Benjamin Zander on music and passion

TED, the gift that keeps on giving.

Some Tunes I've Been Listening To Lately

Music, just like food and acting, is LIFE. So here are some of the songs I've been listening to lately, I love all of em for different reasons.


I dont listen to rap/hip-hop/r&b lately, for a few years I recon, kinda grew past that, but this one I love for some reason so I'm putting it up here first. I love heavy dirty "buck" rap songs for some reason :D Like Jim Jones - We Fly High, Unk - Walk It Out (with Andre3000) anyways...
B.G. Feat Magnolia Chop - Back 2 Da Money


Robbie Williams - She's The One CLASSIC!!


Cayaco - No Regret Life, it's one of the ending songs from Naruto series... what? Didn't I tell you that I LIVE for Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood?


Might as well throw this Naruto ending tune in here as well because I love it, the lyrics are great too (english ones that is) Little By Little - Kimi Monogatari, GO NARUTO!


Requiem For A Dream - Lux Aeterna, I watched Requiem For A Dream the other day, amazing flick, that mother who wants to be on the game show pulled out one of the best acting pieces I've ever seen, she got robbed of an oscar.


Another Classic songs, Take That - Rule The World, suck it!


And wrapping it up with one amazing tune, one of my all-time favorites Teardrop - Massive Attack

John Coltrane - Autumn Falls (Jazz)

A little jazz for the people out there, John Coltrane - Autumn Falls.

Chillin at a café in Paris perhaps? Would be lovely.

The Soundtrack

The score in a film can either completely make or break a film for me. I mean to the point where I could take a shitty Paris Hilton film, put a brilliant soundtrack on it and... it would still be shit but it would be A LOT better still. It's just something about music that... I can't describe it, but say in a film, its EVERYTHING for me. A film just has to have a great soundtrack or fuck it, might as well delete the whole film it's no point. I don't care if its the Godfather or Titanic, no good score? No point. It just becomes so disappointing, I don't know how else to describe it.

Personally I feel the best soundtracks I have heard has definitively not come from any Hollywood film but rather video games and animes, FOR SURE. For anyone who has ever played any Final Fantasy game is virtually high fiving me at the moment, my love goes out to Nobuo Uematsu. Metal Gear Solid? Harry Gregson-Williams is a genius. Cowboy Bebop might have one of the best soundtracks out there, it's just nuts. The jazzy film noir feeling it gives... Max Payne... we gonna talk about max payne later, I'm saving it for it's own post. If I ever act in a film, or direct one, produce one etc, I am going to sit down FIRMLY with a (hopefully) amazing composer and we gonna sort out magic from crap mates.

Legend Of Zelda? Brilliant. Oldboy OST? Brilliant. I suppose though it's all relative, since the best songs that one person likes is the one they have some sort of emotional connection to of some sort so even the most trivial piece can become amazing, fair enough. I love the trumpet though, lately it has taken the top stop for one of my favorite instruments, I also love strings, in a big orchestra, obviously.

Still so much more that can be said about a score but, gonna keep it relatively short today, so instead I'm going to leave you with this.

I was wondering, which one of these two do YOU like the most? I love em' both and can't make up my mind.

UPDATE: Jesus fuck, Can't believe I forgot one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard and own. GRIM FANDANGO of course, what else? What the hell was I smoking when I was writing this earlier today. Grim Fandango OST 5/5 easy, one of THE best. And whomever composes scores and stuff for Blizzard games. World of Warcraft soundtrack is just brilliant, I love Blizzard, but I've stated this before.

Muse - Feeling Good


Michael Bublé - Feeling Good


Cheers

Song of the Day

I didn't know you was dead Mr. Smith. Beautiful Song.

A song for the oldies

Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
probably one of the best songs ever in my opinion, it's ageless, enjoy.

Top 25 list on iTunes

This is my Top 25 list. And I love these songs. A few of em' really should not be there, like Dream Girl with R Kelly and/or How We Do It Over Here with Busta Rhymes. The songs are good, don't get me wrong but not really top 25 worthy, I think I just over played them at one point so they snuck up the list. And yes even Kiss Me with Six Pence None The Richer Is There. what? WHAT?!?!

There are a lot of songs that are not on the list but should be there but haven't gotten on there probably because I skip the last tiny bit before iTunes can record it as I have listened to it once.
I've come across some really really good tunes lately as well that are really fresh (for me anyways) like Alex Morph - Walk The Edge(Morph Woody van Eyden Remix) HQ. I like thoes heavy'ish techno kind of songs, they bring a lot of emotions with them somehow. Probably because I personally link them to some video I have seen or some Idea for a film or scene or something that is rolling in my head.

Vibe Tribe - Carousel

But also classics such as The Thorns - No Blue Sky, Kings of Convinience - Homesick. Amazing songs!

I could go on all day because music is a big part of everybodies lives as a closure I can say that at the bottom of the top 25 list you'll see 2pac - Don't you trust me.

It's probably one of the greatest songs ever made, lyrically and all. It struck such a strong meaning to me. I don't really want to get into it but I was going through a really rough patch at a point in my life and I found this song hanging around and I found it and listened to it by accident and 2pac just sang everything I felt. So it has a really deep connection with me (wow that didn't sound corny at all). He must have wrote that song to a certain someone, he wanted that person to listen to that song and just ask that person Don't you trust me?

Don't you trust me?

10/10 Mr Shakur

808s & Heartbreaks

Kanye's new album is finally out! So in his honor this while post will be in caps.

UNLIKE HIS OTHER ALBUMS HE ACTUALLY DOESN'T RAP IN THIS ALBUM, HE SINGS, WHICH I LIKE. THE ALBUM IS NICE, I LIKE IT, IT GOT GOOD LEVEL OF QUALITY, IT DOESN'T HAVE ONE SUPER HIT AND THE REST IS SHIT *COUGH*T.I.*CHOUGH*. MY FAVORITE SONG IS PROBABLY "SAY YOU WILL" RIGHT NOW.

THIS ALMOST TURNED INTO A USELESS POST DIDN'T IT...

GO GET THE ALBUM NOW!