Soundtrack To My Life

Mastodon – Sleeping Giant

This is a trippy video, as is rightfully listed on the video’s info, from Mastodon where some futuristic people appear to be performing some kind of experiment of sacrificing another of their kind in a machine that turns the person into a miniature ecosystem. Then at the end of the video, after the ecosystem has advanced beyond that of the people doing the “experiment”, it appears that the gods destroy the miniature civilization, possibly hinting at the future of our very own Earth. Throughout the video there are many futuristic things that match up really well with Star Wars. The ship at the beginning of the video, the floating robot, and the wardrobe of the people in the video seem heavily influenced by the futuristic Star Wars theme. While growing up in rural Nebraska in most of my childhood, I spent a large amount of my time fantasizing about all kinds of things and some of those ideas sprang directly from Star Wars. I had even built up my own recreation of the Star Wars ships like the X-Wing Fighter and some cool robot sidekicks with my huge LEGO collection. These were complimented by my large array of cool LEGO people who each had their own stories and abilities. I didn’t really have the deep, philosophical outlook on the future of the earth, I did enjoy fantasizing about what the future might be like.

Smash Mouth – All Star

This video starts out with a group of crime-fighting super heroes interviewing for potential additions to their group. The first candidate shown is “The Waffler”, who fights crime by bashing the enemy with his waffle maker or burning them with it, which he illustrates on his own face. The second shown is “Pencil Man” and “Son of Pencil Man” who erase crime…the final candidate is dressed similar to Elvis and has unknown powers. While these super heroes aren’t quite as popular or as effective as the more well known Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and many others, they still bring my memory back to my childhood days when I would pretend to be a super hero and fight crime in his backyard, which changed daily from futuristic Star Wars type landscapes where we used our light sabers made from fallen tree branches to ancient Greek times where we fought with swords and spears made from the same branches or junk that we could find in his family’s barn. We had more than weapons though, we had super strength like Jax from Mortal Kombat, the ability to fly or ride flying objects a la Silver Surfer, and a variety of more imaginative abilities like changing into animals of choice and extra weapons like the exploding poker cards used by Gambit. Sometimes we would face of against each other in a Tekken style match and sometimes we would team up as friendly nemeses, like Goku and Vegeta from Dragonball Z. It amazes me to think that our imagination and a couple props kept us busy for hours on end in our small town. In this video super heroes are portrayed in a rather silly manner but back in the day when I was a kid it was serious stuff that I will remember forever.

The Offspring – Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

The video for this song follows the antics of a white guy who is pretty much a poser, trying to conform to the social norms of the people around him whose lifestyles are more commonly hip-hop related and not associated with white people. He sports some baggy clothes, cheap jewelry and a backwards cap to try and look the part but is continually rejected by people who are actually accepted in the hip-hop genre. It makes me laugh to think that I was basically this guy during most of my middle school years. Coming from practically the middle of nowhere, when I got to Denver I had no knowledge of style. As soon as I made some friends I began to buy the same stuff that they had to fit in. Pretty soon my wardrobe was filled with baggy shirts and jeans, basketball shoes, a fake silver necklace and backwards hats from brands like Ecko, Lee and Nike. I even started to sag my pants to show my boxers and walk more laid back and calm. My lifestyle change worked a little better for me than the guy in this video though, as I quickly became one of the well-known personalities at the school.



Sum 41 – Fat Lip

This video contains a lot of the things that were present in my life after I moved out of my small town in Nebraska to Denver, Colorado before my 6th grade year: hanging out and causing mischief at a convenience store, riding things down a hill, playing around in shopping carts, and screwing around at skate parks. At least every week me and a couple buddies would make our usual trip to the local 7-Eleven and steal some Slim Jims, candy bars, and if we were really brave on the given day maybe a couple of Blue Ox energy drinks that tasted like bubble gum. Then we’d either head to the Westminster Mall or to the Big Lots just a block south our apartment complex. On the trip to either place we would find something that seemed suitable to ride down “The Hill” with and upon our return we would take turns seeing who could go the furthest down or make the biggest crash exit. This was probably dangerous considering sometimes we would take steal a shopping cart or two from the Big Lots and race them down “The Hill” sans protective equipment. Another regular activity of ours was taking the RTD to one of the local skate parks and improving our abilities on the half-pipes, quarter-pipes, and miscellaneous hand rails. My board was one of the nicer ones of the group, it had an Element deck, Independent trucks, Spitfire bearings, and the best wheels out of our group that were some cheap, unknown brand, but they were smooth. We were living the life and doing the crazy things that this video shows.



Nelly – Country Grammar

Throughout this video by Nelly, muscle cars are shown between Nelly and a crowd of people as he raps the lyrics to the song. Among them is a pair of late 60’s Cutlass’s and late 60’s GTO. These cars are no doubt a focus of the video with scantily clad women sitting on the cars to show them off. Growing up I always tried to keep a couple of subscriptions to muscle car magazines to dream about what my ideal car would be; the make, model, year, color, I even went to the length of writing out every major change in the car that deviated from the stock form to clearly picture my dream car. My dad’s collection of muscle car magazines ike Hot Rod also helped to fuel the fire in my quest for the perfect muscle car. I searched through hundreds of dusty old magazines, marking articles and pictures that I liked. I was able to walk through a mental garage of every make and model of muscle car ever built without spending millions of dollars just to see what they looked like. While I certainly respect Nelly’s choices of muscle cars in this video, my all-time favorite is a 1971 Plymouth GTX clone car…which my dad happens to own 3 of now. Now I actually get to help build my dream car.



Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication

This video shows a 3rd person view of different members of the band Red Hot Chili Peppers inside of a video game world based California, which is separated from the rest of the continent. It incorporates aspects from many games throughout my life into the video. It has graphics that are probably closest in resemblance to what a Playstation would have. One of the characters rides around on a snowboard which eerily resembles the old Cool Boarders games that my brother and I used to play when we got bored with Gameday. All of the other characters seem to be pretty similar to the Grand Theft Auto series of games after they switched to a 3rd person view from the old 2D versions. I have played, and still continue to play, the San Andreas version of GTA and find it remarkably similar. I have beaten the game twice which I think might qualify me as a geek and I will more than likely do it again. I spent nearly all of my free time my freshman year of college mastering the game and trying to uncover all of its secrets, staying up until 6 in the morning sometimes just to be able to uncover more options and unlock more abilities. Two supposed Easter Eggs that I could never find, since they aren’t actually in GTA, are UFO’s and Leather Face (a spooky guy that attacks people with a chainsaw). Apparently though, the Red Hot Chili Peppers managed to find both of them in this video.



Oh, Sleeper – Vices Like Vipers

In this video there are scenes splitting up the band performing where a group of people with animal heads are sitting at a table filled with different things that are their vices; drugs, money and food to be specific. Every time that I see this video I think of the Saw movies, where the apprentice girl wears an animal mask while she is out doing her dirty deeds. Although the last Saw movie came out while I was in college, I watched the first three of them at on of my best friend’s house. It was customary for us each weekend to rent a couple of movies, especially any horror or thriller movies, round up some friends and watch them in his basement, each of us trying to outguess the others on what was going to happen next or who the real killer was. After watching almost every scary movie from Steve’s Video, our small-town equivalent to a Blockbuster, the best liked of the genre were the Saw movies. We could even get our friends who hated watching scary movies to watch the Saw movies. It was a great time to get friends together and it happened almost every weekend so everyone knew where to go for a night that would most likely be worth going out.

311 – Amber

This video is set at a beach house and the beach that it sits on. Both the members of the band as well as some girls are shown hanging out, swimming and participating in other leisurely activities at the beach. I spent my first summer after high school doing the same things. One of my best friends and I rented out a small trailer house in Champion, Nebraska. It was the first time that I had really listened to very much 311 but more importantly, it was the first time that I had really been free to do pretty much whatever I wanted to. We spent a good portion of our weekday evenings relaxing at the house with friends and listening to music and maybe watching DVDs like Red vs. Blue and Family Guy episodes. The weekends were the best though; we had a small lake in town so we could sip on some 'stones and kick back as the sun set at the end of the lake. We also lived close enough to a larger lake that we could round up some friends and camp out on Sunny Beach. If we got really lucky we could recruit somebody who had a boat to come with us and then we could wake-board, tube or water ski depending on what equipment we had. The whole summer had great whether and we chilled out to the max, enjoying ourselves like the people in this video.

Shania - YOU don't Impress ME Much

I apologize for those of you who read this and actually watch/listen to this whole video. Maybe it’s just my bias against Shania Twain but I simply cannot stand this video. Ever since I can remember I have HATED Shania Twain’s music. Although she may be really hot, I can’t get over her excruciatingly horrible, screechy, shrill voice. First thing wrong with this video is her god-awful attire. I mean seriously, what the f*** is she wearing a leopard print whatever that is in the middle of the desert for and why does she have a matching travel bag to boot? Secondly, what are those pipes doing out there pumping out some kind of colored pixy dust into the atmosphere? But the thing that really irks me is the song itself, aside from her banshee like shrieks, is the meaning of the song. Are you kidding me Shania Twain? You would seriously marry Mutt Lange over Brad Pitt? That doesn’t make any sense at all. While I don’t hate Shania as much as I used to due to not listening to country music regularly anymore, this video makes me gag and is an easy pick for me as one of the worst video/songs ever.

