Dancing with the Dead

When someone ridiculously famous dies, the media gives us little flashbacks of their lives as the former years is where the departed spent all their time. Now that their work is done.
Having it all, MJ became the most indispensable singer to ever set foot on this earth. He didn’t just score a few great tunes and slept away. Rather, he rode on top of it, like a surfer coming in on the perfect wave, consistently. That said, with the best will in the world, his songs weren’t just brilliant. His videos were pieces of art to relive. They helped made many high school parties and events such a wild ride. He was like the mechanical hare at the greyhound track, if a mechanical hare could swing: he’d take off.

Apart from the horrible things our dear ‘Thriller’ hero might have done, he lived fearlessly, took bold, principled stands to bridge racial communities and spread awareness of poverty and many such things.
And if not this, he did teach the world something about music and dance and sometimes, I think, it takes the dead, of all people, to teach us about passion.

The star dies away, and the last King of Pop lays down his burden: one for us and one for that long, long road.

This track below is easily one of my favorite numbers ever laid down by Michael Jackson and I was pretty sad when I heard it on the radio today. It’s not every day that a musician can take a song and make it absolutely magnetic. This is my way of honoring the King of Pop. It’s ‘Man in the Mirror’ for all you MJ fans. Enjoy the track and have a good weekend.

Dear God ......

I know I have been spiteful at times, a little wicked and a bit of an egotistical malfeasant. But, if you get me get a good job somewhere soon, I’ll promise to go an entire day without taking your name in vain, even if I see someone strikingly hot.

If you help me get that bonus this month end, I'll up it to a week.

Dear God, I am so, so very glad that I live in this decade.

I'm also glad I don't have to get married anytime soon, but that's really another topic altogether.

Sincerely yours,

Eve

In an attempt to live it up over the weekend, I decided to meet up with the girls and check out this new café on M.G Road called Pascucci. (For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Pascucci is a cafe that sells delicious servings of Pasta, Risottos and Yogurt creations and has interiors full of mirrors.) I brought my camera. The coffee was great, and so were these –

After the coffee, we walked down Brigades to do a little shopping. I bought a cute bracelet. And I’ve been in love with it since. Falling in love with junk ornaments is crazy, but JO collectors do it all the time. It might be difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t have feelings for curios such as these, but I know you know what I felt. Cravings! Urge to spend a lot of money even though I knew I shouldn’t! Runa, Ruan and I also visited a store to find that perfect pair of jeans.

Guess which three girls were lucky that day?!

I feel a bit ashamed that I haven’t blogged about Frou Frou yet, I’ve really slept on this track. It’s exactly the kind of in-your-face, extremely catchy indie rock music (often made by artists from London) that I absolutely love. If there’s a song I'd suggest listening to, to get a feel for this band, (consisting of Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth) it's not this one. The one I'm playing today is their version of the track “Holding out for hero” – A track originally covered by Bonnie Tyler – is a brisk, lively, ambient-tinged tune with densely layered instrumentation, including some pop percussion thrusting this single forward. The spirited melodies and vocals are an absolute delight which make it a catchy and absolutely insanely infectious song. The track is crazy danceable, features some great new wave synths, but remains completely grounded in indie pop. Alright, now listen to the track below and judge it yourself.

Wolverine!

I finally got the chance to see my most anticipated movie of the year a couple of days ago: Wolverine. And I had to see this movie on the big screen since I love all of Hugh Jackman’s films.

The movie was brilliant. It did have some flaws, some of the cast members was a bit underused (cough, Ryan Reynolds)
and they could have given a couple of characters more than a couple of lines, but as far as movies based on cult comic books go, this is up there with Watchmen and Iron Man.

Guess a few of those bad things about the movie never really stood a chance against Hugh Jackman’s muscles and claws in the battle for the American imagination and box-office dollars. The most brilliant part for the movie was of course, the last few minutes when Wolverine and other mutants’ powers are given to another superhero, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) — who’s been made to look like Frankenstein’s monster with his lips sewed shut. The downside to that brilliant part was when the two modified men fight for the last time, the awful power of technology is less evident in Wade’s threatening new abilities than in the mutilation of his formerly expressive mouth. The comic character might be fictional and hard to believe out of the movie hall, but the issue isn’t. Questions about possible treatment with new discovered and dangerous technology rule over any opinions such as issues like the testing of fetuses to cease future hereditary flaws when such testing could result in problems that human kind cannot have imagined to be true but just stuff for viewing entertainment.

Harry Gregson-Williams released a compilation of tracks for the movie ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’; something that you might enjoy if you’re into movie soundtracks. I’ve listened to most of the songs the track ‘Logan Through Time’ sticks out as a good one, and I’m sure many of you will be interested in it, which is pretty well done. The track is uploaded below, check it out for yourself.

Darn Crush!

