
Date: September 30, 2012 (Sunday)
Venue: Max Pavilion @ Singapore Expo, Singapore

Perhaps it is because I have never been quite a Keane fan to begin with (ah, le pun). I would consider their Hopes and Fears and Under the Iron Sea days as their best days, but even back then, I could only love a handful of their songs from the albums collectively. And although all four of their studio albums peaked at number one on the UK charts, I have to agree with BBC that Strangeland – if not all of their albums, really – “lacks blood, gut and muscle”. But that is just me. All the fans present that night would argue otherwise.

The venue was perfect for a concert, in my opinion. It was breathlessly spacious to hold thousands strong, and the sound system was top notch. Unfortunately though, the night’s crowd was not strong enough to fill it to the brim. It could be because promotions were not heavy for this particular concert. (The fact is, if it was not for the record label bringing the media down for this concert, it would have just slipped pass me without much attention). Or it could just simply be that the immensity of Keane’s Singapore fanbase could not reach it.

Nonetheless, it was a hearty crowd. Whilst the fans may sit on their appointed seats spread across the wide venue like obedient students at a high school assembly, (and believe me, it did look ridiculously like a high school assembly), once the familiar and sudden introduction to the Strangeland album, You Are Young, flooded the speakers, everyone just unbuckled themselves from their seats and made their way as farthest to the front as the barricade would allow them. You could say that all hell sort of broke loose for the ushers. Whilst Keane fans don’t seem like the kind who would push down barricades and merge with the standing crowd upfront by the stage, like how this crowd did, face it, this is not a concert for Richard Marx or Michael Learns to Rock. The crowd was indeed young (or at least at heart), and eager enough to make the most of their money’s worth. When an usher approached me to ask me to please go back to my seat, I thought how ridiculous that sounded amidst a concert, and how it was futile to the more excited fans, and all of this could have been avoided if the organisation was planned more thoroughly in the first place.

But nothing too wild happened that night. (It’s Keane, after all). The fans were pretty much at their best behaviour, and from what I have seen, everyone was having their bouts of fun without being in someone else’s hair, which to me, is very important at a concert. And they were fans Keane would be proud of having. Ones who would dance along to chirpy tracks of Day Will Come, On The Road and The Lovers are Losing, and singing along to all the songs, if not, more familiar ones like Silenced by The Night, Sovereign Light Cafe and of course, Somewhere Only We Know. Eight years may have passed, but when Tom Chaplin held out the microphone to the crowd and everyone belched their heartiest: “Oh, simple thing, where have you gone? / I’m getting old and I need something to rely on”, it felt like only yesterday the song shot Keane to commercial fame on airwaves across the globe. It still puts a smile on my face thinking about it now, as it did then hearing the chorus above the backline onstage. You just got to love it when you are amongst avid fans like that, be it you are one of them or not.

I did have my little moments at the concert, much like how their music has intercepted my life in their tiniest ways here and there. I liked it when Keane played Atlantic. How the all too recognisable keyboard introduction echoed through the premise, and in my head reawakened the time when the song was first presented to me miles away. And how seamlessly it flowed into the snippet of Strangeland, which provided a strange calm on me that made me sit still and pay attention for a little while, taking it all in. How I detached myself from the crowd during A Bad Dream, watching the blue strobe lights come and go rhythmically like a lighthouse, guiding lost souls to shore: “Wouldn’t mind it if you were by my side / But you’re long gone, yeah, you’re long gone now”.

Overall, it was an OK concert. A concert you would patronise with your best buddies, where you can put your arms around one another and jump in unison to the happier beats and sing at the top of your lungs, “We were silenced by the night / But you and I, we’re gonna rise again” and sway along to the nostalgic waves of “But everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same”. I was particularly amused by these two girls a couple of rows in front of me, who had danced ever so animatedly and ardently to Keane throughout the concert. “You’ve got time to realise you’re shielded by the hands of love / ‘Cause you are young” – ah, yes. Yes, you are.

