June 16, 2008

Forgotten Gems; Part 1

I didn't end up going to the cinema tonight for various reasons but instead spent the night uploading all my CDs onto my new laptop. So far I've uploaded an extra 400+, but that my friends isn't even half way through. But, despite iTunes being an extremely annoying piece of technology at times, I've actually quite enjoyed sifting through my old albums. And along the way I've rediscovered some great songs/albums that I had pretty much forgotten, or at least haven't listened to in a very long while. So I thought I'd share them with you. These are from my pre-europop days when I was into indie, pop punk and emo so beware, hehe.

The first one, however, is a pure pop song from a pop gospel singer by the name of Stacie Orrico. Her most famous hit was 'Stuck', but the album has a really good selection of songs, even if it is a bit preachy in places, and I really like her voice. This is her second single 'More to Life'





The next discovery was from a band called The Used. This is a fairly 'emo' band that started off along the same road as My Chemical Romance. Unfortunately, while everyone was applauding the greatness of My Chem's Welcome to the Black Parade, The Useds' third album Lies for the Liars was overlooked somewhat. Shame, because its a real return to form after the second album and I think some of it is truly great writing in terms of both musical arrangement and lyrics. Here's the lead single 'Bird and the Worm'



Continuing with the emo for a while, another of my favourite bands of recent years is Funeral for a Friend. This welsh band (also Christian, but not so noticeably in their music) had a brilliant debut album, followed by an even better second album, Hours. Shame the third was such a let down. This is the title track from Hours, and the song that brought them to my attention, called 'Streetcar'.



Then bringing it back to the poppier side of things - Travis. I have just one of their albums along with the Singles album. They had some really great singles actually, and I think are pretty overlooked these days. My favourite one of theirs though is 'Side'. Not sure why, maybe its the lyrics, the hook, who knows.



Hopefully I'll end up finding more to post tomorrow. And I really should finish the Vienna diary (only one more day to type up). And maybe I'll end up making it to the cinema. I've been invited to see The Happening now as well - I'm gonna have a film overdose soon!

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