Protest The Hero - Heretics And Killers

An epic band called Protest the Hero has a kick ass song called Heretics and Killers and this song has a sweet video to go along with it. So basically I have no idea what relevance this video has to do with the lyrics but it still slays me anyway. Actually, this video has nothing to do with the song lyrics themselves, which are a priest’s thoughts as a part of their CD Kezia which is a story about a young girl who is sentenced to death. Anyway, back to the video itself, this video had me hooked as soon as I saw the band members dressed up as the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. I remember crying while watching it when I was a little kid because I was scared of the characters, which is odd considering I had no problem handling the likes of Friday the 13th and The Nightmare on Elm Street. After I got over the whole scary thing I loved the movie. I love how the flying monkeys try to get a job doing everyday jobs like being a clerk and fail because they can’t do the simple tasks like writing or running a register, but they can play some wicked music. One of the fun parts of watching this video is searching for all of the features added into the video like Toto at the beginning, a tornado in the background at about 1:16 and how it shows Arif (the bassist) with a beard just like he has in real life. The end caps off the comical video to a very deep song as the monkeys walk away into a rainbow clad horizon. How fitting.

Evergreen Terrace: Wolfbiker

Evergreen Terrace’s Wolfbiker album contains a hard hitting style of music that is meant for those craving a large dose of heavy riffs, warp speed power drumming, and vein popping vocals. Wolfbiker, the band’s most recent album, was released in 2007 and represents the band’s newer style of play that meshes melodic punk rock with the scream and volatility of hardcore music. The cover of the Wolfbiker album resonates the raw fury that the band expels and will be the focus of this essay. The cover artwork relies heavily upon the use of pathos to catch the eye of potential buyers of the album.

The purpose of any album cover is to attract the attention of a specific group of people in order to increase the likeliness that they will buy that album over the others. Making a cover is more than simply putting a pleasing picture on the front of an album though, there needs to be a specific audience that it is trying to address. For example: a picture of a Barbie doll doesn’t make any sense on the cover of a death metal album and conversely a rotting skull in front of flames would not be appropriate for a children’s sing-a-long album.

Wolfbiker is an album that is intended for people who are looking for music that is loud, energetic, fast, and simply badass. The cover designed for Wolfbiker does this by implementing a variety of techniques including writing style, color choice, object shapes, dominant selection, and location of the elements.

To transfer the characteristics of Evergreen Terrace as a musical group from the physical and emotional characteristics that they have onto a single picture, the cover of Wolfbiker primarily relies on the use of analogy. The cover is packed with details that contribute to the mood, or pathos, that Evergreen Terrace wants to purvey. While some of these details may appear to be simply there to look good, they all serve to elicit a certain frame of mind within its audience. Even the way in which the objects are arranged within the page adds this pathos.

The main focus of the cover is the snarling wolf that takes up roughly half of the cover. While the choice to use a wolf as the centerpiece works well with the title of the album, it also helps the viewer to begin creating a general opinion of Evergreen Terrace and the album and serves as the analogy of the band itself. Wolves are a wild animal that are usually considered to be a deadly killer within the realm of nature. It is also considered to be a mysterious entity and is a staple in the Native American culture which is a very spiritual society. Since this wolf is the focal point of the artwork, it contains many details that display characteristics relating to the type of music that is contained within the album. The wolf’s snarl emanates a ferocious attitude with the assistance of giant, sharp teeth protruding from its mouth that is opened so wide that the wolf’s gums are fully visible. Its frazzled hair and what appear to be blood spots, possibly from a recent kill, on the ragged coat of fur insinuate a sense of both wildness and danger. The small, beady eyes seem deathly focused on some near object. These characteristics are intended to translate to the viewer that Evergreen Terrace has a less refined and more intense sound than other music.

The name of the band and album are written as though they are being howled or growled out of the wolf’s muzzle. The title of the album is in solid yellow while the band’s name is black and only outlined in yellow. The writing itself is such that the lines of each letter are rough and jagged. This may serve as a sort of metaphor for the music itself with the wolf being the band and the words equaling the music that the band performs. The way in which the words are written is in sync with the sound of the band. The words are not sung in a traditional way but are usually growled, chanted, and/or shouted, which draws a parallel to a wolf’s howling and growls. In the background of the wolf head there are many sharply pointed, unidentifiable objects that are arranged in a chaotic pattern that is only limited by the general space available. There are also lines stemming from the wolf that make the wolf appear to moving rapidly, possibly even attacking. This sense of “attacking” is in line with the band’s attitude of leading instead of following the crowd, as can be seen and heard in the music video for one of the songs on the album called “Cheney Can’t Quite Riff Like Helmet’s Page Hamilton”. Also in the artwork is a large amount of very small bats flying around. While they may not be relevant to the album itself, they are a dark figure which is common within the metalcore music genre. This jagged writing font, chaotic location of objects, and representative figures represent the band as being rough, tough and unaltered by society, something which is generally popular among those who listen to Evergreen Terrace.

All of the details come together for the cover to illustrate the feeling of dangerous and unabridged modern hardcore music that Evergreen Terrace makes. While Wolfbiker’s cover may not be everybody’s cup of tea, it presents itself correctly to those who are most likely to purchase the album, which of course is the purpose for creating the cover in the first place.