Niki N. Phaser

        With 2005′s Demon Days, Gorillaz evolved from a corky-but-cool experiment of Damon Albarn’s to a mainstream, chart topping venture. And it’s no wonder, considering that Feel Good Inc. became such an anthem of this decade. So did Dare. It was a bit of a surprise that the album’s second track, Last Living Souls, was disregarded as a single. It’s not as bassline infectious as Feel Good Inc., but there are plenty of catchy synths to make you love the song at first contact. Albarn’s vocals have that brit boredom in them, that should be familiar to Gorillaz fans. There is also an interesting 70′s American folk moment in the middle. The lyrics, well, they complete what Feel Good Inc.‘s video started — the song gives you the impression that someone is discovering a new world (but takes the time to smoke a fag before exploring). You might not get the urge to dance to this tune, but you will want to walk in a really cool way while it’s whispering in your headphones…

LAST LIVING SONG

Vangelis’ career is one of many interesting contrasts and considering that he started making music at the age of four, it’s only natural that he explored quite a few genres before becoming the synth-guru he is known today. Less famous than Aphrodite’s Child, his international successful band with Demis Roussous, is his first musical pack, The Forminx, which were the Greek version of The Beatles’ craze, that swept pretty much the whole world and bred countless clones, one (or more) for each country. The Forminx were quite a hit in 1960′s Greece, after seducing the youth with their catchy rock’n'roll tunes and innocent schlagers. In the latter category, Love Without Love holds an honourable place. The English lyrics sung with a bit of accent, the strange choice of words here and there (”You understand me so much”), Toto’s trumpet, they all provide Love Without Love with the 60′s charm of European schlagers. But beyond that, this is a very well done piece of music, that doesn’t conjure up laughs, but a real emotional response in the listener and hypothetically ‘translated’ into contemporary music production, it would prove to be a masterful tearjerker ballad.

LISTEN TO Love Without Love

There is no point in showing off every one of Roger Waters’ musical merits, every Pink Floyd album he almost entirely written by himself or every legendary gig he was involved in. We’ll just concentrate on this track, Hello (I Love You), which featured on none of his albums, but on the soundtrack of The Last Mimzy and it was the best thing about that rather mediocre movie. In fact, this Howard Shore co-written song doesn’t even really fit that movie, only maybe in some of the lyrics (“The kids will have to separate Their future from our past”, “Your child can read you like a bedtime story”). It sounds far too dramatic and moody for a film about a sort of Terminator Teddy Bear sent from the future to protect a threatened mankind. With an acoustic background that will bring Bowie’s Space Oddity to mind, you’ll find that this track would fit better on some sort of romantic SF thriller about junkies in love with holograms. But, despite, its context and it’s video, Hello (I Love You) remains an interesting piece of music.

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