Category: music

sunday rewind: inxs (listen like theives)

I know Kick is the album INXS is most celebrated for, but Listen Like Thieves is my favorite album by the band. It's more of a stripped-down INXS, but just fantastic.  Let's go to the videos.  Only "What You Need," "Listen Like Thieves," and "This Time" are the original videos, but I found excellent quality concert footage of the other songs — good stuff.  

"What You Need" is most like the stuff off Kick.  The video is artsy and fun, very similar to what bands were doing in the mid '80s.

Let's talk about the "Listen Like Thieves" video.  I couldn't find it on You Tube, but I knew one existed — in my mind I could see the weirdness.  Don't worry, I found it on Daily Motion and the weirdness was there.  The video is like Mad Max meets INXS.  The band is playing, there are armed guards, an old Cruella deVille woman with opera glasses, and a bunch of Mad Max extras watching the band.  It's interesting. 

I very much enjoy "Shine Like it Does".  Great song.

Same goes for "Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)".  

I hope you enjoyed the '80s Sunday Rewind.  Have a great Sunday.

all “to sir with love” all the time

So, Glee made me cry this week with the group singing "To Sir With Love," one of my favorite songs of all time. It was superfantastic.  

If you didn't see it, here it is.

And because I simply adore this version with all my heart, it's Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe.  

"If you wanted the moon I would try to make a start, but I would rather give my heart" is pure poetry.  That's magic, people.  It doesn't happen everyday.  

tunes you need Tuesday on Thursday: The Drums

Shut up.

I love this new band.  The Drums are a band from Brooklyn who released their first full-length self-titled album on Tuesday.  They've managed to take parts of the Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division and mix it with the sounds of summertime and they sound like this: 

I just adore that.

And this should be the song of summer 2010.

"I'll Never Drop My Sword" is superfantastic.  I've played this one 42 times.

And "Forever and Ever Amen" may be my favorite, although it's hard to pick.  The video is all kinds of fun. 

So, The Drums new album is available at the iTunes store, so get it.  It's your summer theme music.  

fake ben folds

I dig the Ben Folds.  I'd been listening to his stuff all morning, then thought I'd seek out some of his fake songs for fun.  When Ben released his latest album, Way to Normal, he recorded a bunch of "fake" songs with the same or similar titles as the real tracks and leaked them online.  Ben likes to mess with people.  Some of the songs are good, some are obvious jokes; I'm just glad they're out there.  Enjoy.

I really like "Lovesick Diagnostician."  This should have been on the album.

"Free Coffee Town" isn't bad.

This "Frowne Song" is just silly.

I prefer this "Bitch Went Nutz" to the album version.  

I'll say it again: Ben is the man.

Sunday rewind: omd

It's about time I had a decent Sunday Rewind, don't you think?

True story: in 1987 I asked an aunt for OMD's greatest hits album for my birthday and she bought me an album by Ozark Mountain Daredevils.  

 OMD is Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the fantastic synthesizer-based '80s band from England made popular by their song "If You Leave" from the film Pretty in Pink.  Love that movie.  OMD made great catchy songs that stood apart from their contemporaries in that their music was different, poetic, and often very special.  What Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys did was give a heart to synthesizer New Wave.

Let's explore the best of OMD.

"Talking Loud and Clear" is an example of OMD doing something different. 

"So in Love" is so nice.

Love this song.

"I look at you and I make the same mistakes" is pretty poignant, I think.

I saved the best for last.  "If You Leave" is one of the '80s songs that is just perfection.  I'll play this 42 times today.  

http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xz3ge

Does it get better than that?  No.

tunes you need Tuesday: Elliot Smith

Sometimes a songwriter comes along and is only around a short time, but the impression they leave is undeniable.  Elliot Smith was that kind of songwriter.  He recorded six albums before his death at 34 in 2003 and is probably most well known for performing half the songs on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack (his song "Miss Misery" was Oscar nominated and lost to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On").  

If you're not familiar with Elliot Smith, he has a tragic story.  After a mostly indie career and drug and alcohol abuse, then reportedly getting clean, he died of two stab wounds to the chest.  Despite a found Post-it suicide note, his death was not ruled a suicide and his death remains a mystery.  Several musician friends have released tribute songs about Smith; Ben Folds' "Late" and Rhett Miller's "The Believer" are two that come to mind.  

