| Thursday, November 30, 2006 |
| Pre-review / my early thoughts on Oh! Gravity. |
So I just got "Oh! Gravity." in the mail three hours ago and I've been listening ever since. What follows are my initial thoughts.
"Yesterdays". I'm listening to it right now actually. Its incredibly powerful. It made my eyes fill up a bit and my vision blurry. But thats probably 'cause I identify with the song in a very personal way. Its very tastefully produced. If songs can make you cry, there's a good chance this one will.
"4:12" is one of the most original sounding songs I've heard in a long time, one of my favorites on the record. "Circles" is just epic, 'nuff said. Everyone points out the Motown-ness of "Amateur Lovers" (rightly so), so I'll suffice to say it has a great spaced-out bridge that has some Led Zeppelinesque moments. Its priceless to hear Jon go "popopopopoprofessional!" in tandem with the climaxing music, towards the end. "Head Over Heels", "Burn Out Bright", "Faust"... just, wow. "American Dream"'s bridge rocks out like I never envisioned a Switchfoot song would. That whole song plain rocks. "Let Your Love" is the only song that I can't say anything about yet 'cause it skips on the CD (though the MP3 version doesn't skip, so I'm gonna burn it on CD and listen to it on my speaker system before I pass judgement.) But I know that song is gonna be incredible, it was one of my favourites from the 1-minute clips, and the live recording of it gave me goosebumps, so I can't wait to hear it with the lights out and candles lit.
"Awakening", as its arguably the most hyped song on the album--the song fans seem most eager to hear--deserves some special attention here. Its a great song-- arena-worthy, irresistable with its soaring heavy metallic guitar riff and rousing chorus. I would hate to pick such a good song as the weakest on the album (because its by no means weak), so I'll just say every other song is stronger. I say this because, while most of the other songs explore fresh territory to great effect, "Awakening" retreads the well-beaten anthemic path that Switchfoot's known for (also to great effect.) It has a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure (that I'm not an instant fan of)--so I can see it being the radio-loving fan's favourite. Those whose favourite Switchfoot album is The Beautiful Letdown will love the clean, polished sound of the song, not to mention its positivity. So, while it may not show as much musical progress as the other tracks, it's made to be a classic Switchfoot anthem, as its very catchy and just sounds great, especially the grinding guitar riff. Rather than belittling "Awakening", it just goes to say how great a record this is, if such a good song as "Awakening" is what I'd come up with if asked "what's the weakest song on the album?"
I don't often say this about albums, but I honestly feel every song on this one is excellent, many of them reaching for greatness. I can't think of a better modern rock album, and I'm well aware that that's a big statement. If you thought their previous albums were diverse in their sound, this will redefine 'diverse'. The variety is astounding, I really haven't heard a more diverse alt-rock record.
The raw, honest, ocassionally-garage sound of this album, with its experimental forays, might take a few listens to grow on you, if the lush, production-heavy sound of The Beautiful Letdown and Nothing is Sound is what first got you into Switchfoot. Mind you, this album by no means sounds underproduced or rushed, but the production is just very carefully and extremely well done. The production team seems to have taken care to ensure the album retains an intimate rawness that previous Switchfoot albums lacked. The guys joking around at the end of "Amateur Lovers" is a welcome throwback to the style of the early Switchfoot albums--it makes you feel like you're right there in the room with them. If Nothing is Sound didn't follow a "safe" path lyrically, this one, to my absolute delight, strays away from the "safe" path musically, and the result is something gleefully authentic.
Oh, if there's one thing that I didn't like-- the last 10 seconds of the radio version of "Oh! Gravity." is missing in the album version. You know, that amusing part at the end where Drew or someone sings "why can't we.. mmm." That was classic. Should've been on the album. My guess is they took it out 'cause they didn't wanna let up the intensity while transitioning from "Oh! Gravity." to "American Dream". And I thought its interesting that the album version of this song is actually shorter than the radio edit, by 10 seconds. Never seen that happen before. Another interesting fact, for those who haven't heard it mentioned before: The song 4:12 is 4 minutes and 12 seconds long.
