When Old Songs Become New Again

When I hear a song that really gets me crazy about it, you know, really crazy like on the edge of my seat crazy, I'm a loyal patron of it forever. I will listen to it at least a dozen times before I return to my senses. Well, I was in Nordstroms at Northpark Mall with some friends when I almost made what I will call the discovery of a life-time, songwise.

I say almost because I have an iPhone and I use the app Shazam, to find songs that I don't know or recognize. This was one those moments. I'm looking for my friends but in the background I hear this song. And I was like OMG! OMG! OMG!!!! I couldnt pull out my iPhone quick enough and punch the Shazam app to tag the song playing. So, I'm waiting for the app to tag the song and I get this message:

"Connection lost. Please try again later."

And then the song ends. Yah! I wanted to exclaim like Camden did in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off', when Ferris talked him into joy-riding his dad's Porsche and afterwards trying to rewind the mileage back, and the vibration of the reving motor caused it to fall off of the bricks and backout of a window into a creek. Yah!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Later on, we went to eat and that song was still on my mind. You see, I go through a ritual in order to try retaining and remembering the most minute detail about a song, especially if what happen tonight happens. After getting that devestating message, I knew that I had my work cut out for me. But I was only discouraged not beat.

I went over to blip.fm to write something and for some reason I was thumbing through my WIFI settings. Oh yah. I was turning the WIFI settings off. I stopped by the Shazam app and saw those dead tags that had turned up nothing. But then I noticed that Shazam had found one of the songs it couldn't find back at Nordstroms. And I saw that last one, the song that I so wanted to know about. It just said untagged item. So I hit it and it started analyzing it's remains. And,...AND!....OMG! Was it true?

IT FOUND THE SONG!!!

Evidentally, all of the information was still stored into my phone. The song: "Erase and Rewind", by The Cardigans. I know the group but I could not distinguish that it was them singing. I bought the song from iTunes and have been playing, by now, 20 times in a row. Yes, during this writ. But I was surprised that it was a song from their Gran Turismo album, in 1998.

Wow! I love it either way but I am not imited by the age of the song, then throw itr away because I found a new song. No. It hit me also that many others are too pushing aside their differences about song age and bringing back the cool, tight and killer tunes, despite the song's age. There are some gems out there. Go out and keep making your discoveries. You will never be disappointed. Awesome! I will sleep rather soundly since this latest discovery.

(pressing play to hear "Erase and Rewind" again)...

If I were a singer....What would my cd cover look like?

I have been spending tons of time playing around with Juxtaposer, an app on my iPhone. I know, I know it's not really a camera. I have a friend, Jeremy McKane. Awesome photographer. His beautiful wife poses for shots, from time to time. Now, HIS camera is really sweet. It's one of those real expensive ones. Photographers would die hearing that jargon, '...one of those real expensive ones.' Anyway, his work will be featured the end of this month. Check him out on Facebook. He's pretty awesome, and Facebook only has a tiny collection of his work.

I once had a camera...and lets just say that it was stolen and it now has a new home, the pawn shop. Jeremy's work has caused me to pick back up my camera (Ok, iPhone) and just practice shooting. Since I am always gabbing about music and how much I love (you really have no idea how much) I came up with a so-called album/cd cover shot that, if I were a singer, this is what it might look like...

When Albums Are Known For Both Their Music & Cover

In October, 2005, the Canadian band, Nickelback, released their studio album, ‘All The Right Reasons’. Word buzzed around that even though their sound was unique it was becoming cookie-cut. I would say that about the track, “Rock Star”. But I wouldn’t say that about a few of my favorite tracks. The track “Animals” was...oh well, will make some, weak at heart and stomach, blush. “Savin’ Me” shows great promise of the band’s focus. (You will hear more of their focus from their new CD ‘Dark Horse’) But what I found rather beautifully complete about this album can be heard and seen.

What's beautiful when you hear this album come from two songs. One: from the song, “Far Away”, a song that I consider The Ultimate Love Song. It seems that everyone appreciates a love song, especially if that song can describe a person's love for someone. Two: from the tune, “If Everyone Cared”. This song sounds almost like a rock-gospel. Imagine that a song with a moral overtone and not too boring or sappy or overly religious. Hmm...

I sat down to write not just about the sound of Nickelback. I wanted to write specifically about this album's cover shot. I love photography. I think it interesting and quite unique, and that there is never an identical shot. This cover is one of my all-time favorites: It’s a simple photo shot. It's about a place we’ve all found ourselves, whether it was behind the wheel or as passengers, speeding down a highway and headed towards that party or vacation spot. One might say that this is just a photo of a vehicle on a highway. To me, this photo says a lot more. It is said that a picture can be worth a thousand words, and some of those words could be in the form of questions. Doesn't the cover invite you into the photo? Were you ready to hit the brakes when you first saw this shot? How fast do you think the driver is going? Can you can almost feel the horsepower of a fine engine as your back is pressed into plush seating? What song would you listen to while on that road and in that car? Can you imagine your vehicle of choice? (Mine would be the Maybach)

I must confess that most of the time, I do tend to choose music by the artists' album cover. To me, the more interesting and unique it is, the better. SOMEtime (shhh!) I will buy an album only for that reason and later try acquiring a taste for the artists' music. This method is not the way of finding better music but don’t count it out completely. There are some gems out there packaging great music. I have found my share of duds using this method, but every now-and-then, I come across that album cover that knocks my socks off and causes me to wonder if and when will I stumble across that next spectacular album cover?

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