#sotd11

I was browsing through my liked posts and came upon this audio post. Usually, when I like an audio post it's so I can listen to it later. But alas, like what happens all the time, I forget to listen to those audio posts. And then they just get covered up by other posts I liked.

So I decided to listen to "Port of Call", and - oh man - it's a really good song. Then, I found Beirut on Spotify and listened to some of their other songs. And, lone and behold, I found a song my seminar teacher plays almost every seminar. (i swear, my teacher probably contributed the most to the 800k+ views on YouTube) I was always going to ask my teacher what song it was cuz he literally did play it every seminar or during class when I had him last year for philosophy. But, like the quiet and introverted and unsocial girl I am, I didn't. Now I finally know! :D

I probably should've used either "Port of Call" or "Rip Tide" for today's SOTD. But, eh. I decided to go for "Santa Fe" because...just because. To be honest, I like "Port of Call" more than "Santa Fe". But since there was already an audio post of "Port of Call", I felt weird posting another and linking it back to the post I found. As for "Rip Tide", it's not a 'new' song because I've already heard it a bunch of times before (not like "Dreams" by The Cranberries that I heard once and forgot about but rediscovered again).

So maybe, because I kind of couldn't choose between three of Beirut's songs...I'll talk about all of them? :|

They all seem to have some kind of trumpet mixed into the song. And it makes sense because Zack Condon (first a soloist and then expanded into a band) plays the trumpet along with a whole bunch of other instruments like the guitar, ukelele, and flugelhorn. The songs on The Rip Tide all seem to be in the same key, too. Or maybe that's just my and my tone-deaf-ness. ._. But all his chords and stuff sound the same. Even the rhymes and note arrangements.

"Port of Call" uses more ukelele and is more light-hearted and light in general compared to the other songs onThe Rip Tide.

"Rip Tide" has a lot more brass and not as much singing.

"Santa Fe" has more electric and drums than the other songs.

They all have some more worldly feeling beats to them, too. Condon grew up in Santa Fe so he had heard of Mexican music like the mariachi. So many of his songs have a sort of Mexican feel to it. He also has some Balkan music influence from working at a theater that showed international films. He even travelled to Europe with his brother and learned even more about world music there. So all these different music exposures helped create Beirut's unique sounds.

As for me, I really like this kind of international feel to Beirut's songs. I think I also really like the more band-esque feel in songs. Not super band-y, like heavy rock or something like that. More acoustic sounding. Yeah. I like more acoustic and natural sounding songs. Sometimes those mainstream pop songs get too mushed up with pop and whatnot and become too cluttered for my tastes. That's probably why I'm going for more indie-like songs... :/