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The Way Things Are – Music

Happiness Quotient : High
New Music Quotient: Extremely High.
Anime Quotient: Low
Graphic Novel Quotient: Extremely High
Ebay Spend Rate: Red Alert.
Work Rate: High.

There you have it.

I have come to the conclusion that there’s absolutely nothing personal/thought-provoking/interesting I can write in my Livejournal, so I shall skip the Happiness part, and the reasons behind it, and go directly to the New Music section.

Secondspin.com rocks. The US-based site sells second-hand CDs, with very low shipping costs. They send CDs sans jewel cases, and the postage comes to a flat 5$ plus 35 cents per CD. But that’s not why I say it rocks. I had ordered a small shipment of anime DVDs once, and a Danny Elfman TV/Movie theme collection called Music For a Darkened Theatre Volume One a couple of months ago, which were delivered pretty early. Two months later, I get an email, which said – We have not received any orders from you in quite sometime, and so here’s this coupon that gives you free International Shipping on your next order.

And who could resist this offer? I went berserk ( what’s new, pussycat?), and ended up ordering thirteen CDs off them, a lot of Original Soundtracks I had been lusting after, some assorted artistes I wanted, and two Sonny Chiba DVDs that I included because they were two dollars each. The prices of the CDs ranged between 7.99 for some ( which, let me add, sell for 525 rupees here, if you manage to find them), and 99 cents for others ( doobie-doobie-do! ), so the average price came to about 175 rupees per cd, which is about 3.5 dollars per CD. And of course, free shipping, so no additional charges.

Two weeks passed. And then two days. After which the package glided its way into my office cubicle. A little more money went into buying jewel cases – brand new ones, that is – and a lot of evenings after that were spent in taking in the new music.

This followed a particular sale I stumbled upon, in dear li’l Hyderabad a week ago, where a shop was getting rid of its unsold CDs, and were selling them off for 150 rupees . Picked up ten, and for a change, paid cash.


The Stuff from Hyderabad
1. U2 – Zooropa highly underrated album, most un-U2ish. I guess Lemon would be the first U2 song I ever heard in my life, and also the first video I saw on TV. I was in my rock-hating phase then, and obviously I detested loathed the song then. How times change!

2. Sheila Chandra – Nada Brahma The first Sheila Chandra album for me, and the first album I listened to, after coming home with these cds. The first track is 27 minutes long, and gets very kitschy sometimes, but as far as fusion/experimental tracks go, pretty outstanding. No percussion throughout the track, for instance. None of the airy, Enigmaesque chord progressions you generally find on fusion albums.

3. Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Already had a copy I had burned from Sasi, but who can turn down this album?

4. Pulp – Different Class Surprise, Surprise! I never knew Pulp was this good. This album took quite a lot of my time, mostly because I needed to listen to the songs twice, the first time for the music, and the second time for the amazing lyrics the next time. The only complaint I have with the songs is the overorchestration, similar to the later-day Oasis albums, that kind of swamps the singer. I could get the lyrics only because the Cd-inlay had them.

5. Shubha Mudgal – Original Soundtrack: Dances of the Wind Beautiful Hindustani classical album, featuring some amazing tracks by Shwetha Jhaveri, and a young girl whose name I forget. Sultan Khan and Ronu Majumdar show up in this album, as everywhere else.

6. Various Artistes – Reggatta Mondatta: A Reggae Tribute to The Police Some tracks border dangerously on hip-hop land. Some tracks are to die for.

7. Bryan Ferry – Bete Noire Eighties synth-rock. Kind of didn’t like this at all the first time, yet to give it a second listen. I had high hopes.

8. Henry Mancini – The Blues and The Beat I bought this one for Chandru.

9. Various Artists – OST: Tere Mere Sapnay/Shastra This one was just for the nostalgia value of Aankh Maarein, the Kumar Sanu- Kavitha Krishnamurthy gem. No, really. Listen to Kumar Sanu yodelling in ENGLISH – “Oh Di-di-diyar, come ni-ni-niyar, no phi-phi-phi-phi-phi-phiyar” and you’ll roll. I always do.

The stuff from secondspin.com
1. Soundtrack – Josie & The Pussycats Josie and the Pussycats is this amazing movie, a brilliant satire on MTV and pop music and songs with subliminal messages advertising products. The soundtrack is brilliant, very punk-rockish. There is a fictional boy-band in the movie, kind of an alternate Backstreet Boys – called Du Jour, and they happen to land their plane in the middle of a Metallica concert, and…umm…things happen. Heh.

2. Sixpence None The Richer – Sixpence None The Richer The best thing about getting this album was the bonus song. There were supposed to be twelve tracks, but there turned out to be thirteen, the thirteenth track was There She Goes, the song which tuned me into this band in the first place.

3. Soundtrack – X Files – The Truth And The Light (Mark Snow)
4. Soundtrack – Songs In The Key Of X (X-Files Soundtrack)
Got two copies of the second album, gave one of them to Rishi. Pretty good songs, and instrumental pieces, most of them by Mark Snow.

5. Apocalyptica – Apocalypitca Plays Metallica By Four Cellos Sometimes, when I listen to this album, it sounds hypercool. Metallica on cello – wow! And sometimes it sounds like somebody playing some MIDI files. Depends on the mood, really.

