Tag Archives: music

If I Die Young (Single Review) – The Band Perry

 

Newly released to American pop radio after dominating the country charts last year, If I Die Young is the second single by country newcomers: The Band Perry.

Already certified 2x platinum, you feel such a success is the most natural thing for a song of If I Die Young’s caliber.

“If I die young,” Kimberly Perry starts the song that she wrote by herself, “bury me in satin, lay me down in a bed of roses, sink me in a river at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song.”

The opening lyric sets the hypothetical tone of the acoustic-leaning song. And it is through that tone that the narrator, Kimberly, continues her story. “Lord, make me a rainbow, I’ll shine down on my mother. She’ll know I’m safe with you when she stands under my colors.”

The whole song is a testament to Kimberly Perry’s command of language and crafting interesting images that do not feel forced. On the contrary, the whole song, though the theme might be morbid to some, is a jubilation to life. And everything in it fits like the pieces of a puzzle. If I Die Young boasts very sharp lyrics with highly imaginative detail, building a story of a girl who’s contemplating how it would be if she were to die young.

On the second verse, the narrator laments on the fact that she never knew love. “There’s a boy here in town, says he’ll love me forever. Who would have thought forever could be severed by the sharp knife of a short life? Well, I’ve had just enough time.”

And as is natural with everyone thinking about death, the prospect of value comes up. It’s a recurrent topic how the things you own get more valuable when you pass away. And that issue is tackled in If I Die Young as well.

A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell ’em for a dollar
They’re worth so much more after I’m a goner
And maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singing
Funny, when you’re dead how people start listening

And then the song comes full circle with the narrator singing the chorus one last time before elaborating on what the love song should be: “The ballad of a dove, go with peace and love. Gather up your tears, keep ’em in your pocket… save them for a time when you’re really gonna need them, oh”

If I Die Young might be a song with death in its title but it’s mostly about living. It’s not about the narrator inviting the listener to live to the fullest, but it’s more saying that: “even though my life was cut short, I am satisfied with the time I’ve had – I’ve had just enough time.”

Nothing is more testament to how people perceive If I Die Young than the response the three members of The Band Perry received because of that song. The most famous story regarding the song comes in the form of a letter than Kimberly received, containing a necklace with a letter from an eighteen year old girl who lost her best friend to cancer. The girl was contemplating suicide, mourning her friend, and If I Die Young came on the radio. The girl heard so much life in that song that she sent The Band Perry her most prized possession, the necklace her friend gave her before passing away.

If I Die Young is also a song that touched people from older generations. While performing the song at a concert, The Band Perry saw an older woman standing in the scorching heat with a sign on which the words: “She died young” were written, signed with her daughter’s name.

Kimberly Perry delivers the song brilliantly. She doesn’t under or over-sing. She handles the melody with restraint and impeccable nuances. Her slightly weathered voice adds magnificence to the song, as well as the subtle harmonies that her brothers deliver in the background.

You cannot listen to If I Die Young without feeling something. It is a song that crosses age boundaries and touches everyone regardless of personal background or even musical preference. We’ve all had someone who died young. It is a song that calls after you to live and enjoy life. It calls on you to love your life and to always have no regrets. It’s no wonder it stands out on pop radio among all the electronic music being played. It rises way beyond clubbing songs that you would hear before and after it, simply because this is a raw, authentic and real.

Listen to If I Die Young here:

Biology 101: The Myth Of Multitasking

As society advanced, the thought that people can multitask (do multiple things at once) grew even stronger. And it has become a concrete belief of many: “Oh yeah, I rock at multitasking” is a sentence you hear often when someone is asked how they pulled something off.

Well, as my first post in the major I have a degree from, I hate to break it to you but multitasking does not – scientifically – exist.

Don’t cry. I shall elaborate.

Sure, it might seem that a person can do two things simultaneously. But a person cannot do two things simultaneously if both of those things require conscious activity.

