Soundtrack of 2010

Following my soundtracks of 2008 and 2009, here is 2010.  It's a shorter list than normal, I'm not sure why.  Links go to Youtube videos.  Alternatively, search Spotify.

Anberlin - Dismantle.Repair
Classic Anberlin - quality rock music and lyrics with depth.  The drums alone are excellent, but the vocals and guitars complement them and each other perfectly.  The relentless repetition of the chorus from 3.15 onwards is brutal and inspiring.  D.R links wonderfully with 'Fin', the following track on the album.

Athlete - In between 2 states
This track has no lyrics so it is unexpected that it draws my attention so strongly.  For some reason, this song just got inside my head this year.  It's the best instrumental opening track to an album that I know of.  I only wish it lasted longer!

Athlete - Rubik's Cube
What excellent imagery (listen to it and you'll understand)!  Genuinely superb.  Very clever, and the song builds brilliantly.  A song you can lose yourself in.  A high point of the Black Swan album.

Evanescence - My Immortal
An old song, but wow.  The simple piano, the famously haunting vocals, the subtle build through the bridge, and *that* crash at 3.04 - the best musical explosion ever?  Certainly a contender I think.  This song not only made my soundtrack of the year, but also entered my 'contenders for greatest song of all time' list.

Hurts - Devotion
This song makes the list because I think it is the only song I've ever heard that treats lust as a problem to be dealt with.  A refreshing change from most popular music.  It also has an interesting (and I think very wise) idea of how to battle it.  Big respect to Hurts for this one.

Jesus Culture - Your love never fails
Jesus Culture both inspire and annoy me, but this song definitely falls into the 'inspire' category.  Musically and lyrically it does everything that Jesus Culture do best.  As a congregational song it could work but would be tricky, but as a standard piece of Christian rock worship, it is exemplary.

Muse - Invincible
Yes, I know you know who Muse are and I know you know this song.  It's one of their most famous.  But I just love the unabashed positivity.  It brings a nice change from Muse's usual mood.  It has the upbeat optimism of cheesy pop, but without any of the cheesiness or poppiness.  A great example of Muse's quality.

Muse - Map of the problematique
Very different from Invincible, but no less excellent.  Musically, possibly my favourite ever Muse song.  It is not possible for me to not get excited about this song.  The beat, the drive, the riffs, all of it.  And at 2.18, an incredible moment of music.

Sixpence none the richer - Still Burning - sorry for the lame video, it was the only one I could find!
Lovely, just lovely.  I struggle to find other words.  Beautiful song.  I won't try to preach from it at the moment, but one day I might.

Sixpence none the richer - Tension is a passing note - video is a cover but an ok one
What an interesting idea...'tension is to be loved when it is like a passing not to a beautiful chord'.  This song never ceases to make me think.

StrangeDay - Wonderful - no video available
A wonderfully positive song.  Fun, catchy, upbeat, great melody, and a really good message.  Unfortunately you can't hear it, but trust me, it's a great song.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The latest Narnia film is the best, but the least faithful to the book.  It is the best, in fact, partly because it is the least faithful to the book.  Allow me to explain by means of a short review and some comments on adapting novels to films.

The latest Narnia film is good.  Its particular strengths are:

• Peter is gone.  This is the biggest strength, because William Moseley was shocking.
• The effects look good, on a par with Prince Caspian, which is an improvement on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• There is only one lame gag (when Eustace faints after seeing a minotaur).
• Eustace (Will Poulter) is excellent.  Fact.
• The adaptation is good (see below).

Its weaknesses are:

• The adaptation is not perfect (see below).
• William Moseley's face appears on screen at one point.
• They're still trying to force romance into the films.
• At the end of the day, the stories aren't outstanding - what makes the books so good is the theological depth.  This depth is seen to an extent in the films but is limited.

The adaptation:

The book is essentially a series of tenuously connected island episodes.  It has very little plot.  The overarching storyline is the search for the seven lost lords, and it's just not very good.  The film needed to adapt this plot.  Therefore they added into a driving force to the plot and changed the order of the islands.

The driving force that was introduced was the idea of an evil dark island (the island of nightmares from the book), which produced a green mist which acted as the embodiment of evil throughout the film.  The quest was to find the seven swords of the seven lords, which would enable to dark island and the mist to be destroyed.  The mist was introduced at the lone islands and explained at the dufflepud island.  Then came deathwater island and dragon island (merged into one island), Ramandu's island and dark island - the order is changed to make the plot work.

Other than that, the incidents at the islands are similar to in the book.  The exceptions are that the Lone Islands section is condensed, so the overthrow of Gumpas and appointment of Lord Bern is excluded, and that Ramandu does not feature, his daughter takes his place.  Both of these are mistakes.  The Lone Islands now seem rushed and the only reason for Ramandu's exclusion is that his daughter is prettier.

The adaptation gave the story drive, momentum and purpose and gave it more of a climax than the book.

