jmh123

Gibby, question for you. How many of the songs on this album are in a major key? Or could you please post the keys for all at some point?

Sure, I'll work on it! I'll post it here in this thread later today or tomorrow.

Thank you! Seems like so many are in a minor key to me--it's interesting. Appreciate your insight about the atonality of ETIDN. Blues scale--didn't know about that. Hmmmm. I do love me some blues, maybe that's why.

Thanks everybody, to ldyj for moderating, and everyone for their views. I can't wait to go back and really read the thread. Anyone that was late, or lurking, or reading later, please just add your thoughts at the end if you want. We would love to hear them. :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Piano intro has a gospel feel to it, but then the opening vocals are kind of "Broadway" sounding, but soft.

It's a beautiful melody and song, very delicate. The lyrics are very sophisticated.

I like this one better once it gets going. The background comes in, and his voice relaxes a bit.

Not one of my favorites and yet a very moving and powerful song.

A couple of things for me with this song:

1) I find the lyrics to this song heartbreaking -- not being open enough, or not afraid, to let someone in to their heart.

2) This is the song that I find myself singing more often than not.

3) I think this would make a great radio single. Better than Ashes. *ducks*

I've loved reading that this is one of the bigger songs for Clay on iTunes.

I'm another voter for this as a radio single.

Gibby, question for you. How many of the songs on this album are in a major key? Or could you please post the keys for all at some point?

The opening and verses to this are much like the previous song with the electronic sound and some atonality, but then it shifts into a more traditional sound on the chorus. Interesting chorus. On the chorus the guitars are so typically "rock," just frantic strumming and loud. There's a bit of a country feel in the chorus as well.

Then it shifts keys, and gets louder and louder. I like the way a single guitar or is it keyboard, or both, is now taking almost a descant over the more traditional guitar licks.

Then at the end, back to an electronic sound. Nice. Very dissonant at the end with the off-key piano. Again, that touch of "noise."

I have hit replay on Fallin so many times it ain't funny.

I have always thought it was about holding on to the past while still trying to survive in the present - never thought suicide at all!

Living in this new world and trying to understand/grasp it, yet not quite letting go of what used to be . .

the celebrity

the anonymity of teaching

two completely different worlds.

Must be even more crazy than we can imagine!

Nicely said.

I strongly dislike the synthy thingie!

I will so bring my JPOP collection to LA to techno-vert you!!!! L'Arc-En-Ciel rules!!!!

Yes, yes, yes. L'Arc-En-Ciel is at the soft end of the "noise" music I was talking about.

I have no idea what this song is about - what does fallen mean?

Falling, not fallen.

I never thought of this as depressing, just that life is carrying him away faster than he can keep up with. It's exhilerating but scary.

My second favorite at the moment. Gorgeous, gorgeous vocals at the beginning. Especially the first lines,

Silence,

long lost friend

You've come to me again

Night comes

Closing in

And the loneliness within

and also on

Restless, I lie awake.....(etc)

LOVE LOVE LOVE the vocals and the melody there.

I think there are two drumming things going on here, the jazz drum, and a more traditional pop drumming.

That stuttering sound in the background now and then throughout is interesting. Intriguing musical choice. Now and then I get a John Cage feeling from Kipper's arrangments, or at least electronica or "noise" music influence. It's like the sound of the NY streets to me. This song has a lot of "effects" that make it muscially complex and interesting.

Don't really love the techo voice, but I do love the way it moves from techno to natural on fallling. And I like the soft voice as the "falling' chorus starts up again.

I always think the phone is ringing here.

Again, a return to the opening guitar at the end, and a techno send off. Cool.

Ditto on the DWTS. It would be gorgeous.

CG, I like your scenario too, verrrrry nice.

I guess this is another song that conjures up a story for people.

So, what does this mean?

"Stop the music. Play the song."

It's southern for "Start the music, play the song."

Seriously, that's what I hear, but I just checked the lyric sheet.

I guess it means, stop whatever you're playing and play our song??

This song is just gorgeous, the melody, the piano, the strings. It's like something out of a old movie, very Sinatra. I'm usually a lyrics person, but I could care less whether I can relate to this or not, it's just so gorgeous.

This is my current favorite on the album. It's got a fabulous bluesy feel. The guitar at the beginning is just gorgeous. This song has a great beat, the drums are again that jazz-style, spare sound that works really well with his strong vocals.

"Last of a dying breed" is a lyric that bugs a bit.

Love the background on those lines, "get out of my dreams/bed/head sequence."

The melody is dissonant, really interesting. Is it a minor key or even a different mode altogether? Almost atonal for a line or two at various points, as in "You fill my head, you block my view, it's killing me."

I feel almost compelled to create a story in my mind when I listen to this.

Love the way it comes back again to the same musical lines as the intro, with drum, guitar, keyboards. Simple, light. Very jazzy ending.

LOVE this song.

Again, I love the opening. His voice is gorgeous. It has a quiet but driving feel to it, if that makes sense, like it's excited about the chorus that is coming. Then, here it is and we are rocking out, in a Clay Aiken kind of way. I like the backups here.

I like the light touch to the drumming, kind of jazz style, in this and many of the songs.

The verses are just wonderful, melody and lyrics, and boom, "turn around and see what loves done to me." I LOVE "so cold," I want to have its babies.

"Send it up, light the sky

Now that I know pain, I'm alive."

I like the effect right after that on the vocals, "turn around and see what loves done for me" -- kind of electronic.