Okay, let's talk about something we all do, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. We've all been infatuated with complete strangers. Sometimes it can be someone whose face you see quite often on your facebook page or on TV, sometimes it's someone you just see around the place. Usually these crushes are meaningless and risk-free. At times they trigger trouble, particularly if you choose to take it all to your head. But this post is about the trouble-free one. I prefer most things that way.

It could be the guy who passes you by every morning or the guy who smiles at you without saying a single word. Not really an absolute alien, 'cause you’re there and he’s there quite often, but the only dialogue you ever have are along the dazzling lines of:

"Hey you."
"Good morning."
"The weekend was good."

Yet you find yourself miles away with him, imagining what he’ll be like on a proper date or what he’ll sound like over the phone.

It could be that musician whose voice you love. You find yourself looking at his picture on your desktop more often than you work or play his music - but you always rush out to get a hold of his new album anyway.

Maybe it's the radio producer who's surely the only reason you hear that radio show. Or someone who works at the same building you do but you've never figured out exactly where. Or possibly just someone you walk past on the street.

In all probability if you ever actually got to know the person you'd be frustrated. But then again, who knows? The earth is bursting with random goodness.

I can't really write this without disclosing a random infatuation of my own. I choose Danny Pino, who's been the most TV-visible for me in the past few weeks. He seems like a sweetheart.
I'd tell you a seen-in-real-life one but "that guy I see passing me by sometimes" doesn't tell you much, does it?

On my way to work, listening to Meghana Dawan’s show on Radio Indigo is the norm; I'm hearing a lot more popular music. I'm mostly blasé, but who cares?

Today, we've got Amanda Marshall. If you don't know who she is, well you're about to find out.
Marshall’s on this song called ‘Dark Horse’. It was recorded during 1996 if anyone cares. This artist and the song - I'm quite fond of. I like to hear a good song, with a great tune and even better lyrics, in a way that makes me think about it or that illuminates something about it. Her music falls under pop-rock with emphasis on pop melodies and ballads. This Canadian artist was born in a biracial family – daughter to a Caucasian father and a Black mother. In many of her songs, she has implicitly, referred to her racial identity "as a woman who looks white but is also half-black". She does this breathy vocal thing with the deep voice thing which was quite popular with early 90’s music. Well not really but you get the idea.

‘Dark Horse’ by Amanda Marshall initially did not impress me, but has now grown on me.
If you do listen to this track, please leave a comment telling me whether you liked it or not. Even if it's monosyllabic. Enjoy!

All I’ve been able to think about the past few days is:

a) That I’m going to finally ask my crush out for dinner or coffee, and

b) That our love will be brief, because soon my mind will rot away and I will perhaps lay in a pool of my own busted brain vessels.

Even dead of mind, though, I will still be ahead of the game, because I'm hoping that soon I will no longer have to spend hours a day tagging ads and listen to people say things like this:

"Yeah, as I told you, the problem is that, seriously, I mean, here, we are a very serious process. We don't do a lot of--the usual stuff the rest of the floor does. We're working on the next phase, so there's plenty of growth when the display world takes over and you’re going to be part of it. So, to be frank, I don't really — you shouldn’t be spending all that time taking breaks—instead learn from your other colleagues’ smarter working habits"

How the hell did I stick with this company for two years without LOSING MY MIND?

I've been convinced to check out Jerry Bruckheimer’s new show, called 'Cold Case', by a friend who had positive things to say about it. Based on the first few episodes, I think I fall somewhere between the two camps- on the one hand, there are plenty of background hints that it could develop into something interesting. On the other hand, everything about it has a familiar smell - it's very much generic TV. I could pick apart other aspects of the show or compare it unfavorably, but I don't want to be negative. There are good things about it, the casting of Kathryn Morris for one, and it took me a while to warm up to LIFE. I'll just have to wait and see.
I first heard of the band ‘Parachute XVI’ a couple of months ago when I met the drummer at a party thrown by a radio station. Sunday, had me traveling to Alliance Francaise for their show. They played a solid set, but I guess you could say that they needed a bigger stage and larger audience. Part of that can be blamed on the festival planners {seriously, some of the acts were really ridiculous that it was hard to understand what was going on}. I’ll try to score a copy of their tracks sometime soon and give it a spin. The tracks I heard them play were brilliant enough that I immediately started listening to the music on their MySpace page as soon I got home after their show. It gives me high hopes that they’ve got melodic and harmony filled tracks with that awesome bassist to make their songs sound like a cohesive thread.

Love the title, love the opening couple of lines of this song, and love the beat that’s draped across the entire song. Yeah it’s a bit retro, but what isn’t these days? This track is smooth, relaxed, and makes for some easy listening. This is pop music as it was meant to be made. Forget what you hear on the charts, on the crappy local radio station you love, or even from your neighbors. This is what pop music should aspire to be. A catchy tune and a sound you’ll be humming for days. 'Silver Lining' by Rilo Kiley. Enjoy at your leisure.