Song title: Zero
Artist: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Album title: It's Blitz
Year: 2009
Genre/Style: Electronic Punk?
Record label: Interscope
City/Country of Origin: NYC, USA
Personal notes:
Thank you, thank you Yeah Yeah Yeahs for keeping me believing in new music, reminding me it's out there somewhere if you seek it out. Somehow they eluded me for almost 9 years, pulling me back from the brink of musical oblivion. Thinking that perhaps I'd been forever lost from music of the present (versus, say, the music of my teens and twenties), here come Karen O and company to rescue me. Hearing this album, and this track is particular, pretty much blew me away like the same time I heard Siouxsie and the Banshees. I don't want to settle into musical midlife quitely, and as long as bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are around, I've got a chance.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Song title: Someday (I'm Coming Back)
Artist: Lisa Stansfied
Album title: Bodyguard Soundtrack
Year: 1992
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Arista
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
Yeah, $*&! you. You know you have this soundtrack somewhere. Let's make the obvious notable that it was pre-Brown, pre-crack Whitney, but I dare you to listen past track 5. You've heard the usual off this CD, and though I can't recall this song through the muck and schluck of the movie, here's Stansfield on a minor gem. It's a simple arrangement with Stansfied backed up by a drum machine, synth, and some goofy Miami-vice style sax, but it works. If nothing else, it's refreshing to find that some women vocalists actually sound like women, not some girly-voiced 14-year-old. It doesn't posess the classic Stansfield mix of disco-inflused R&B, but it's a 5 minute guilty pleasure I can indulge in.
Artist: Lisa Stansfied
Album title: Bodyguard Soundtrack
Year: 1992
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Arista
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
Yeah, $*&! you. You know you have this soundtrack somewhere. Let's make the obvious notable that it was pre-Brown, pre-crack Whitney, but I dare you to listen past track 5. You've heard the usual off this CD, and though I can't recall this song through the muck and schluck of the movie, here's Stansfield on a minor gem. It's a simple arrangement with Stansfied backed up by a drum machine, synth, and some goofy Miami-vice style sax, but it works. If nothing else, it's refreshing to find that some women vocalists actually sound like women, not some girly-voiced 14-year-old. It doesn't posess the classic Stansfield mix of disco-inflused R&B, but it's a 5 minute guilty pleasure I can indulge in.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Song title: On the Run
Artist: Gold Motel
Album title: Summer House
Year: 2010
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Good As Gold
City/Country of Origin: Chicago, USA
Personal notes:
Some songs (and albums for that matter) are just meant for summer. Take your pick of how you want to embrace that cliche - top-down convertable, back-yard pool, beach-side - but they have that care-free feel of summer vacation. I'm long removed from those days of having summers off, but most of this album can conjure up that emotional connection. A hair under 3 minutes, "We're On the Run" is a perfectly short kick-off to a great summertime collection, or a good listen while longing for winter to get the hell out of town.
Artist: Gold Motel
Album title: Summer House
Year: 2010
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Good As Gold
City/Country of Origin: Chicago, USA
Personal notes:
Some songs (and albums for that matter) are just meant for summer. Take your pick of how you want to embrace that cliche - top-down convertable, back-yard pool, beach-side - but they have that care-free feel of summer vacation. I'm long removed from those days of having summers off, but most of this album can conjure up that emotional connection. A hair under 3 minutes, "We're On the Run" is a perfectly short kick-off to a great summertime collection, or a good listen while longing for winter to get the hell out of town.
Song title: Cry Sometimes
Artist: Kate Earl
Album title: Fate Is the Hunter
Year: 2005
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Warner Bros.
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
I heard Kate Earl first on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic in 2004. If memory serves me right, there were about a half million young, female singer-songwriters debuting in the first half of the decade. There was something not only sincere, but genuine in her performance on KCRW. Her first album is messy mix of genres, but it works. My favorite track is "Cry Sometimes," which is a wonderful track that outdoes most of the more dramatic neo-soul that came out of the UK later in the decade (think Amy Winehouse and Duffy) because of its understated, pitch-perfect performance. There's plenty other songs to recommend on the album, which, by the way, is superbly recorded.
Artist: Kate Earl
Album title: Fate Is the Hunter
Year: 2005
Genre/Style: Pop
Record label: Warner Bros.
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
I heard Kate Earl first on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic in 2004. If memory serves me right, there were about a half million young, female singer-songwriters debuting in the first half of the decade. There was something not only sincere, but genuine in her performance on KCRW. Her first album is messy mix of genres, but it works. My favorite track is "Cry Sometimes," which is a wonderful track that outdoes most of the more dramatic neo-soul that came out of the UK later in the decade (think Amy Winehouse and Duffy) because of its understated, pitch-perfect performance. There's plenty other songs to recommend on the album, which, by the way, is superbly recorded.