Friday Five: 6 favourite songs from NME’s 6 decades of Top 100 best songs lists

6 favourite songs from NME’s 6 decades of Top 100 best songs

This year marks NME’s 60th year, and this week, they have come up with eight different covers for their special 60 years issue. The weeks leading up to the issue, the team has also pulled together what they think are the Top 100 Best Songs from each of the six decades since they have started back in 1952.

Going through all the lists was a pretty fun and nostalgic ride for me, especially those you have forgotten all about. The elation is not unlike finding a RM50 note from your jeans pocket you have forgotten was there in the first place. So, it is quite a toughie picking a favourite from each decade, especially the 90s, because God knows that is my favourite decade. But here they are, I would say, some of my favourites, from times when music sounds sweeter, and more memorable.

#1: All I Have to Do is Dream by The Everly Brothers
#57 on 100 Best Songs of The 50s

I vaguely remember my dad constantly whistling to this song, whenever he hears it. Years later, I could still see in my mind’s eyes my dad tapping his feet to it, whistling, while reading the day’s papers.

#2: California Dreamin’ by Mamas and The Papas
#11 on 100 Best Songs of The 60s

When I was a kid, I have this cassette tape compilation of oldies that I would listen to it over and over again. This song was the last on the list.

#3: Tiny Dancer by Elton John
#54 on 100 Best Songs of The 70s

Granted, I loved Tim McGraw’s cover version first, but I have always loved the line: “She’ll marry a music man”. I suppose, that sparked my then aspiration to marry a musician myself. Alas, reality is far from being this romantic.

#4: There’s a Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths
#34 on 100 Best Songs of The 80s

My Editor loves The Smiths. Every time we tune in to NME Radio in the office, they would without avail play songs from The Smiths, and every time that happens, my Editor would be singing along to them. It feels very homely to me, for some reason.

#5: You Get What You Give by New Radicals
#96 on 100 Best Songs of The 90s

I remember how this song topped the charts for months, and I remember poring over a particular issue Galaxie that printed out the lyrics of this song. I would try my best to memorise the last tongue-twisting verse that has often left me breathless.

#6: Mr Brightside by The Killers
#41 on 100 Best Songs of The 00s

I love this album. I love this song. I love the line “swimming through sick lullabies”. I love the song so much, one time, on my way to a job interview, I got too excited singing along to it in the car, getting rid of my nerves, I crashed into the car in front of me.

Happy 60th, NME! I’m definitely looking forward to another 60 years of great music writing from you guys.

Listen to all 6 lists of NME’s Top 100 Best Songs here.

A swell season with Marketa Irglova

Event: Marketa Irglova live in concert
Date: August 23, 2012 (Thursday)
Venue: Esplanade Recital Studio, Singapore

When my Editor asked me what I was going down to Singapore for this time around, I could only muster: “To put it bluntly, I just need to get out of here”. Because I have been feeling tired, I have been feeling spent. From being overloaded at work, last month especially. From this decaying city dying around me. From life, in general, really. I needed this break from the tiring clockwork I have gotten so uncomfortably comfortable with. Just to be away, having to answer to nothing, and having nothing to answer to me. When the arrangements for the accommodations and the concert just fell into place so effortlessly, it was a sign: I just had to leave.

I frequent Singapore too much the last few years, the third this year. But somehow, this time around, I felt an elation I have not felt in the longest time getting on the plane. This time around, sitting amidst the lunch crowd in Food For Thought, ordering roasted pumpkin risotto instead of my usual breakfast spread, and hearing Eskimo by Damien Rice come on. Gazing out at the sunset reflecting against the megalomania Marina Bay Sands building across the river, taking in the view at Esplanade like I have never done before, as the dusk breeze carried Sigur Ros’ Dauðalogn alongside the evening joggers.

And seeing Marketa paddled barefoot across the polished wooden floor towards the piano, and sinking into the familiar introductory sequence of The Hill, and the carefully crafted words: “I wish I didn’t have to make all those mistakes and be wise / I’m sorry that you have to see the strength inside me burning”.

