Listening: Week 1

I have been listening to an hour’s worth of music by the bands Blur and Radiohead. Both bands originated during the late 80s and early 90s. Blur’s early songs that I have listened to, such as “Stereotypes” and “Girls and Boys”, are light, pop heavy songs as Blur developed the era of Brit-pop. Blur’s songs usually consist of pop horns and electric guitar to drive the song. In the late 90s, Blur developed a darker sound in which songs consisted more of various overlapping tones and heavy guitar playing. This sound lead me to listen to the band Radiohead as they have a sound that resembled Blur’s later work. I listened to most of Radiohead’s album “Kid A”. The song “Everything In Its Right Place” utilized electronic tones and clippings of vocal phases to piece together the melody, which I found to be very interesting. Another part I liked was during the song “How To Disappear Completely” was how the string arrangements dropped pitch in the middle of the song. It gave the song a feeling of confusion and madness in which lead singer Thom Yorke was trying convey. From what I’ve listened to, both Blur and Radiohead have originated some of the most creative alternative rock songs I have ever heard.