When it comes to radio stations, in America you have your classic rock stations, your “80s, 90s and Today” stations, your hip hop stations, a Spanish station, a generic Top 40 pop station, a news station, and then it repeats. It’s the same from town to town. By about 2002, with Nu Metal overtaking alternative rock and the Emo craze right around the corner, I disavowed FM radio and listened exclusively to European metal on CDs for the next few years. The radio, with its mainstream music looped over and over, and ads between every two songs, had nothing more to offer me, so it seemed. But, that is because I only had access to local stations.
These days, I get most of my new music from gothic music podcasts and YouTube uploads. Listening to the radio for new music is something I haven’t done consistently for almost twenty years. But then, I found out about a website. Radio Garden. This website lets you navigate an interactive Google Earth map (without borders, because radio signals don’t adhere to borders) and listen to radio stations from all over the world. I have searched the world for worthy radio stations in my preferred genres, and found quite a few. Even some goth ones! Several of those, in fact. Maybe it is time to return to the radio. How was I to know I could be listening to Hungarian goth radio stations all this time?Why is this type of music so completely absent from the American airwaves? I keep asking myself this every time I find another of these stations. I think I’m culturally more European than American, despite having been born here. As I searched the world I was still surprised by how similar to America’s a lot of their radio stations all are. You’ve got Top 40, 80s, 90s, oldies, etc. in nearly every country. Seems the majority of the human race listens to the exact same music, sadly, because that’s all the corporations shove down our throats. But there are a few unique stations here and there, like hidden gems. Especially in Europe. I only wish I had a way to record from these stations onto a blank tape. Sure I could use an auxiliary cord, but those seem to kill the sound quality.
Sadly there are still ads, and they’re always local to where you are no matter where in the world the radio station is. I don’t want my German polka music interrupted by a commercial for Publix in Florida, dammit. At least it would be interesting listening to ads from other countries, but no. Must be how Radio Garden pays the bills. You can just switch stations when an ad comes on, just like with regular radio. If a station is ad-free anyway then you don’t need to bother. A word of caution, though. Radio Garden will try to convince you to download the app. I did, and I lost all my favorites on the website version, which did not transfer over to the app either. If I hadn’t already been writing this blog and saving the links I may not have been able to find some of these stations again. I think it periodically forgets your favorites eventually anyway even when you’re not messing around with the app though. Maybe the app is better at remembering, but I haven’t really used it enough to be sure because you get popup ads on the app, which you don’t get on the website. Everything else on the app was exactly the same as using the website. So I don’t recommend the app. Unless they update it to be better somehow after this writing.
Below I have linked to some of my favorite radio stations from around the world here, sorted by genres I am into (Goth, Metal, Alternative Rock, Armenian music, folk, and other random genres) in roughly the order I discovered each one in. This is more so that I can have them saved somewhere, but also to share them. I just discovered this website last week so this list is by no means exhaustive.
This was the first station I found that played music from under the “Goth” music genre umbrella, which I will be using in this blog entry as a convenient shorthand. I am pretty sure stations like this do not exist in America. Granted, this station focuses mostly on dark electro, like what the dance clubs play. That’s what most of the gothic music stations I found have in common. As the name suggests, very synth-heavy. I like that though. Expect to hear VNV Nation and the like.
Much like the previous station, this one plays dance club goth music. It’s not actual “Synthwave”, another term for Retrowave, which is a revival of 80s New Wave and pop, but maybe Synthwave means something else in Hungary.
This is obviously related to the previous station, but the focus is darkwave and post-punk. Guitar-based goth music. They play The Cure fairly often. There must be a big goth scene in Miskolc, Hungary. Who’d have thought?
A Peruvian radio station that’s a little more my style, playing electronic music. It’s not really dark synth, but it’s up my alley enough, and is one of my favorites. Music you still wouldn’t really find in the United States so much. I actually heard them play And One though. And songs other than just “Military Fashion Show” and “Panzermensch” too, which are the only ones most club DJs ever play. So they will play EBM from time to time. It’s funny how they interrupt the song to say “Rrrradio synthpop perrrrfecto!” every now and then. This is a charming little radio station to put on.
Leave it to Germany to have a Gothic music station. It’s got darkwave, post-punk, industrial, industrial metal. I even heard them play Rammstein, appropriately enough. There are so many great bands from Germany they have to get airplay somewhere.