Song title: No Doubt
Artist: Erasure
Album title: Nightbird
Year: 2005
Genre/Style: Electronic Pop
Record label: Mute
City/Country of Origin: UK
Personal notes:
I'll admit that I hadn't followed Erasure's releases after Chorus. It's hard not to argue that "The Innocents" was, and continues to be, Erasure's best release, but the following three releases just didn't capture my attention and ear. So here it is, in 2010, that I finally made a return to Erasure with "Nightbird," their 2005 release. What replaces the sheer pop energy that I loved so much in the Innocents is the deep touch of humanity that Andy Bell brings to the entire album. Vince Clark's catchy synth pop is still there, but it's the emotion that Andy Bell puts into the songs that makes it great. Sure, you can write great lyrics, put down a great performance on tape, but it's another thing to actually let the meaning of those words come through in the performance, and that's exactly what Andy Bell does here. It's hard to pick a favorite, but I'll go ahead and arbitrarily pick "No Doubt," but listen to the whole thing.
Artist: Erasure
Album title: Nightbird
Year: 2005
Genre/Style: Electronic Pop
Record label: Mute
City/Country of Origin: UK
Personal notes:
I'll admit that I hadn't followed Erasure's releases after Chorus. It's hard not to argue that "The Innocents" was, and continues to be, Erasure's best release, but the following three releases just didn't capture my attention and ear. So here it is, in 2010, that I finally made a return to Erasure with "Nightbird," their 2005 release. What replaces the sheer pop energy that I loved so much in the Innocents is the deep touch of humanity that Andy Bell brings to the entire album. Vince Clark's catchy synth pop is still there, but it's the emotion that Andy Bell puts into the songs that makes it great. Sure, you can write great lyrics, put down a great performance on tape, but it's another thing to actually let the meaning of those words come through in the performance, and that's exactly what Andy Bell does here. It's hard to pick a favorite, but I'll go ahead and arbitrarily pick "No Doubt," but listen to the whole thing.
Song title: Kim the Waitress
Artist: Material Issue
Album title: Freak City Soundtrack
Year: 1994
Genre/Style: Power Pop
Record label: Polygram
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
So here it is, a little piece of power pop perfection. The only cover on Material Issue's 2004 Freak City Soundtrack, it has everything you want in that quintessential pop song. It clocks in at just under 5 minutes. It's that type of song that ends and leaves you wanting just a bit more.
Sorry to all the Green Pajamas fans out there, Ish's cover kills the original. Hats off to J Kelly for writing a fantastic song, but it's Jim Ellison's phrasing, those silent pauses, driven through by the guitars and bass and drums, that lets you linger over those images in your mind. When he sings "I'd like to gently pull her to me and kiss her with no warning .... Seeing her some sunny summer Sunday morning ..." It puts you right there in the booth. Sometime words just flow so wonderfully, and this is one of those times. Now I'm not talking something like Dylan's materpieces here, but the choice of words, the way Ellison puts them out there, in that slow building tension. And when it ends, it seems it ends just too soon, like a love that left you wondering what could have been.
Artist: Material Issue
Album title: Freak City Soundtrack
Year: 1994
Genre/Style: Power Pop
Record label: Polygram
City/Country of Origin: USA
Personal notes:
So here it is, a little piece of power pop perfection. The only cover on Material Issue's 2004 Freak City Soundtrack, it has everything you want in that quintessential pop song. It clocks in at just under 5 minutes. It's that type of song that ends and leaves you wanting just a bit more.
Sorry to all the Green Pajamas fans out there, Ish's cover kills the original. Hats off to J Kelly for writing a fantastic song, but it's Jim Ellison's phrasing, those silent pauses, driven through by the guitars and bass and drums, that lets you linger over those images in your mind. When he sings "I'd like to gently pull her to me and kiss her with no warning .... Seeing her some sunny summer Sunday morning ..." It puts you right there in the booth. Sometime words just flow so wonderfully, and this is one of those times. Now I'm not talking something like Dylan's materpieces here, but the choice of words, the way Ellison puts them out there, in that slow building tension. And when it ends, it seems it ends just too soon, like a love that left you wondering what could have been.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
"Uprising" by Muse
Song title: "Uprising"
Artist: Muse
Album title: The Resistance
Year: 2009
Genre/Style: Alternative
Record label: Warner Bros, Helium 3
City/Country of Origin: England/Italy
Personal notes: This song has already been co-opted by the new "V" series and Glen Beck, but it's been my personal anthem for the past year and change. I definitely like the subversive lyrics of this song, but the entire album is pretty cool. The songs are supposed to be loosely-linked to create a story (think Queensryche). They also have taken a lot of style and sound from old 70s and 80s tunes (which is probably also why I dig this song).
In the end, it's fight music. And I loves fighting tunes.
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