Neat rhythms there at the end. And cool effects, with the slightly electronic vocal: "rise up from the ashes," and the movement from one speaker to the other (and thus one ear) like he's talking to me.

Great song. One of my favorites.

Muski, I think the chips could work sonically

BWAH!!!

I can see how a lot of people could identify with this song.

The second verse, I can relate to, I went to 16 different schools growing up.

WOW!! For me, it's more recent--all the moving. I moved from NC to NY to NC to NY to NC to Japan to NC to Allentown to NC, from 1990 to 2006. It was exciting, but it was also hard to say goodbye over and over, and there were so many people and places I'd said goodbye to that it was hard to stay connected after I left. For a child, it must be so much harder.

The introduction to this song is beautiful with the spare piano and guitar duet. I like the tympani that gives the song a dramatic feeling at certain points. The finger snaps give it a jaunty feeling that mitigates the tendency for it to be too ballad-y. His voice is absolutely gorgeous. I really resonate with the lines:

I've found that standing still

Can quickly make a lifetime disappear

I'd rather try and fail

A thousand times denied

At least, whenever you feel pain

It lets you know that you're alive.

This is a song that is growing on me. I did NOT like it on first listen, and it is still pretty close to the bottom of my list. But, it's very ear wormy, and from the beginning it stuck in my mind and I would wake up singing it. I'm coming to like it more, rather than less.

So pulling your mp3s from a CD at say, the 320 kbs rate will give you much better sound quality - but much bigger files too. But with 30GB mp3 players, who cares?

Pull them as .wavs and they're even bigger--around 4 times more than 320 kbs??

One more reason to buy the CD, if someone hasn't already, is how much better it sounds than the iTunes download (at least to me). I ripped my CD yesterday using Apple lossless setting...and it sounds incredible to me, y'all.

Don't get me wrong, I thought the album download sounded fine at the iTunes 128 kbps...but...the album is quite simply amazing (to me) at CD quality. I know next to nothing about compression and encoding and all that. But I'm very happy to possibly be hearing the CD closer to the way it was crafted to sound, instead of from a file made "smaller" by iTunes to fit better on iPods. To these ears, it makes a significant difference.

This seems to be a hotly debated topic on the internet, as I discovered last night. There was mention of "iTunes plus", where supposedly you could download albums or songs on iTunes in a higher kbps (and upgrade previously downloaded music to a higher bitrate)...but I don't think "On My Way Here" is available in iTunes plus yet. (Interestingly enough, my single of "On My Way Here" from Amazon downloads is 240 kbps mp3 format)

The easiest way to answer this is to compare it to photographs, which are more familiar to people: an HQ photo versus a thumbnail. Problem with HQ audio on an iPod is that it takes up a lot of room. Also, your stereo system and your speakers matter--lossless format is useless if you're using a little pod dock or cheap earphones. There's a lot of factors to consider. If there's something I want the highest quality for, I typically just play the CD, and use the iPod for a convenient way to access a variety of music when I'm driving. This is why I still prefer to buy a physical CD rather than download an album from iTunes. I can rip it into iTunes and have the best of both worlds.

Someone posted an article awhile back about how some Top40 music is actually diminished in quality in order to sound best on an iPod. UGH.

I went into the Real MusicStore this morning and Clay had a prominent spot on the home page. Clay's top five downloaded songs in the past 24 hours are:

1 On My Way Here

2 Falling

3 The Real Me

4 Everything I Don't Need

5 Ashes

Interesting....a different selection from iTunes altogether, except for OMWH and TRM.

So please, don't blast the messenger. :F_05BL17blowkiss:

People aren't picking on you, hun. Some just will not get the message that Clay gave--that OMWH is the current single and if we want to support him, support the current single. I doubt you'd still be arguing for the Ashes idea (which wasn't yours originally) after Clay's blog/posts yesterday!

screencaps from the bonus disk

when I put it in the DVD tray - this showed up

some screencaps after I clicked Play.........

eta: I had to put it in a CD player to get the CD tracks.... not sure if it will be possible to import into itunes......

WINY is FANTASTIC!

Thank you so much for all the info on this--can't wait to get mine, and I can't wait to hear WINY!!!!!

Very good performance. At first you only see Clay, then more and more members of his band come into view. It's a tight group; he sang well and sold the song, IMO. I think he did well in the interview section also. It was very quick--point to point, but no foot in the mouth. Very diplomatic response to the AI question--best yet. About how part of the appeal was seeing ordinary people like himself and Ruben do well. The View ladies said, we're ordinary looking people too. Whoopie always seems a little standoffish, but Elizabeth loves her some Clay Aiken!!

ACK!! My cable signal is all screwed up. All pixelated and stuttery. They have 15 minutes to fix it!! Or really 45, at least, because I'm sure the ladies of The View will go on and on and on about something or another before Clay comes out. Commercials are coming in fine--looks like its the network feed. (ETA: it's fixed. Whew!!)

I noticed that Madonna and Mariah are both selling something--perfume and whatever--TV commercials with them in it all the time--which helps sell their CDs at the same time. Clay can't be selling perfume or shampoo to enhance his record sales.

I think it's done its job, and it doesn't matter much now if it's there or not. Really.

Tomorrow is The View, y'all.

FWIW, if Jaymes takes the time to actually read the thread she started, there are some smart responses there that she should think about and address if possible. Nothing we haven't all heard before ad nauseum, but perhaps she has not, or hasn't thought about things in this way.

heh...I wonder if Jaymes used to throw rocks at hornet's nests as a kid. lol