John Mayer is a great, great musician. He wears music theory and (ridiculously) impressive guitar playing on his sleeves like a signature to his music. This song, while boosting the unfortunate stereotype of slow-over-sentimentality, Is beautiful. It's not sappy, or overly sentimental. None of his stuff never really is though. The lyrics are simple. There is nothing ridiculously complex about the lyrics. But the lyrics are intelligent, precise and ingenious. The guitar line is very good. Very guitarist-y. Check it out. I know the only whole recordings are live, but they are worth the poor quality, trust me.
It's sad that Randy Newman gets treated like he never did anything beyond Disney music. Aside from the fact that the music he wrote for Disney is absolutely incredible, he wrote music before that. Good Old Boys is a great example of this. The song though, while being another slow song, is awe-inspiring. There is something really powerful about Randy Newman playing piano alone and singing. It's completely mesmerizing.
If you ask me, Wall-E was the best movie 2008 had to offer. There is something awe-fully magical about it. It's got that feeling you get from old romance movies that you don't get anymore. I'm not saying romance movies aren't good anymore. I'm just saying there is a certain feeling that Wall-E gives off that not a lot of other movies in the past years have. Aside from that there is a really startling relevance to today's world, Global warming, technologism (yes that is a made up word) and fast food-ism. The movie is beautiful, visually, writtenly, and pretty much everything else-ly.
I hate sounding so condescending as to bring up Fellini, but he really was one of the world's film greats. Amarcord, which means I remember in the dialect of Rimini, is a wonderful movie he put out in 1973. They are a series of short stories that involve kids, doing various things. However, the movie is incredible put together. From the unique sense of humor you could only expect from Fellini, the writing is great. The directing really needs no commentary. The acting is actually pretty surprisingly good. For being kids, most of the actors are pretty damn good.
Albums of the Week: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement & Distortion - The Magnetic Fields
If you're not familiar with Pavement, this is a great album to start on. Either this or Slanted and Enchanted. They're both great albums. Plus, Pavement is a great band. They really gave voice to the college music scene of the nineties.
This is a great album. It's very My Bloody Valentine-y. Which is an interesting change of pace considering the superior but enormous 69 Love Songs. The songs are humorous, and noisy. listen, and enjoy.
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