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this is a post. This post is made of toast. I like toast.

Blood & Metal

God of War is a kick ass series. And you know what a series like this needs? Some sweet music to go along with it. On Dec. 21st, Roadrunner records announced it was teaming up with Sony to create several brand new songs just for God of War 3. Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Opeth, Dream Theater, and Taking Dawn are each going to create songs and will be available to listen to when you buy the God of War 3 ultimate edition. Of course that doesn't mean a day after this release the songs will be available for download. The bands stated that they were excited and nervous for creating songs for a video game. “This is the first time in 24 years that we've written and recorded a song for anything other than one of our own albums, so we're up for the challenge and excited to have been asked,” said Mike Portnoy. This EP will be release in March included in everything for $99.99. Pretty expensive, but totally worth it if you have a PS3.

A Change of Seasons

One of my favorite Dream Theater albums (ok so they are all my favorite give me a break), A Change of Seasons is more of an EP than an actual album. The album contains one main song "A Change of Seasons" which is only 23 minutes long. The next four songs are all covers of famous songs by famous people, Imagine that. "Funeral For A Friend - Love Lies Bleeding" originally by Elton john. "Perfect Strangers" by Deep Purple. "The Rover - Achilles Last Stand - The Song Remains The Same" a medley of Led Zeppelin songs. The song "The Big Medley" is a bunch of songs by Pink Floyd, Kansas, Queen, Journey, and others put into one.
The main song on the album, "A Change of Seasons" was written by Mike Portnoy (drummer) and the lyrics are based on his own life. The song is split into seven different parts and each one is supposed to represent a different part of a season. The first part, The Crimson sunrise, is an instrumental. It then moves onto Innocence where there is a man who lived a happy life and is now depressed. The next part Carpe Diem is based off Portnoy's father tell him before he passed away due to cancer. In this part of the song the man from the previous part is supposed to be recovering only to be struck by tragedy.
The next part, The Darkest of Winters is an instrumental. After the next couple of sections, we reach the end of the song The Crimson Sunset. In this part the man from the beginning is explaining to his son what his dad told him. The intro repeats here from the beginning signifying then end of his life and the start of his son's.

I am the Walrus follow up

Since a certain someone asked for a post about the symbolic meaning of this song, here it is. The part "I am the walrus" is a reference to a Lewis Carroll poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter." When John Lennon wrote this song, he didn't realize that the walrus was actually the villain and Lennon even said "It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it? [Sings, laughing] 'I am the carpenter...." In the song Glass Onion, "the walrus was Paul" and in the song God "I was the walrus, but now I am John." Sorry, the walrus doesn't represent the man bringing down the world or anything. The Eggman also has no real special meaning. Eric Burdon (singer for The Animals) was known by John as the Eggman because of a certain egg related fetish.
The lines "yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye" is based off an old English nursery rhyme. As far as the rest of the lyrics of the song go, some are based off the three unfinished songs that became part of this song, the rest really are just random lyrics that don't make sense. When this song was being written, Lennon got a letter from someone who had a teacher who was giving a deep analysis of The Beatle's lyrics. That's where Lennon decided to add those random lyrics.
So there really is no special meaning behind this song. It's not about capitalism or drugs or war, it's just a bunch of really random thoughts put into a song. It wasn't that The Beatles needed drugs to write songs, it was probably more for their entertainment and while high they got some of their ideas. You may or may not have known this, but several inventors or philosophers (sorry I can't find any links) had been quoted saying things about being just a little bit high enough to get some different thoughts in their heads.
Link to information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_The_Walrus

I Am the Walrus

One of my favorite Beatles song of all time, I Am the Walrus is awesome. Of course, everything by the Beatles is awesome but that is besides the point. This song defiantly has a psychedelic feeling to in. John Lennon even admitted to writing part of it while on acid. The song is basically three separate ideas Lennon couldn't make into three individual songs and he combined them into this.
This song defiantly is on the border of rock and just plain weird. Besides the normal band instruments, this song includes violins, cellos, horns and clarinets. Something defiantly not seen day, and surely not seen back in the 60's. I am not basing this off personal experience, but I think this would be the best song to listen to if you were under the influence.

Good Mourning/Black Friday

Well I guess I am week late with the Black Friday post, but never-the-less, here it is. Good Mourning/Black Friday is a song written by Megadeth. It's about seven or so minutes long. The first part of the song is pretty calm and consists mainly of just instruments with only a few lines of lyrics, one being "Good mourning".
The song then leads into the Black Friday with a quick drum fill. At that point, the tempo of the song probably doubles. It then goes into a heavier metal feeling. The guitar part picks up and goes into some wailing solos. Dave Mustaine then enters with the vocals. Now, if you had never heard of what Black Friday was, you would probably assume it was some horrible event that happened in the past or something, right? Well Megadeth decided that this song was not going to be about shopping, instead it is about killing and murder and all that fun stuff. At the end of the song the whole band repeats the line "It's Black Friday, paint the devil on the wall" several times. I love this song.

Here's a video of it from Rockband because it censors a certain word.

Music in Plastic

Being part of the three blogs focusing on music, I feel that I should also follow the other two and post about fake instruments. I'm not going to lie, they are expensive. When they first came out, the Rockband drum set was about 90 dollars. The guitars for Guitar Hero were about $30. I would know because I love music rhythm games. I don't play them too often now, but I still enjoy picking up my plastic guitar and setting down my real one.
I'm not sure where all the hate for these games started. The majority of people who play these games know there is a difference between their instruments and real ones. Most people recognize there are more than five frets on a guitar, or that a drum set has more than four pads. I like to think that the people who hate on these games are the people who are really bad, or have never played it. I remembered when I first played- I thought the game was stupid. I literally spent ten minutes in the tutorial trying to figure out how it worked. At the point in time, I laughed at people who played it and never wanted to play it again. Now I play on expert (even Through the Fire and Flames *gasp*) and I know there is a huge difference between real and plastic. Although I do play the real guitar as well so I guess I never thought they were the same.


Now I would like to the few videos I have of me playing Guitar Hero, but then you will also find the videos of me singing Ballroom Blitz and Pull Me Under, which is bad. So instead, here's a video of a rockband song and the real version of it.







Honestly I think the Rockband chart looks harder.