CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Wednesday 18 June 2008

Current song playing: Coldplay- Strawberry Swing

"Now the sky could be blue
I don't mind
Without you it's a waste of time"

First off I have to mention how brilliant Mclaren was, out of all the day trips I have been on this just blows all the others out of the water. I was taken round their entire factory, although the day started off with a board meeting where we got to ask questions to the CEO of Mclaren Electronics about the cars (and I also had a cup of tea too, little finger lifted as standard). Then I was shown the SECU (Standard Electronic Control Unit) that they supply to every single car on the F1 grid. Then I was shown how they make the circuits to fit inside the SECU, but one weird thing I have to mention is that every door that I pushed gave me an electric shock as there must have been a huge build up of static in the air, did it to everyone in fact.

But the best bit of the trip had to be actually seeing the team making the sidepods and centre section of the 2009 car which will have brand new aerodynamics fitted to it to improve overtaking, I would have drawn it so I remembered what it looked like but I can't remember enough of what it looks like to accurately draw it. I also went inside the windtunnel section of the facility, and the windtunnel itself is so powerful that it has to be mounted on rubber supports from the ground otherwise the noise and vibrations from it would reverberate around the entire factory and probably break all the glass. Then as a finale I got to see the race and F1 cars they had on display, including Mika Hakkinen's 1998 and 1999 title winning MP4/13 & MP4/14, Kimi Raikonnen's 2005 MP4/20, a Mclaren F1 LM edition (one of 5 in the world), a Mclaren F1 GT Longtail race car which helped Mclaren dominate the GT racing scene in the mid 90's as part of their 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours win in which the car hardly needed any modifications to make it race-worthy. Also got to see all the trophies they'd won too.

Now I don't know why I decided to do this but I thought it might amuse me so as I recently acquired Coldplay's new album 'Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends" I will now personally review each song on the album.

1) Life In Technicolor: A good start to the album, rolling drums beats help keep the pace of the song up and was a good decision to start the album with a non-vocalised song, kept the theme original and could easily be recreated by any budding drummer.
2) Cemeteries Of London: Coldplay said themselves they aimed to name this song as how Morrisey formely of The Smiths would, and they weren't wrong. Not too bad a song, slower than Track 1 but still keeps an echoey air to it which suits this song best to make it a more calming tune.
3) Lost!: This is one of my favourite tracks on the album, I like the lyrics and the beat behind it could not be better, steady at first and has an African theme about it and as the song goes on it gradually gets replaced by the modern drum kit as played by Will Champion. I would also recommend listening to 'Lost?' which is a piano acoustic version of this song and can be downloaded from iTunes, the beat is the same but do give it a listen.
4) 42: Again this song is one of the ones I like listening to best, I could easily sit back and let the music calm and relax me, but unfortunately it doesn't last long. The song jumps from a calming piano into a full blown guitar and drums blast which I can't decide whether it gives the song added impact or makes it unneccessarily manic and would be better off keeping the calming piano throughout the song.
5) Lovers In Japan/Reign Of Love: The first part of the song i.e. 'Lovers In Japan' I like a fair bit, the piano has a nice rolling play to it, so not a bad effort. As far as 'Reign Of Love' is concerned, this would be the calmest track on the album, well I say track. I prefer the second part of this song mainly because it's the calming song I can lay back and relax too when I have had an iffy day.
6) Yes: Oddly seeing as this song seems to be another case of forgetting to press the "stop" button between songs as it doesn't mention there being a second part to the song as is done so in Track 5. Anyway onto the song, the first part relates to me a little but I won't go into that, it's a slightly harsher song in terms of how the instruments are used. As for the second part of the song I can actually see why they didn't give it a name because it doesn't really deserve one. I like the guitar playing very much in this but it's another non-vocal song and tends to repeat itself a little too much.
7) Viva La Vida: Now I don't care what anyone says about this track but I love it. The violins are an excellent touch and the lyrics behind it are even better, so thankyou Mr Martin for deciding to work on the song instead of going to sleep that fateful night. This is the song on the album that I've wanted to go out and sing the most, but obviously I don't as I've no idea if I can actually sing or not, and that's saying something for me as 'Lost!' comes pretty damn close to being my favourite song on the album too.
8) Violet Hill: Was a good decision to use this to help the build-up of the album's release But I can't help it may not be much more than that. Don't get me wrong, the song is good. I like the song as a whole as you shouldn't be deterred by my previous comment about this song.
9) Strawberry Swing: Upon hearing this song I have now decided my absolute favourite songs on this album are 'Lost!', 'Viva La Vida' and this. It always gets my feet tapping when the intro plays and I'm not sure what effect that is at the start of the song but whatever it is it's done a great job. A good song for lovers in terms of the lyrics but in my case just makes me think of her and that's all I'll say about it.
10) Death And All His Friends: This song has both it's upsides and downsides, the upside being the instrumental performance of this song being above-par but the downside being I can't help but feel Mr Martin is in somewhat of a rush to fit the lyrics into one line during the mid-point of the song. Overall though it's not bad.

So that's my review done, comment if you disagree and I think I know of one person who's likely to disagree and he knows who he is.

Anyway as you may have noticed I've been rather down over these past days (except for tuesday that was just an amazing day, better if I had gotten to speak to her in person though), and I won't expand on it mainly because it's due to stupid, self-centered reasons and my emotions are insignifficant compared to people's present problems/situations.

Alas, I am ending this blog now. I'll see you lot soon.
*bows*

0 comments: