All the chatter about the coming apocalypse has us humming R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It," Public Enemy's "Countdown to Armageddon" and The Doors' "The End." But there are more interesting (and less obvious) choices for an "End of Days" soundtrack. So before you head down to your fallout shelter, remember us here at Creative Loafing by dropping this handy playlist into your iPod.
1. "The Man Comes Around," Johnny Cash. In case you need to get right.
2. "Waiting for the End of the World," Elvis Costello. With your two-toned Bible and your funny cigarettes.
OK, so it would have been cooler if John Lennon had fronted Nirvana last night. (Actually, it would have been cooler if Kurt Cobain had fronted Nirvana last night, but I digress.)
We gotta admit it: our hopes and expectations were pretty damn low when we heard "the cute Beatle" would be filling in for the late Cobain during Wednesday night's Nirvana "reunion" at the 12/12/12 Concert to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. Thoughts of Macca wailing "Rape Me" had us a bit nervous, although we could envision a hearty "Helter Skelter."
Surprise! Macca and the Nirvana dudes - drummer Dave Grohl, bassist Krist Novaselic and guitarist Pat Smear - hit it out of the ballpark. They even introduced a brand new song. And it's a good song. Very "Helter Skelter"-ish.
PSY
The Fillmore
Dec. 12, 2012
The first time I ever listened to K-Pop was when I was 15. I'd had no reason to sample the music energizing the young masses in my mother's country until then, really. You know how it is when you're that age: all you want to do is fit in. The group I was trying to assimilate into was comprised of young Koreans from my church who spoke broken English. They didn't want any of the TLC, Destiny's Child, Missy Elliot or Lauryn Hill that was playing on American radio. They wanted Shinhwa. They wanted Seo Taiji. They wanted Yoo Seungjun. So I wanted them, too.
Never mind that I could barely speak nor understand a lick of Korean, despite growing up with an overbearing Korean mother. If the beat was catchy and the artist was hot, then it was good. And if the occasional word that I DID know happened to be a part of the hook - like "yujah" (girl), "sah-rang-hae" (I love you) - even better.
Fast-forward almost 15 years later, and I find myself in the same predicament: falling for a K-Pop artist - in this case PSY - whose song has a catchy hook but few words I can interpret. The bonus here, though, is that crazy horse dance.
He opened Western ears to non-Western sounds.
Not only that, but Indian classical music composer Ravi Shankar, who died Tuesday at 92, helped change the course of popular music around the world when he became a teacher and mentor to Beatles guitarist George Harrison. Shankar taught Harrison how to play the sitar - that shimmering whirlwind of strings that sounds like a cross between a guitar and a harp. It's the sound heard on numerous Beatles songs, most notably "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," on the 1965 album Rubber Soul.According to the New York Times...
Mr. Shankar had suffered from upper respiratory and heart ailments in the last year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last Thursday, his family said in a statement.Mr. Shankar, a soft-spoken, eloquent man whose performance style embodied a virtuosity that transcended musical languages, was trained in both Eastern and Western musical traditions. Although Western audiences were often mystified by the odd sounds and shapes of the instruments when he began touring in Europe and the United States in the early 1950s, Mr. Shankar and his ensemble gradually built a large following for Indian music.