Maybe I am romanticising things, but – it felt like I was where I was supposed to be.

Everyone sat so quietly, so still. It was like a formal piano recital, the prim and proper applause when Marketa appeared onstage, and stopped the moment she sat down by the piano. There were no out of order hoots, nor lingering chatters from rude patrons behind you, nor obstructing video devices in your way. Call me an old soul, but the atmosphere was perfect that night, and after such a long time, I could feel – like really feel – the music at a live concert again.

For someone with only one album released, Marketa barely performed the songs from Anar, save Dokhtar Goochani and We Are Good. Besides some she relived from her days with Glen Hansard in The Swell Season and the movie Once, she seemed to have plucked the rest of the playlist from thin air.

You would never know how much of a role backup musicians play for a solo musician, until you see them all together onstage. Whilst it is natural for a solo musician to engage with backup musicians they feel most connected to, it was the first for me that night to see Marketa stepping away from the spotlight for the other musicians – Aida Shahghasemi on Daf, and two members from The Swell Season, guitarist Rob Bochnik and bassist Joe Doyle – to shine individually, accommodating to them the same way they have complemented themselves with her. That is when you witness how much these musicians mean to her, not only how much she meant to them.

It was more like a Marketa Irglova and friends concert.

And with that, everyone was treated to a fusion of music that night, not only the Irish lovesick kind you have gotten used to hearing with The Swell Season. You get that Iranian taste from Aida’s Daf in Dokhtar Goochani and Domu, and that tinge of country and Americanised folk from Rob and Joe in Because of You and the Neil Young cover, Out on the Weekend. So, the concert did not turn out to be too monotonous, something singers/songwriters often fall prey for.

And Aida. Oh, Aida. How she just grasped hold of me when she took over in Phoenix, shone ever so brightly with the way she played the Daf, and at the same time, soared like a bloodstained sun over dusk with her vibrato vocals. Goosebumps pricked my arms. I closed my eyes, and let this simultaneous brick of sadness and peace fall on me. It was one of those “you have to be there to know what I’m talking about” moments. I was truly and utterly impressed with her.

You could say that I was looking for something, when I sat down on that seat that night in the filled recital studio. I was looking for music that would knock me off my feet or sweep me away. (And I don’t mean maxed up volumes from the sound system). I was looking for the different memories that link with different songs, somehow made vivid – so vivid – like it was just yesterday. I was looking for the chills that spread across my skin, the notes that come from the bottom of a heart to draw tears in my eyes.

Did I find them all?

As quietly as Marketa has crept into our lives that night with The Hill, she curtsied back out with the serene Swell Season number, I Have Loved You Wrong. Her meticulous vocals over the calmness of the piano, matched with the skeletal foundation of Rob’s riffs, and the subtle backbone of Aida’s Daf and Joe’s bass. Eventually, the sounds of their instruments fell away and left with their harmonious and tranquil vocals. Like a lullaby, the world just fell away: “On my mind / On my mind / On my mind / On my mind…”

I breathed a sigh of contentment.

Yes. I found them all.

I was where I was supposed to be.

Read a more detailed review on the concert at More Than Good Hooks here.

Music Monday: What not to do at a live concert

Well, sue me for being a bitter old lady, but one of the many reasons I cannot find myself enjoying concerts lately is because of inconsiderate punters roaming about. Seeing that we are up for a concert-filled treat this week – Passion Pit and Garbage tomorrow, New Order and The Beach Boys the day after, and Marketa Irglova on Thursday, here are a few things I find you should not do at a live concert.

1. Video record the entire concert
Unless you have been appointed the YouTube ambassador of that particular concert, and the world will combust if you don’t upload something from that concert on that very night itself (Gasps!), keep your video recording to a minimal. In fact, don’t record at all. Let someone else do it, and enjoy the concert outside of your handphone screen.

2. Take photos with your flash on
Not only will you kill the mood, you’re blinding everyone around you. And let’s face it, taking live shots with your built-in flash, the photos won’t turn out nice anyway. So, save yourself the embarrassment, and stop.