6. Soundtrack – Crow, The (Graeme Revelle Score)
7. Soundtrack – Crow, The
8. Soundtrack – Crow: City Of Angels
I am a little obsessed with the music of the Crow movies, I will admit. (Even though the second movie was a turkey, which I will admit too) They are all good. The OST cds have songs from The Cure, Rage Against The Machine, Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch Nails ( first cd) and Hole, White Zombie, Filter, PJ Harvey (second cd), among others. The score cd by Graeme Revell, I have mentioned before, gives me a lump in my throat everytime I hear it.

9. Legrand, Michel – Paris Was Made For Lovers (Laserlight) This one was for Chandru, too.

10. Soundtrack – Blair Witch Project-Josh’s Blair Witch Mix The one currently playing on a regular basis. Very atmospheric, gloom-and-doom sounding music, featuring bands like Laibach, Bauhaus and Skinny Puppy and singers like Lydia Lunch. Comes with the occasional dialogue from the movie, of course sliced and looped and properly worked on.

11. Chumbawamba – Tubthumper A nine-man band, Chumbawamba is supposed to have very vitriolic lyrics in their albums. Tubthumping, the famous song was the only one I had heard. I bought this because it was selling for 99 cents, truth be told. But it’s good all the same.

12. Carlton, Vanessa – Be Not Nobody This was part of my amazon wishlist, mostly because the music on some of the songs sounded like AR Rahman. Well-made love songs, and I am a sucker for well-made lovesongs anyday. Especially ones with proper piano.

Bodyguard, The (Sonny Chiba) (DVD)
Street Fighter (Sonny Chiba – Mmii Productions) (DVD)
Two dollars each. Two good visual quiz questions too, if you look at it another way. Extremely poor print in The Bodyguard ( not to be confused with the Kevin Costner starrer), but who cares?

And today, I find that Sony Music cds are being sold for 199 rupees each in Music World, Lifestyle. Damn.

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46 thoughts on “The Way Things Are – Music

  1. we are brothas

    in 6 long years this is the first time when someone other than me has mentioned Shubha Mudgal – Original Soundtrack: Dances of the Wind . I did try to search for the movie, unsuccessfully. do let me know if you get wind of it.

    • Seems to be one of those lost movies, I did try looking for it. :(

      Do you, by any chance, remember the girl’s name? The girl whose voice was used for the folk songs?

    • Every Breath You Take, by Betty Wright, is really good. Every Little Thing She says is Magic ( i think Aswad does it) is magic. The track by Maxi Priest sucks. The standard Police songs ( Roxanne, Message in a Bottle) are all done pretty well. The rest of it was a blur for me, maybe I need to listen to it again.

      • sounds worth it. was afraid the whole thing will be pure pap.

        I remember Aswad and Sting doing ‘Invisible Sun’, which was, um, interesting. I’m just such a big fan of the original song that it was hard to take. Though what had me really kicked was the Sting/U2 version of the track. I like it the way the Brit outvocalises the Dubliner. :)

  2. Kumar Sanu yodelling in ENGLISH – “Oh Di-di-diyar, come ni-ni-niyar, no phi-phi-phi-phi-phi-phiyar”

    lol .. yeah

    i got an album of apocalyptica.. it has metallica cover along with some pantera & sepultura songs .. awesome stuff.

    • Was it from a Grammy album? Was it pirated? If it was, I think we might have listened to the same album too. It also had A Whole New World from Aladdin, and I will Always Love You from the Bodyguard in it. :)

  3. Hey! Tubthumping! I think they had another not so famous song in that album….

    It went like:

    Ole Ole ole ole!
    I’m on top of the world
    I’m on top of the world

    etc etc…

    It was one of the songs shortlisted to be the FIFA worldcup 98’s official songs. They finally chose Ricky Martin’s “Cup of Life” as the official song though.

    And Europe had “Final countdown” for the 94 worldcup’s official song. :D

  4. is this amazing movie, a brilliant satire on MTV
    If you believe that about the Josie and the pussycats, then Melody has more brains than you :P.Lets call a spade for a spade and just call it a bad movie !!

    Sony Chiba movies :D

  5. Shit!!Music buys are overdue for me.On my list:

    1)Dhaani – strings
    2)Mozart – greatest hits.
    3)Something by Karsh Kale

    I usually get a lot of experimental stuff……blah.

    • Dhaani is okayish. Nothing you can’t bop your head to, and tunes that keep flitting from one familiar song-you’ve-heard-before to another. I bought my copy because I needed autographs. ;-)

      Fuzon’s Saagar would be a better buy, IMHO.

      • Already have saagar.I couldn’t resist and bought it just after the “aankhon ke sagar” video came out.Generally in my experience strings seem to have a more consistent quality of music than fuzon.But fuzon has come out with some amazing tracks.Have you heard “jhoom jhoom”.Wonder why it didn’t make the charts.

        • AH! You liked Jhoom Jhoom too, eh? I have been recommending it to everybody I think would be interested. :-P

          About consistency – it’s Fuzon’s first album after all. Give them some time. I didn’t like their lyrics too much.

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