I thought I had found all the goth stations, but then I decided to search under the term “dark”, and got some more. This one from Scotland was playing Ministry when I first tuned in, so I knew I’d found a good one. From what I’ve heard, this station seems to specialize in Industrial music and dark electro. A lot of the time it feels just like listening to the Communion After Dark podcast. I have heard them play VNV Nation, [:SITD:], Das Ich, Project Pitchfork, And One, and even Kraftwerk. They’re after me own heart, they are. They blend the songs together like a DJ does at a club; you start to hear hints of the next song at the end of the current song, and it transitions. It’s like listening to an endless DJ live stream. This might be my favorite radio station in the world. Followed closely by Radio Synthpop. Unless there are more that I haven’t discovered yet.
The “dark” search also turned up this station, another dark electronic music station. So Italy has enough cool people to warrant a goth station as well. How lucky for them.
Yet another dark electro goth station! Found this one while searching “synth” trying to get back to Lima’s Radio Synthpop. It truly is a synthetic experience. They even snuck some Kraftwerk in there as I listened, which made me excited. I’ve also heard Laibach and Diary of Dreams. This is one of my favorites.
I knew there had to be a metal station in Norway somewhere, since that’s where all the best metal comes from. And there is one! There’s another genre missing from American radio.
I expected this to be another goth station, but it seems to be more of a metal station. Still a cool find. So far I’ve mainly heard melodic power metal, not sure if they ever play black metal or other genres. I feel so cheated as an American. Why do our radio stations all suck?
There’s a very similar station in Cologne, Germany called Ultra Dark Radio, which seems to be the same kind of music and may be affiliated with Dark Radio.
This is just a good place to go for the 80s and 90s alternative rock I grew up listening to. I could probably find a station like this in the US since it is pretty mainstream, or was when it was new. Except it’s all the way in Moscow. That just makes things more interesting.
I have a history with this alternative rock station, and I’ve told that story on the blog before. I grew up listening to this radio station. I recorded my first mixtape off this radio station. It’s a student-run radio station at a high school, where they train DJs. It’s been around since 1969, good to know it’s still going. I’ve moved on from this type of music, but it’s still kind of nice to go back and listen to this station again. It’s sentimental.
Yeraz is Armenian for “dream”, and this is an Armenian radio station for the diaspora living in Syria. The fact that this station is up and running leads me to believe maybe Aleppo is more intact than the western media would have us believe. No, Syria isn’t just a big rubble pile. This station plays Armenian traditional folk and modern Armenian pop. Diasporan Armenian radio stations are more dedicated to playing Armenian music than the actual radio stations in Armenia, oddly enough. I guess when you’re surrounded by it constantly you want to hear something different. It’s interesting to contrast attitudes in Armenia versus in the Armenian diaspora by looking at their radio stations. Maybe it’s similar when you compare a Spanish radio station in California versus a typical radio station in Mexico, which would be under no obligation to play only Spanish-language music. So anyway, if you’re in the mood for Armenian music you’re actually better off finding one of these stations than finding one from Yerevan, where they mix in Russian and American music a lot of the time. I found a couple more Armenian stations in Lebanon and one in America which I will cover.
“Lav” is Armenian for “good”. This is one of the better stations to get Armenian music from the actual country, although it’s pretty much just pop music. There are two Lav Radio stations. The other one is Lav Radio Mix. This station plays electronic music and pop, not necessarily from Armenia alone, and they throw in some Russian and English-language songs too. It’s not always my type of music, though. Like I mentioned in the previous post, it’s a bit of a mix.
I will go ahead and mention Nor Radio here as well (“nor” means “new”), a very similar radio station also from Yerevan. That station also mixes music from other countries, and is essentially just like Lav Radio. All of the stations in Armenia come out of Yerevan, although I could have sworn Vanadzor had one when I was living there for two months. Maybe Radio Garden doesn’t have them all. I do have to be careful when using the map not to accidentally switch to a station in Turkey or Nakhichevan. For historical reasons.
“Hayazgi Dzayn” or “Armenian Voice” in English. Another Armenian radio station, this time from Lebanon. It’s not the only one there either, such as this one. There’s a very large Armenian diaspora community in Beirut. Again, it’s mainly traditional folk or pop-folk. But you know what you’re getting, no random pop music from other countries.
Oh alright, one more Armenian station. Gotta catch ‘em all, I guess. And this one is from the United States! I should have grown up in Glendale. It’s a small town near Los Angeles and a well-known Armenian colony. I checked Glendale specifically just to see if there were any Armenian radio stations there, and there was this one. The Armenians in Glendale are very committed to preserving their identity, so this is a good radio station for that reason.
Now here’s something completely different. You like pan pipes? Well here’s the station for you. Peruvian folk music is very relaxing. My wife is half-Peruvian which was what led me to search Peru for radio stations. I like this one.