3. Excessive public display of affection.
Nothing against lovey dovey couples, mind you, but if people’s line of vision is at the mercy of you and your girlfriend smooching, go to a secluded corner, and leave the singles to enjoy one of the few things they have in their pathetic single lives.

4. Chit chat with your friends
Why would you pay hundreds of ringgit to go to a concert just to talk to your friends while the acts are performing? There’s already a lifetime’s worth of mamak sessions at the mere price of a teh tarik for that. And you don’t have to scream over loud music.

5. Pushing and shoving
Unless it’s a moshpit, what are you trying to achieve, really? If you want to be further up front, come early. If not, make do of whatever spot your tardiness has left you with.

6. Attempt to boo local opening acts off the stage
Unless you’re some big shot who has the power to evacuate the entire venue in 10 minutes, shut up and enjoy the opening acts. The main act will appear in due time. Save your energy for that.

Friday Five: 5 favourite songs from the 90’s

5 favourite songs from the 90’s

#1: One Headlight by The Wallflowers
From Bringing Down the Horses (1996)

#2: The Freshmen by Verve Pipe
From Villains (1996)

#3: Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve
From Urban Hymns (1997)

#4: Deep Inside of You by Third Eye Blind
From Blue (1999)

#5: Wonderwall by Oasis
From (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Snow Patrol’s (not so) fallen empires.

Event: Snow Patrol Fallen Empires Tour
Date: August 6, 2012 (Monday)
Venue: Fort Canning Park, Singapore

You want to hear something silly? Five years ago, I actually bought a ticket to go watch Snow Patrol while I was in Brisbane. Maybe it was the fact that the Brisbane Entertainment Centre was miles away, and the idea of leaving the concert all by myself in a town I barely know late at night was not a good one. Or maybe it was the fact that I just did not feel like going to a concert alone that time around. Whatever the reason, I did not go in the end. I still have the ticket with me. Fortunately, as second chances would have it, I still managed to catch them live in this lifetime, and somewhere closer – although still not so – to home, five years later.

If only life is granted with second chances like that, eh?

Standing amongst the sold out 7,000-strong crowd, it felt like a lifetime ago since I last did this. Queues that went on for miles, sweaty bodies fighting for that silt of a view between taller people’s shoulders, that live energy from the performers and from the fans you could only find at a live concert, catching avid out of tune fans singing along, whilst the bored ones chattered away. I kind of missed it, (maybe not the latter two), yet at the same time, I do wonder if I am starting to get a tad old for this.

It’s beginning to get to me (see what I did there? Heh.) that I am short and there will always, always be someone taller in front of me. It did not help either when they were half as many tall foreigners there that night as the locals. As usual as well, the stagnant moments of a recording device in my view during an entire song (not helping either that the Samsung Galaxy fever is running rampant in Singapore, more so a bloody Galaxy Note), and that tall, loud fella in front of me that just.would.not.stop.TALKING.  I mean, it’s awesome to hear that you go to the gym, wannabe hipster boy, but save your muscle talk for later, will you?

It bothers me that things like these can so easily draw my attention away from the bigger matter at hand right in front of me, and lose my train of thoughts to really sink into the beauty of a live show. Meh.

Anyway.

To say that Snow Patrol has been at the peak of their career at one point or another isn’t really an accurate assessment, nor is it a complete farce either. Straddling the line between heartfelt and heartbreak, their music would definitely form the cornerstone of most mainstream music fans’ collection, and in both the lonely hearts and jolly matrimonial playlists.

Granted, I have not been a cray cray Snow Patrol fan to begin with. They are just one of those bands that I would still pay attention to once in a while. Coming from four collectives that have hit the mainstream airwaves, most of the songs sound almost the same to me. There are not a lot of songs that I could hate, just those that I don’t like that much and would often just skip past them. So, I surprised myself even to actually recognise all of the songs on the playlist that night.