To conclude, this one sounds so good I find myself wondering what to make of it... is it really as good as I feel it is? Am I jumping the gun? Time will tell if this is my excitement talking, or if this is really one of the best albums of our time... though I do have a hunch about what time will tell. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with an answer to those questions when I post the less ramble-y, more organized, "official" review, after many more listens over many more days. So watch this space. Thanks for reading.
[PS: I've avoided discussing "Oh! Gravity." and "Dirty Second Hands" as these songs have been out for a while now. In case you wish to read my reviews on these, they're on iTunes' main page for either track, where the Top 3 reviews are featured, under the name Phil*mon Thomas.]Labels: album reviews. |
posted by phil @ 7:45 PM  
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| Wednesday, November 29, 2006 |
| 'Nothing Is Sound' re-enters Billboard at #91, more than a year after release |
This is really great news, to me. Its been more than 14 months since Nothing is Sound was released, and...
MTV News:
Switchfoot's Nothing Is Sound jumped 320 percent, returning to the chart at #91 with close to 18,000 copies sold)
This means that the singles "Dirty Second Hands" and "Oh! Gravity." (including its groundbreaking video) are really catching on, and bringing in new fans. I'm not all that surprised because these songs are amazingly unlike anything Switchfoot's done before, and I knew it'd bring in many new fans, but I didn't expect it to bring NIS back on the charts... I didn't expect 18,000 people to go into the stores after hearing these songs, to purchase Nothing is Sound. That's just great. The best part is, the single isn't really getting any noteworthy radio play yet, so this buzz is being generated mainly by word of mouth. Keep up the good work, footsoldiers. Keep up the great work, Oh! Gravity. music video (which, though not on TV yet, crashed in at Yahoo! Music Videos' Top 100 chart at #58, and Rock chart at #9, in its first week). And not to forget the current tour, which has earned rave reviews.
These are exciting times, friends. That's all.
[PS: Thanks to ~^Aki^~ from the SF boards for posting about the MTV News article.]
Labels: news |
posted by phil @ 3:23 PM
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| Tuesday, November 28, 2006 |
| Download a high-quality version of the "Oh! Gravity." music video |
I spent a couple hours trying to find the root file location for the video on AOL's server, after I noticed that AOL's stream quality was great - way better than anywhere else. So I am proud to share with you the fruits of my labour: a high quality download of this groundbreaking video. Allow me some bragging rights: I'm pretty sure this is first place on the internet to make this version available (and probably the only place as of now), as the video is a very recent release. Everywhere else I look, the quality of the video is pretty bad. Well, that would've been okay for any other video, but this one is so full of fast-motion graphics and subtleties that only watching it in this high quality does it justice. Most of the people who didn't like the video, I fear, didn't like it because they judged it by the poorer version. Anyway, end of rant, and on to the treasure chest...
To download: Right-click the title of this post, and "save target as..." Enjoy!
If you wanna put it on your iPod, the file is protected in a way that you can't do that (though you can watch it on your computer) unless you unprotect it. So here's how I made it ready for conversion into the iPod video format (these instructions are for Mac OS but I'm sure VLC for Windows isn't too different):
1) Get VLC Player, if you don't have it already.
2) From the "File" menu, "Open File".
3) Browse and select the video file.
4) Put a check mark on "Advanced output", and click "Settings".
5) Change "Encapsulation Method" to "Raw".
6) Select "Dump raw input".
7) Click "Browse" to choose a file name and location to save the unprotected video (ignore the .ts file extension).
8) Click "Ok". Click "Ok" again on the next window.
Now you should see the file being processed into the location you specified. Once its done, change the file's extension back to .mov and you're done!
