CallumsBlog: Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Post 8
10/4/15

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley

Crazy was the debut single by American duo Gnarls Barkley. The band was formed by singer Cee-Lo Green and producer/keyboardist Danger Mouse (real name; Brian Burton). Crazy was released in 2006 and was featured heavily on Radio 1 especially by Zane Lowe who is famed for finding the newest and most exciting bands in the world. The song was used by the radio station as the background to one of there adverts.


Crazy managed to achieve a double platinum rating in the UK as it was featured at number 1 in the charts for 9 consecutive weeks, the first song to do this for 10 years. Rihanna was the first person after Gnarls Barkley to beat this record with her own debut single "Umbrella" which was released late in 2007. The song also managed to make it to the number two slot on the US Billboard 200 as well as this Crazy won a Grammy for "Best Alternative Performance" in 2006.

Crazy also managed make history in the UK by being the first single to make it too the number one spot in the charts on download sales alone. This was a monumental time in UK music as it was the first glimpse of what was to become of the music industry, moving away from physical album sales and into downloads. Crazy showed that people were beginning to look at easier and more efficient ways of obtaining music and that method was downloads.

Gnarls Barkley were worried about the song. They believed the song would become tiresome and they did not want this to be the case. The band and it's record label attempted to pull all of the physical copies from shops in an attempt to stop the song from becoming hated due to how overplayed it had become. In any case the attempt had mild success however people continued to play the song constantly due to the constant stream of download sales of the song.

The song has managed to maintain it's impact on the music industry however with it's near constant appearance on "Greatest Songs of All-Time" lists. It is featured on Rolling Stones list as well as well as Pitchfork Media and NME's lists.


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Callum

CallumsBlog: Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

Post 5

24/3/15

Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

This album was the first album I purchased. I was taken by the bright yellow cover art and immediately decided this was the album I was going to buy. Released in March of 2005 it was met with many mixed reviews from critics with most praising Johnson on his songwriting however the lack of experimentation from Johnson led to critics stating that it was just another played safe Jack Johnson album. The album never did anything outrageous to promote itself that wasn't the type of album it was, the music within the album made up for it's lack of promotion and it showed with the album taking #1 in the UK in its first week and reaching over 1.6 million sales. The album was released in 2005 under the Mango Tree record label. The album is my personal favourite as I feel like the album is relevant no matter what mood you are listening to it in.

The album is a very relaxed, acoustic guitar with easy listening melodies featured throughout.

Johnson shows throughout this album his talent for song-writing with songs such as "Better Together" & "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" showing the depths he can go to when singing about heartbreak and then he manages to create songs such as "Banana Pancakes" "Do you Remember" in which he manages to switch the writing style from heartbreak to reflection, he does with a relaxed and similarly up-beat style.

The album plays to Johnson's strength of creating Laid-back, chilled music and his consistency throughout his numerous albums though not the worst thing in the world (if it's not broke, why fix it?) does lead to wondering if Johnson will ever be bold enough to step out of his comfort zone or if we can simply expect to continue hearing similar sounding albums with every release. The safety of Johnson's sound however has led to to him even managing to get a soundtrack he created for the movie "Curious George" to the number 1 spot in the US Billboard charts.

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Callum

CallumsBlog: Sonic Highways - Foo Fighters

Blog 1    27 February 2015

SONIC HIGHWAYS

Sonic Highways was the 2014 album by the band Foo Fighters created over 8 weeks in 8 different cities with a simple objective... to tell the story of America through its music.

The album was the 8^th studio album by the Foo Fighters.

The album which was made along with a television programme which featured front man Dave Grohl interviewing musicians from each of the cities they visited. When writing the album quotes from the interviews where used in order to really relate the cities and the musicians to the album. The main focus of the album was to tell the story of America through it’s music however the band were adamant they were going to keep the album true to the traditional sound of the Foo Fighters no matter how influenced the tracks were by the music they discovered.

The track "Something from Nothing" uses a quote from one of the first interviews done by Grohl, in which the interviewee tells how he moved from New Orleans to Chicago in the hopes of being found and is then quoted as saying he was "looking for a dime and found a quarter". The programme also featured interviews with many, many famous musicians such as Dolly Parton but surprisingly Grohl also managed to interview Barack Obama who he [Grohl] was amazed had such vast music knowledge and understanding as well as such an overwhelming appreciation for the music that was created within the country.

Sonic Highways was the most anticipated Foo Fighters album of all time and it delivered as it was released to rave reviews however no matter what the outcome Grohl was never worried and in an interview with Rolling Stone he said "Look, if some dude with a blog says the band blew it, then that same day you sell out Wembley Stadium in a day, it’s like, "OK, well, I guess we’re doing something right."