Musical revelations
Here, listen to this song. It's one of my current favorites, and I just adore it.
Jem - They.mp3
Now listen to this song.
10 Well tempered clavier book 2, No. 12 in F minor, BWV 881- Prelude.wma
(Right-click and "save target as" -- my browser at least can't handle the Windows Media Player format. I don't have an mp3, sorry.)
I was about to sit down to read for a bit and I had put on one of my classical playlists, "book lovers," which is just a combination of the albums Brahms for Book Lovers and Bach for Book Lovers. I was stopped in my tracks when the first random song started playing and I heard that familiar melody picked out on the gently dancing piano.
I had had no idea that Jem's song had been based on Bach, and discovering this was, as the title suggests, quite a revelation. I found this blog article about it: "Jem Gets Bach in the Saddle" by Greg Stepanich.
Wikipedia also has an interesting List of popular songs based on classical music. Oh, if only all of those links were audio links. It would be great fun to explore and listen to them all.
The final bit of musical revelation for today is a link to a song that I'd been searching for for some time. The song is Freeform Five's remix of Brian Wilson's "Our Prayer" from the album Smile. I first heard it on The Blue Room on BBC's Radio One several months ago, and loved it. I looked it up in the tracklisting, but there didn't seem to be any way to get it. There was a while when I stopped listening to The Blue Room, but I recently started again, and I found myself missing this song. So I looked for it again, and after long searching, finally came up with this link where I could at least listen to if not download it.
The song seems to be kind of a random phenomenon, a hip, electronica remix of an acapella hymn from a rock album. (I tracked down and listened to the original, and I didn't care for it at all.) Stylus magazine's The Stypod has an interesting post about it (no permalink -- scroll down to the third entry):
There's no telling exactly how or why this remix came into being. Having little to do stylistically with the grownup album rock majesty of Smile, it seems unlikely that the Freeform Five's take on the album's opening acapella track would have been commissioned by Nonesuch. Although, perhaps the label felt compelled to reach out to the younger, more modish facet of the artist's audience. But even then, why settle for a little-known act like Freeform Five? I figure the most likely explanation would be that the remixers in question had their fun with "Our Prayer" before any contact with the label was even established. [...] Fashioned as a tame electro/IDM hybrid, it wanders alongside the track's original version with crafty beats and further harmonizing via buzzy synths. It's quite far removed from the instrumental stylings and compositions of Brian "Sweet Hair" Wilson, but it'll do the trick as long as you're expecting it as such.
Anyway, here, at last, is the link to the song. Click on the "listen" link. The playlist has two songs on it -- skip the first one, which is something weird, and go right to this one.
Brian Wilson - Our Prayer (Freeform Reform)
Enjoy.
reading: Nick Bantock, The Venetian's Wife
saw: Adaptation; Jerry Maguire; Firefly
music: "cool music" mix, curr. Sting, "A Thousand Years"
beverage: Republic of Tea British Breakfast tea
Jem - They.mp3
Now listen to this song.
10 Well tempered clavier book 2, No. 12 in F minor, BWV 881- Prelude.wma
(Right-click and "save target as" -- my browser at least can't handle the Windows Media Player format. I don't have an mp3, sorry.)
I was about to sit down to read for a bit and I had put on one of my classical playlists, "book lovers," which is just a combination of the albums Brahms for Book Lovers and Bach for Book Lovers. I was stopped in my tracks when the first random song started playing and I heard that familiar melody picked out on the gently dancing piano.
I had had no idea that Jem's song had been based on Bach, and discovering this was, as the title suggests, quite a revelation. I found this blog article about it: "Jem Gets Bach in the Saddle" by Greg Stepanich.
Wikipedia also has an interesting List of popular songs based on classical music. Oh, if only all of those links were audio links. It would be great fun to explore and listen to them all.
The final bit of musical revelation for today is a link to a song that I'd been searching for for some time. The song is Freeform Five's remix of Brian Wilson's "Our Prayer" from the album Smile. I first heard it on The Blue Room on BBC's Radio One several months ago, and loved it. I looked it up in the tracklisting, but there didn't seem to be any way to get it. There was a while when I stopped listening to The Blue Room, but I recently started again, and I found myself missing this song. So I looked for it again, and after long searching, finally came up with this link where I could at least listen to if not download it.
The song seems to be kind of a random phenomenon, a hip, electronica remix of an acapella hymn from a rock album. (I tracked down and listened to the original, and I didn't care for it at all.) Stylus magazine's The Stypod has an interesting post about it (no permalink -- scroll down to the third entry):
There's no telling exactly how or why this remix came into being. Having little to do stylistically with the grownup album rock majesty of Smile, it seems unlikely that the Freeform Five's take on the album's opening acapella track would have been commissioned by Nonesuch. Although, perhaps the label felt compelled to reach out to the younger, more modish facet of the artist's audience. But even then, why settle for a little-known act like Freeform Five? I figure the most likely explanation would be that the remixers in question had their fun with "Our Prayer" before any contact with the label was even established. [...] Fashioned as a tame electro/IDM hybrid, it wanders alongside the track's original version with crafty beats and further harmonizing via buzzy synths. It's quite far removed from the instrumental stylings and compositions of Brian "Sweet Hair" Wilson, but it'll do the trick as long as you're expecting it as such.
Anyway, here, at last, is the link to the song. Click on the "listen" link. The playlist has two songs on it -- skip the first one, which is something weird, and go right to this one.
Brian Wilson - Our Prayer (Freeform Reform)
Enjoy.
reading: Nick Bantock, The Venetian's Wife
saw: Adaptation; Jerry Maguire; Firefly
music: "cool music" mix, curr. Sting, "A Thousand Years"
beverage: Republic of Tea British Breakfast tea
Labels: articles, music, scribbling
brewed by Jess Haskins at 11:00
2 Comments:
Enlightening! By the way, I found a song based on a classical piece that Wikipedia had not yet documented, amazingly! Anyone who's had a couple years of piano lessons will probably be familiar with Clementi's op. 36 sonatinas. The one everyone has to play is no. 1, but the rondo movement of no. 5 inspired the song "A Groovy Kind of Love." My first Wikipedia edit! Thanks, bw!
Ladysusan
oh i love that jem song. i listen to that one quite a bit on radioblogclub.com. i like jem's cover of 'maybe i'm amazed' as well.
Post a Comment
<< Home