eh

The last of the easy days!

The Eagles - we can stab them with our steely knives, but we just can't kill this beast...

EC8OR - remember waaay back when I mentioned the world's abhorrence of the "digital hardcore" genre? Well, EC8OR is some of the best, if "best" is even a valid descriptor. This is intentionally a ton of vaguely musical electronic noise with people talking/yelling/ranting over it. So as you would guess, I love it. Plenty of song titles are thoroughly obscene, but consider one of my favorites, "Gimme Nyquil All Night Long". That pretty well conveys the idea, but if you can find that gem online somewhere, you'll know exactly the target sound of these tunes.

My brother and I decided rather scientifically that EC8OR (and similar "artists") are human repellent. If you have people around whom you wish would go away, five minutes of EC8OR is sufficient, and usually overkill. This is an empirical fact. Again, if you can find any of their songs, you'll understand.

Audiophiles will find it humorous that I re-ripped my EC8OR albums to FLAC (lossless), as if lossy mp3 somehow introduced unacceptable noise...

Edith Piaf - an old school artiste française, whom we learned about/listened to in high school French class. The only song we studied was "La Vie en Rose" (interpretively translated, "life through rose-colored glasses"). It's une chanson très jolie, and a great way to pick up some colloquial sweetheart French, but the best part is rewriting it as the homophonic "La Viande Rose" ("The Pink Meat"). French nerd alert.

Edwin Starr - protestist[?]/pacifist/gruntist songwriter extraordinaire. "War - hnnh! yeah! - say it say it say it"... He indeed got his message across. "Good God, y'all!" I predict he had high blood pressure.

Einstürzende Neubauten - pretty weird German (obviously) music that I think counts as "industrial"... Sometimes they sound like Skinny Puppy turned Deutsch, but it's generally quite unique. Frequently they loop samples of maybe choral performances?? I do know that they make most of their own clanky industrial-grade instruments, which automatically bumps them up in my book. Further, they make it onto the umlaut radar!

Electric Light Orchestra - vintage Who-ish, Allman Brothers-ish keys-n-stringsy classic rock fodder. I mostly appreciate their subtly-nonsensical name. Thoughts?

Ella Fitzgerald - helped me through a lot of high school. She was involved with everything in the jazz/big band era, recording solo versions of a vast array of famous big band and semi-classical (read: Gershwin) tunes, as well as working with Louis Armstrong and other greats of the time.

I most appreciate Ella because of her atypical vocal range. Her voice was just a bit deeper than the average jazz chanteuse, so her recordings were done a few steps lower than usual... Sound like anyone else here? It turns out that her range and mine were almost exactly the same (modulo a few octaves); thus, I always knew I could pull off an Ella arrangement of "Blue Skies", "Summertime" and the like. Curse you, sopranos! She had that swing, so I guess it meant a thing.

Elvis Costello - über-famous, often controversial, lyrically lexicographic, and royal in the realm of emo glasses. I have never gotten that much into his music beyond reading a metric buttload of articles about him, but hey, my aim is true.

Elvis Presley - Elvis = controversial, it seems. What can I say that you don't already know? Share some stories! Did any of my readers ever see him, in concert or otherwise? Has anyone been to Graceland?

Eminem - hmmm... I'm not a huge fan, but cred is due for an endless supply of clever/satirical rhymes. Bonus points for the Detroit native! Otherwise, I'll usually go for Matheatre's "Without Riemann" before his "Without Me". I couldn't skip him, or my lists would feel so empty. Any readers catch him in concert?

Eric Clapton - labeled a king/master/whatever of guitar; true, I suppose he's not been too bad over the years. Not many are aware, but he ended up doing a ton of acoustic work post-Cream, rewriting many of his famous tunes unplugged... They're good/catchy enough that I generally prefer them to the electrified originals. Extra credit for duetting "Give Me One Reason" with Tracy Chapman, and for being omnipresent on vinyl throughout my childhood. She don't lie, you know.

Estradasphere - yet another odd one, along the lines of Mr. Bungle and such. I don't know much about them and I'm not about to research, but Quadropus is a fun listen. Go hunt 'em down if you're interested, and thank Nate for the exposure!

Eurhythmics - eighties stuff that became fairly popular with their one hit, inspiring myriad covers in every genre... They did it right for bands and fans alike, and who am I to disagree?

Evanescence - ha ha, suckers! They're not on my expected radar at all, but I love this stuff, the lead singer's voice is amazing, and even though she's waaay too soprano, I still sing along when nobody's around. Just ruminate on that for a while.

Eve 6 - like Green Day, a bit too pop-punkish for me, but they did do an [awful] "Alison" song... Oh well.

Contributions, porfav?