Blog #5: DJ Shadow: Building Steam With a Grain of Salt

DJ Shadow is a very talented musician his style of music is similar to what I like to listen to since I enjoy instrumental music. One song that stands out to me the most in his album, "Entroducing", is called, "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt" because this song represents the difficult times that I go through in my life.

I like how the music starts with piano notes, which constantly plays throughout a majority of the song. At around 20 seconds into the song, there is a piano chord that hits hard during the piano notes. The powerful chord represents the anger that is building up. Every time I hear those piano notes and the heavy chord hit, I think about the bad times, such as the times when I had failed or had been bullied back in my middle school years. As the drums come and continue throughout the song, this is when I am ready to let my "steam" come out. I let my steam out either through martial arts or kickboxing since those are the two things that lets any feeling, anger, hatred, pain, and/or sadness, out of my body and heart. At around 4 minutes and 20 seconds into the song, my favorite part comes out, which is when the beat hits faster as if someone is playing a drum solo. I like to call this the "let everything out of me in these 20 seconds of the song" part since the beats are intense and fast. I feel like throwing my hardest set of punches and kicks to the punching bag so that I am going with the flow of the intense part of the song. When the music calms down, this is when my mind is clear of all the bad thoughts and chattering as if I am free from my anxieties.

If I were to give this song one word, I would call it freedom because it allows me to reflect upon my life and let my feelings out through working out, like what I mentioned, or playing instruments. After that, I feel relieved, better about myself, and allow myself to move forward in life.

Extra Note: Also, this song played during one of the cutscenes of a videogame called, Splinter Cell: Conviction. Though I did not play the game nor do I know much of the storyline, I will only describe just this particular cutscene. Sam Fisher, the main character, finds out that one of his best friends, Lambert, lied to him about Sam's daughter's death. As Sam is hearing this terrible news, the song plays and we can see the anger that builds within Sam's face as he hits the inanimate objects around him and afterwards, kills whichever enemy comes in his way so that he can let his steam come out. For Sam Fisher, violence is his way of freeing his mind from the pain that he is carrying.

Link to the cutscene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S2Qvutvr4Y&feature=related