Now you can convert the file for iPod as you normally do. (iSquint converts videos into the iPod format, and I hear it supports protected AOL files, though I haven't tried it. So if you feel lazy and don't wanna unprotect the video first with VLC, but you'd rather give iSquint a try, then please let me know if it worked so I can recommend that in the future.)
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
DISCLAIMER: I am not endorsing illegal copying of the video. The link on the AOL server freely exists (when it could be locked), I only found it because they've made it possible to find. The instructions to unprotect the video are solely for personal viewing on your iPod, not for commercial redistribution. Please buy the video when it releases on iTunes - support the artist. This post is only to address the current unavailability of a proper-quality version of the video.
Enjoy.
(UPDATE - 29th Jan, 07) I posted a 26.4MB, iPod-ready mpg version of the video, here. This should benefit those who have trouble converting, and dial-up users.Labels: downloads, exclusives, videos. |
posted by phil @ 1:35 PM
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| What does "Oh! Gravity." mean? |
[Someone on the Switchfoot boards asked what the lyrics of their new single "Oh! Gravity." meant, more specifically what the terms "color bar", "thin man", "red bite" etc. meant. Posted below is my response:]
Its poetry, you can't expect to nail everything down, unless you ask the poet himself why exactly he wrote things the way he wrote them (sometimes even the poet doesn't know, as in the case of the song "Fatal Wound", which, according to Jon, was a free-association type of thing.) Often, poetry works as a set of images (there are plenty in this song) that make you feel a certain way about something. Sorta like a movie, you "see" what you hear, and it psychologically puts you in a particular mood that the artist wants you to be in when he delivers his punch line (in this case, "why can't we seem to keep it together?")
That said, "Oh! Gravity.", according to switchfoot.com, is a "generational appeal for peace, love and understanding". "Color bar" is the idea of racial segregation. According to Princeton's "lexical database for the English Language", color bar is a "barrier preventing blacks from participating in various activities with whites". So, going by that, Jon is saying that there's a fracture in our society's way of segregating people based on their race. (Here's an article based on the term, it should give you a better idea.)
Note that there's also a fracture "in the backseat of a parked car". This probably ties in with one of the album's themes - our misguided notions of love, of how we're "amateur lovers" and "amateur friends". The backseat of cars is a place that "amateur" lovers frequent - and Jon seems to see a fracture in this image, too.
"In the same glow of the liquor store
By the freeway, where the headlight
Keep her company ‘til the next night"
These lines, to me, reflect the alienation and loneliness in modern society - amidst all the fighting. She's lonely, she has only the headlight to keep her company till the next night. (Interesting to note, there's a liquor store in the background - think of how many people drink their sorrows away... drinking all by themselves. no fun.) Jon's very wisely careful here, he's not making a direct connection between loneliness and liquor, or being anti-drinking for that matter (which I'm sure he's not), but he just cleverly inserts the image of a liquor store in the background. Its a bleak picture he's painting, of this lonely and probably drunk girl by the freeway (she's seems homeless too, 'cause she's gonna be by these headlights "'til the next night"). Jon uses a wonderful poetic tool here - he doesn't pluralize "headlight" (if you're sitting by the freeway you're gonna have many headlights keeping you company, not just one) nor does he pluralize any word in any line of the song except for "Sons of my enemies". This has a noticeable effect - it creates a feel of images in isolation, subtly creating a sense of alienation. I mean, the gramatically correct way to say it would be "the headlights keep her company" or at least "the headlight keeps her company", but Jon doesn't suffix either word with an 's' at the end, making it sound more lonely. Smart.
