When this song was released in my country, Japan, it quickly became a mega hit, yet I hadn’t known the real concept of this song before coming to the United States. This song has deep meaning that Japanese can hardly imagine.

This song maily tells a story about one girl struggling to live with poverty, so she commits crime to suvive. Many American music and movies tell conection between poverty and crime. On the otherhand  Japanese ones seldom deal with them. Also,  Japanese media often have special programs about crimes such as shoflifting and rovveries, but they focus on police achievement of arrest. They don’t tell reasons why they commit crime or their backgrounds.Of course, population in povety in the U.S is larger than one in Japan, so Americans tend to consider about poverty seriously, yet there must be people struggling wtih porvety in Japan, so Japanese should pay attention to the relationship between crime and poverty more. Moreover, the song mention her parents that har father is police and mother is a hippie. Police is often negatively symbolized, such as unchecked power, and a hippie also represents laziness and irresponsibility. This song reflects social problems and has intersting allusion.

Above And Beyond — Thing Called Love [Group Therapy]

The song I chose i called Thing Called Love by Above and Beyond. This is my go-to song most of the times when I want to listen to something because this song generates the feelings and emotions within me. The rhythm, BPM of the song is perfect in my opinion and it is a song most people can relate to. It is talking about wasted love, or to a further extent, wasted opportunities in life where it will just bypass you if you don’t take advantage of it. “Ad it’s a waste love that we all regret,” is so memorable because of the emotions this song and the genre called trance can provide for you

Seven Lions – Days to Come ft. Fiora [Official Music Video]

The first time I heard this song back in February was alongside this music video while I was bored, looking for new music to add to my library. I thought, and still think, it is one of the best music videos, and standalone songs, I have heard yet. It is only one of a few songs in recent memory where I simply said, “Holy crap, this is awesome.”

The song is about how a person can completely lose all feelings and emotions of their surroundings into oblivion if they continue to wait for someone who they cannot let go of. The trancelike melody of the song fits the lyrics very well, and the slow motion shots of the dazed woman in the music video compliments and ties it all together into one great work of art. I never quite though of the lyrics much with all those awesome instrumentals until now but they give the song song more meaning, and I do not simply look at it like it’s another trance/dub-step song. In fact, it differentiates itself well from the generic music one would expect to hear in clubs or videos on YouTube these days; the music video is not of some DJ with a blinding laser light show with crowds going wild. That, of course, makes this video a good thing to hear, and see.

Lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/days-to-come-lyrics-seven-lions.html

Freak Out!

In 1966 Frank Zappa released Freak Out! the first 4 side rock and roll album. Freak Out! was Frank Zappa’s musical manifesto. In some ways, Freak Out! can be seen as the first musical attempt at Surrealism. It features incredible instrumentation (Orchestra, kazoo, vibraphone) juxtaposed with the traditional rock band format. It attempts to have a song to appeal to everyone. This makes the album go all over the place. There are doo-wop songs, rock and roll pieces, Musique-Concrete pieces, pop ballads, R&B, Pop rock, and experimental vocal and electronic compositions. All the music is written, arranged, and orchestrated by Frank himself, something very few rock musicians were doing. This record is often considered ahead of it’s time and it introduced us to Frank Zappa’s vision. I can’t even describe how out there some of the music on this album is!

(The album had a profound influence on the Beatles, who called Frank Zappa to ask him for permission to use his ideas on his album. When Zappa asked to be paid, the Beatles decided to just steal the ideas. Also, John Lennon stole an album full of Zappa material and released it as his own. What a jerk! Read all about it…. http://suckmybeatles.com/2007/10/29/reason-1754-the-ballad-of-john-and-frank/)

The  song features humorous instrumentation (kazoo and vibraphones), and the almost atonal piano tone clusters laid over your standard 60s rock and roll song. It is a shocking statement for an opening of an album. The humorous musical arrangement is immediately contrasted with the powerful lyrics. “Mr. America Walk On By…” Zappa gives voice to a group of Americans who felt out of touch in the 60s. “The left behinds of the great society” as he calls them. This is a direct reference to Lyndon Johnson’s America. Zappa argues that America alienates citizens who do not buy into their “supermarket dream” or “great midwestern hardware store philosophy.”  I like this song because Zappa chose to open an album with unusual music and opinionated lyrics. This wasn’t intended to be a pop success. Zappa was attempting to market to and capitalize on what he saw as an untapped market of Americans who didn’t see the world the way everyone else did. The Mothers were a band for people were unsatisfied with being fed top 100s pop and corporate-approved counter culture.

Here are the liner notes written by Zappa for the song

1. HUNGRY FREAKS, DADDY…(3:27) was written for Carl Orestes Franzoni.  He is freaky down to his toenails.  Some day he will live next door to you and your lawn will die.  Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system.  Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself  if you’ve got any guts.  Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.  Forget I mentioned it.  This song has no message.  Rise for the flag salute.

