Study Music?

With finals approaching and these study days, I've been trying to find good study music. It needs to be something to keep me from going completely insane while studying, but it can't be too distracting either.

I recently rediscovered Coldplay's album Live 2012 which I've been listening to for a while, but sometimes the background noise from the crowd can get distracting.  I've found that the best study music for me has little or no words, or the words are quiet, more in the background, with strong acoustics.

On the more classical side, anything by the Vitamin String Quartet will be good, as long as you can refrain from singing the lyrics yourself.  Ben Howard is great, as well as just about all folk rock music.

My current Study Playlist:
"The Funeral" - Band of Horses
"Siren Song" - Bat for Lashes
"The Rip Tide" - Beirut
"The Wolves" - Ben Howard
"Old Pine" - Ben Howard
"Dirty Paws" - Of Monsters and Men
"Artificial Nocturne" - Metric
" The Scientist" - Coldplay
"Fix You" - Coldplay
"Sail (String Quartet Tribute to AWOLNATION)" - Vitamin String Quartet
"Little Talks - String Quartet Tribute to Of Monsters and Men" - Vitamin String Quartet
"Gun-Shy" - Grizzly Bear
"1901" - Birdy
"Dark Undercoat" - Emily Jane White
"Skinny Love" - Bon Iver
"Perth" - Bon Iver
"Such Great Heights" - Iron & Wine
"Flightless Bird, American Mouth" - Iron & Wine

Comment with your favorite study songs!

Local Natives with Superhumanoids

I realize I've been extremely MIA recently, but it's the end of the semester and things are pretty hectic with finals.  Anyway, I still want to get the review of the Local Natives at the 9:30 Club from April 6 up. The Friday show sold out, so they added a second show on Saturday, which also sold out! The club was packed, and for good reason. Local Natives gave a great performance! They played a good mix between their first and second albums, and all their hits.  Obviously I chose Local Natives over the Calvin Harris concert, and I'm really glad I did. I'll still see Calvin Harris at the Firefly Festival, and it won't be in a packed gymnasium with a bunch of drunk and aggressive college kids. From what I've heard most people had fun a lot of fun at it, they just left with lots of bruises, which I suppose will happen at any EDM concert.

I have never seen anybody with as much energy performing as Taylor Rice, who does the guitar and vocals. It was phenomenal, but sometimes he was actually moving too much so that it just go distracting.

Superhumanoids opened for Local Natives. I liked some of their songs, but for the most part I'm not a huge fan of their style. I can't think of any word better than "surreal" to describe it. It was very dreamy type music, with the synthesizer on overdrive. I can imagine it being decent car music, but at least in my opinion not great for a live performance. They did have really cool lighting during their performance though! Overall, I highly recommend seeing Local Natives live!

Anonymous Comments

I have received lots of requests to allow anonymous comments. I would love them too, I just can't figure out how. I like to think that I'm generally a fairly tech savvy person, but I can't figure out how to make these comments open to people without Google+ accounts.  I know there's a way to do it though since I've seen it. SO if anybody knows how to change this setting PLEASE let me know! You can comment here (if you have an account...) or email at FrazeeTrain@gmail.com. I would really appreciate it!

I'm also currently working on a post about the Local Natives concert from Saturday. It was amazing! Unfortunately I had to miss the 2 Cellos at The Birchmere last night because as much as I'd love to just go to concerts and write about them my whole life, I have other things to do. Including studying for exams and writing those fun papers that all college students have to do. You won't see a concert review for 2 Cellos, but I may post something later on how cool they are, and even if you don't like classical music you should check them out because really it isn't classical music. I find it good to study with, so while I was missing their live concert I was lamenting by listening to them while writing a paper.

NoiseTrade

I just wanted to write something quick on NoiseTrade. It's a website that is ALL. ABOUT. MUSIC. I love it. There's free music up there that artists will post in order to get fans.  It's a really cool idea, and numerous artists have uploaded their music. There are lots of unsigned indie artists, but also some pretty well known groups . There's a good playlist of some artists that will be at the Hangout Music Festival, and there's also stuff by Fun, Robert Francis, Passenger, Young Summer (we know who they are now!), Bassnectar and so many more. http://noisetrade.com. They also have a blog that is pretty cool and informative. Check it out: http://blog.noisetrade.com

Their motto:

Fans get free music.
Artists connect with new fans.
Everybody wins.