If this film had stuck to the book like the first one did, it would be a very poor film.  What works in books doesn't always work in film, obviously.  Prince Caspian did the same thing - it is the weakest of the seven books, because very little happens, so the film-makers fleshed it out with an extra couple of battles.  To the purists out there, this is called adaptation.  It is necessary.  LOTR did exactly the same thing, e.g. the removal of Tom Bombadil.  Adaptation sometimes works well and sometimes doesn't.  With The Dawn Treader, it generally worked well.  Not perfectly, but well.

Mingling

A question, about which I have been cogitating for a while, but which came up in conversation this weekend:

What is the minimum number of people required for one to be able to 'mingle'?

This can be taken further:

1. What is the definition of mingling?
2. What is the minimum number required for mingling to be (a) possible, and (b) guaranteed.
3. How does (a) the physical position (e.g. walking, sitting, standing), (b) the location (e.g. indoors or outdoors, amount of space) and (c) the context (e.g. party, meal, chilled gathering) affect the answers to question 2?
4. Is there a formula to predict the likelihood of spontaneous mingling being (a) possible and (b) guaranteed in any given group situation.
5. Should I do a PhD in this?

Answers on a postcard.  Or just in a comment.

Athlete gig review

I went to see Athlete last night.  Only 6 out 11 of us made it.  Damn snow.
Anyway, it was very good.  Two supports, who got on slickly and didn't play for overly long.  Stoney were very good, probably the best support I've seen since The Kissaway Trail a few years ago (coincidentally at the same venue).  Alice Gold was ok, fairly average support.

Athlete opened with only Joel on stage, with an acoustic guitar.  He played You Got The style - it was very cool but the crowd were appalling.  It was a bit empty due to the snow, but even so...it felt like I was the only one singing and indeed, when Joel stepped back from the mic so the crowd could sing a line alone, they did not sing! However, it was a cool way to start the gig.  Then the rest of the band came on and went into Superhuman Touch and Hurricance, both of which sounded good and were fun.  Then Twenty-Four Hours took me by surprise.  It's not one of my favourite songs of theirs, but they played it brilliantly and really built up the second half.  I actually felt my jaw dropping.  One of the highlights, and the most unexpected.
Then came Beautiful and Black Swan Song - both great singalongs, both nailed by the band.  The crowd were a bit more into it by this point.  It had also become clear by now that one thing that was making this a decent gig was the lighting - it's hard to describe and I'm in a lazy mood, but it was some of the best gig lighting I've seen.  Tres bon.
Anyway, the second half of the gig then mellowed out a bit - Back Track was lots of fun, El Salvador was very well received, then Tokyo, Out of Nowhere, Westside and Tourist.  Then came the Outsiders.  This one was excellent, really cool, and they played the long outro which was good to see.  Finally Wires (obvious but good ending) - the crowd were much better by this stage and were singing along heartily.  The song ended with only Joel on stage again, playing a repeat of the middle eight.
The encore was excellent too - The Getaway, Half Light and Chances were three of the best all evening so we finished on a high.  Chances in particular was a great way to end.
The band performed well.  There wasn't quite enough adaptation of the songs for my liking, but Joel is a great frontman and there were all good to watch.  Plus the lighting was awesome.
Highlights: 24 Hours, Beautiful, and the last 5 (Outsiders to Chances).

Inner circle review

Warning: this post displays epic geekery.

I categorise bands/artists that I like into three 'circles'.  The inner circle are my very favourite bands.  I just love them.  The second circle are other bands I think are very good.  They generally fail to get into the inner circle for one or more of three reasons: they have not produced enough music yet; their music is too variable in quality; or I just don't quite like their music enough.  The third circle are other bands that I like and regularly listen too.

Today there is are to alterations to the inner circle.  Anberlin are moving back into the second circle, on the basis of a relatively weak 5th album and a slightly disappointing gig.  Athlete are moving into the inner circle.

This leaves this inner circle as: Athlete, British Sea Power, Delirious, Idlewild, Lifehouse and Mew.
The second circle is: Bloc Party, Coldplay, DCTalk, Easyworld, Editors, Enya, Feeder, Muse, Anberlin, Matt Redman, Oasis, Sigur Ros, Stellastarr* and U2.

Sledging fail

Yesterday I went sledging with some friends.  The slope we were using had two sections.  I was completely unable to get onto the lower section.  I'd either stop early or slide of the edge.  For some reason, this got inside my head and I got really frustrated.  I didn't care about doing the lower section, or I'd have just started halfway down.  I just wanted to try the whole thing.  My friends gave me advice but nothing I tried made any difference.  I tried different starting positions, different amounts of leaning, different positions on the sledge, different sledges, different leg positions.  No win.  What frustrated me was not that I couldn't get onto the lower section.  It was that I wasn't improving.  There was nothing I could do to get there.

It's a bit like losing a competitive sport match.  There are two ways of losing - losing because you played badly, or losing because the opposition were simply too good.  I think most people prefer to lose by just being outclassed, because they want to have played as well as they can.  I disagree.  I would prefer to lose because of playing badly, because then at least I can go away and improve, I know there is something I can do to change things next time.  I don't like losing at all, but especially if there is nothing I could have done to do better.  Just like the sledging - I hated being unable to change anything to improve.