Arctic Monkeys - Brick by Brick

A few years ago, there was an article in Paste Magazine, more of an info-graphic really, of the endangered music animals that were out there. One of the bands they put on the watch list was Arctic Monkeys. And maybe if they had kept with their original sound, maybe people would get tired of them and toss them to the curb. Their ability to reinvent themselves for every album has really propagated the band or animal if you will. From album to album, one of the only ways to recognize that the music is all coming from the same band is through Alex Turner’s vocals.

Brick by Brick has a very retro feel to it which has been the trend with Arctic Monkeys ever since Alex Turner’s side project, The Last Shadow Puppets. I wasn’t instantly a fan of this song, even though I think the music video is great, but it has since grown on me. This is the way it is for most Arctic Monkeys songs though. Once they grow on you, they stick with you.

The Strokes – Life Is Simple in the Moonlight

Here’s a new song that was debuted by The Strokes when they played SNL on the 12^th with an introduction by Miley Cyrus. It’s going to be on their new album, “Angles,” which comes out in the United States on March 22^nd. It’s been too long since The Strokes have released an album and hearing the new music that they’ve dropped has made me that much more excited. The two newest songs they’ve put out (Under Cover of Darkness and Life is Simple in the Moonlight) have been great. Since their last album has been put out, I’ve been trying to fill the void that The Strokes left through listening to their side projects but it sounds great to hear them all together creating music. Even if it turns out that Julian was a bit absent for the whole process.

Pixar Short Films

Pixar’s a winner. They just keep putting out movies that do well. Actually, better than well: they surpass their competition. In a world of creating characters out of often inanimate or maybe just of something other-than-human, they are so ahead of the game. Other studios just can’t match up.

The real gem in this DVD is their behind the scenes look at how Pixar grew to become the animation studio that they are today. Their evolution from a hardware giant to an animation mogul is the result of a lot of hard work and innovative thought. The tools that they originally worked with and the techniques that they developed were truly on a fantastic scale. They made this whole genre of 3D animated films possible with their revolutionary short films. Pixar would take these shorts films to animation conventions and play them on massive screens in front of large audiences. The people would actually cheer for them as if they were cheering for the game-winning goal in a World Cup final.

The short films themselves are a bit of a snore for the most part. There was one or two that really stuck out as being funny but the rest… not so much. Without knowing the context and how they were created, they don’t seem too special.

Knowing what the animators went through to make these shorts possible makes all the difference. There was an option to turn on commentary from the designers which I opted out of but I feel like that would have led to a much more enjoyable viewing experience.

Oh, and here's the short film that stands out the most, "For the Birds."

Songs Inspired by Movies or Books

Face First – The Dukes

Free music - The Dukes

“I had a girlfriend,

A triscuit.

She said a triscuit,

A biscuit.”

If this song conjures up images of fortune teller booths and playing music on giant pianos with your feet at FAO Schwartz then you’ve probably got the movie where this song comes from. That’d be “Big” with Tom Hanks. The fortune teller robot, Zoltan turned a 13 year old kid into an adult rejected by his parents because they didn’t recognize this strange person. Of course he ends up getting a job, a chick and a totally swanky apartment. It just goes to show you that you don’t necessarily need an education to make it.

The lyrics in the song tell the whole story of the movie and even has a sample sound bite in the beginning directly from the movie. It’s a double hit of nostalgia with “Big” being such a classic growing up movie and then, there’s the whole ska thing which didn’t last for too long but peaked somewhere around the time “Baseketball” was made.

Noah and the Whale – Jocasta

“When the baby’s born,

Let’s turn it to the wolves,

So that ice will surely grow,

Over weak and brittle bone”

This song has been the folksiest telling of the Story of Oedipus Rex that I’ve heard. The violin combined with the acoustic guitar with Charlie Fink’s rough voice that is vaguely reminiscent of a mix between David Byrne and Jeff Magnum of Neutral Milk Hotel. Instead of focusing on the story’s particulars, it focuses more on the idea of fate versus free will. The song talks about how the moon controls the tide but what about the decisions that people make? That’s the whole crux of the story in Oedipus Rex. The gods knew of Oedipus’ fate even before he was born. His parents tried to overcome the fate that was dispensed to them but ultimately succumbed to it.