Germany is home to a few German folk music stations, mostly in the south of the country. Nearby Munich also has Volksmusikwelle, and Radio Heimatmelodie. These three stations alone should cover your yodeling and accordion fix. But there are most certainly others.
This one is too weird not to include. It’s a radio station from Greece that plays music from Japanese anime shows. Really. I have no idea how this happened. I’m just amused that it exists.
An actual dedicated New Wave station is hard to find, but Dublin, Ireland has one. There are 80s stations all over the world, but at least this one doesn’t mix in the boring love ballads and pop music.
Radio stations with music this old are a rarity. I do like me some classic jazz, swing and big band music every now and then. This station plays music you’d expect to hear in old black and white movies and Betty Boop cartoons.
Electro Swing is a modern swing revival with electronic music infused with it. It is such a niche genre, it’s really cool to see that there’s a radio station that plays it somewhere. I didn’t think it was really very well known outside of YouTube. There’s so much more variety on the radio in Germany.
Anyway, I probably still haven’t discovered all the radio stations I would like. If you know of any you think I would be into, go ahead and let me know here or on Facebook.
“The flow of time is always cruel. Its speed seems different for
each person, but no one can change it. A thing that does not change with time
is a memory of younger days.”
Sheik – The Legend of
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
This quote popped into my mind suddenly
as I was writing this. Time really was a central theme in that video game. And
it had something deep and profound to say about it. Time waits for no man. The
Earth has completed another orbit around the Sun since the last time it was
close to New Years, and by the abstract Gregorian calendar most (but not all)
of humanity uses, it’s going to be the year 2020 soon. And this is considered
significant, although not quite as significant as 2000 was. The years 2010 and
2000 don’t feel all that long ago. But in some ways, they feel like they were
an eternity ago too. Maybe they’re never going to feel like that long ago to
me. One day my son, born in January 2019, will look at the year 2010 the way I
look at 1977. It is going to all seem like ancient history to him. And to me
2010 was like a couple years ago, in my mind. Getting old sucks. Yes, as Sheik
said the flow of time is indeed cruel.
But
I suppose since everyone else is taking stock of the last ten years at the
moment, I might as well hop on the bandwagon. I have little idea what music was
actually popular in the United States during this decade. I stopped keeping
track of that after high school (Class of 2004 if you’re curious). I suppose
once you reach adulthood it gets easier to shelter yourself from all of that irrelevant
nonsense. You might still have to hear the irritating popular music at the
store or something, but most of the time you can avoid it. What did the kids
listen to this decade? There was it that dubstep noise, that prima donna Justin
Bieber, Katy Perry and Gangnam Style became the Macarena of the decade. That’s
about as far as I know about the music that was popular in the 2010’s, and it
sure wasn’t what I was listening to. Come to think of it my lack of knowledge
about it makes me understand why so many people over 50 seem to think young
people still wear baggy jeans that show off their boxers like it’s 1998. You
get more sheltered from all of that foolishness the older you get. I hope I
don’t ever get quite that out of touch.
As it so happens, another weird
tradition I keep (I should have started blogging years ago so I could share all
these), is to keep track of my top two songs each year. The ones that remind me
the most of how my year went. I do this so that I can eventually make a mix
tape covering the years. These songs needn’t have been released that same year
as they’re listed, in fact some of these are from the 1980’s and 1990’s, but
it’ll be the year I discovered them, and the year they impacted me.
“Time passes. People move. Like a
river’s flow, it never ends.”
2010
·Ayria
– Lovely Day
A
song I associate with sitting in my room at night having no one to hang out
with and nothing to do, when I wish I did. But “I fear rejection more than
being alone”, very true of myself at the time and why I had neither a
girlfriend nor many friends in general save for a small core that I still have
today. At this point I actually had to return to Community College for the last
couple of classes I still needed for my Bachelor’s degree, which weren’t
offered at my University. So, I was back with my parents in Martinez,
California, doing mainly nothing else but write. I was in limbo at this time.
·And
One – Years
A
song about time. It makes me think about how the years roll by faster and
faster, growing “colder” as they pass, as I look at the world through an
increasingly jaded lens. And when they’re gone, it’s “just memories left
behind”. The cruel passage of time. Like a river’s flow, it never ends. Fits in with my introduction to this blog entry quite well.
