Comments on: Adventures Through The Mines Of Mellow Gold 35

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:43:11 +0000

Wait, didn’t Terje offer some sort of mellow song of his once for download? I thought it was for Mellowmas, but now I see it was just that picture.

Oh, and are we supposed to talk about Todd Rundgren here? Let’s begin with the group Nazz …

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:40:55 +0000

“The ‘tomorrow/borrow’ rhyme alone is like buying a neat plastic cover for a shitty book report …”

I loved that analogy, David.

And way to go not phoning it in, Jason, for a song that does phone it in. I especially liked the analysis of All Music analyses. I love that site and the range of their writers’ knowledge — sometimes very knowledgeable, and sometimes it seems like a writer was assigned an old album and figured no one would be able to tell if he didn’t listen to it but acted like he did in the review. I still think All Music needs to incorporate open editing the way Wikipedia does.

Now I’ve gotta go back and listen to Terje’s Mellowmas offering.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:29:36 +0000

I knew I should have kept my mouth shut until I got home and played along…You win this round, Terje.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:23:04 +0000

Yeah! Eat it, Mike!

By: Terje

Terje — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:19:37 +0000

It’s a key change - it goes from G in the first chorus to C after the bridge.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:54:02 +0000

Mike, I thought the same as you, but then I literally cued the song up to the "key change," sang the first note of the chorus, held the note while I cued the song back to the first chorus, and tried to sing the new chorus over the old chorus. It didn’t seem to work.

This is so pathetic. Hold me. Do you have a life I can borrow?

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:49:47 +0000

Shame, E.D.! That’s just a line they use so that you’ll squander away those "Diamond Girl" royalties your brother lent you!

England Dan…E.D…Erectile Dysfunction…

Hmmmmm.

You are smart by the way, if you didn’t include that bit about the harmonically weird thing in the bridge it would have taken me three weeks to listen to this, but now I am listening to it right now. I’m Pavlovian for my love of weird chord structure. I need to go home and play along to be sure, but I don’t think there’s a key change here. The lead vocal is just singing a new higher melody over the chorus, like a harmony of the original. But I could definitely be wrong. Those sneaky, wussy bastards.

The piano intro is near identical to "I’d really love to see you…" Chord, same chord sus 4, repeat.

By: Terje

Terje — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:32:52 +0000

Heyheyheyhey, Matthew: If anyone should bill themselves "Norway Mike" it’s ME! I assume you’re referring to my last montage - if not, I fear I’m just being ridiculed here. Actually, I’m considering a new artist persona: "Norway Pete" (this should really worry Jason.) I agree it’s a lazy song. It sounds like they’re trying to round it off after the first chorus, really, but then the drummer just constantly kick-starts the strings into yet another crescendo. 3:32 is way too long - 1:28 would’ve been enough.

By: David

David — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:36:16 +0000

Great call on “Oh No” — I both heard it and thought it as this crap played.

This is TOTALLY by-the-numbers for ED & JFC. I’m sure, because it pales in comparison to the duo’s legitimate output. The “tomorrow/borrow” rhyme alone is like buying a neat plastic cover for a shitty book report - you somehow hope the minimal effort glosses over the complete lack of care.

And the “unresolved” ending? I’m not convinced that isn’t the sound of an engineer bailing on the track.

In other words, well done, Jason! You’ve proven even mellow guys can phone it in, despite their (over)abudance of sincerity.

By: Beau

Beau — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:01:11 +0000

Wow, what a piece of dreck.

I’m not sure that’s a bridge as much as it’s a truck-driver modulation that just stays there for the chorus. Like he got to the end of the bridge and decided he just didn’t want to write any more, so he could either do a reverse truck-driver or just hang around in the same freaking key. It’s as if he had a one-night stand with someone way out of his league, woke up early and raced to the piano to churn out a song before she woke up and got the hell out.

As a matter of fact, the second thing I thought of here (the first, of course, was Kirk van Houten) was the scene in The Rutles in which Dirk (Eric Idle) is trying to write a love song for his new bride (Bianca Jagger). "I love …you, I love … you (piano chords), it’s you I love (modulating to key out of his range), today is our wedding day … dee dee dee dee … dee dee da da."

In other words, Eric Idle could slam his hand on a piano and come up with something better than this.