Meaning: you cannot drive and read at the same time and be 100% aware of both. You cannot watch TV and study and be 100% efficient in both. One of the two tasks has to go into the background.

When you answer a phone while driving is not an example of multitasking as well. Driving, especially after years of expertise, becomes an automated action (thanks to a part of your brain called the basal ganglia). So you actually drive without putting much conscious effort into it. It is an automated action. Therefore, you’re not really doing two things at once, since only one of those things (answering the phone) requires you to be mentally active.

The brain is very good at deluding itself. Most of you might have closed this tab or browser window in outrage by now, thinking that you are the exception. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not. This is how all of our brains are wired. There’s a limit to the amount of information we can process and the speed with which this processing happens. The brain sometimes gives the illusion that you are doing many things at once by quickly switching tasks, in which case you’re not actually doing all of those things at the same time. You think you’re actually fully aware of everything around you, but you’re most definitely not.

Even while writing this, I’m listening to Adele’s “Set Fire To The Rain” and if I focus on the song, I lose focus on what I’m writing. However, when I switch fast enough between focusing on the song and writing, I get the illusion that I’m doing them both at the same time.

Think about two tasks that require you to be fully mentally aware while doing them: talking on the phone, while writing a paper. Have you tried doing a combination of those? It’s pretty difficult to accomplish writing the paper if you’re busy talking on the phone because the two tasks interfere with each other in the brain, each wanting full attention – and ultimately, you fail at one of them.

So next time someone asks you how you pulled something off, tell them you’re good at organizing your time or something. Do not brag about an excessively powerful mental faculty you do not possess.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – Movie Review

The first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, was a strong opener for the franchise, which reached its peak with its second installment: Dead Man’s Chest, a movie that was awesome all around: great acting, great storyline and an awesome cliffhanger, the likes of which you only see in certain TV shows where the wait is simply a few months. So the expectations for the third installement, At World’s End, were very high. But the sophomore slump expected for Dead Man’s Chest apparently skipped a generation and landed on At World’s End, making the movie a total disappointement.

So it’s safe to say that I wasn’t too excited about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise reboot, with their fourth installment: On Stranger Tides. With most of the cast returning (the only people missing are Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, not that I care that much) and adding new faces in the form of Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane, the franchise was set to restart anew.

And restart it does. Not only is the movie an immense enjoyment, it is also engaging and visually stunning.

Starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, On Stranger Tides is the three-way race to the Fountain of Youth between the English, led by ex-pirate Barbossa, the Spaniards and the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, which is Blackbeard’s (a rival captain portrayed by Ian McShane) ship. Each one of those three has their separate knowledge of the path to the Fountain of Youth and their own agenda for going there. But the path to the fountain is filled with dangers and in order to harness the fountain’s powers, one needs to collect a mermaid’s tear, two chalices of the ancient ship Ponce de Leon’s wreck, both of which are not as easy to get as it seems.

Penelope Cruz portrays Angelica, one of Jack’s old flames and Blackbeard’s daughter. I thought she was an interesting addition to the franchise, becoming, yet again, the only woman on a crew of pirates. She’s quite safe in her role, not presenting anything groundbreaking on screen, but it works in the space she’s allowed to have in the movie.

On Stranger Tides also welcomes newcomer Sam Claflin, a Christian missionary, whose role as Philip in the movie is essential on two accounts: crucial advancement of the plot and some comic relief at particular tense moments.

On Stranger Tides begins with a set of duels and escape attempts. It isn’t until after the first thirty minutes that the movie starts to bite into its plot, with the characters well off at sea. It is then that you are presented with a truly magnificient scene involving mermaids and the movie starts running full throttle till the end.

Johnny Depp, whom I believe did the last Pirate movie of obligation more so than passion, is back in force for this installment. It’s refreshing to see Jack Sparrow be his regular self again: playful, never serious and uncannily witty.