"In the back room of the Pentagon
There’s a thin man with a line drawn
With a red jaw and a red bite
Watch the headline on the next night"
These lines seem to raise an image of a terrorist - someone with a "red jaw" and a "red bite". Red is a colour that reflects a vengeful anger and rage, often because of past wounds. This is a "thin man" (maybe implying he's from a poverty-ridden country) who's plotting ("line drawn") trouble against America for his forefathers' or his community's sake. He has a score to settle. Maybe, as has been pointed out in Osama's case, its America's fault for "invent[ing its] own enemies" (a phrase from the song "Dirty Second Hands"). Either way, this thin man is red with rage, and he's probably gonna do something that'll be splashed across the next day's newspaper headlines.
So Jon asks, with this thin man in mind, "sons of my enemies, why can't we seem to keep it together? ...we're connected."
(Update @ March 15, 2007:) stevemoor left a comment on this post that I thought was a worthy addition here. He had a different but equally interesting take on the last part of my post:I think it's much more likely to be talking about someone in the Pentagon who has demonized their enemies in order to justify fighting with them. He "draws the line" so to speak, an us and them kind of thing if you follow me. I think that a fair argument might be mounted that this has happened in the Pentagon to some degree or another in the last few years. Labels: song meanings |
posted by phil @ 11:55 AM
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| List of alternative stations playing "Oh! Gravity." - CALL & REQUEST! |
Its that time of the year when you show that your Switchfoot love is more than mere teeny infatuation. ;P So folks, as true friends of the band would, please help spread the goodness of the new single "Oh! Gravity."
The following radio stations have the song (and have played it) - confirmed. Its a fact, so you know you can call in here and they'll play it, unless they lie to you or make excuses. (Click on them for a google search to help find their website...so you might be able to request online. Try adding "request online" to the search box if its hard to find their site. If you do find a website taking online requests, comment about it here, so we can all go request):
Sacramento - 106.5 FM
Houston - 94.5 FM
Portland, OR - 94.7 FM
Honolulu - 101.9 FM
Boise - 100.3 FM
Pittsburgh - 105.9 FM
San Diego - 91.1 FM
Riverside - 103.9 FM
Las Vegas - 107.9 FM
XM Radio - 94.0 FM
Wash DC - 101.1 FM
Columbia, SC - 93.5 FM
Milwaukee - 102.1 FM
Norfolk - 96.1 FM
Charlotte - 106.5 FM
Chicago - 101.1 FM
Kitchener, ON - 105.3 FM
Birmingham - 100.5 FM
Orlando - 105.9 FM
SiriusSatellite - 92.1 FM
Baton Rouge - 104.9 FM
Columbus, OH - 101.1 FM
Johnson City - 99.3 FM
Reno - 100.9 FM
Albany, NY - 102.7 FM
Victoria BC - 91.3 FM (Thanks k8540!)
4th Dec 06 update:
Toledo - 106.5 FM
Indianapolis - 103.3 FM
11th Dec 06 update:
Monmouth Ocean - 106.3 FM
SiriusSatellite - 100.1 FM
West Palm - 103.1 FM
26th Dec 06 update:
Dallas - 102.1 FM
The above 25 stations are pretty much the only alternative stations playing it, but if your city isn't listed above, you could try calling the station in your city thats on this list, those are the stations likely to be playing it (avoid the 'progressive rock' stations). If they don't have it, tell them they should get it... tell them to check it out cuz the song's a rage in other cities. Point is, don't just take 'no' for an answer :) Creatively say what you can to get them to check out the song. But also remember...
Be very polite when you request, and don't barrage them with a hundred calls a day - these things affect whether they play your song or not.
...also keep playing the video on Yahoo! Music because if we can get the video to the Top 5 there, that kind of grassroots buzz can bring the song some major attention--TV stations will wanna play it, and then if the video's a hit the song will climb back up the radio charts too. One vote or one play might seem irrelevant, but its little things that add up to make a big difference.
Thank you!
PS: Let us know if we've missed any stations, and we'll add it here.Labels: miscellaneous. |
posted by phil @ 11:30 AM
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| Monday, November 27, 2006 |
| "Jon Foreman has become a formidable songwriter and lyricist..." |
A review I especially liked, on The Albuquerque Tribune.
link.
