Good lyrics make a song so much better.

I used to think that me liking a song or not had nothing to do with the lyrics. I used to not care about the lyrics and I thought that I usually liked a song for the actual music. I now realise that I was so so wrong. Lyrics are one of the reasons I like bands such as Hawkwind and Blue Öyster Cult so much (I do like the actual music as well but the lyrics make me like the music even more). I'm a bit of a nerd and I really like science fiction so when I discovered that Hawkwind sing about, well, science fiction-y things I got very happy.

Yesterday and the day before I just went into some crazy mood where I refused to listen to anything that wasn't Hawkwind. I ended up discovering a lot of their songs and I now want to buy an album or two by them. The problem is they have recorded so many albums I don't know which one to buy first!

Anyway, I'd better post a few of their songs so you can see what I'm talking about.

This one involves freezing people, android replicas and clones.



I just love the lyrics in this song.



One last song for today: this one's based on the novel "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse (which I've not read). Do watch the music video too, it's got some nice animation.

One thing I really want

is for The Cult to release their "Peace" album, in its entirety and on its own (as I do realise it was released in a box set a few years ago but I just want the album! I'm not a hardcore fan). Why? Due to the fact I feel it is far superior to the Electric album. (Long story short: they record the "Peace" album, are disappointed with it and re-record it as "Electric" which has a more hard rock sound).

Here is an example:

Electric version of "Electric Ocean":



Original Peace version of the same song:



It's just so much nicer. I like all the layers and the guitar effects in the original.

One of my friends bought me "The Best of Rare Cult" for my birthday a couple of years back which does have a couple of tracks from the Peace album on but obviously not all of it.

I guess I'll just have to content myself with Hawkwind for the time being (more on that later - tomorrow perhaps?).

Cover Version Friday - Johnny Cash with "Rusty Cage"

I'm posting this song, originally by Soundgarden, just because it is so wildly different from the original. It is always interesting to hear an artist from one genre cover a song from another genre. I must admit that I prefer the original though, seeing as Soundgarden are one of my favourite bands.

Last weekend...

...I had my friend Frankie round and we ended up watching some movies and playing some games. The first movie we watched was The Expendables which was one of the two action movies that I meant to see last summer in the cinema but never did (the other being the A-Team movie which my friend also brought round but we didn't have time to watch. Oh well. I will watch it soon!). My thoughts were this: it was shorter than expected and also needed more Bruce Willis (seriously, he was only in the movie for about five minutes. I was disappointed). I feel that we didn't get to know the characters all that well and it would've been nice to have had a bit of backstory. That being said, the main action scene was one of the best/most awesome/fun action scenes I've ever watched. Guns! Explosions! Fire! More guns! It was excellent. It is worth watching for that scene alone.

The other movie we watched was The Dark Crystal (well, it was mainly me watching whilst Frankie sorted out her photos on her laptop) which I've been meaning to see for ages, due to my love of eighties kids' movies (I think Labyrinth will always be my favourite though). It's rather dark for a kids' movie but I still liked it. The puppetry was brilliant (but then it would be - it's a Jim Henson movie). I'm glad that I've finally seen it.

I want to watch Labyrinth now.

We played on Fable II and Dead Rising 2. There is a lot to do in Fable II! I don't like the fact that there isn't one big map of all of Albion, like there is a huge map of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3. The maps for the current location are also too small and you can't zoom in, which I also dislike. That is one of my main complaints about the game. Other than the lack of a decent map, I quite like it. I've managed to maintain being neutral as I haven't decided whether to be good or bad. I prefer being good first, then bad in these sorts of games.

I then got Frankie to play on Dead Rising 2, after assuring her that it wasn't a scary zombie game. She ended up liking it, so that was good. I am now on a mission to make Chuck Greene as ridiculous looking as possible.

All in all it was a good Friday night/Saturday. Next time we will hopefully be having a Back To The Future trilogy.

Cover version... Saturday? The Cult with "Born to be Wild"

YES I KNOW I FAIL AT BLOGGING. I WAS BUSY YESTERDAY. HERE YOU GO.

The Cult - Born to be Wild (original by Steppenwolf)

Very Early Bowie!

This song just makes me laugh. (Although I have to admit, I do prefer Pink Floyd's 'The Gnome' to this song).

I am a leaf on the wind - watch how I soar.

I finally got round to finishing watching Serenity last night and I'm glad that they managed to wrap everything up in a movie. What I am not glad about is the fact they cancelled Firefly. I just don't understand what was going through the minds of Fox when they decided to cancel it. It is such a brilliant show and the characters are great - they are all so different from one another yet work so well together (before you ask - I don't have a favourite character. Wash is cool though. Him and his dinosaurs).

I do realise that this is what every Firefly fan thinks, and that if you're a fan too, that you've probably heard it a thousand times before, so I'm sorry for that. It is so stupid though, that it got cancelled, when other shows that are nowhere near as good get many seasons (-coughHeroescough- (although that abomination did get cancelled in the end, thankfully)). Well I guess Firefly never had the chance to jump the shark which is a good thing, but it would have been nice to see a couple more series, yes?

Cover Version Friday - Deep Purple with "Hush"

I've decided that every Friday I will be posting a cover version of a song. I find cover versions of songs really interesting; I just love hearing a different take on a song that I like. However, even though I enjoy cover songs I usually prefer the original, but there are quite a few exceptions for me. This is one of them.

The very first cover version Friday features Deep Purple performing "Hush" (originally performed by Billy Joe Royal).

Over the Hills and Far Away

As you all know, the talented Gary Moore died last weekend. I have to admit to not knowing much of his solo material but even so, it was a shock when I first read he had died. I always get a strange feeling when a rock star dies; I just always see them as these immortal beings who are brilliant at playing the guitar, or drumming, or singing, or whatever else they may play; so when one dies I just get reminded that they are all normal people, like you or me. It also takes me a while just to get over their death because I know I will not be hearing any more music from them. I still don't think I've completely got over the fact that Ronnie James Dio has died, and that happened last May. It just saddens me that we'll never hear Ronnie's epic voice ever again, or Gary's excellent guitar playing. At least I'm safe in knowing that there is a great gig going on up there...

To finish, here's one of my favourite Gary Moore songs:

New year, new blog.

Right, so I've decided to start a new blog. I just wanted a fresh start with a blog and I hope this blog will appeal to the masses a little more, since I intend to include art, music and nerdy things as well as the odd post about what's happening in my life.

I guess since this is a new blog I should give an introduction. Hello there, I am Sophia. I like a lot of things, many of which are 'ridiculous' (as my friends pointed out to me the other day). I guess they are. I like classic rock, nerdy things (I'm more of a sci-fi nerd than any other type of nerd), the internet and my awesome friends. I also like cuttlefish just because they are so cute. My three favourite movies at the moment are Die Hard, Blade Runner and Back to the Future. If you hadn't already guessed, I like action and sci-fi movies.

I am currently studying A-Levels in art, maths and psychology and next year I am going to do a foundation diploma in art and design. After that I hope to take a degree in illustation.

Well, that's the introduction done. There's a lot more about me that I haven't included, but you'll probably learn more about me with future posts.

Anyway, today I have been ill. When I got up my head felt like it was going to explode. This meant that I had to take a day off school which I haven't done in years, but it did give me a little extra time to revise for some class tests coming up. I still don't feel that great, but we'll see in the morning. Also, because I've been ill I haven't listened to music all day, which is highly unusual for me.

To round off this post I'm going to leave you with some BÖC, mainly because I really like this song and have only recently discovered it via my last.fm account (did I mention that I like last.fm?).