The lead Gary Lightbody has a kind of showmanship that comes naturally for him. (I mean, he better, seeing that Snow Patrol has been in the industry for close to ten years already). He connected with the crowd seamlessly. He dropped sexual innuendos here and there throughout the night, asking the 7,000-strong crowd to “blow” at them because being Irishmen, Singapore’s weather is a little too unforgiving for them. When someone from the front screamed her affection at him, he chuckled: “Nothing says love more than a scream.” Such a charmer, that one.

Snow Patrol performed a fair share of notable and lovable hits from all four of their commercially successful albums, with slight favouritism towards Eyes Open and their latest, Fallen Empires. They got done with Run earlier on during the concert, which of course, had the entire sold out crowd with hands waving in the air, singing along to this hit that had once upon a time spun the band’s career out of control. Following close behind the sing-a-long fare was undoubtedly Chasing Cars, and for the rest of the night, the fans were pretty much responsive to Lightbody and his bandmates, dancing along to fast numbers like the opener Hands Open, Chocolate, Open Your Eyes and You’re All I Have, and soaking in slower ones of Set Fire to the Third Bar (minus Martha Wainwright), Make This Go On Forever, Lifening and New York.

Not to mention, even the backdrop did not fall short that night. The impressive lighting coupled with the live streaming of the band performing there and then onstage. Kudos to the organiser, LAMC Productions. You guys just keep getting better and better with this!

Whether Snow Patrol’s music reminds you of that ex-girlfriend/boyfriend who tore your heart to shreds, or your future wife/husband-to-be, every single moment was relived so vividly that night with Lightbody’s unfaltering vocals, as clearly as you have first heard him on his records.

It sure did for me. Those whispered words of Run at a midnight rendezvous when your heart was still oh so young and romantic, and the silly promises you made singing: “Even if you cannot hear my voice / I’ll be right beside you, dear”. The dawning realisation of This Isn’t Everything You Are as you watch your worst mistake repeating itself in full technicolor once again.

Maybe it is a good thing that I waited five years later to see them live, or else I would just be relishing on Final Straw and Eyes Open, and miss out on… Actually, I would not have missed out on much, really. Maybe just This Isn’t Everything You Are, probably the only song from Fallen Empires that is on top of my list right now. I was hoping for What if The Storm Ends? for the encore. I believe that the concert would have ended pretty strong with that as a closing. But alas.

That night, it felt like things came in full circle for me – missing them out years ago and now catching them live. It seems pretty cool, when you romanticise it like that. I just wish that that was the only thing that have gone full circle for me that night.

Hmm.

Music Monday: ‘Born and Raised’ by John Mayer

This new album by John Mayer reminds me the end montage of Elizabethtown. Not exactly the best film out there, what with Orlando Bloom’s strange awkwardness in an American skin, and Kirsten Dunst’s unfitting Kentucky accent. But I do love that mega roadtrip compilation kit Claire gave Drew prior to his trip back home, meticulously stating each famous must-see locations, and must-meet people along the way to recovery, and eventually, home: the Mississippi River where Jeff Buckley ended his life, the Lorraine Motel where the great Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, Sun Studio in Tennessee where Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley have laid their best tracks, so on, so forth.

I cannot say that I care too much about this new route Mayer is going down. Whilst city life brings about effortless and boundless inspirations for this singer/songwriter, urban decay could eventually be the death of many of us, including someone like him. As lyrical context of light-hearted tones, even for  sadder subjects, from whence we have fallen in love with him in Room for Squares, got heavier as time progresses to the last recent Battle Studies, one begins to lose footing in life and in songs. He has never liked this apple much anyway, and he doesn’t think he’s gonna go to LA anymore. What is there left but the deserted country roads to go down to feel like you belong once again?

Perhaps it’s this new California country rock element John Mayer decided to take up that runs parallel with the constant country theme of the movie, and compilation. But a roadtrip is always good for the soul, especially one done all by your lonesome self. “Goodbye cold, goodbye rain / Goodbye sorrow, goodbye shame / I’m headed out west with my headphones on / Boarded a flight with a song in the back of my soul / And no one knows”. Just you and this endless road to find yourself again, find hope to breathe again: “Joni wrote Blue in her house by the sea / I gotta believe there’s another color waiting on me / To set me free”.