First of, “Hello” is not exactly my favorite song, although it is probably in the top 20 or so. The lyrics are great, but I picked this song primarily because of the feeling I get while listening to it. Its a feeling from the time I was 17, and just finished my junior year of high school. For the first time ever, my parents left on vacation without me, which meant that I had the house all to myself for about a month. I had no responsibilities, work, school, or SAT to think about. It was a glorious care-free summer, and I was enjoying every minute of it.

It just so happened that Eminem released his Relapse album that summer after taking a five year break from rap. Naturally, his album was playing non-stop at my house. Since then, whenever I listen to “Hello,” I briefly get that same Summer 2009 feeling. First few notes conjure images of parties, barbeques and friends. Its hard to imagine that life was once care-free, but the song certainly helps. I think most of us have a song that transports them to that special care-free time in their lives.

Listen here.

What More Can I Say?- Jay-Z.

One of my favorite songs is What More Can I Say? by Jay Z. I vividly remember the highly anticipated Black Album release. It was a big deal because Jay Z claimed it would be his last album, and that he would go into retirement after it. I was in the eleventh grade and had recently got my permit and as is usual with most kids, would routinely smoke pot and cruise around aimlessly with friends. This album would be on repeat during such outings. As an impressionable 16 year old born and raised in Brooklyn, listening to the lyrics, I was so moved, inspired and impressed by Jay Z’s accomplishments that he became an idol. I felt like he represented Brooklyn so well. He really showed how different he was from other rappers at the time in this album and particularly this song. His rhymes place him echelons above any rapper. He sums up his rise and current feelings about the industry and almost boasts about his rein over New York and Hip Hop yet he feels he isn’t given his due credit and thus feels its time to part ways with the business. Its just so straight forward and raw, its synonymous with Brooklyn and gives me chills listening to it. Hes sick!

Pound-for-pound, I’m the best to ever come around here
Excluding nobody, look what I embody:
The soul of a hustler, I really ran the street
A CEO’s mind, that marketing plan was me
And no I ain’t get shot up a whole bunch of times
Or make up shit in a whole bunch of lines
And I ain’t animated like, say, Busta Rhymes
But the real shit you get when you bust down my lines
Add that to the fact I went plat’ a bunch of times
Times that by my influence on pop culture
I’m supposed to be number one on everybody list
We’ll see what happens when I no longer exist
Fuck this
(Knocks the mic over)

Another random Jay Z lyric Squeeze 1st

It’s about to get so obscene in a minute
I seen and live it, I did some things I admit it
Wasn’t proud of it, but I was a child fuck it
Kept a pow tucked in a brown belt
Couldn’t sit down, big gun kept stickin my pelvis
Shit it was either that or be livin wit Elvis
Niggas is jealous, hell is hot, you heard X
Wanted to tell God that I don’t deserve this
Was afraid that he’d tell me I deserve less
My life was nervous, you haven’t heard stress
Til you heard the cries of my mama, me givin her drama
Told her I ain’t promised tomorrow, gotta live for the day
And before she could say Jay…………………..!
I was out the door, pouch full of raw, a outlaw mentality
Men gotta do men things for men salary
Bad Boy, not Puff or Mike Lowery, damn B.I.G. woulda been proud of me

EDM , or Electronic Dance Music seems to be invading our generation by the minute.  I certainly do not love all of it; however, I do appreciate some EDM songs.  Avicii is one of my favorite dj’s and producers and I think his song collaboration with Nicky Romero, I could be the one, was a great idea.

His song, I could be the one, definitely applies to many people’s lives, including mine.  As most college students experience college, we all constantly struggle with what we want to do with our lives.  His song represents what most students definitely do not want.  It’s about a woman who is trapped in her daily routine of work that is so monotonous and boring that she cannot stand her life.  She needs someone or something to break up her miserable and boring life.  I think this song overall is a fun party song with a good beat that makes me feel good when I listen to it.

When Arcade Fire, a Canadian indie rock band, burst onto the popular American music scene in 2004, I can remember actively resisting liking their music. The whole media announcement of the band as THE voice of suburban disenchantment and hipster ennui struck me as kind of false and constructed.

But then I actually listened to their music, and found myself falling in love with it despite myself. The song above, taken from the album of the same name, is a perfect distillation of why I like this band so much. They’ve taken an overplayed concept (suburbs as secret dystopia) and made it seem fresh and vibrant with simple lyrics (“In the suburbs I learned to drive, and you told me we’d never survive) that somehow capture a disturbing tone without being sentimental or cheesy.

Obviously, being raised in the suburbs of Southern California, imbued with a subtle but undeniable sense of impending doom, has a lot to do with my attitude toward this song and all of Arcade Fire’s work. At the end, when lead singer Win Butler harmonizes the refrain with the rest of the band, “Sometimes I can’t believe it/I’m moving past the feeling,” the song emerges as a kind of personal classic for me, rendering all of those confusing emotions into a couple mysterious lines that paint a haunting picture of growing up in a certain place and time.