Skip to main content

The Fray

I haven't done a moving music post in a while so after having listened to The Fray a lot lately, I decided to write about them.  Instead of writing about my favorite song of theirs (I do have a favorite), I would rather write about all of their music in general. 


I think what makes The Fray great is that they write such high quality music, but don't seem to be prideful about it.  Some musicians are good at coming up with catchy music and they know it.  The music of The Fray is definitely catchy, but they don't seem to play that card just to get their songs on the radio. I respect that about the band. 


Musically
Isaac Slade, the band's lead singer, has a voice that in my opinion not only sounds good on their more hardcore songs (like parts of "Little House"), but also in acoustic songs (like "Happiness") as well as in cover songs (such as "Eleanor Rigby" and "Heartless".) 
The guitar and piano melodies that sound wonderful on their own, let alone together run throughout many of the songs on both of their albums, "How to Save a Life" and "The Fray", along with vocal melodies and harmonies tactfully crafted together.  Basically, I just like this band a lot. They have dramatic, beautiful and catchy music that could fit almost any situation or mood.


Lyrically
The band has a way of writing lyrics that tell truth in a way that a lot of other bands don't.  Even though sometimes truth is hard to hear, the band has a way of mixing it with a song in a way that makes it a little more appealing to embrace.  (Of course if you've ever decided to embrace a hard truth you find that (somehow) embracing even painful truth feels much better than running from it.)  In their lyric writing, I don't think they're afraid of stating their fears and this characteristic generally makes for pretty good lyrics.  When it comes down to it, I think there is a lot of wisdom to be found in the band's lyrics and I appreciate this a lot.  For example, here's some of the lyrics of their song "Happiness":   


Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can’t make it come or go 
But you are gone- not for good but for now 
Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good 

Basically
Something that I think the band does very well is integrate the message of the lyrics with the musicality of a song.  For example, when I hear the beginning of "Never Say Never" I feel like the message that the lyrics bring is already there before a word is sung.  The dynamics of the music of The Fray match the lyrics  of their songs extraordinarily well.  In my opinion, this the sign of a very talented group of artists.     

Popular posts from this blog

Seasons: The Future

So about the future.  I obviously don't know it so it makes sense that this one might be a little shorter (or longer-it could logically go either way, I just went with shorter). There are litterally (at least) a hundred different ways it could go. After the internship I'm doing, I might stay on there. Or I might come back here. If I come back here I could work, go away to college, take classes from home, live with my parents, move out with some friends, get some kind of certification and work a more specific job, come back to the office job I have now, etc. Or I could move to CA and live with some family and find a job with some distant cousins. Or I could move to some other random state and adventure there. The list of possibilities goes on and on. What sounds best to me right now is to do one of the aforementioned options that have to do with moving back here but we really will see won't we.

Thankful Thursday: Sweet heart hurts.

I was going to say "Happy Thursday to you!"  And if you're having a happy Thursday, good for you.  In the sense of wishing someone a happy day I suppose I do wish you that.  However,  I do not mean that I feel happy on this Thursday. So maybe more like "Thoughtful and introspective Thursday!" Doesn't sound as nice as "Happy Thursday" but that's okay. I'm not particularly happy on this Thursday and for fear of tempting you to judge whether or not my reason for not being happy is legitimate or not (some people feel like they have that position, you know) I won't go into the details of why. I will say that I miss somebody today.  More than just one; I miss him and his whole family. Without going into more detail on that, I'll tell you that my heart hurts today.  The why is irrelevant for the sake of what I'm trying to say; but it does hurt. There are at least two kinds of heart hurts I think: ( There is good news though beca...

We Meet Again

Well, to say that it feels weird to be here again is an understatement. This is a little emotional for me and I'll try to explain why. Firstly, it's been a while since the last time I wrote here. When I typed the address into the search bar, I was actually surprised that a 404 page didn't show up and that, instead, I saw a familiar title and design come up on the screen. There it was - my own writing, published on a web page I undoubtedly spent hours adjusting and tweaking until it was just right, down to the blue and green squares I painted  by hand, scanned into a computer and digitized the old fashioned way with....wait for it.....*Microsoft Paint*.  Illustrator? Pshht. Who needs that when you've got the grandmother of graphic design tools for FREE on your receptionist job work computer? (sarcasm, of course. Adobe, baby, I love you.) But even the details and designs of this page speak to the reason why this is emotional for me. All of the things about this blog that ...