2011
·Epsilon
Minus – Just Another Long Shot
So this song was done by the band Jennifer Parkin was in before she went solo and started Ayria, but the song appears on one of her later albums anyway as a bonus track of sorts. In
spring 2011 I was trying to get accepted into Graduate School, throwing my bets
on that being what would provide me with a financially stable future. *cue
laugh track* It was another long shot. This song was there when my anticipation
was at its highest. I was holding my breath, waiting for the answer for months,
wondering if I’d be good enough. I’m still wondering if it was fortunate or not
that they accepted me. As I’ve discussed, if there was a year that I could just
do over, it would probably be 2011.
·And
One – Save the Hate
A
song I associate with trying to put your negativity aside and enjoy the day.
Don’t let the depression win, save the hate for another day, just seize the day
and don’t let anything get you down. “Don’t bring me down it’s far too late”.
I’d been through the worst of it, nothing that life could throw at me was going
to be something I couldn’t handle. It was a song that pumped me up as I
prepared to enter Graduate School.
2012
·And
One – The Sun
This
song will always remind me of my first trip with my girlfriend to Florida (my
wife now). I see it as an ode to the Sun, the star that gave us all life, which
I personally have a love/hate relationship with, but have to remember that
without it, life wouldn’t be here.
·Light
Asylum – Heart of Dust
I
wouldn’t say this song has a whole lot of personal relevance to me, but I was
obsessed with this song back in late 2012 and early 2013. By the lyrics, it sounds like a song about a haunted house, or trying to get a spirit to leave your house. Interesting subject choice, not something I can say I've had personal experience with. I want Light Asylum
to come out with a new album already. They had what, a single, one full album,
and then they were gone. We miss you and need you, Light Asylum.
2013
·Light
Asylum – IPC
Yes,
this band again. I bought their album in early 2013 after having heard “Heart
of Dust”. This song is even catchier than Heart of Dust. And its
anti-authority, which is always fun. It stands for "Industrial Prison Complex" and is about people being arrested for petty crimes for the profit of prison owners. Nobody's innocent in their eyes. It's true. The tune of this song is going to get
right up in your brain and never leave though, so be careful. Here's a live version for you to watch.
·The
Jetzons – Hard Times
It
was this year where in the Sonic the Hedgehog community, someone finally put
two and two together and realized that this song was the basis for the theme of
the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The song had been recorded in
1982, but went under the radar along with the rest of The Jetzons’ catalog.
Their music was rereleased in 2009 but remained obscure, and it took four full
years before someone listened to this song and realized it sounded like the Ice
Cap Zone theme, and discovered that the singer of The Jetzons, Brad Buxer, had
worked on the soundtrack for the game, so it was obvious. Before this the main
theory was that Ice Cap Zone was based on Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”,
since he also worked on the soundtrack, but that turned out to be a red
herring. Ice Cap Zone was always the best song from that game, and to hear a
New Wave song done to the tune of it? A part of my childhood was completed. Any
time I feel like I’m going through “Hard Times”, it makes me think of this
song. The hard times can still be the “happiest days of our lives” when we look
back on them, even if they felt hard at the time.
2014
·And
One – Missing Track
This
song is inseparable in my mind with my first trip to Armenia, a two-week
excursion with Fresno State’s Armenian Students Organization. I afforded it
with a scholarship and a generous donation from my aunt Sharon (thanks!). I had
this song on my MP3 player while we were on the tour bus driving through the
beautiful mountain landscapes. But the lyrics are about writing to someone far
away that you miss, like a long-distance relationship. I still missed my
girlfriend Deborah while I was on the trip and it reminded me of that. The song
came back the next year when I went to Armenia again for some internships,
becoming even more relevant to me. And wow, the "Missing Track" is missing from YouTube! How strangely appropriate. This was all I could dig up.
·Aurelio Voltaire
– The Night (1988 Deathrock version)
This
version is my favorite, as Voltaire had an earlier version that was heavier on
the violins, but somehow not as dark sounding, nor as heavy. I suppose I just
prefer it in this style. It’s a song for those of us who prefer the night to
the day, despite others telling us it is unhealthy or wrong. The perfect song
for any goth, really. I relate to it quite well.
2015
·And
One – Nyctophiliac
This
is one of my favorite songs of the decade, really. I can remember listening to
it on my MP3 player on a tour bus driving from Armenia into Artsakh, the
unrecognized country I visited during my trip. It was night out, the roads were
winding through the mountains, tossing us back and forth. Through the windows I
could only see an inky black night, with the rugged mountains only slightly
darker than the sky above. If you live in America, you probably rarely see
landscapes this dark. No city around for miles. A village passes briefly every
now and then, but these aren’t very bright either. Only the major cities in
Artsakh have street lights. They have to conserve. As I pressed my head against
the glass of the window in fatigue, I thought about how much blood was spilt
over this land in the early 1990’s, when a war was fought between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over it. I thought about the history of conflict here over the
centuries. Night had fallen over this land. It was peaceful, but the peace is a
fragile one. Will it survive? “Will I survive?” The lyrics seemed to me to be sung
by the land itself. I'm also a nyctophiliac myself, which is a lover of night, so that's another reason I relate to it.
