There comes a time where you fade to the blackness

Traveling off to Ohio over the first weekend of my break.  I thought I'd try and get a nice road post in though.  Yesterday I was driving and a new B.o.B. song came on the radio.  As I've said time and time again, I don't really post a lot of rap or hip-hop on my blog, it's not that I don't listen or like it, I just don't know enough about the genre to say anything particularly intelligent (if any of my writings are intelligent at all).

I litterally had to pull over my car while driving to I.D. the song, but to my dismay, my trusty "Song ID" app on my phone couldn't figure it out.  I painstakingly wrote down the lyrics to the song and just googled it.  The song was "Airplanes" by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams (of Paramore-not a fan but she does have a great rock and roll voice).

The song starts off a little bit hokey with a really great piano intro (in a Taylor Swift way, man, I kinda love her-definitely a guilty pleasure).  I'm not 100% sure why I like this song.  I just think the flow is really great and comes out simple with a strong message.  The hook is pretty solid too, maybe a little bit too sentimental for this blog but I think most people with agree that they will enjoy.  B.o.B.'s second verse is probably the best in the song, talking about what his music used to sounds like (I'm not sure what it did sound like but I enjoy the sentimentality of the lyric).  

"Airplanes" by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams from The Adventures of Bobby Ray (2010)

-S

P.S. There is another great version of this song (just a ten-second preview) done with Eminem, whom, after all these years I still find myself drawn to with curiosity.  Here's the link

One Reason

There have been a lot of great songs that I've found perusing Grammy Performances (Did you see Elton John and Eminem do "Stan"? It's amazing I don't care what anyone says...but that is another post for another time.)

This song though was played at the Grammy's but it is not the version I am writing about. The song in question is "Gimme One Reason" by Tracy Chapman performed with Eric Clapton (who may or may not be God) The combination of Chapman's smokey vocals and saucy lyrics in combo with Clapton's guitar is dripping with excellence. Pure. Unadulterated. Excellence.

The song only gets better from the beginning starting with an intro from Chapman and moving in to the vocals which ends up being a duet of two of the most powerful forces in music and the whole song is topped off with Clapton more or less solo-ing throughout the song. Cheers!

"Gimme One Reason" by Tracy Chapman featuring Eric Clapton (Live)

-S