hipeponymous:

“At the Hundredth Meridian” by The Tragically Hip
(Words/Music: The Tragically Hip, Album: Live From the Vault: Volume 3, Hamilton - 2.6.2007)

Ladies and gentleman!
It is my profound pleasure and duty to inform you that we are now at the hundredth meridian.
Where the great plains begin!

To say Gord (and the rest of the band) is in rare for on this epic 13 minute version would be a monumental understatement. Not only does he announce the song with the above, but he speeds through most of the lyrics - dislodging the melody from the song fully and completely.
After the “I remember” part, the band transitions to double-time and frantically plays behind Gord’s rant about remembering everything.
Post-rant, come the guitar solos and jamming which eventually segues into a number of songs, including Fleetwood Mac “Dreams”, The Police’s “Walking on the Moon”, and a version of Peter Frampton’s live version of “Do You Feel Like We Do?” in which Gord imitates Frampton’s talk box effect.Yes, really. It’s Gord Downie!
Finally, when the band re-enters the song itself, Gord unleashes the fastest “If I die…” section I have ever heard, which ends with him screaming and screeching the lines with no musical accompaniment.
The overall effect of the song is that of organized chaos which leaves the listener both mentally exhausted and amused. An absolute must-listen for any level of Hip fan.

nameyourgod:

The Police | King of pain

Always one of my favorite Police songs.

There’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There’s a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There’s a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There’s a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

musical-moodswings:

Artist: The Police
Track: King of Pain
Album: Synchronicity
Year: 1983

That’s my soul up there

(Source: brehon)

somesongsconsidered:

“Wrapped Around Your Finger” – The Police 
(Words/music: Sting, available on Synchronicity, A&M 1983) 

Like many drummers, Stuart Copeland has an expansive drum kit with multiple sizes of tom toms and cymbals.  Unlike most drummers, Stuart Copeland finds ways to make every bit of the kit useful.  The groove through the first two thirds of “Wrapped Around Your Finger” isn’t complex – bass drum on beats one and three, rim knock on four (making it a sort of cousin to the “Be My Baby” beat alluded to in last week’s post), but Copeland makes it more than just simple timekeeping.  Instead, he embellishes with the high tom tom, open hi-hat, and even his tiny splash cymbal, all the while keeping a light touch.  Where a lesser drummer (or at least my recreation of this beat) might weight down the song, Copeland never overplays despite incorporating all of the different aspects of the kit.  What’s notable is that Copland doesn’t even touch his snare drum, a staple in rock music, until the chorus.

The restraint here eventually pays off, as the track shifts during the final verse.  While Sting’s lyrical turnaround – “now your servant is your master” – isn’t the most poetic of his career, Copeland’s drumming follows the cue anyway.  His light click on the snare’s rim becomes a full on snare hit on both beats two and four, essentially giving the track a “double time” feel.  While Copeland continues to embellish with little fills (and varies playing on both the middle and the inner bell of the ride cymbal – one of his favorite tricks), he essentially plays the rest of the song straightforward.  To be fair, Copeland’s shift to two and four follows Sting’s bassline, which slips into doubletime a few bars before Copeland moves over to his drums.  It’s this precise interplay in the rhythm section (not to mention Andy Summers’ always skillful lead guitar, but there’s only so much to target in one post) that made Sting’s songs come to life so dramatically during this era.  

More on The Police: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Synchronicity II” by The Police

(Words/Music: Sting, Album: Synchronicity, A&M Records 1983)

With its haunting lyrics about the dangers of leading a mundane life and the monotony of an industrialized society, I always found this to be the most lyrically creative and interesting song in The Police canon. While undoubtedly at the height of their success on Synchronicity with other hits like the equally haunting “King of Pain,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” and “Every Breathe You Take,” The Police were able to sneak in social commentary alongside their quirky and stalker-ish love songs. That commentary, as supported by the post-apocalyptic Billy Idol-meets-Thunderdome video, states that life in an industrialized society, particularly one in the suburbs, is without meaning. It is the same basic principal as movies ranging from American Beauty and Revolutionary Road (both directed by Sam Mendes) to Fight Club, Edward Scissorhands, and Pleasantville. The part that I find strange is that the suburbs are where I grew up and where I make a living. So why are they always portrayed as soul-crushingly bad?

My first instinct when listening to this song or watching one of the aforementioned movies is to shake my finger at the screen and/or sneer in an menacing fashion in an attempt to show my agreement about how awful life in the suburbs is. But the paradox here is this: can a person who is wholly a product of the suburbs effectively criticize their blandness? Doesn’t the fact that (s)he recognizes that blandness indicate that they exist, in some part, outside of it? And wouldn’t being able to interpret and agree with the statement indicate that the suburbs are not completely filled with (to quote Lester Burnham from American Beauty) “bloodless, money grubbing freak[s]” and, in essence, defeat the argument altogether? Perhaps the key to the song and our quandary lies in the last, oddly out of place lyrics of each verse about something crawling in or out of a Scottish lake. If interpreted as some sort of monster (or an archetypal representation of fear), then the song becomes about our fear of sliding into the routines of the lifeless characters on display in this song or in these films. So it’s not that the suburbs are always portrayed negatively, it’s just that they are a convenient and common setting for these revelations to take place.

More from The Police: AmazonMP3 – lala – last.fm