music

A while ago I did a bunch of posts on the topic of music. I haven’t done a post on this topic in a while, and as I did a podcast with a friend in dutch (you can listen to it here) on the topic of Grunge I figured I would share the songs that were played during the podcast and the stories around these songs with you. Some of you will know this already, but I have always been a big fan of alternative music. Metal, punk, hardcore-pun, metalcore, thrash metal, death metal, etc. I also listen to other styles though, and grunge is one of them. I started listening to grunge around 1989 probably, the very early days and got acquainted with it through this album by Nirvana called Bleach. Grunge back then wasn’t that popular just yet, but it wouldn’t take too long before it took off massively. Surprisingly to many, as grunge is pretty raw and dark, and can also come across chaotic at times.

For this podcast, I was asked to create a list of my five or six favorite songs in a specific genre and preferably from different bands. Which wasn’t too difficult as there are many great grunge bands around. I wanted to share these songs with you as well. I created a simple Spotify playlist with the songs featured in this podcast but I also want to provide the reason I picked these tracks. I also added the Youtube videos after each song below, for those who prefer to watch the videos.

If anyone has any recommended bands or songs, just drop them in the comment section, always interested in expanding my horizon.

The first song is a song by Pearl Jam called State of Love and Trust. Pearl Jam’s album Ten is probably one of my favorite albums from the 90s. That whole album just breaths rock/grunge from start to finish. State of Love and Trust, however, was not on that album, although it does have the same vibe as the songs on Ten. It probably also is my favorite Pearl Jam song. You may wonder why it has the same vibe while it isn’t on the album, well this song was recorded and written during the same timeframe, it just wasn’t released as part of the Ten release but was a song for a movie called Singles. The interesting thing about the track is that there are two versions, and I recommend you to listen to both, there’s one version with drummer Dave Krusen, and one with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. The one by Krusen sounds a bit trashier, while the one by Abbruzzese is a bit faster. Both versions are awesome though. The youtube video below is the live version as there’s no video clip.

The second song on the list is Hunger Strike by Temple of the Dog. Temple of the Dog is formed out of members of various other bands and was started as a tribute to the vocalist of Mother Love Bone who died of an overdose. I love this song because it is a duet between Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) and Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), but originally it wasn’t intended to be a duet. Eddie Vedder was asked to join during the recordings when Chris Cornell had trouble recording certain parts of the song. It is my favorite song of the album, and it was recently covered by Chris Cornell’s daughter Toni. Watch that version as well if you have some time on your hands…

Next on the list is Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana. I personally feel that every single grunge playlist needs to have at least one Nirvana track. This is the band that literally introduced grunge to the world. Although there were various bands playing grunge before Nirvana, none of them were as successful as Nirvana was (and still is). This song is from my favorite album called In Utero. The album came out after the hit album Nevermind and probably shocked a lot of people. Instead of the more clean sound that Nevermind had, In Utero was raw, and that is probably also why I really like it.

Whenever Nirvana and Kurt Cobain’s name comes up, the name Courtney Love also comes to mind as she was married to Kurt. Courtney was part (or was) of the band called Hole, and a lot of people at the time felt that Hole was mainly getting attention because of that Nirvana/Cobain connection. I don’t agree with that. If you listen to their album Live Through This, and especially the song Doll Parts, you realize that this is much more than just lifting on the success of Nirvana. The song is about the early days of the relationship between Kurt and Courtney and has that characteristic Hole sound with the distinct sound of Courtney Love’s vocals.

One of the bands I never really was in to was Melvins, well I did listen to them but they simply weren’t my favorite band in this genre. They did however undeniably influence the grunge scene, and many other genres as well. They also released an insane amount of albums so it wasn’t easy to pick a song. I picked a song called Night Goat as it is dark, sludgy, doom, and grunge at the same time. Definitely my favorite Melvins song. It just sounds scary and you simply can’t play it loud enough. The video below is a live version, but the quality is great.

Last but not least is Outshined by Soundgarden. The vocals by Chris Cornell are brilliant on this track, but what stands out most are the lyrics. I think everyone who has heard this song will be able to sing along the famous sentence: “looking California and feeling Minnesota”. It is a shame

I hope you enjoyed the list and some of the backstories.

