unpiano: music

After I mentioned that Philip Glass score of Candyman in the Daniel Tierney post, I got super excited to get some of those compositions up here as well. Candyman is in-itself a pretty scary film, dealing with complex social undercurrents and having been filmed in Chicago’s now-semi-torn-down Cabrini Green housing projects. However, it’s undeniable that Philip’s Glass’s haunting cathedral of a soundtrack makes the film achieve the status it currently holds. I can make the images go away after watching it, but the never the music. The music has been with me since the day I first saw it when I was sixteen years old.

Philip Glass - Candyman Suite: Helen’s Theme
Philip Glass - Candyman Suite: Cabrine Green
Philip Glass - Candyman Suite: Floating Candyman
Philip Glass - Music Box

Bonus:
There is a lot of the music from the film that never seemed to make it on the cd compilation that was released. Check out the video clips to catch the rest.
Candyman Intro (video)
Candyman Clip (video)

What can you say about Lindsey Buckingham? No, really.. what can you say? ..Because I have no idea. I think I’m starting to use this blog as a way to exercise all the songs that are stuck in my head. A friend sent this video to me a couple months ago and I still fucking hum it on a weekly basis. What else can I do but put it out into the internet in the hopes of putting it to rest. I hope you don’t mind..

Lindsey Buckingham - Holiday Road
Lindsey Buckingham - Holiday Road (video)

I don’t know what took me so long, but I’ve started tracking down all my favorite music from the show Samurai Champloo that was on television a while back. Most of the stuff used on the show was written by Nujabes and Fat Jon (of Five Deez fame) who both have a very cool-out jazz influenced style of making beats. I’ve also noticed that there is a very distinctly Japanese version of hip hop that producers hailing from there see to adapt to (see DJ Honda, DJ Krush, etc..). Very clean, very subtle, but always with content. Anyways, this could have been a much more comprehensive blog since both of those guys have extensive catalogs, but I’ll let you dig that stuff out for yourself. And go watch that show if you haven’t seen it already. You girlfriend will probably hate it, but what does she know anyways (ps.. you know you’re a total geek right?)

Nujabes - Latitude Remix (ft. Five Deez)
Nujabes - The Final View
Nujabes - Kumomi
Nujabes - Feather (ft. Cise Starr & Akin)
Nujabes - Next View (ft. Uyama Hiroto)

Bonus:
Samurai Champloo Opening (video)
Samurai Champloo Closing (video)

Man, I have had a crush on Cyndi Lauper for so long now. I was watching her in a movie that she filmed during the late nineties when she was well in her forties and she still looked so good. Plus she still has that Queens accent that makes her sounds like she doesn’t give a fuck. Did you know that she didn’t even get her career off the ground until she was in her late twenties. That’s pretty late for a major pop star. People used to ask her old she was and she would say “What am I a car?”. Even after all that she took her dog Sparkle, brought all her friends together and had a party. They brought a camera, filmed it, and that was the video for ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ (best video ever by the way).These days her music is largely devoted to her gay fan base with whole albums containing vocal house tracks. While this is not always my favorite genre, she remains really good at it. Just listen to her recent track ‘Lay Me Down’. Yeah it’s cheesy, but at least she does it better than most. All that aside, how rad would it have been to hang out with Cyndi while she toured in Japan or something. She would have made things like being at the airport seem like Disneyland.

Cyndi Lauper - The Goonies R Good Enough
Cyndi Lauper - When You Were Mine
Cyndi Lauper - True Colors

Bonus:
Girls Just Want To Have Fun (video)
When You Were Mine (live in ‘84)
Goonies R Good Enough (behind the scenes)