Switchfoot, "Oh! Gravity" (Columbia Records, out Dec. 26) On its sixth studio album and third for a major label, the San Diego five-piece isn't your pastor's typical Christian-rock band. Led by the brothers Foreman, Jon and Tim, these pop-rockers are rocking hard with conviction. They still display a spiritual bent, but they do it without being heavy-handed or stuffing it down your throat ("Awakening," about being born again, and the excellent "Faust, Midas and Myself," where finding yourself is the best defense against temptation). Temptation and obsession are recurring themes, as on "4:12," which tackles material world obsessives with double-time hand claps (yeah!), and "American Dream," with the lyric "When success is equated with excess/the ambition for excess wrecks us. . . . This isn't my American dream"; but by the end of the song, the protagonist has changed his tune. Jon Foreman has become a formidable songwriter and lyricist, as well, and his craft is on full display: musically on the raucous, up-tempo guitar rocker "Burn Out Bright" and the psychedelic "Dirty Second Hands," with its Led Zeppelin "Kashmir"-like Middle Eastern flavor. Lyrically, he's adept at turning a phrase, as on soulful R&B rocker "Amateur Lovers," where "We're not just amateur lovers. We're just amateur friends" is an excuse to do the deed again. And, on the pop-rock title track, he just wants some peace, love and understanding, as he pleads: "Sons of my enemies, why can't we keep it together?" "Oh! Gravity" is a spiritual journey, but it's one more of realization than of testimony to the congregation and the newly converted.
I pick out lines that strike me most for the title of these posts: Jon Foreman has indeed become a formidable songwriter and lyricist. I think he's immensely grown with every album, as is the case with Switchfoot. This is why following a band like Switchfoot is such a pleasure--because they grow with every album, and surprise you, just when you think they couldn't have gotten any better. Coming back to Jon, in "Oh! Gravity." he seems to have focused a lot more on how the syllables in his poetry sound. Lines like "when success is equated with excess / the ambition for excess wrecks us" have a beautiful sound pattern going for it. So is the song "Oh! Gravity." - the sound patterns are brilliantly done, in that song. Major props, Mr. Foreman, you do seem to aiming at world domination. ;P
Labels: album reviews. |
posted by phil @ 12:50 AM
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| Artistically the band's finest and broadest work? |
The Tennessean joins the bandwagon raving about the upcoming album. Well written. All these reviews must make the wait for Dec. 26th really hard, eh?
[Nothing Is Sound was] a tightly crafted collection of modern-pop songs, the album had a cohesion that fit with the band's now-mega-famous stature, but in its slick polish, maybe lacked a few teeth.That faction should look forward to the band's upcoming Oh! Gravity album, due in December. Labels: album reviews. |
posted by phil @ 12:38 AM
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| Sunday, November 26, 2006 |
| "A musical rollercoaster ride" |
Here's the pre-review JfH's John DiBiase posted.
Interesting. This review, though more critical than the others, makes me more excited for the album than any other review. 'Cause it gives me the impression that the album tilts towards indie-ness, and is musically diverse.
Oh! Gravity. seems to retread the band's more recent trend of pointing out problems while seldom ever suggesting any solutions. I beg to differ with that part. I just think the solutions aren't as straightforwardly accessible as before (just like the rest of the lyrics--the parts where he points out the problems.) Their lyrics have evolved to become more epic and discreetly more poetic... but they still do offer solutions just as much as they always did. Its just not as spoon-fed anymore, compared to their previous work - which is a sign of maturity. I guess if that was for the kids, this is for the grownups.Labels: album reviews. |
posted by phil @ 11:56 PM
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| Pointing upward in a gentle, accessible and lovely way |
Here's a review of "Oh! Gravity." by a Christian journalist, who, for a change, "gets it". Thank you Kevan Breitinger.Labels: album reviews. |
posted by phil @ 9:34 PM
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