Wilks Popular Music Blog

 When we first listened to this song in class, I was shocked that I actually know what song this is. It's crazy how we know a song, but we don't know the name sometimes and the band. This song is a mixture between Metal and including a synth. Apparently for this metal group, including a synth was risky because it was sort of viewed as a "gay" instrument, and the Van Halen's listeners might not appreciate it. When the song came out, it had to opposite effect: their listeners really enjoyed the song! This song has more importance and weight on the instrumental effects and sound rather than the actual lyrics. The guitar solo in the middle of the song keeps the song true to the metal genre while still having a synth as the main instrument in this song. Having the synth in this song made it more pop friendly for this song to break out of it's genre and into the pop stream. The overall feel of this song is amazing, the guitar and synth solos are extremely good, and ...

 When picking a song, I decided to pick one I do not remember hearing, and I do not remember hearing this song at all! I like how old fashion this song sounds compared to the current and popular songs of this chapter. As a guitarist, I can say this is not a very complicated picking progression, but it still takes a lot of skill to pick and sing at the same time. Throughout the entire song, the guitar and bass part are pretty much the same, besides when the guitar solo happens. I love the feel from this song; it makes me want to close my eyes and swing my head back and forth. I don't know how I feel about the line "Love is like an ember". Embers are the hottest part of a fire, but they will eventually burn out. For this song, the representation is fare, but for myself I am not a fan of this line. I think the title "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" just represents sadness. Blue represents sad, rain is normally present in sad situation, and crying is of course part of...

 This song is a classic. If you play the guitar, you probably know this song and even how to play the intro at least. The build up throughout the entire song is quite big. It starts very calm and relaxing, then powerful heavy metal, and final ally reverts to the beginning for a slow resolution. Throughout the intro and ending, the guitar moves up and down the fret board multiple times. I think this was done to represent climbing to heaven. The build up throughout the entire song I think represents someone’s life. Life starts easy like the beginning, gets rougher in the middle, and slows done in the end. In class, we watched a video of Led Zepplin performing this song live. The song mattered as much as the performance in terms of style, performing, and uniqueness. This song was one of the first songs I have ever learned on the guitar. I believe this song will be a standard for future generations for an extremely long time. But overall, this long song is great for the intro, but in t...

 Throughout my childhood, this song was one of my favorites for my dad to play and listen to. I love how the entire song feels like a trance making you feel like "you can't ever leave"! There are a lot of layers in this song: electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, bass, lead singer, and the shakers. In the middle of the song, everything slows down, and only the singer, the "tat" of the drum, and the acoustic guitar are in. But right after, there is a two minute guitar solo. The entire feel of the song shifts in different parts of the song. I get a vibe like a charmer charming a snake to come out of a basket. Through some research, I found out that someone said this song was musically unorganized and would never become a top hit. Having a minute intro and a two minute outro seemed unorthadoxed, but it worked! Through the entire song, it starts with a slow build up and continuously adds more layers of music. I think this represents how this specific hotel makes ...

 I've listened to this song ever since I was a little kid, and every time I listen to it, I learn something new from it. Throughout the entire song, the mood of the song floats between an eerie and joyful song. I think the reason for this is the sound of silence can either mean something good or something bad. Also, the line "hello darkness my old friend" represents that in everyone, there is a little darkness from either past traumas, events or little things that influence the dark side of people. The build up throughout the song all comes to a sudden resolve of the guitar and "the sound of silence". Through some research, this song is about the struggle between material and spiritual wellbeing. Through these five stanzas, this song describes this conflict such as a poem would. This song is also a folk rock song. I like how this song doesn't really repeat anything besides "the sound of silence". At the very end of the song, there is a guitar chord...

 When choosing what song to do for this blog, I decided to do one that I did not know in chapter 9, so I chose A Taste Of Honey by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass. At first, I was very skeptical about this song because of how slow it starts, but once everything goes quiet and you can only hear drums, you know something spectacular is about to come, and it didn't disappoint. This song has no words, but you can hear what would be words coming out of the trumpet. My favorite parts of this song is when the trumpet has to quick notes going down like a guitar doing pull-offs. Having everything go quite and only having drums really boosts the effects of this song by setting a new up-beat tempo compared to the first 18 seconds of the song. One thing I noticed about the album cover is it has a very attractive woman looking at you in a very seductive way. I think the name of this song, A Taste Of Honey, might not be referring to the food honey, but to an attractive other that you might wan...