The special effects in On Stranger Tides are brilliantly executed as well. If the overall acting ensemble didn’t engage you in the movie, the whole effect of this “other world” will do the job. There isn’t any part that looks unrealistic and everything is executed with the utmost care for details. Moreover, Hans Zimmer is, yet again, a genius at what he does. The score of On Stranger Tides is chills-inducing, especially when the Pirates of the Caribbean theme gets played inside the cinema and you get that warm feeling of epicness inside you.

Overall, On Stranger Tides is a breath of fresh air in a franchise I thought had lost its way. It’s an enjoyable movie that, despite its many flaws, manages to entertain you and, at least for two hours, make you forget about the things you left at the theater’s door. It immerses you and you can’t help but be thoroughly enjoyed by whatever’s taking place on screen. You don’t need to have watched the previous installments to understand what goes on in this one, just go as you are and watch!

Remind Me (Single Review) – Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood

To say the hype for this duet was great is an understatement. Everyone (and yes, I do mean everyone) who had heard the song was gushing about how brilliant it was. Some even called it the best thing to happen this year. So naturally, that sets the bar very high for the song. Does Remind Me deliver?

It does. On every single account!

Appearing on Brad Paisley’s upcoming album, This Is Country Music, to be released on Monday May 23rd, Remind Me is a song about a couple wanting to rekindle their romance. They reminisce over the days where they used to kiss in public, not caring about what people said, when the woman missed her flight because they lost themselves in each other’s embrace… but their fire is dying and they want to find that spark again. (For the full lyrics, click here).

So naturally, a song with Remind Me’s context demands vocalists who are capable of delivering the message credibly. And what better than country music’s leading vocalists to deliver the song. To say Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley do not shine on this would be a travesty. They excel on a topic that is way outside both of their comfort zones.

I have never heard Carrie Underwood sound more vulnerable on a song before – and she has had many songs dealing with vulnerability. Brad Paisley is the perfect counterpart for Carrie in this song. He exhibits restraint as he tries to seduce Carrie’s character. She whispers back the words “remind me” on the first chorus with impeccable falsetto, penetrating your heart. You feel her longing to her significant other to remind her of how they used to be. The nuances she gives the song are truly stunning as well. It is no wonder Brad Paisley called her today’s best singer in any format of music.

Remind Me is a give and take song between both characters, uniting them both on the song’s bridge, right after a brilliant guitar breakdown, where they tell each other that if “you still love me, don’t assume I know”, remind me. The song is also very real. Every couple has been through that exact same circumstance. Be it after seven weeks, months or years, each couple gets to a point where they feel the need to remind each other of what once was. The imagery the song uses (waking up in the guy’s old shirt, turning out the lights and not sleeping…) is very raw and helps get the song across.

When you listen to Remind Me, you will know that this song will burn through the country charts left and right, up and down. There’s no way this won’t be this year’s biggest hit and win every single award imaginable next year. And people had said both artists were past their prime. This song is there to remind everyone of the caliber Brad and Carrie are made of. And if they keep on giving us music like this, let them keep on reminding us.

You can listen to Remind Me here:

One Month Phoneless

On March 12th, my iPhone’s power button decided to sink in and become unusable. After asking around, it seemed that any attempt to fix it in Lebanon would render the warranty void, so my friend Ali agreed to do me a favor and I sent him the phone on March 14th to Canada so Apple could check it out.

Ali postponed his flight to Lebanon due to unforeseen complications and Apple eventually replaced my phone with a new one. How awesome is that?

But I’ve been without phone for a month.

Many people asked why I didn’t just use any other phone. Apart from the unavailability of any other phone (I’m not going to buy a phone just to use it for a few weeks), I also have to get my simcard replaced since my iPhone uses a microsim, which I decided not to do.

Instead, I convinced myself that I’d be sort of giving up my iPhone for lent.

So what did I learn from a month of being phoneless?

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