11 posts tagged “electric light orchestra”

IMDB.com, a website I go to all the time to help me remember what star was in what movie/TV show, and how to spell someone's name, now has free videos to watch. You can watch entire movies for free. I know you have to at least watch on advertisement before the movie starts, but that's not too bad. One of the movies you can watch is Xanadu ...

Try it out here ...

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2117271577

It is way too hot in Austin so I thought I would post some songs that either mention "rain" in their lyrics or sound like water/rain. I may have posted some of these before. Here is the current forecast for Austin, TX ...

Here is a song that I could play over and over again if I had to. It has a sort of submarine sound to it ...

This next song actually mentions "rain" ...

"It's raining all over the world" (yeah, right) ...

This song has always sounded kind of underwater to me ...

This last song takes place when a storm is coming in Bram Stoker's Dracula ...

Also, here is a video from last summer in Austin, when it rained so much that they had to open up the floodgates at Mansfield Dam.

 

OK, there are three songs on Portishead's new album, Third, that make me think of others songs.

The first song is "Hunter", which makes me think of a song from the 1992 horror movie, Candyman, by Philip Glass called "Face to Razor".

Here are the two songs ...

Beethoven's 5th Symphony was written around 1804-1808. 200 years later, it is still very popular.

Here is Beethoven's version played by the Ljubljana Radio Symphony Orchestra ...

In 1973, Electric Light Orchestra did a cover of the song, "Roll Over Beethoven", which was Chuck Berry's song from 1956 (and it has been covered several times).

In 1977, the uber-successful soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever was released (I like to believe is was released very close to my birthday in November of 1977, but I still haven't found proof of that), and Walter Murphy had the song "A Fifth of Beethoven" on the soundtrack.

 

Years and years ago, I used a cassette player to record songs, play songs, etc. Either the player or the cassette would mess up sometimes and cause the entire song to play backwards. Well, sometimes this error produced some cool results. Here are two of my favorite backwards songs ...

Electric Light Orchestra and Olivia Newton-John - Udanax

The cool thing about playing "Xanadu" backwards is that the song has more of a desperate, urgent feel to it, like some catastrophe is about to happen (maybe I am the only that hears this). Also the phrase, "Now we are here" which is sung by the backup singer (is that ELO's Jeff Lynne or members of ELO?) becomes "Now you are here". That little trick makes sense since ELO always played around with secret messages on a song played backwards.

 
Tori Amos - eeeii

Tori Amos' "iieee" is probably one of my favorite songs ever. When played backwards, the "iiiiiieeeeeeee" parts sound really cool and kind of creepy like something the faux witches in The Crucible would have sung in the woods. ;)

and here are some others I was playing around with just for fun ...

BT and Tori Amos - Blue Skies (backwards)

There's nothing special about this song played backwards. I just thought it sounded cool. Playing vocals backwards can make the emotion in the singer's voice sound a little more intense for some reason.

Bjork - Earth Intruders (backwards)

Again, nothing too special about this song being played backwards. I just wanted to see what it sounded like. The end of this song sounds like Bjork is standing on a boat about to leave the dock. That part of the song begins when played backwards.

Goldfrapp - Clowns (backwards)

I just wanted to see what this would sound like backwards.

Goldfrapp - Eat Yourself (backwards)

Same as above.

Goldfrapp - El Train (T. Raumschmiere Remix ... and backwards)

This remix contained vocals from "Train" played backwards already so when you play the remix backwards, you hear those vocals played correctly. You'll see what I mean.

I love M.I.A.'s song, 20 Dollar, and I wanted to hear what the background sound that's repeated  throughout the song would sound like backwards.

 

OK, that's all I got for this strange and unnecessary post.

I have been listening to Electric Light Orchestra when I get ready in the morning. Everything Jeff Lynne ever touched turned to gold. On the album, Secret Messages, there are many, many great songs, but there are some I never listen to, such as "Letter From Spain". I don't know why I never listen to it, it is a great song, and here it is ...

Last night I was driving home from Dave & Buster's(a weird restaurant/bar/arcade for adults that gets a little boring after a while unless you are drunk), and I was listening to "St. Tropez" by Golden Bug, a song I got from Fluxblog. It's a cool song that reminds me of War's Low Rider and Underworld's "Bruce Lee". Take a listen ...

I did a search for "St. Tropez" in my iTunes library, and it brought up "Tightrope" by Electric Light Orchestra, too, so I need to post it here since it is such a good song ...

Also, if I am going to post "Bruce Lee" from Underworld's album, "Beaucoup Fish", then I need to post the first song on the album, "Cups", which always puts me in a very trance-like state as I listen to it ...

However, I have never liked the ending of "Cups", which makes me think of another song that starts off great, but ends badly, and that is Herbie Hancock's "Kebero (part one)", which features GiGi (aka Ejigayehu Shibabaw) on vocals ...

"The Matrix Reloaded" was on TNT, I think, a couple of hours ago so that reminded me of how much I liked the score for that film. I still think that from the restaurant scene to the end of the freeway scene is one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history(not the greatest, just one of the greatest), but I can watch it now and understand how cheesy a lot of it looks, too. Here are two favorite parts of the score, "Teahouse" by Juno Reactor, featuring Gocoo, and "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by Juno Reactor and Don Davis ...

I am going to start cross-pollinating(ok, I am not using that word correctly, but it sounded cool in my head) my LJ more with posts from here so you can visit it, too, if you want. There may be "extras" there.

When I listen to "After All" by Electric Light Orchestra ...

it makes me think of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For A Film)" ...