Random Thoughts Eleven_Sigur Rós

YAY! Another music posting! xD

So I was looking for some new songs to listen to, and I happened to come across the name 'Sigur Rós.'

I was like 'Hey, I've heard that name before somewhere..'

And I realized that I had seen one of my friends do a presentation on the band.

Back then, I had never heard of the name before and the music video he showed us didn't really appeal to me, so I didn't really pay much attention to it.

But this time, I decided to look them up on the Internet. Well this was a coincidence, and after all, there was nothing to lose anyways. If I still didn't like their music, I just have to go look for another band.

And.. It was an interesting experience.

Interesting because:

1. Sigur Rós is an Icelandic band.

Well.. In an objective point of view, Iceland isn't really a part of the mainstream "world music.." No offense, but you wouldn't expect to hear an Icelandic song when you look for songs.. Well even apart from music, Iceland isn't a country you hear a lot about. It's an island located northwest of England all alone, and it only has a population of about 300,000.. So.. Yeah, it's not a country that comes on news a lot, and not a country you'd ever be interested in unless you come across the name accidentally. So I was surprised to even hear that it was from Iceland.. And in fact, (according to many people) Sigur Rós and this female singer called Björk are the only Icelandic musicians famous around the world.

2. Sigur Rós sings in Icelandic and Vonlenska (Hopelandic), a language their lead vocalist Jon created.

Icelandic, that's expected (although that means I have no idea what they're singing about).

But Hopelandic? o_O Creating a new language to sing in? That came as a big surprise to me.

But it's good because if they sing in Icelandic, I have to be jealous of those who speak that language and knows what the lyrics mean while I don't, but if they sing in Hopelandic, I can be sure nobody other than Jon himself understands what they're singing about. xD So now we're all at the same level here.

And it's also good that singing in their own language, they can use the voice more as a musical instrument. When they sing in Icelandic, they have to pronounce the syllables correctly (and this applies to all languages), but when they sing in Hopelandic, they can just go with the flow of the music; they don't have to think about the audience hearing them correctly and stuff. And in this sense, (even though I'm not sure if Hopelandic actually have words with meaning) I guess it can be seen as a long version of the ad libs that singers make in their live concerts.

3. They made a documentary called Heima.

As you might know, Iceland has a lot of beautiful scenery that are preserved well. After their World Tour in 2006, Sigur Rós traveled around their own country and held small-scale live concerts. They filmed their trip and released it as a video titled Heima, meaning 'home' in Icelandic. It showed the beautiful nature of Iceland and people's life, with Sigur Rós' concerts in between. I haven't watched it yet, so I'm not sure how good the video is, but I'm looking forward to it. And it's amazing that they made such video; I think the original goal of it was to promote Iceland around the world since (as I mentioned before) many people aren't interested in, or even know, Iceland. So it would serve both purposes, of promoting Iceland itself and Sigur Rós' music. And as I know, this video got really famous worldwide and won a couple of pretigious awards.

4. Their music has a very unique style.

After listening, I had no idea what genre I could classify this into, so I looked it up and it said 'shoegazing.'

..What?

"Shoegazing is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. The shoegazing sound is typified by significant use of guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blend into the creative noise of the guitars. [The musicians playing this kind of music] stood relatively still during live performances in a detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, hence the idea that they were gazing at their shoes."

..So yeah.

When you actually listen to it, it feels ethereal. Very dreamlike, very quiet. Flows smoothly, and sounds like a mixture of lullaby and gospel..

Hard to explain, just listen to it.

Sigur Rós - Olsen Olsen

(Normally the lyrics should go here, but since this one's in Hopelandic from the start to the end, there's no lyrics.. lol and now there's this whole empty space here.. What should I do about this? It doesn't feel all that good to have this kind of giant blank white spaces in my blog posts, so I'm gonna blab about this song. Well this was the second Sigur Rós song I listened to, and I liked it.. It kinda calms me down and all that. Oh and this song's like eight minutes long, so it's really long, but Sigur Rós has other songs that are over ten minutes.. So.. Yeah. lol. Enjoy!)

So it was interesting.

Did I like it?

Yes, for sure.

I liked their unique style. Their songs were nice to listen to, and although some of the songs kinda scared me (especially the one called Svefn-G-Englar.. It's so quiet and mysterious that if you listen to it at night, it actually feels like a ghost's gonna pop out somewhere), overall it was great. I think because it's so unique, there will be clear likes and dislikes for this band. For me, I'm on the 'like' side.

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Oh. Bonus.
Now this one has both Icelandic and Hopelandic lyrics.. xD

Sigur Rós - Hoppípolla

brosandi
hendumst í hringi
höldumst í hendur
allur heimurinn óskýr
nema þú stendur

rennblautur
allur rennvotur
engin gúmmístígvél
hlaupandi inn í okkur
vill springa út úr skel

vindurinn
og útilykt af hárinu þínu
ég lamdi eins fast og ég get
með nefinu mínu

hoppípolla
í engum stígvélum

allur rennvotur (rennblautur)
í engum stígvélum

og ég fæ blóðnasir
en ég stend alltaf upp

(Hopelandic)

og ég fæ blóðnasir
og ég stend alltaf upp

(Hopelandic)

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(English)

smiling
spinning in circles
holding hands
the world is a blur
except when you're standing

dripping wet
completely soaked
no rubber boots
running inside us
wants to burst out of the shell

wind in
and the smell of your hair
I hit as hard as I can
with my nose
jumping into a puddle
wearing no boots
completely soaked (dripping wet)
wearing no boots

and I get a nosebleed
but I'll always stand up again
(hopelandic)

and I get a nosebleed
but I'll always stand up again
(hopelandic)