Garegin
Bingyol – Done Yar
This
is the catchiest Armenian song ever. I first heard of this singer when I was in
Armenia and one of their songs was played on the bus during one of our trips. I
discovered this one after I returned to the US, late in 2015. It kept me
connected to Armenia at a time where I felt sadly severed from it.
2016
·Vellum
Stairs – You’re Always Guilty
An
overlooked song from 1990, this is some good New Wave. And I was feeling guilty
at the time I heard this. I felt guilty that my fiancé had a job and I had been
unable to find one. I felt like baggage, like a burden. This song hit close to
home that summer. It was a depressing time, but the good news is that September
I started the best job I’ve ever had, at the Cracker Country museum on the
Florida State Fairgrounds. Then I got married. So things turned around.
Katzenjammer
– Soviet Trumpeter
This
song reminds me of my tortured inner artist, who must subsist in a world where
it is so hard to be heard, so hard to be noticed, and you often have to endure
rejection. This could be the theme song of this blog, really. It certainly felt
that way to me around the time I uncovered this song, when I was finding out that self-publishing was a
lot harder to make money from than I had anticipated.
2017
·Brotherhood
– Damned
This
is a catchy song I was really into in the spring of 2017. Reminds me
of how life feels sometimes. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, there is no
hope. Life after graduation with a Master’s degree. This song has stuck around
with me too. The description on the official upload describes the song as being about the pursuit of elusive happiness, among other things. And happiness is elusive.
·The
Midnight – River of Darkness
This
was the year I discovered synthwave, a revival of the synth music of the 80’s.
The Midnight is my favorite band in this genre, with the great vocals and 80’s
sax, and melodies that many times feel magical. It was something different from
what I’d been into before. I don’t adopt new genres often but this song here
was a gateway drug. It’s probably dark enough to get played on one of the goth
podcasts out there, but a lot of the rest of this band’s music probably is not. It hooked me in though.
2018
·The
Cure – Cold
Yeah
this one’s an oldie from 1982, and unlike "Hard Times" by The Jetzons, which also came out that year, this song wasn't almost completely unheard of for almost 30 years; but for some reason it eluded me until 2018 when
I started buying albums from The Cure. The album this is on, Pornography,
is my favorite album from The Cure. A lot of people say Disintegration
is their favorite, but I just like this one better. The songs are more raw, I
suppose. Disintegration was The Cure’s return to darker music, but
Pornography is the sound they were returning to. The origin.I love the lyric “Your name like ice, into my
heart”. It helps that I discovered this song right around the time I started
the worst job I ever had, at that call center. It made me feel like this song
inside.
·Ministry
– Game Over
If
“Cold” represents my depression from that year, “Game Over” represents my
escape from that depression. An old Ministry track from when they were
synthpop, I mentioned before on this blog that it just feels adventurous. It
feels like a fantasy, an escape. I got heavily into escapism while I was
working full time at this call center, and it was partly fueled by this song.
And the Land of Oz books.
2019
·Boy
Harsher – Fate
So
this year is over, and I might as well pick my favorites from this year. It’s
hard to pick just two, it really is, I’ve heard all sorts of music this year.
It’s easier to talk about the years when they’re in the past, not when they’re
not quite over yet. I’ve been jumping from band to band this year thanks to
listening to Communion After Dark and other music I find on YouTube. But, let
me first go with “Fate” by Boy Harsher. I saw this husband and wife duo in
concert last April in Ybor City, Florida, with my wife, and we had a wonderful
night out. I bought their album Careful on cassette too, which I should
review sometime. This song was running through my head for a couple months
earlier in the year.
Buzz
Kull – Avoiding the Light
This
song came out last year and I’m kicking myself for not hearing it sooner. It’s
dominated my top 3 songs of the month for two months straight. It’s one of
those songs that I feel like was written for me in a way. And I bet I’m not the
only one who feels that way. I want them to play this at The Castle nightclub
in Ybor City so I can dance to it. Somewhat sadly, I’ve moved this year so I won’t
be able to show up there as often anymore.This song just makes me think of dressing up and having a fun night out
at a Gothic nightclub.