Yesterday on twitter someone asked me what my personal favourite rock album was, not something I had to think about for long, in that genre there are a couple of bands for me that really stand out. When I replied to the question Christian Mohn responded as well, he had a different album in mind and based on that he wrote an article with his top 10. (Recommended read for sure!) I figured I would go through the same exercise. Not easy considering I listen to many different types of music, and there are many many albums I really like. Just like Christian I looked at some of my play stats, but they don’t necessarily reveal how I feel about an album and partly are also the result of a phase and what is happening around me.

So I sat down and started listing albums, and then started removing albums from the list. I tried to include at least 1 album from every genre I listen to, but with a strong focus on rock / alternative music. Ow, if the youtube link isn’t working in the country you live in there’s not much I can do about it… Also, if you are here purely for technology articles I appreciate that as well, just skip the article.

Here we go.

10. Elvis – If I can Dream (with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
This is where it all started for me, not this particular album, but Elvis in general. My parents were fans, and as they owned a bunch of records it was what I played first on my own record player. Compared to what my friends were listening back then, if they were even listening to anything, it was a bit different… not as “current”. I guess this is where it started for me. This album in particular stands out, it has most of my favourite songs, it was released in 2015. Yes 2015, they recorded new orchestral arrangements and combined that with earlier recorded vocals. It sounds amazing. My favourite song is definitely Bridge Over Troubled Water. (youtube / spotify) [Read more…] about My Personal Top 10 Albums of All Time

It has been a while since I have done one of these articles (1, 2, 3). Last one was in 2010 and it started in 2009. (If you only want to read technical / IT related articles, don’t bother continuing reading this one…) Let me quote my first post in 2009 so those who are recent followers understand where this is coming from:

Luciano Pavarotti once said, “You don’t need any brains to listen to music”, and he’s right… that’s why I love music. Whenever I need to clear my head I pick up my mp3 player iphone and go outside for run.

Every once in a while a “new song / album / band” comes along that helps me clear my mind. That helps me take three steps back when I can’t see the solution to a difficult problem. [Read more…] about You don’t need any brains to listen to music pt IV

** disclaimer: if you don’t care about music / the Foo Fighters stop reading and skip to the next article **

As you know by now, besides virtualization I also love music. I’ve always been active doing articles / interviews and much more in the past but at a point I decided to focus my writing on virtualization. Every now and then I get the urge to write something not virtualization related and this time Foo Fighters is what triggered this sporadic change of topic.

I’ve been a Nirvana fan since one of the first albums. I loved every single song and was always intrigued by their drummer Dave Grohl and one of their guitarists Pat Smear. I already knew Pat Smear as he used to be part of The Germs and I was a hardcore-punk kid. When Nirvana released In Utero, which back then disappointed the more “poppy” fans of Nirvana, I loved it. It was loud and fast, just the way I liked it. Not as loud and fast as most of the music I would normally listen to, but hey it was close enough. Nirvana came to an end and I expected that to be the last to ever be heard of the individual band members…

It didn’t take long before the rumors start spreading around, Nirvana’s drummer Dave Grohl was working on something called the Foo Fighters. When their first album dropped I bought it without hesitating. It was different than I expected and to be honest I was slightly disappointed. I expected a bit less pop and more grunge / punk considering Dave wrote these songs… After listening to the album for 10 maybe 20 times I got used to the sound and the songs started to stick and grow on me. I kept following the band but they never struck me the way Nirvana could. When they released “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace” that all of a sudden changed. Although it still wasn’t as edgy as I hoped it would be. But things were changing for the better and I was anxiously awaiting their new album… Wasting Light.

Wasting Light is the album I played the most over the last 5 years and maybe even 10. I think I listen to it at least twice a day and it never gets boring. Every single song on Wasting Light is amazing. I’ve read a lot of reviews for Wasting Light and most of them seem to come to the same conclusion that this a great rock album but not much more and definitely not renewing… even call it artistically diminishing but the fact of the matter is that this is Rock. Yes with a capital R! A rock album doesn’t need to be renewing, no a rock album needs to have an edge to it. All things need to come together at the same time, and when that happens you have a classic album. The last 5-10 years I was never really impressed as most rock albums were over-produced. Rock doesn’t need to be perfect.

It was difficult to pick just one song as I love most songs on this album, but I really like Arlandria. The reason for it being that this song could be the seen as the summary of this album. This song contains everything a perfect Foo Fighters song should contain. Arlandria by the Foo Fighters.