[Music Monday] Blog Revival – A Brave New World (War of the Worlds)

Well, it’s time for this blog to return to life. I’ve wanted to make the return post on a Monday, and the first day of a month. So while this is April 1st, it’s not an April’s Fools Day post. This post is the official resurrection post for this blog, and unlike the last time I have a plan this time, to allow me to get things rolling and keep them rolling.

But first, Music Monday dictates, so a song:

I think this is a good song to get you pumped up and ready in the mood to keep on striving, it sure does that for me (even if I couldn’t find the version I wanted for you guys). I’ve been a huge fan of Jeff Wayne‘s The War of the Worlds ever since I’ve first heard it, back in the 4th grade. Originally a musical style disc from 1978, which is hard to guess from the sound of the music, based on H.G. Wells‘ novel from 1897.

The most well known piece and the blog-resurrection parts after the jump.

Music: Gunslinger Girl OP.

I had made mention of this back in the December 2009 Month in Review post, but I had watched the first season of the Gunslinger Girl anime and I had a thing or two to say, not only of the anime (which will come in the future), but of the opening theme as well. For those of you who missed it, here’s another shot at it:

(I am not going to blog about the iPad at this time, though I’m sure the blogosphere is all atumble with the “news”.)

This is a good song, and more than that, the animation which is quite on the slow side, has things to look at, to look for.

Music: The Guild – Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?

Well, I must say that I’m fairly disappointed in you guys, especially those of you who come from the Western Hemisphere, even moreso from those of you who come from, say, the USA, for not knowing, and if you do know, not mentioning this video, while mentioning the Touhou Bad Apple video (now with subtitles!).
(And why, yes, an actual Music Monday on Monday ;))

“Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” is very much a geek video, and it also looks good. It uses stop-motion, which makes it look classy in some bits, a bit hokey in others, but quite stylized all the same. Personally, I didn’t like the stop-motion too much in Bad Apple, because with the shadows it broke the fluidity a bit much, but here it works.

For those who do not know, the video shows the people who make up the cast of the online series The Guild as their characters, for they happen to play in World of Warcraft. Felicia Day who wrote it is an avid gamer, and those who watch The Guild or listen to the lyrics of the song can quite easily tell there’s “insider knowledge” of the game, so it’s “legit”, so to speak.

Geek Music – Carol of the Old Ones

The Civilian New Year is merely 28 minutes away at the time I am typing this, so I’d like to begin this post by wishing you all a happy new (civilian) year!
The reason I note that it’s the civilian new year is because we also have the Jewish new year around these parts. This also explains that while what I am going to link to here is not something that is directly related to my religion (though I’m Jewish by way of culture, not exactly religion…)

Anyway, this is a prime candidate for geek music, it’s not merely a filk, but a more professional endeavour. Well, I’ll let you listen to this thing first.

Carol of the Old Ones (which even got its own Wikipedia page!) is a take on the Christmas carol of Carol of the Bells, which had been performed by a group that had done such renditions for 24 christmas carols (I believe), in two discs. I actually put my hands on one of the discs, and I wasn’t too enamored with the rest, which may have something to do with lack of yearly exposure to these songs, or holiday anthems, so to speak.

Rocky Road to Dublin. Music Monday.

This just happens to be posted on Monday, that thing is less important to me. This is another non-geeky music choosing, and well, next post dealing with music will have something quite special, including a couple of different songs in Hebrew.

Anyway, this time I’ll talk about yet another old Irish song, Rocky Road to Dublin (this post is posted from school, so most links will be added when I get home), another song from the 19th century, of which there are a great many version. This time I’ll focus on two quite different versions, the stripped down and the grandiose.

Star of County Down; Music “Monday”.

Seeing how few entries got posted between last Figure Friday and the next one (hopefully today’s), which was the same thing last week, I decided to write this short post, and not to let the fact that it’s not, well, Monday, stop me.
I actually have quite a few posts planned, but with the combination of the onset of winter (and before that scalding heat), and the return of school, it’ll take me a bit of time to find the energy to get back to rolling out more entries.

The Star of County Down is an irish folk ballad, written somewhere in the 19th century, which I like quite a lot. I came across this song one day while surfing irish and celtic music on YouTube (I have quite an ecclectic taste in music, and a penchant for irish and celtic music), and it had struck me as quite… familiar. I’ll let you listen to my favourite version of the song, by the Irish Rovers, who have some very nice renditions of Irish classic songs (and some others, such as “Farewell to Nova Scotia“).