I’ve been making playlists for my CD
mixes of my favorite songs that were released year by year since 1981, and I’ll
be sharing those soon if you’d rather see a list of songs going by the year
they were released. I’m currently up to 2007 on that. I like to decide the best
songs released during a decade after a little more time has gone by, because I
may not have heard it all yet. I’ve only recently been able to put together a
comprehensive list of the what I consider to be the best songs of the 2000’s in
the last couple years, and well over half of the songs on that list are ones I
wouldn’t have discovered yet in late 2009. But that’ll be for a later blog
entry.
And One provided the soundtrack to my 20s. A band that
started in the early 90s and had their most recent release in 2014, they
provided me years of new-to-me music after I discovered them in 2009. I chose Bodypop
because it was the album that the first songs from this band that I heard came
from, but much like other bands on this top 10 list I'm hard pressed to choose
a favorite album of theirs. Their sound is versatile, and although they are
mainly known for one or two songs in goth circles they have so many great songs
that no one talks about. One of their most overplayed songs at the goth clubs
is on this album in fact.
What this album
in particular and my discovery of And One in general really marked was the
final step in my shift from getting newmusic in record stores to finding new music
online. I discovered And One through YouTube, during a time where I was pretty
much hopping from band to band, getting into them for a couple months, and then
moving onto the next one. I guess I’m kind of doing that now too, but it’s more
centralized within a set of closely-related genres, in part thanks to And One’s
influence, while between the years 2007-2009, it almost felt like I couldn’t
settle on what I wanted to listen to. I was in a major transitional point in my
life, that perhaps I’ll write more about later. A lot of my favorite bands as a
teen in high school had either taken a turn for the worse with their musical
style or just disappeared by that time, and I just didn’t have the anger in me
anymore that led me to listen to black metal. I wasn’t being imprisoned in a
horrible high school anymore, and college was actually kind of nice. Some of
the best years of my life were my late teens to early 20’s. So, I was searching
for a new sound. A new laidback kind of darkness, rather than the high energy, angry
darkness of metal. Then along comes And One, and I found that they had a vast
discography dating back to 1991 and I liked almost every song. It ushered in a
new era for me, and this became the music of my 20’s (I still feel sad talking about my 20's in the past tense…). This album in particular always brings me back to
2009 when I listen to it, when I was at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB).
The middle of my Monterey years. When I listen to songs from this album,
particularly the tracks “Love You to the End” and “Stand the Pain”, sometimes I’ll
catch a whiff of that fragrant sea air, feel the cool rush of fog and the spray
of the sea, have a taste of fresh clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl and
have visions of standing up on a sand dune watching the Pacific Ocean crashing
in waves against the shore below.
I didn’t really
consume Bodypop as a single work like I did the other albums I’ve talked
about, or like I later would with And One’s albums released after I discovered
the band. I listened to it one song at a time, in no particular order, mixed with songs on other And
One albums. I think that’s how a lot of people end up listening to albums these
days, on either YouTube, Pandora, Spotify or whatever else people use. The art
of constructing one album with songs that fit together and share a common theme
throughout seems to be a dying art. One that does not transfer well from physical
media to modern streaming. It’s a tragic loss in some ways. I think back to an
older band like Kraftwerk. All their albums had a theme of some kind, not a lot
of their songs would have worked on their own. They either would have sounded
completely different if streaming had existed back then, or would never have risen
to “sort-of popularity in certain circles” in the first place. Pink Floyd would
be another good example. We’re not getting another album that compares to Dark
Side of the Moon this century, I don’t think. If we do it’s going to be
really underground, obscure, and never get popular. Everything that gains
notoriety these days has to be tailor-made for modern musical consumption. I
probably sound like that “Old Man Yells At Cloud” screencap from The Simpsons
right now, but I’m not saying streaming’s a bad thing. It’s how I discover new
music these days. I wouldn’t find half of the stuff I listen to these days in a
record store. That’s the beauty of streaming. All of those obscure bands from
the 80’s I’m discovering? Impossible without streaming. Would I have ever
discovered And One without it? Probably not. But to gain all of this, we paid a
price.
Yeah, that's the screencap. "Damn you streaming!"
Anyway, let’s
talk about some of the songs, shall we?
After a short instrumental piece
called “Mein Anfang”, we get to “Military Fashion Show”, apparently the only
And One song that DJ’s at The Castle and most other goth dance clubs have ever
heard, besides maybe “Panzermensch”. There are so many other good And One songs
they could be playing. There’s nothing wrong with those two songs, I like them,
but there’s just so many others that the DJs ignore. Anyway. Back in 2009 when
I first heard this, it didn’t really speak to me too deeply, it was just a
catchy song that I was into for a month or two. Lines like “Girlfriend,
girlfriend, never could be mine” spoke to my bitterness at the time because I’d
had a painful breakup the year before, and besides a brief one week fling back
in 2006, that was essentially the extent of my entire love life up to that
point, at age 23. But I’m married now, so I’m all better. There was a happy
ending to the tragic tale of my love life before age 26.
The next song “Enjoy the Unknown”
isn’t a song that I gave a whole lot of attention to back then, but after listening
to it again for this blog, I really underrated this song. It has a smooth,
symphonic and sentimental quality to it. It would make a good emotional
end-credits song for a movie soundtrack. I overlooked it before, but perhaps it’s
time for that to change. I don’t know why I overlook some songs on occasion, I
guess it got overshadowed at the time I was into this album. It sounds a lot
like a Depeche Mode song, which is pretty common with And One by the way, they’re
really like the German Depeche Mode. The next song is “So Klingt Liebe” (“So
sounds love”). This song’s a bit naughty I must forewarn. I did include it on
the first CD mix I made for my wife when we began dating, and I think it went
over well despite her not knowing German.
“The Sound of Believer” has a sound
somewhat similar to the earlier “Enjoy the Unknown” in a way, but different
enough. This is one of those songs that brings me back to a time and place,
mainly exploring the abandoned, decaying buildings around CSUMB on a cold, foggy
Monterey day. I don’t really know what the lyrics are about to this day, it’s a
song I just feel. The next song, “Body Company”, is a catchy one that easily
could be played in dance clubs but usually isn’t. I don’t have too much to say
about it, but it is catchy and a nice listen. Next up is “Traumfrau” (“Dream
girl”), which is a song I was never that into really. I don’t dislike it, but
there are other songs on the album that sound a bit similar but are better.
“Stand the Pain” is another good
one, full of underlying anger and resentment but still catchy. It’s a bit like
Ministry’s “Revenge” in tone. The subject of the song is being bitter about
having caught ones lover cheating on them, but like I said that breakup from
the year before was still pretty fresh in my mind when I heard this song, so
that’s how I related to it. It brings me back to Monterey too. Ah, doomed
romances of yore. I’m over it now. The next track, “Sexkeit”, is actually one I
remember listening to a lot more a couple years later in 2011. I didn’t hear
this one at first. It’s slow and a bit creepy. It reminds me of lonely winter
days alone in my bedroom when I lived in Martinez, California, watching the
rain fall through my window, without much to do as this was after college but
before graduate school for me. The lyric “I am waiting for you” reminds me of
waiting for my soul mate, who I didn’t know yet and hadn’t met. The ending of
the song kind of decays away, reminding me of abandonment, loneliness.
“Love You to the End” reminds me of
love not for a person, but a place. Monterey. I said this album made me think
of Monterey a lot. I loved it there. Why did I ever leave? Oh, right. Because I
graduated and didn’t have a job, so I went back to Martinez to live with my
parents. Then I thought it would be a good idea to go into debt for a useless
master’s degree. How fun. Graduating sucks. I would happily have stayed a
college student for the rest of my life, never having to deal with loan sharks
sending scary letters in the mail every few months and taking awful jobs to get
by. I really would have. The only time graduating didn’t suck was at the end of
high school. I love Monterey. It’s the only place I love almost as much as
Armenia. I love the beaches, the water, the sea. The ocean isn’t the same in
Florida. I live near the ocean now, but you’d never be able to tell. There’s no
fog. Rarely much wind. It’s hot and humid. It doesn’t smell like the sea here
in Rockledge, Florida. I don’t know why it’s so different. “Since the old club
fell into the past”. My Monterey days are falling into the past, as one of the
lyrics in this song says. It’s been almost ten years since I left. Only music
can really conjure those memories up for me again.
There are two more songs, “The Dream”
and “Dein Ende”. They’re both okay. Didn’t really impact me too much. “The
Dream” is kind of slow and relaxing, “Dein Ende” (“Your End”) is just an
instrumental. I guess that works because the first song is an instrumental. The
best of the album is over by the time these two songs come on. I was still
listening to And One religiously throughout the rest of my 20’s. They released
three albums in one year in 2014, which took me a while to get through, but
they’ve been quiet ever since. I do hope it’s not going to become another Das
Ich/The Kovenant/Kraftwerk situation where I’m waiting decades for the next
album. But when you release three albums in one year, I guess you deserve a bit
of a break. I’ve had to look for other music to listen to in the meantime. And I
haven’t had trouble in that regard, thanks to streaming.
For a change, here's an album that came out before I was born,
but one I discovered much more recently; Ministry's With Sympathy. I
almost just love this album out of defiance; the singer has disowned it and
hates the album, having moved on from 80's synthpop to industrial metal; being one
of the pioneers of the genre in fact. I’ve heard possibly apocryphal stories
that when presented with this album at signings, singer Al Jourgensen will
either destroy it, or charge $1000 to sign it. Something about being forced to
sing in this style by the record companies when really, he was a true metalhead
through and through all along; but he’s gone back and forth on this claim and
other band members have contradicted him on it. If it’s true though then why do
the demo versions and old singles from before he signed with the record company
sound so similar in style? I find it bizarre when an artist just completely
disowns their early work. Kraftwerk does this with their first three albums
(which have good stuff on them, even if they weren’t fully robotic yet),
Mortiis used to do this with his old Dungeon Synth albums as well, although
these days he’s come around and might even return to his old style (more on him
later). It’s like, get over yourself. Will Odinochka, my first novel, make me cringe in
25 years, I wonder? I mean I was somewhat forced to write that novel when I really
wanted to be writing fantasy, kind of like how “Uncle Al” was apparently forced
to make synthpop when he wanted to be doing industrial metal. But then again, I
like going through my old comics I drew in high school and things like that. It’s
fascinating to see how far I’ve come when I read my old work, even when it’s
not that good. So yeah, I don’t get it.
But I just never get tired of this album. Ministry's later music is okay at
times (“Jesus Built My Hotrod” was the first Ministry song I ever heard, way
back in the late 90’s and long before I knew With Sympathy existed),
their second album Twitch is pretty good too, but I don't like any of
Ministry’s output after Twitch nearly as much as their early music. Many
of their singles from before even this album are just as catchy as the best
songs on With Sympathy, such as “I’m Falling”, “Same Old Madness”, and
especially “Game Over” (that song just sounds like an adventure, and is
criminally under-rated and obscure, please check it out). This may be a bit off-topic,
but these songs really should have been on the album, I don’t know why they weren’t.Of course, they appear on my bootleg burned
versions of this album (shh! Don’t worry, I have an official copy too).
So, let’s talk about the songs. I usually can’t stand
disco, but the very disco-esque track "I Wanted to Tell Her" is just
so catchy (and hilarious when compared to Ministry’s later work), I don’t get
tired of it. Disco was basically dead by 1983, making it even funnier that this
song exists. I prefer the demo versions with extra lines from the female singer
though. Same with “Work For Love”, a song comparing trying to win someone’s
love with trying to apply for a job. In the demo version there’s an extra
little dialog that I like, a female saying “You don’t have what it takes,” and
the singer yelling back “BUT I’M WILLING TO WORK!” It’s another song on my call
center nightmare playlist (the mix tape I made about my time at the Macy’s call
center last year is even called “Work For Love”, maybe I’ll cover that
eventually).
As an aside, I’ve found that almost any time a demo
version of a song exists somewhere, it’s better than the album version. Almost
every time. The only exception I can think of right now is “One Hundred Years”
by The Cure, I didn’t really like the demo version of that one. But in any
case, there I go rambling again.
The song
“Revenge” has such a biting, angry energy to it, despite being synthpop. You
can almost see the seed of what Ministry would become. I would have loved this
song as a teenager. There’s also a nice music video to this song, which I'll embed here.
Got to love those keychain
earrings.
“Say You’re Sorry” makes great use of 80’s sax, and is a soothing
melody that just kind of makes me think of a cold, rainy day (my favorite
weather). I’m also a sucker for the
80’s-style saxophone, which is one reason I like the synthwave band The
Midnight so much. “She’s Got a Cause” is a more stereotypical electronic 80’s
song, which I’m fine with. I’m not as fond of the remaining songs on the album
to be honest, but the songs previously mentioned make up for that.
As for its influence on me, it's led me to discover
more obscure 80's synthpop and New Wave, showing me that there was way more to
the 1980's than just the hits we all know and love, but hear all the time.
Before this album I was basically only listening to the greatest hits when it
came to 80’s music (I had recently discovered The Jetzons by that time too,
which was the first step I took toward discovering underground 80’s music), but
I’ve found that this decade is the gift that keeps on giving if you just look
outside the mainstream. There were so many great New Wave, synthpop, post-punk
and goth bands from back then that I probably haven’t even heard of yet.
On that note, let's end this blog entry with a message I believe in.
