Songs About Albums

Write and record a song about your favourite album!

Are you a musician? Do you like albums as much as I do? Then here's something that you might want to get involved with: The Album Wall's Songs About Albums compilation!

Basically, I'm hoping that a bunch of cool bands and artists will write and record original songs about their favourite albums of all time. These songs will then be lumped together on Bandcamp - I'll probably ask Nest of Cogs to do some nice artwork - and given away as a free download.

If you'd like to write and record a song about your favourite album, please drop me an email on thealbumwall@outlook.com to let me know that you're interested. Here's what I'll need to know:

• Your band/artist name
• The album that you'd like to record a song about
• Confirmation that you are happy for your track to be given away as a free download

You can also contact me on Twitter if that's easier.

The deadline for getting in touch is the 31st of January, and I'll need the completed recordings by the 31st of March. Your song can crib from any genre, and take any form - you could write a song about a particular track from your chosen album, or a memorable experience that you had while listening to that album.

I look forward to hearing everybody's ideas!

If you don't want to write an original song, why not cover a Magnetic Fields song instead? The Album Wall's 69 Love Songs Covered project is still ongoing, and there are still plenty of great tracks available to record!

Giant

Why did Herman Dune decide to name their fourth album 'Giant'? Perhaps it was simply because of its size - at 16 tracks and 55 minutes, it does feel like a bit of a giant, especially by my own attention-deficient standards.

But the tracks themselves aren't 'giant' in the usual musical sense of that word. If you told me that you'd written a 'giant' song, I'd expect some kind of Rush-esque musical odyssey, with synthesisers and duelling solos and histrionics fireworking out of every orifice. I wouldn't expect something like 1-2-3/Apple Tree, a relatively simple acoustic ditty with a charming reprise, a catchy tune, and not much else.

That wasn't meant as an insult - this is actually one of my favourite songs at the moment

It's worth mentioning that the album's title is also one of its constituents. Giant is track 13 of 16 on Giant, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the song is supposed to be about. The lyrics are sung by a man stood on a cliff as an ant climbs up his leg; it's vague, impressionistic stuff, and the only meaning I can glean from it is the notion that, relatively speaking, everyone is simultaneously a giant and a dwarf. It just depends on the perspective, the point of view.

Mining for Misery

In previous blog posts, I've made no secret of my fondness for seriously sad music - nothing fires me up, aurally speaking, like a shot or two of depresso. With this in mind, you can imagine how delighted I was to discover, amongst the music I got for Christmas this year, not one but two incredibly sombre songs about coal mining.

I must admit, this wasn't a subject I would previously have cared to hear many songs about. I'm used to depressing songs about love and depressing songs about death, but Brassed Off aside, I've been rather ignorant of the 'Colliery Miserabilia' sub-genre until now. Still, it's not hard to see how fruitful a topic mining might be for musicians; not only was the work itself presumably pretty depressing, you've also got the equally unhappy matter of pit closures to sink your songwriting teeth into.

Don't Call it a Classic

Have you ever picked up an issue of Q magazine? I used to be something of a regular reader, and while I eventually got sick of reading features about Oasis, I must admit that the mag's album reviews informed many of my early purchases. For example, I bought Blinking Lights and Other Revelations solely on Q's recommendation, and that was the beginning of a major love affair with the Eels and their music.

Still, even in those days, I did have one problem with Q's reviews, and it concerned their 5-star rating system. As in many other publications, every Q album review was accompanied by a score of 1 to 5 stars; 4-star albums were further decorated with a little 'Q Recommends' badge, while the rare 5-star albums got a little gold rectangle that said 'Q Classic'.

And therein lies my complaint. For me, the word 'classic' means more than just 'really good'; it denotes a work that has weathered trends, stood the test of time, and proven its exceptional qualities by defining (or redefining) the boundaries of its genre.

Under the Western Freeway

Happy New Year, everybody! I've decided to start 2015 in much the same way as I began 2014: with an in-depth blog post about a rather depressing album. Last year, it was Mogwai's Come On Die Young; this year, it's Under the Western Freeway by Grandaddy. Let's jump in, shall we?

Like The Bends and His 'n' Hers, Grandaddy's first album is a '90s classic that was quickly overshadowed by its immediate sequel. I'm not going to argue that Under the Western Freeway is a magnum-er opus than The Sophtware Slump, but to see it as a mere warm-up would be to greatly underestimate its value.