Math!
Kraftwerk – Numbers (Live)
![Kraftwerk - Numbers (live) [HD]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/M3f-JwOGO1A/0.jpg?resize=720%2C388&ssl=1)
I don’t like math.
Three Times One Minus One – Ewww, Girl, Ewww
But I DO like music, which IS math.
DJ Shadow – The Number Song
I also like songs ABOUT math.
Radiohead – 2+2=5 (Live)
![Radiohead - 2+2=5 - Live From the Reading Festival '09 [BBC]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/UEtr2xJ1pts/0.jpg?resize=720%2C388&ssl=1)
Not as much as this guy does, though.
Sesame Street: Song of the Count
Ah, the last lines of this one (“I was trying to help, but I guess I pushed too hard / Now we can’t even touch it, afraid it’ll fall apart“) get me every single time:
Built to Spill – Carry The Zero
The Built to Spill track (“You’re so occupied with what other persons are occupied with, and vice-versa“) and this Modest Mouse one (“Infinity spirals out creation, and the plants and the animals eat each other“) also get into some recursion:
Modest Mouse – Neverending Math Equation
I forget what 8 was for (and if for some reason you don’t know this one, and I have to warn you about lyrical NSFW, I don’t even wanna know about it).
Violent Femmes – Add It Up
“Bringing about the apocalypse is not considered cool“. And understatement perhaps, but words to live by nonetheless:
Spoon – My Mathematical Mind (XX Merge)
Ain’t it funky:
Poets of Rhythm – Plus Plus
Ditto:
Quasimoto – Microphone Mathematics
Add more in comments!
The Femmes put on a great live show. Saw them several times as far back as the 80’s when they were really unknown. That first album…wow..played that sucker to death. There was a dissonant part of their success to their older fans. They hit big a few years after their first records and them being college radio darlings. Then at some point everybody knew them and was their biggest fan. That their first album was pure adolescent angst and struggle was what made them great, but it was still weird to see it creep out and up over so many years.Report
We’ve talked about this before I think, but that first album is the definition of sleeper hit. That tape got passed down from hand to hand to hand; someone’s older brother or sister was always the source (I did my part, and passed it to my ten-years-younger brother). The musicianship is great (all-acoustic was punk as hell at the time) and it was such a breath of fresh air lyrically (that is EXACTLY what smart-aleck, sexually-frustrated teens sound like).Report
Yup…it helped that they got played all over college radio as the alt scene was being discovered. They were odd enough to not be able to get AOR airplay, but had every other damn thing needed to be successful.Report
I… I forget what eight was for.
/that’s all I’ve got on this one, dudes/Report
I referenced that one, on the eighth video (though I actually included “Add It Up” instead).Report
Ya know, Math Rock is its own genre…
(my son is a huge fan, even does a show dedicated to it on the College station he is now music director of!)
Some Sac favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYXhD2U2dTIReport
Heh. I wondered if people would feel misled.
I can’t say that math rock is my favorite genre – I like more melody, than a lot of them are willing to give me. I like some bands on the outskirts a lot (Seam/Bitch Magnet); some I respect more than I love (like Slint – I’d rather listen to Mogwai’s Come On Die Young).
Polvo’s OK (though on the whole I prefer the similarly-dissonant-but-more-hook-generous Archers of Loaf):
https://youtu.be/rlV8O_1n1-MReport
https://youtu.be/8s9eLKJ-TrcReport
Actually, speaking of odd math rock videos, this was a classic:
https://youtu.be/bKr45j6S_qQReport
I missed that yr kid made Music Director. Congrats to him!
Now he just needs to figure out how to monetize that in 2015…:-(Report
Well, he is on the phone with record labels everyday, so making contacts in the business. He is a marketing major at a school with a well respected business school, so even if he doesn’t go into the music world (though its what his minor is in) he should be fine.Report
What is a “record…label?” 😉Report
It’s kinda like when you “dial’ someone on the phone… (heh)Report
Always liked that MM song.
Well that didn’t work. Tried to embed a few songs.Report
Comment embedding only works semi-reliably for me now, if I follow these rules:
-1 embed per comment (sometimes more will work, sometimes not; but a single one works pretty consistently)
-Use the YouTube URL shortlink, not the embed code
– Don’t include any text after YT URL shortlink, it should be the last thing in the comment
I really like a lot of Isaac Brock’s songs on record (Moon and Antarctica is a stone-cold masterpiece) but MM aren’t very good live IMO. I’ve seen them twice, once in a very small venue and once in a mid-size theater, and they just plod live (which is weird, given that they are such a rhythmically-inclined band).Report
I heard recently that they’ve improved their live show, but I know they’ve always had a reputation for sucking live.
Let’s try the embeds:
https://youtu.be/K3alnDSsFLoReport
https://youtu.be/otWXEb8KGKgReport
Perhaps too on the nose?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7bKe_Zgk4oReport
And the numbers 4 and 5 could have their own post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOpcA5gV4awReport
I assume calibers are cheating (it shows how sheltered I am, that when I first heard this track I didn’t get the significance of the numbers and had to ask a friend):
https://youtu.be/O9qnF337ObkReport
City boy.Report
I think if I’d seen them written out (with the .) or it had been only one or the other (’38’ or ’45’), I would have gotten it.
But just hearing the numbers in sequence made me look for some other relationship between them.
What made 3845 a “Thievery Number”?!Report
Suuuuuuuuuuuuure.
Next thing you’re gonna tell me that you only thought a song titled “.30-06” was about the year 3006 because you didn’t see it in writing!Report
Nah, that one is clear because he specifically calls out “shells” and pronounces the “ought”
https://youtu.be/XqZ5E_JeUVoReport
Toto has a song titled “99”, so if just numbers count. I won’t post it here, though, for sanity’s sake.Report
You are the resident Totologist.
I probably should have set more stringent rules. If I sort my library just by song title, a lot of songs have numbers in their titles (Nena!). But most aren’t “math” beyond that.
Except this
https://youtu.be/ERYb_P1KAEYReport
Or
https://youtu.be/3JnOOwSzAC0Report
Mos Def has a song called “Mathematics,” which mostly just mentions a bunch of numbers, or numbers things itself, but doesn’t really do any math. It does have some percentages.
Also, “Resident Totologist” is going in my profile.Report
… do that after you explain their double cyclone…Report
pi
https://youtu.be/BDMBtQjS1bQReport
2ManyWizardJohnHodgmans
I assumed someone would find some sort of TMBG educational song.Report
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof that one is indeed the loneliest number, which this combox is too small to contain.Report
Mostly I want to try to finally nail this embedded video thing. Also I’m a phonics guy from way back.
https://youtu.be/82vvqDz5dEUReport
If you’re falling asleep at work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9IBbMW2o_oReport