Trashy Pearls | My Music Blog

Archive for May, 2009

Apocalyptica tickets are now available and can be bought or sold online at Stubhub.com.

People living in the Nordic region of Europe must have Viking blood running through their veins. How else to explain the passion for dark, violent, dramatic metal?

Even those with classical training have a love for it, it seems. Apocalyptica, a cello quartet from Helsinki, Finland, were initially received as an amusing novelty when they debuted in 1996 with an album full of Metallica covers. But in time, they’ve gained an enormous amount of respect and goodwill from metal fans around the world, which enjoy their music for containing all the drama and rage of a good metal song.

The band is composed of four cellists who met at the Sibelius Academy for music: Eicca Toppinen, Max Lilja, Antero Manninen and Paavo Lotjonen. At first, their diverse range included everything from Bach to Jimi Hendrix. But eventually, their shared love of metal led them to craft covers of well-known metal standards. The bands they included Pantera, Metallica, Slayer and more. Eventually, they decided to join a covers night at a local metal club. They approached the gig with some trepidation—they weren’t sure how the crowd would react—but in the end, they received lots of applause and had a great time.

After putting out their first album (with a title that was straight and to the point: Four Cellos Cover Metallica), they continued to tour and gig both at home and abroad. In Finland, and especially in Helsinki, they were a massive hit. But the band thought they could do more.

They began writing their own songs, and eventually added a drummer, Dave Lombardo. This allowed them to pursue more of a rock or metal hybrid sound as opposed to a strictly classical one. They found future success with each album that came out. Their most recent, 2007’s Worlds Collide, featured an excellent cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” sung in German by Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann.

Now on tour, this is the time for metal fans to snap up some Apocalyptica tickets and see this band live.

Click Here to Download the Just Dance Ringtone by Lady GaGa

Just Dance is an electropop/dance-pop song and lead single off Lady Gaga’s first album, The Fame. The song, written by Lady GaGa and featuring Colby O’Donis, who is signed to the same label as Lady Gaga, and Akon, who provides backing vocals through Colby’s verse and shortly afterwards. The Just Dance Ringtone by Lady GaGa is one of the hottest ringtones in the world right now. It has already moved up mobile content charts around the world and should soon become one of the most popular ringtones of 2008. Lady GaGa has released some awesome ringtones over the last little while, but the Just Dance Ringtone is the best one yet.

Just Dance is a huge smash single and is rising quickly on music charts around the world, including the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and the Hot 100 Chart in Canada. The song is also performing well on world music charts, such as the United World Chart, where it has peaked inside the top 20. The Just Dance music video by Lady GaGa has become a massive hit on both MTV and YouTube, where it has already been viewed well over 1 million times. The music video has also become popular on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

To download the Just Dance Ringtone for your phone, click on the link below and sign up. You will gain instant access to download the Just Dance Ringtone and get bonus ringtones of your choice just for signing up.

Click Here to Download the Just Dance Ringtone by Lady GaGa

 

The origin of rap started sometime in the mid 1970’s in communities thriving with people of African American and Hispanic descent who were music performers in New York city. During the foundation of rap, this genre of music was associated with a nimble style of dancing that is known today as break dancing. The term rap was derived from a slang word for conversation during the 1960s.

It generally consisted of song, usually spontaneous verses along with a range of well known recordings such as funk or disco music. Critics have condemned most rap music for its endorsement of violence and hatred of women; while others have recognized it as a creative exploitation of cultural expression and acclaim many rappers with an ardent social and political awareness.

Rap music has influenced several forms of popular culture, mainly the film industry, and has been increasingly incorporated in pop music. Some of the early rap groups include Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Some of the more well-known rap artists include the legendary Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, 2Pac, Ice Cube, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z, Nas, and Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony.

Rap music is a form of musical poetry; the beat has rhythm and the song lyrics flow to it. The lyrics to rap songs give the listener a glimpse to a certain point of view, the lyrics describes the lives of the rapper and usually tells the listener the struggles the young black rapper had to go through in his life. Some rap song lyrics also have a dark side and most people associate rap lyrics with disrespect for women and violence because many rap lyrics talks about killing rival rappers and shooting cops. In the early 1990’s the rivalry between west coast rappers and east coast rappers claimed the lives of the two biggest rappers of their era, Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.

The positive side of rap music consists of a lot of artistic value, but one has to look for it real hard. Take 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) for example, 2Pac might have had the same kind of sound as most of the so called rappers that are putting out album after album now a days, however, 2Pac was a true poet and lyricist. One could take some (not all) of his lyrics and find art within them. He chose rap to deliver his poetry through his lyrics, because that is what he was most at ease with doing.

To most people, the music is half the song; the song lyrics are just as equally important as the music. In the song lyrics to 2Pac’s Dear Mama he talks about how his mother didn’t always do the right thing but he still appreciated all the sacrifices that she had to make to raise him. Not all rap lyrics are about putting down women, shooting cops, driving Escalades and making money.

Today’s rappers may have catchy rhythms and lyrics to their music and many young people are impressed with the fancy cars and half naked girls in the videos, but it’s just all the same, in every song. Most of the songs and lyrics have the same or similar rhythm with semi-carefully placed keyboard melodies and pounding bass that’s good for dancing. So maybe it’s art in its own realm.