A Penny for Your Songs (3) - Just a Speck in the Spectrum

in #music5 years ago

Week 3

Hey guys, how's it going? Did you have a good week? While everyone is out on vacation I've been left alone with my cat Greg here, in the heat of the Roman summer, but we're having an absolute blast nonetheless. Nothing like a week or two of absolute laziness to recover strength for the year to come.

Before I start dealing with today's songs, I'd like to thank the guys from @curie real quick for the upvote of the post from last week. I'm not sure who I have to thank for the curation specifically, but I sure appreciated the gesture, it encouraged me to write a bit more and make a real effort.

No matter what I'll decide to post during the week, though, on Saturdays I'll keep going with A Penny for Your Songs, a corner where I can talk about music that is or has been important to me, either because it is related to an emotion, an idea, an experience or simply for its value as music.

Now to the matter at hand. Today I'd like to go back to my metal-head days. Not that I ever stopped listening to Metal & its sub-genres altogether; in fact, one of the two songs that I'm going to share with you is something I've discovered very recently and that I've been obsessing over. Let's just say that, in general, lately I'm more appreciative of calmer, relaxed sounds. After all, I'm convinced that getting older also means finding some answers for ourselves and leaving behind some of that existential anger and pain that are typical of our adolescence (although I'm the first to admit that probably I'll never be entirely over adolescence, but I guess that's a good topic for next week's post).

Insignificant, Am I?

The first song I'm going to post is a very sad piece by a band called Nevermore. By the time I first started getting into metal, Nevermore were already a big thing, although they never really hit the mainstream status. With their unique, aggressive combination of heavy and thrash sounds, and their amazing technical skills (Jeff Loomis is one of the best shredders I know and a hell of a guitar player), they were able to make me fall in love with their music almost immediately. They recorded some truly great albums, but only one of them would stay with me for almost 20 years: Dead Heart in a Dead World, from 2000.

Deadheart.jpg

It is by no means a happy album. DHIADW is a collection of angry songs towards society and politics and existential emptiness and negativity, plus the most daunting, obscure cover of The Sound of Silence that anyone has ever made (I'm sure most people will hate it, but I find that it somehow suits the lyrics perfectly, although in a very different way compared to the original). Needless to say, when I first listened to this album, a few years after its release, it incarnated a lot of my feelings ; I was 16 and struggling with the big questions of life, and I didn't like the world around me. Time might have given some answers, I might have found some peace, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize the value and the place for those emotions, which sometimes might come back even later in life.

Even though my favorite song from this album (and by Nevermore) is The Heart Collector, I'm going to share a piece called Insignificant. It's about life and mortality, about what we leave behind when we go away. About our meaning as humans and ultimately, our ephemerality.

The lyrics, as it often was the case, were written by Warrel Dane, singer of the band. He passed away last year. Although his death hurt as hell, his voice is still here with me, in my ears and in my heart. Everytime I listen to this song I can't help but smile a bit, and think "you were wrong, man". He might have felt his life was insignificant, he might have thought that we leave no trace, but it wasn't and we do, at least some of us. He's still someone to me, he still is to a lot of people. I can't help but feel a bit hopeful, when I think of it that way. And that's why I'm posting this song.

Center of the Earth

The second and last song I'm going to post is COTE (short for Center of the Earth, as you might have gathered) by an Australian band called Karnivool. It's the opener of their first album, Themata, from 2005.

I'm not going to go deep into the meaning of the song this time. It's up to interpretation, and I'd like you to be the judges on that. I've found out about Karnivool quite recently and I have to say, I absolutely love their energy. But this song...I don't know, a lot of people I know will select either Deadman, or Change as their favorite. And they're right, they're both awesome. But the absolute power of this song is something that has no equals to me. Over the last week I've listened to it every day and I can't seem to stop.

At the apex of the noticeable climax, when he goes "so drop me down, let me feel it either way" I just want to rip my shirt off and scream like a crazy person. Maybe I am.

So what did you think? Do you have any songs you want to share? Don't be shy, I'd love to know more about what makes you people tick!

See ya next week!

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Hello @ziofeda, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!

Glad to see you've taken to posting regularly :) Sorry for almost missing this one (was away over the weekend). From the way you talk about this guy, I don't think he was insignificant. Well, in that way that all humans are in the end insignificant, you know, but that's true about everybody.
But as long as you touched someone's life, you weren't insignificant. It's a really nice song, I like it, he had a great voice :)
I like the second song as well, it reminds me of Linkin Park a little. It's right up my alley:)

Hey, yeah I'm having kinda fun :D I should post more often, I'm thinking about it. Probably come September I'll come up with something else during the week. How was your weekend?

Warrel had a great voice, but he was sadly notorious for his unhealthy lifestyle, which ultimately caught up with him. A couple of friends who saw Nevermore live back in the day reported that he was more or less completely drunk when he got on stage. I think he managed to quit at some point, but it was not enough I guess.

And you know what, I was sure you'd love Karnivool. I don't know about Linkin Park, honestly, but a lot of people compare them to Tool. In my opinion, the only thing they have in common is that their names rhyme. For some reason people need to compare everything to Tool these days, I have no idea why.

Thanks for the answer :)

Cool :)

Weekend was really great, went to a rock festival at the beach, made some few friends. It was pretty awesome, I really loved it.
How was yours?

Hmm I think a lot of great artists are sadly drawn to an unhealthy lifestyle. It's sad and also, unfair, because it often takes them away prematurely.

Tool, yeah, I don't think they sound alike. IDK what it is about Tool either, I mean they're a great band and all, but it kinda seems like they've gotten a cult in these past few years, despite not having released anything new. Weird.

My weekend was great, I don't have any work to do right now and I'm just enjoying the little summer I've got left. How many rock festivals do you have over there, anyway? I mean I live in Rome and we have nowhere near that number of cool events ahah

Unhealthy lifestyle...you know, if you read what Warrel used to write, you can see that he had some pretty negative views on things, on life...I guess pain had to be a dear friend to him. It is easier to write powerful stuff when you draw upon your scars, your sadness. I guess that's what makes a lot of artists tick...and also what ultimately destroys them.

And about Tool, didn't you hear? New album is coming soon, and a new single is out. They've been talking about it non-stop for a week, lol. I don't mind the "cult" following, there's a lot of bands in history who have given way to that kind of mentality. I hate this thing that happens in social media where everyone needs to be talking about something, either to praise or to discredit, with no half measure, 24\7. If you don't take sides you don't exist, apparently.

ah good good, you gotta enjoy while it's still here. Though there's still a good month of warm weather left. Hopefully.
Hmm, you gotta get creative. There are quite a few festivals over the summer here , scattered around the country. There's one starting tomorrow, but it's really far and with the extreme heat wave and poor trains, not a wise choice, sadly :) And then, there's one the weekend after that - you're right, we do have a lot of festivals here in RO, hadn't realized.
I'm sure there are a lot of cool ones in Italy too though :D

Oh, I heard about the new Tool album and I'm glad. not a huge fan, but they're pretty nice. Yeah I know, people are totally crazy. But it's as you said, if you've got nothing to say, no one pays any attention..

Ah well, if traveling were an option I'd have some good stories too.
Not that I can complain this year - I've gone all the way to Paris just to see the 25th anniversary concert of Archive (will definitely post something in the near future) and I've finally been able to see Toto live here in Rome - I blessed those rains so hard. It's just that festivals are really expensive around here, you've got to pick and choose.

Hmm I don't think I know Archive, but I love concert travelling <3 and I'm actually going to Paris next month, how cool. You should post about that maybe, use some travel tags, you know. It's fun revisiting a trip like that.
And you should travel as much as you can :D It's my favorite thing to do, especially for new concerts, though as I said, now I'm kinda Alterno-crazy, which is really good for my wallet :D

I love travelling too, actually :) Paris was really cool, way better than I expected...lots of snob Italians hate on Paris for no reason at all, I had to rely on their opinions before visiting the city first-hand. I was positively surprised. I'll be expecting a full report! :D

Unfortunately, due to a problem with my camera, I didn't do much in terms of interesting travel photography, my hate for smartphones will do that :( I know, sometimes it's counterproductive XD I'm actually thinking of doing some upgrades to my equipment, but I'm working on a new PC right now and that takes priority (:

I'm pretty sure you'd love some of the stuff from Archive. They can get a bit too electronic for my taste sometimes, but the amount of raw emotions in some of their pieces is unparalleled. I'll make sure to post some in the future!