Saturday, December 18, 2010

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Squeezing away from end of the school year capers to sneak in an entry... Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in tons of music all next week as some kind of countdown to Christmas! YES!!!! I get to do another band that rests in my top 4 favorite bands of all time and they have a free song!



Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a great many things; a perennial holiday favorite, a radio mainstay during the winter, the most kick-ass rock rendition of Christmas tunes. Yeah, it fits those descriptions easily but most people don't realize that the radio-friendly instrumental tracks are only a fraction of what this band has to offer. The albums also contain some well-developed symphonic rock songs from covers of Christmas classics to beautiful originals. Each album also has its own full story to accompany the music (what?) often being great stories that the music only helps build into a greater symphony of sound. This past month, my family saw them in concert and it blew my mind. Best light show I've seen, best atmosphere, amazing narration of the story and a full replaying of the entire "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" albums (except "A Star to Follow..." Strange.)

The bigger surprise to a lot of people is that they don't always do Christmas music. The two non-Christmas albums are vastly different with their separate themes. The first is "Beethoven's Last Night" which tells the story of Beethoven's last night as he is dying and analyzing his life to see if anything was worth it. Great stuff. The newest album is simply called "Night Castle" a two disc medley of all kinds of music. There are a few Christmas songs but mostly original tracks. TSO held a official contest where people could use one of the new songs "Believe" in a created video medley of something you were passionate about. Winners would be chosen and the contest ended 6 months ago... But they still left the mp3 active! On the contest page both the original track and a separate radio edit are available for free download. The song is great but not a normal Christmas track that one would expect from TSO. Please download and enjoy!! Merry Week-Before-Christmas!!!

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