Boy with Young Summer at Jammin' Java

In the future I'll try to get these posts up faster. Anyways, Boy, a Swiss/German pop duo, was at Jammin' Java last Thursday, March 28, and Young Summer opened for them. For relatively unknown groups, they were both amazing! Boy has gotten some attention recently with "Little Numbers" in the United States, but I had never heard of Young Summer. Boy has one album out, Mutual Friends, which was released in 2011, but Young Summer hasn't released a full album yet.

Young Summer only has one song on iTunes, "Fever Dream" but "Why Try" is on Spotify. They announced that they have an album coming out in May. "Why Try" was also being featured on the TV show The Vampire Diaries the same night of the concert, which was pretty cool.

Young Summer at Jammin' Java

Boy started with a song I didn't recognize, but then played most of their songs on the album. What I found interesting was that the singer, Valeska Steiner, and the guitarist, Sonja Glass, both had very thick accents. Their music is entirely in English, and I'd never noticed an accent before.

Boy at Jammin' Java

Boy at Jammin' Java

Boy at Jammin' Java

The last song they played in the regular set was "Little Numbers" but then they came out for an encore. The first song of their encore was a song called "Zapping" that I had never heard of, it was slower, showed off a great voice, and seemed almost jazzy in a way. Their very last song was a cover of "Lonely Boy" by The Black Keys! I love The Black Keys and was a little worried they would butcher it, especially since they had to play it in a different key so Valeska Steiner could sing it, but it was surprisingly very good!

My biggest complaint of the night has nothing to do with either Boy or Young Summer. It is simply that a three stall restroom is not big enough for a sold out show at Jammin' Java. Besides that long wait I had a great time!

Album Cover of Mutual Friends

OneRepublic's "Native"

Native was released Tuesday, March 26. I have always loved OneRepublic's music, but this may be their best album yet. As a whole it seems to have more pop tracks than their past albums, but that also seems to be a trend seen today in most groups on the line between pop and rock (think of the changes with Maroon 5, Coldplay, etc). OneRepublic had released two tracks as singles before today, "Feel Again" and "If I Lose Myself."  Both were quickly hits, and and chart toppers. I really love "Counting Stars" as well as the singles they had already released. "Au Revoir" illustrates OneRepublic's more quiet and sad side that they were first known for with "Stop and Stare" and "Apologize."

These guys are also well known for using strings in their music. This album doesn't stray from that, with the strings found in the majority of their tracks, but especially "Au Revoir," "Burning Bridges," "Preacher" and most obviously in the acoustic version of "If I Lose Myself." They also feature some tracks with strong percussive and bass sounds, which was noticeable more on their last album, Waking Up, than this one. Overall, this album is great. It obviously has the OneRepublic sound that many of us have loved, but each track in the album has it's own part reason for being there, rather than just a bunch of similar songs.

OneRepublic's Native

My favorite tracks on this album are "Counting Sleep," "What You Wanted" and "Life In Color" as well as the two tracks that were released as singles. The acoustic versions for some tracks at the end of their deluxe album really illustrate Ryan Tedder's great voice as well.

Ryan is so much more than just the frontman of OneRepublic. Some fun facts about him include that he also has an independent career as a songwriter and producer for other artists including Adele, Beyoncé, B.o.B, Kelly Clarkson, Far East Movement, Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Leona Lewis, Gavin DeGraw, David Cook, Demi Lovato, Maroon 5, Sebastian Ingrosso, Gym Class Heroes, T-Pain, The Wanted, and numerous others. This guy is just really interesting, and if you ever have some free time on your hands go look up more info on him. Ryan Tedder was ripped off by a program on MTV which he won and should have given him a record deal for, he then created his own record label and publishing group, and was stuck in a scandal when he was a co-writer for Beyoncé's "Halo" and Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone" which have maybe a few too many similarities, but at least in my opinion they're still very different songs and it was an overreaction on everyone else's part. He's also gorgeous, which always helps.

You can listen to samples of each song on Native at OneRepublic's website: http://onerepublic.com/releases/native_deluxe_version

John Mayer is Back!

John Mayer is back! He just announced his Born & Raised Tour, the first tour he's having in three years. He will be at Jiffy Lube Live August 31, 2013! He's had issues with a granuloma on his vocal cords that wouldn't go away, and grew worse over time because of issues with acid-reflux.  He had to take time off between Battle Studies in 2009 and the release of Born and Raised in May 2012. After his newest release he was he was unable to sing or even speak for 10 months. But he's back now! The first thing you can find on his website is "John Mayer Born & Raised Tour #MAYERISBACK." Take a look at www.johnmayer.com to find more info.