Cage

Cage (Chris Palko) is an artist I have only found in the past couple of days, and he is everything I have looked for in an artist in recent months or for the past year if I think about it actually, everything I have been searching for. He blends guitars with spoken word, or rap I guess, and he is so wonderfully dark. I thought songs I listened to by Scroobius Pip or Immortal Technique were dark, but Cage's songs are horror stories and I love it, as I may have mentioned in a previous post I like songs which tell stories or songs that you actually listen to and have to follow and keep you drawn in, as opposed to songs that play in the background of your mind.

I realize that paragraph may have seemed a bit too much or a bit over the top as I look back over it. I sincerely hope I don't over-listen to his songs, something I have a habit of doing with everything I love - I listen to it or eat it or watch it or whatever so much that I become sick of it and a song that I used to listen to again and again time after time becomes the song I know back to front and skip over it, and sure I may come back and have a brief relapse in a few months or so, but somehow I just don't see it happening with cage.

The Old Chris Palko - sometimes too high to record anything.

Part of what appeals to me about Chris Palko so much is his personality and what he grew up with and just who he is. Personal items like that about artists have never really intrigued me as much as this before, but I suppose it is because it is so easy to access Palko's thoughts and how he describes his life. I feel almost compelled to tell you about his personality now, and although I had never heard of him last week I feel like I have known him and his songs for as long as I can remember, I know more about him now than I know about artists that I have in fact been listening to for as long as I can remember. Going back to his personality and his origins, I can't for two reasons. I feel as if I'm almost disrespecting him by talking about him in the way that I am or would do by writing about things like that, and also because there is just so much, but I will try to dumb it down so painfully that I am seriously considering hitting the backspace now. It just doesn't give him enough credit, so actually I don't think I will. Look it up on his website: www.chrispalko.com

I have said so much, more than I've said on any artist, in a shorter time I've spent writing about anything else on this blog, yet I haven't actually really talked about his music.

Cage fits into the underground hip hop genre but with his recent albums it's slightly harder to still include him there, as he has moved to a more guitar-heavy orientated background for his lyrics, which always in any song he makes, remain the focal point of the piece. He started out with his first album being very much like that of say Immortal Technique, fitting, as he says, into a black stereotype. The album is called 'Movies for the Blind' and some of his songs are so explicit and brutal, Agent Orange remains to be my favourite on the album though. That reminds me: he also took on the name Alex, after the protagonist in A Clockwork Orange having left the mental institute, and there are some definite similarities between the two. I think he says that that first album was about his childhood and how angry he was, I'm being ignorant about this and I feel bad about it because I know he deserves more credit, its not exactly along those lines, but I'm pretty sure that album came out just after he tried getting off hard drugs and started trying to turn his life around.
His later album, 'Hell's Winter', comes from the idea that he didn't have to be the person he was and he didn't have to be that white guy going for the black guy stereotype (as he says) as it just wasn't him, and this too is so dark, with Subtle art of the breakup song being perhaps the most popular song on the album.
It's no surprise that his most recent album (released 2009) 'Depart From Me' remains dark, but its not as explicit, in the words of his good friend Shia Labeouf ( at first sighting it would seem that it's Cage who latches onto Shia, but actually from the youtube videos I've seen and stuff I've read its more as if Shia makes the effort with Cage, Shia said he had been listening to Cage since he was 12). Depart From Me contains my favourite Cage song I Never Knew You which I think is one of if not the only Cage song to be made into a music video, that music video was directed by Shia Labeouf, and he has a brief appearance at the beginning.

I feel like I've missed something and that's because I probably have (his involvement in groups, main one being The Weathermen though I think he prefers producing his own music with close friends instead of collaborating with strangers for the sake of appealing to a wider audience and to sell more tracks). If this post has intrigued you, then I would strongly recommend you go to his website, he even has published the notebook he kept during his time at 'The Lodge' (mental institute) which is pretty interesting.

The five main Cage songs I like are as follows:

• Subtle Art of the Breakup Song
• Grand Ol Party Crash
• Ballad of Worms
• I Never Knew You
• Agent Orange

I will link the Spotify tracks for these songs but the video for I Never Knew You will be down below as well.

                                            
                                           
                                            
                                           

Theme Tunes - Part 2

4)
This is from Peep Show another song that along with Gone Up in Flames, is a very get-up-and-go type of song that gets you in the mood. The song is called Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. To me, the song is about someone having a breakdown and not knowing who they are or where/if they fit in, or you could look at it from the perspective of someone trying to get a grip on a world swarming with insanity. With a deeper look into all of these songs, I am starting to see how most connect to the actual programme or series itself, and that they are in fact carefully picked to suit the programme. In a way this makes the song seem better when you are just about to watch the programme and it comes up as the theme tune, as opposed to listening to it on your iPod or whatever, you concentrate on it more that way.

5)
The next song on the list is very different to the other appearances so far, as it is a classical type piece with no lyrics. This is the theme tune to the popular series Game of Thrones. I have to say its probably the lowest ranked in terms of my musical taste, but nevertheless its been considered enough to appear on the list. I suppose the thing that stands out most about this and that has appealed to me most is the layering of the different instruments, but most importantly the overriding cello (or double-bass - apologies) providing the low looming booming throughout.

6)
Choir of Young Believers' song Hollow Talk appeared in the Scandinavian crime drama The Bridge. Again, as with many of the songs here, it's very different out of the context of the programme, and doesn't have the same sort of quality and harrowing feel as it does when you listen to it as a theme tune at the beginning. The song is definitely haunting, but I suppose that the backdrop which it is played against certainly plays a part, and then the crescendo when you come to the end of each episode almost makes you well up, its a great song if you listen to it right.
The first video is the theme version, the second, full version follows.

I believe I have now come to the end. I thought I would have more but either I was wrong or they elude me, and will probably come back just after I post this. I know I have skipped out the classics: Star Wars, Hans Zimmer etc. but these are my favourite theme songs to this date, or at least the ones that have stood out the most to me. Please do not hesitate to leave any suggestions or potential additions to the list.

Thanks.