There is something liberating about hopping on a rejuvenating trip without asking for permission. (Well, maybe your boss at work, and perhaps your parents. Wouldn’t want to lose your job when you come back, if you intend to come back. And it’s always good not to keep your parents worry when you don’t call for months). You have no one to answer to, and no one to answer to you. Nothing to worry about, not even your own company, which you will come to realise ain’t that bad a company, really. “Don’t be scared to walk alone / Don’t be scared to like it / There’s no time that you must be home / So sleep where darkness falls”.

Maybe along Route 15 past the Great Salt Lake, you learn something new about yourself that you are OK with, and make peace with the many others you are not OK with. Maybe you learn that you are capable of breaking someone’s heart after all, no matter how much you love her. Maybe despite all that, you know you are still a good man, and you decided that when you get home, if you get home, you will work on that with someone new. Or start all over again with that someone you left behind, being the better man she has always believed you are.

Maybe you learn to find peace in the simple joy of music. The quiet and decisive picks on the guitar strings and timid brush upon the snares in Speak For Me, under the starlit sky you could get used to sleeping under. The languid stroll of the harmonica in Born and Raised and Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey, as you cruise down the country road with the top down, unhurried to a destination undecided, unknown. The solemnity of the capped trumpet that welcomes the military march of the banjo and side snare in Walt Grace’s Submarine Test, January 1967, maybe learn a lesson or two in Connecticut from your forefathers who have written history in the Seven Years’ War.

Maybe you start thinking about where you used to be one thoughtless night. It is a place you used to call home. Regardless, it will always find a void in your mind on not-so-special Thursday nights for you to reminisce, be it good or bad. “Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey / Water, water, water / Sleep / Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey / Wake up, shake it off / And repeat”. The people you call friends. The girls you call lovers. The rat race you find yourself hopping back on like a guilty pleasure. The pleasures you lie to yourself  to go after so ardently as if you would be half a man if you don’t. The clockwork you carve yourself into as if you would die if you don’t.

Maybe you meet a girl you can fall in love with. Maybe you write her a song, and call her Olivia. Someone who makes you believe once again you can love her, and love her good. Better than the man she is with, and she will love you the way you would like her to. Maybe she reminds you of someone back home, a face you call home, someone who has already been loving you the way you would like her to. Perhaps thoughts of her at the end of the road make you think of the few good things you left behind, fish you out of this country craze and back to a tune you are familiar with, comfortable with: “So good you didn’t see / The nervous wreck I used to be / You’d never know a man could feel so small / And you never look at me / Like I’m a liability / I bet you think I’ve never been at all”.

Maybe you send her a postcard, even though it has only been a month. For her, it has already been a month. Tell her you miss her, tell her you love her. Tell her you are sorry, and that you are coming home. Maybe at the end of it all, that’s all you need to realise: the one and only good reason that will always make sense in your life, that someone who would still be waiting on the other side when you open that rickety door into your city apartment once again.

Maybe. Just maybe. You wouldn’t know until you have been there and back again.

W: JohnMayer.com
T: @JohnMayer

Friday Five: 5 witty songs to perk you up

5 witty songs to perk you up

At the blink of an eye, we have already reached the middle of 2012. Six more months till the end of the world! However your journey has been thus far this year, here be some songs that I consider rather witty, in my feeble attempt to perk you up. Do comment and share some songs you consider humorous.

#1: We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel

#2: Everyone Has Had More Sex Than Me by T.I.S.M

#3: Crayons Can Melt on Us For All I Care by Relient K

#4: Too Much Food by Jason Mraz

#5: Buddy Holly by Weezer

Spotlight Sunday: Jason Mraz, Chicago, Illinois

August 13, 2009
Gratitude Cafe Tour
Charter One Pavilion, Chicago, Illinois
(via Greg Burke / JasonMraz.com)