Champagne Symphony

This is an old song that I finally finagled into sounding good. The track uses Neon Indian's Fallout and was inspired by Frank Ocean's Strawberry Swing .  As with that song, I stripped the song of its original vocals and used the title as a starting point to craft a story of my own.  Hope you like it. http://www.mediafire.com/?bqv9d7821m7nn7m (I tried posting to SoundCloud, but the fact that I pretty much used a copyrighted track in its entirety did not make them very happy.) Lyrics: [Verse 1] Falling, falling out of control Away we will go To make love, oh how sweet Warm night, city breeze Not so sweet nothings and furtive stares Not the answer to my prayers, but Stagger, stumble through the door Bet tomorrow that’ll make you sore [Chorus] And we’re falling in and falling out of control And we’re falling in and falling out of control [Verse 2] Turn on the night light, not too bright Just enough to set things right, it Won’t go over w...

As of about a week ago, with this eloquent note , Frank Ocean became the first major urban artist to come out of the closet. Luther Vandross would be proud. This bit of news, quite justifiably, got the guy a ton of media coverage. To capitalize, his label has just rush released his major label debut, channel ORANGE, on iTunes.  Unfortunately, the album sucks. His earlier mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra , was full of interesting songs that were well written and soulfully sung. Here, the music is still intriguing and soulful, but there's little quality or focus. At least 2/3 of the album sounds like an extended interlude, and the other 1/3 is not particularly memorable either. I like Thinking of You, Lost, and Forrest Gump, but three good songs out of 17 is not particularly good. tl;dr: The first major openly gay urban artist releases his debut to great media fanfare. Too bad it sucks. Go and listen to his old mixtape instead, that shit was off the chain.

Usher - Looking 4 You :   Usher tries to go electro.  To make sure he succeeds, an all star production cast, including Swedish House Mafia, are brought in.  Too bad they forgot to write good songs.  Well, with the exception of " Climax" , which is absolutely phenomenal Justin Bieber - Believe : Believe will certainly make all the Beliebers scream.  Then again, an album of white noise would probably do the same, so that's not saying much.  Most of the album is forgettable pop mush, and there's nothing as stellar as Baby to save it all.  "As Long As You Love Me" (not a cover of the classic Backstreet Boys song) comes close though. Linkin Park - Living Things : I have no idea what happened to Linkin Park.  Everyone in my generation grew up on the first two Linkin Park albums; both albums are near perfect.  "In the End" and "Numb" are stone cold classics.  Then, they went and released the mediocre Minutes to Midnight and the abominable ...

So a little while ago, I found this low quality video of some teenage girl rapping via a random Reddit link.  I think I clicked on it because whoever posted it insisted that the girl was a good rapper, and I just wanted to laugh at how wrong the they were.  Turns out I was wrong.  This girl is phenomenal.  The rhyming is on par with the best there ever was, and the lyrics are entirely unique.  I literally haven't heard a rap verse this good since Eminem in his prime.  If I were the head of a record label, the first thing I'd do is lock this girl down.  She's something special.  I've posted the lyrics that I can parse out below.  The first two stanzas have some highlighting just to show where all the rhymes are.  Again, it's pretty fucking impressive. Lyrics: You could be much creep ier I’m pleased with your Chees y words and your feel ings Regarding my cheeks creas ing E ven though I’m greas ier than pizz a More twe...

I was talking to someone about writing a rap, and their response was, "oh, sure, why not, everyone can rap."  It kills me to hear comments like that.  It's the equivalent of saying, "oh, everyone can play the piano, you just hit the keys."  It's not as simple as that.  There's so much to rap both rhythmically and lyrically that people don't pay attention to.  Let's just deal with rhyming.  Take the chorus to Eminem's Without Me, for example. Now this looks like a job for me So everybo dy , just follow me Cause we need a little, controver sy Cause it feels so emp ty , without me There was a comment on a reddit thread deriding this chorus for being incredibly rudimentary, rhyming "me" with itself twice.  Now, that's true, but it completely misses the big picture.  The three "me"'s also rhyme with "everybody," "controversy," and "empty."  On top of that, he throws in ...

Demo of a song I just finished about graduating.  Thanks to Alec Leverette for the guitar solo.  Someday I'll actually learn how to play that damn instrument myself... http://soundcloud.com/felix-lin/boring-life Lyrics: [Verse 1] Camel lights on your breath and mine Talking ‘bout spring break this time Memories made in dim lit bars Troubles lost in speeding cars Hearken back to halcyon days When we had time to go astray Heady times for dashing thoughts ‘Fore our souls could all be bought [Chorus] Oh I long for the time when life could be boring Now we’re all being blown from our moorings Adrift for now Setting out searching for El Dorado ’94 Camry, no wheel, no throttle No wonder there’s doubt [Verse 2] The doomsday clock is counting down Striking fear without a sound Three more months till that day when From childhood we must wake The caps and gowns they’ll come in June Childhood gone away too soon Cheers in hop...

A decade ago, the U.S. experienced a dance pop renaissance.  The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, *NSYNC and Christina Aguilera broke big and sold records on a scale today's teen idols can only dream of.  They had good looks, MTV-ready personalities, and flashy, choreography-heavy music videos, but, above all, they had great tunes.  Take Britney Spears.  Each of her first two albums had three classic pop songs.  Her first had ...Baby One More Time, Crazy, and Sometimes, and her second had Oops!...I Did It Again, Lucky, and Stronger.  You might still be embarrassed that you know these songs, but you have to admit they are all very good at what they were meant to do. Today's teen pop stars have no such luck.  They're lucky to get even one good song.  Justin Bieber has Baby and Miley Cyrus has Party in the U.S.A.  Luckily, the Koreans have been working hard over the past couple years to plug the gap.  If the U.S.'s teen pop e...