Inside Nokia Music

Muse fans at Big Day Out 2010 in Sydney and Melbourne we’re treated to a cover of AC/DC’s Back In Black with and incredible Brian Johnson impersonation by Jet’s Nick Cester. According to Muse drummer Dom Howard in this video, AC/DC have never even played the Big Day Out, which in my opinion is a sad state of affairs for Australia’s greatest ever Rock band.

Muse and Jet are available to download from the Nokia Music Store and are completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

I tend to relate lots of music to my life and music has this great power of reminding you of certain times, places and people. A lot of songs I listen to will instantly make me smile when I’m upset, or even make me cry when I’m perfectly happy, just because of memories they are associated with. In this blog I wanted to share some songs I have attached to certain times in my life and make a sort of growing up playlist. I think a lot of my emotions when I hear a song come from the memories I associate with the song. For example, I remember my mum blearing out Queen’s I Want To Break Free whenever her and my dad had had a bust up. And then Frankie Valli’s My Eyes Adored You whenever they had made up. While in the next room my dad would have AC/DC’s Highway To Hell pumping out the stereo anytime he was uptight about something.

I guess these early shades of music paved the way for my awkward teenage years listening to Guns N’ Roses. I think Guns N’ Roses forever changed the way music could and would sound to me. One of rock’s greatest bands, they combined the dark and dangerous with style and glam and their debut album Appetite For Destruction was stuck inside my tape player for a good while. My favorite track was Paradise City and, let me tell you, they don’t write them like this anymore. It took arena rock to the next level. I remember starting secondary school and hanging out with a kid called David. I used to follow him around everywhere. David listened to a band called Nirvana and wore converse trainers and torn jeans. He introduced me to Nirvana’s Nevermind album. At the time I loved ‘hair bands’ like Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses and was pretty happy with the status quo, but when I first heard the opening 30 seconds of Smells Like Teen Spirit something changed inside of me. I bought the CD and continued to listen to it till the music felt like a part of me, till it was a part of my life.

It now amazes me the role Nirvana has played in my life, it changed everything for me. Because of Nivana, by the time I was 18 I had found bands like Black Flag, Devo, Sonic Youth and The Pixies but it was The Beatles I started a fascination with. I bought as many albums as I could get my hands on and just listened and listened. Their songs were so fresh and innovative to me. They mixed a lot of things together. Their music is just wonderful. I have a few favourite Beatles songs but the stand out for me is Let It Be. The piano lends a degree of intimacy, then there is a gospel element and an anthemic guitar solo. I know the song has a sad undertone but everytime I hear it I feel a maternal warmth. After The Beatles I became more aware of British pop culture and groups such as Blur, Oasis and Radiohead.

I later got into the whole 1979 punk movement and bands like The Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and Generation X. The Pistols started the whole punk revolution, but for me The Clash definitely carried the torch when the originators were long gone. For sheer diversity, The Clash was number one. London Calling was one of those records that opened up my ears to other ideas about what ‘rock music’ means. With big slabs of things like reggae and rockabilly mixed in with the punk. No one can believably make this music anymore, they could do it as homage or a way to show off their influences but ironically, just as it shows me something that’s always been there, it also reminds me of something that is eternally gone.

I’m now 27 and U2 is my favorite band for many reasons, but most specifically because it was the first music that really spoke to me and changed what kind of person I was and what I wanted to be. The Joshua Tree was my first experience with U2 and I had never heard anything like it, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I have so many favourites tracks – Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and With Or Without You. Actually, there isn’t a bad song on the entire album.