weird stuff

MICHELLE BRANCH-HOTEL PAPER

 

I picked up this album, and the first thing that struck me was how much it looked like Morning Orbit. It even uses the same font! Strange coincidence?

K.D. LANG-INVINCIBLE SUMMER

 

I was browsing through the Columbia House flyer and noticed that K.D Lang's Invincible Summer, released in 2000, is very similar to Morning Orbit. Not too sure how the similarities came about, but both artists are Canadian.

JAMES IHA-LET IT COME DOWN

 

My friend Mike brought up a good point while we were listening to Morning Orbit for the first time: the cover of the album looks a lot like James Iha's Let It Come Down, which was released in 1998. I think the cover similarity is likely just a coincidence, but these two artists have a few other similarities too:

¬ Both are or were members of a highly successful band (James was guitarist for the Smashing Pumpkins).
¬ Their first solo albums were both released in 1998 and they sounded very different from their band work.
¬ They seem to like yellow.
¬ The hair, the hair!
¬ Each are a snappy dresser

Pretty interesting, eh? I encourage you to check out each's solo and band work-it's great!

OUR LADY PEACE-HAPPINESS...IS NOT A FISH YOU CAN CATCH

 

This is another album cover similarity, but it's one that appears a bit more intentional. Our Lady Peace's Happiness...Is Not A Fish You Can Catch came out in 1999 and I was astonished by the cover's similarity to Little Songs. I believe David's fish symbolizes his self-exposure throughout Little Songs. It is like he is showing his life to the world, much like a vendor displaying fish in a common market. Our Lady Peace's image is quite different and is obviously conveying the message of the album's title: happiness is not something physical you can tough or smell-it's a feeling inside you.

Our Lady Peace was asked about the similarities during a MuchMusic I&I a few years ago and commented that the band and David are good freinds and no harm was done about the similarities.

LYRICS STYLE

I'm sure others haved noticed this, but ever since Silver, Moist and David Usher do not use apostrophes when publishing their lyrics. Here is an example from Alone in the Universe:

jamies on the bathroom floor she dont know why
shes shaking underneath the sink cant feel a thing
shed love to live a life shes too afraid of failure...

Doesn't that just drive you nuts?!? For complete David Usher lyrics (with apostrophes), go here

REGIONS DE FRANCE

When Little Songs was released, the unofficial site was davidusher.com. However, after awhile, the site disappeared and was replaced with a French search engine site of all things! The site is now located at www.ifrance.com/salsicharia and it was definitely a surprise to find it when you're looking for info on David Usher.