My favorite Elliot Smith song has always been the song that made me a fan, "Miss Misery."

"Between the Bars" was also in Good Will Hunting.  Good song.

Here is Elliot on Letterman singing "Stupidity Tries."

If you're a Wes Anderson fan,  "Needle in the Hay" may be familiar from The Royal Tennenbaums.

Lastly, "Say Yes" is a great little song.  

I hope you enjoyed the Elliott Smith Tunes Tuesday.  I love some Elliot Smith.  Perfect for a Tunes Tuesday, don't you think?

tunes you need Tuesday: OK Go

At least two months ago, when Of the Colour of the Blue Sky came out, I promised an OK Go Tunes You Need Tuesday and here it is.  You know OK Go from their video a couple of years ago with the treadmills, but they're more than fun videos, they're a very talented band and this is a superb album.  You should get it.

The End.

Not really.  But I could end it there, that's how much I like this album.  It's supergood and hard to describe.  OK Go calls it a dance album, but it's a mix of rock and pop and fun.  The songs are catchy and funky, the band's sound is fantastic, and well, maybe I should let the first track, "WTF?" speak to what OK Go sounds like.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7166047&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

So, that's good stuff.  OK Go is great at doing good stuff.  They're a phenomenal band.  This is from their bio on their website:

 

Some of the other cool shit they’ve made lately: a record accompanied only by trombones, a play, an essay in the best-selling collection Things I’ve Learned From Women Who Dumped Me, op-eds in the New York Times and Huffington Post. They’ve testified before Congress and played in the Senate chambers. I repeat: they played music in the chambers of the United States Senate. They’ve been commentators on All Things Considered. They interviewed a member of N’Sync in the bathroom of Radio City Music Hall. They have a project where they walk the streets with fans handing out burritos to the homeless. They raised most of the money to buy a house for soul legend Al Johnson, so he could move home to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

And they make music too, like "Needing/Getting."  

04 Needing_Getting

I mentioned the OK Go website, but it's worth more than a mention.  It is what a band website should be.  OK Go goes beyond what most bands do and posts video of performances on tv shows, embeddable official videos, and streams live performances.  It's because they care about their fans and about making cool stuff, lead singer Damian Kulash said it on The Colbert Report last night.  

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
OK Go
www.colbertnation.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:308103

Back to the music.  I'll leave you with my two favorite songs from Of the Colour of the Blue Sky, "Back From Kathmandu" and "Louisiana Land."  Enjoy.

11 Back from Kathmandu

14 Louisiana Land

sunday rewind: michael penn’s march

This '80s Sunday Rewind has been a long time coming, but as usual the trouble was finding enough quality videos to make a complete post.  I've been a fan of Michael Penn since March and think he's as incredibly talented a songwriter/musician as he is under-appreciated.  March was Penn's 1989 debut and with "No Myth," it seemed like he would be the new darling of the 1990s, but that wasn't to be.  Many people think of him as a one-hit wonder, but listen to the other songs in this post and I think you'll agree Penn is quite fantastic. Hit up the iTunes Store for all his stuff.  

EDIT: I hit up the iTunes Store because I can't find my cd of Penn's Free For All (great album) and the mixed tape a friend made of the album back in the day is still stuck in the cassette deck of my mini-van — yes, you needed all of that information.  So, I found out that now on March and Free For All have been combined in a 2001 re-issue of March, minus one of my faves, "Now We're Even," which if I recall correctly was the closing track on Free For All.  So, lucky you — you get two albums for the price of one!  Fantastic.

Here's the song you'll remember, "No Myth."

I wish I had this whole episode of Unplugged.  Here is "Brave New World."  The acoustic version is sublime.

What did I tell you?  "This may not be my best day, but this ain't no golden age."


There isn't a real video for "Half Harvest," but I really like the song, so here you go.

My favorite line has always been "What makes you think that just 'cause you dress bright means that you shine?"  Penn has such great insight.  


Love him.