Thursday, August 9, 2012

Mixtape - Super Alchemy

This is a kinda wordy music nerdy post, so if you aren't in that kind of mood, just listen to the songs. Super Alchemy by Bradley Christie on Grooveshark Last post I mentioned making single-disc albums out of multi-disc releases. The first one up is Thrice's Alchemy Index, released as 4 different EP's (two at a time), each representing an element (Fire, Water, Air, Earth). I tried to make the tracklist work in order as well, which means some of the songs I really liked were left out, as they didn't have a home amongst the other ones. I had a really hard time deciding which of the sonnets to include(the last song of each EP was written in the style of an English Sonnet, was the personified voice of each respective element examining the shortcomings of humans, and every one ended with the same 3 chords and melody). I almost put the fire sonnet "The Flame Deluge" in, but I felt I couldn't do that without also putting in the earth sonnet "Child of Dust", and I just couldn't fit 4 sonnets in a single album. So other than totally bad scrambled egging the whole elements theme, I think this first try is pretty not bad. I was surprised at how few of the loud, heavy rock songs I put in though. Maybe that stuff was just stronger on other albums.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Dos en La Rosa...

I was wondering today if Green Day had been working on anything new. Turns out they are releasing 3 albums over the next few months. Too much? The preview for the first one makes it sound like there will be some musical variation, although their trademark punk downstrokes will likely make a prominent appearance.

I predict it will be like many multi-disc albums (or multiple albums released in a short period of time). With increased track-space to experiment, they can explore a broader range of sounds and reach a broader range of listeners, but to many ears, there still may be an increase of suck or meh in between. More songs = More Good + More Bad + More Blah I guess.

I have often thought about distilling one of these mega-albums down to a single album, or even just an EP, and wonder how other people would assemble theirs. Maybe that will be the next few mixtapes. Likely candidates for such surgery are: Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins, Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Alchemy Index - Thrice, and/or Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake It's Morning - Bright Eyes.