A is for irritation.

Last night, my family were being irksome. By irksome, I mean my younger sisters were acting like five year olds while I was trying to get homework done, and I was yelled at for yelling at them.

And so after shutting the door to my room and switching on my trusty mp3, I went to one of the things that tends to put me in a happy mood: my Windows Media player.

As the HSC progresses, and my sisters (especially the one whom I have to share a room with) get on my nerves more and more, I’ll be blogging a hell of a lot about music. This is because most of the other stuff I do in order to calm down (like go over old music from when I was in SCC, having a good singalong and enjoying afresh my glory days) is rather boring.

So today I will be looking at the fruitier stuff on my Windows Media, and explaining why it’s there.

“I Believe In A Thing Called Love” which I think may be by The Darkness.

I’ve loved this song ever since I heard it on the soundtrack for Bridget Jones 2. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for acid trip rock. This is the result of it. Every time I hear it, I smile. And then sing along like a guy using the upper reaches of his falsetto.

Then there’s the stuff I ripped from the Forrest Gump soundtrack. I suppose the sixties and seventies were a good time for American music. It more or less went downhill from there.

There’s also the stuff I ripped from the soundtrack of The Full Monty:
Flashdance. Enough said.
You Sexy Thing. Ditto.
Make Me Smile by Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel.
Any pop song with harmonies I actually like as a massive rarity. One that I can listen to for hours on end is even more rare. It’s a happy song.

I have the winners single from Eurovision 2009 – Fairytale from Alexander Rybak.

I have immense respect for a young man who can saw his way through a violin bow on Eurovision because he’s playing so hard.

Poison by Alice Cooper. I’ve gotten a perfect score on Singstar for this song. That was a wasted week spent in hospital. But moving on…

I have some Andrew Lloyd Weber stuff. Don’t ask me why. I much prefer Sondheim or Boublil and Schönberg.

I also have the complete discography of Apocalyptica.

I’m a bit of a classical music nerd, and so when a band comes along which makes heavy metal out of cellos, I’m going to be markedly impressed. At the moment, I’m listening to their cover of Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg. That’s some marvy cello.

Then onto the Avenue Q soundtrack.

Avenue Q. How can one describe it? I don’t know.

Suffice I list a few of the song titles:

Everyone’s a little bit racist
The internet is for porn
Of you were gay
Schadenfreude
It sucks to be me.

That having been said, it’s actually a markedly happy musical. Lots of black humour.

And I mean that in both senses of the word. It’s ironic, and there’s a character called Gary Coleman.


And that’s it for the A section. Next time I’m pissed off at my relations, I’ll move onto B. Perhaps C…

Movies I've Seen Recently

It's the holidays, which means my sisters watch movies when they're not off enjoying the lack of HSC.

So: Marigold.

This was Hollywood's attempt to cash in on Bollywood. Unfortunately for them, this movie came out before the Bollywood craze started. Oops.

I kept expecting the movie to grow a plot. But it didn't. When it ended, I just sat there going 'wow. That was surprisingly worse than I had ever expected. Never again.'

Basically, it reaffirmed my hatred of Bollywood movies.

I then watched 84 Charing Cross Road.

It was mildly humorous to see Anthony Hopkins with hair that wasn't grey playing someone who wasn't a cannibal (Oh Hannibal, you great hunk of psychopathic murderer, you).

Otherwise, it was a very slow movie, which ended ridiculously depressingly.

I also watched Rent.

I basically spent the entire time trying to work out what other stuff the actors were in, and chuckling at my younger sister Mimi's expense at the character named Mimi who was a heroin addict stripper. Oh the lols.

As it also turns out, I already knew most of the songs from hearing them a few times (one of the useful parts of having had eleven years of intense choral training is that after hearing a song a few times, I've pretty much memorised it).

The only thing that still rankles me about Rent is the fact that it's referred to as a 'Rock Opera'.

Rent is a musical. In no way is it anything approaching an opera. Don Giovanni is an OPERA.

Here's a quick way to differentiate between an opera and what isn't an opera.

Work out who's not a soprano. Now: if they're playing a witch, bitch, priest, statue or gigolo, then it's an opera.

Or at least an interesting one.

Or one that doesn't go on for SIXTEEN HOURS, WHAT THE HELL WAS WAGNER THINKKING?!

Or one that involves the life of the main character being so utterly crap that he ends up going insane just to get some peace. Wozzek. Most depressing opera EVER.

But I digress.

Last night I watched Les Choristes.

The subtitling was quite good, but not as brilliant as it could have been. Otherwise, wow.

I still have Vois Sur Ton Chemin in my head. I'm contemplating asking to conduct the junior choir at school and making them sing it. Not the senior choir. They're a lost cause.

There's just something about a good choir movie. There have been some crap ones (namely anything which came out of America involving a choir), and there have been some movies which use choirs in the soundtrack, and the music itself is good, but the movie's shit (Hey Hey It's Esther Blueberger is case in point. Three six hour days of recording with Australia's top children's choir - yes, I'm talking about the Sydney Children's Choir. Those were the days. Or Happy Feet. In order to get 'In My Room' sounding as though it were being sung by toddlers, we all had to sing down a fifth and our voices were taken back up digitally, which made us sound more like chipmunks. For the Alto 2s (The greatest section), that meant we had to sing B flat two below middle C. That's not even officially in Tenor range.)

I love a good movie involving any kind of high level music performance.

Admittedly, most of the soundtrack is variations on either Vois Sur ton Chemin or Caresse Sur L'Océan, but they're good songs. And it's a good soundtrack. And now it's on my USB. I love the internet.

Avenue Q was wrong. The internet isn't just for porn.