Etta James | RAFrenzy

Finally, Something Good about Internet Explorer

With the recent campaign for IE 9 on YouTube and elsewhere, I found myself continually hitting “skip ad” until my twelve year old said, “Mom, have you heard the Internet Explorer song?” I said, “No, and I don’t really want to.” She said, “Oh, you’re wrong. You’re gonna love it. Listen!”

As it played, I looked at her and she started laughing, “Yeah, it’s good,” and before I could load up Soundhound to find out who it was, she added, “Here’s the whole song!”

A great live version if you’re so inclined.

My first thought on watching that was how much he reminded me of Adele (even down to the style of the video which was reminiscent of “Rolling in the Deep”), and of course how they both sounded like Amy Winehouse. My second thought was why had I never heard of Alex Clare? Then I read this, and it made total sense.

A great Etta James cover:

You can hear all of Alex Clare’s current tracks on his SoundCloud account.

As for IE9, it’s still a no. I checked it out last year, and it was not a good fit for my system running 64-bit. If you’re curious about it, this is a good write-up.

Oh yeah, this gets the Richard Armitage tag. :D

And I put the public service tag on this one because some of you have never heard of Soundhound nor Soundcloud. Both are great resources for music lovers.

May 7, 2012
Categories: Geek, Musicilove . Tags: Adele, Alex Clare, blues, Etta James, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft, public service, Richard Armitage . Author: RAFrenzy . Comments: 4 Comments

At Last — Etta at Peace

One of my favorite performers died today. Etta James. Her tunes got under my skin when I was in second grade, and they’re still there. Even at that tender age, listening to her made me want to dig down inside myself and pull out whatever was in there and have it pour all over the piano. It was one of her songs that made me want to write music and somehow express all the hope in my seven year old heart, and that was what I loved so much about her tunes. They were hopeful. They were a celebration of what life could be despite the bluesy words and sound, despite Etta’s difficult life.

When I thought of her earlier today, I finally saw her as the kid she must have been when she became a singing sensation and being completely overwhelmed by it. I saw her as a kind of Lindsay Lohan and was sad at the thought of people using her and of her using herself. But she’s at peace now, and all we’ll remember are these: