Nothing compares 2 u

An updated, haunting version of Tonight by Lykke Li... I suggest she find Antony Hegarty and render us all senseless with a blistering duet!


Lykke Li - Tonight from Lykke Li on Vimeo.

Song :: Tonight (video version) by Lykke Li

WTF

The WTF Blanket


Also, check out: FAIL blog

More Bourgeoisie and W

You, Me & The Bourgeoisie by The Submarines

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For Frank: a delayed goodbye seemingly written just for you...

Video (lyrics n' music) :: Guess Who Batman by Lilly Allen

Guess Who Batman = GWB = George W Bush (fuck you very much)

And I can see through everybody's clothes with no reason

Dear Kevin: a how-to on the proper etiquette of the stage invasion…

Video :: Sister I'm a Poet by Morrissey (live 12.22.88)


Uh oh... look who's turned his words on himself: media whore!

Ray and Sebastian

I toddled into a record store (a record store!) the other day and vaguely recognized the music they were playing. Or rather, I recognized the sound but not the actual song. It was a dead ringer for Belle and Sebastian so I figured it must have been off of their recently released BBC Sessions, something I had not gotten to yet. So I held aloft the new B&S disk - confident in my knowledge of all things twee and Scottish - and asked of the staff, from across the store, if what they were playing was from that album. “Ah, no, it’s The Kinks” came the reply from the disaffected record chickie. To make matters worse I couldn’t hear her and had to ask that she shout out once again that I was, indeed, an idiot.

Turns out “Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks is a rather popular track in the history of music. I downloaded it recently and can honestly say that I have never heard it before. Just like every single song by Bob Dylan (save for Subterranean Homesick Blues), Iron Maiden, Pavement and The Tragically Hip, this music had somehow escaped my ears all these years. A massive blow to my ego but, in my defence, it so happens that B&S did once cover “Waterloo Sunset” live. Take that, history!

For the first time ever, anywhere*, here are The Kinks** playing that obviously-never-before-released tune, Waterloo Sunset:

Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks


*not really
**check out them glasses!

a band highly influenced by the 60’s: le pastie de la bourgeoisie by Belle and Sebastian

Hide me

Golden Filter present pure electro-pop perfection via sex, much clumsiness and a whole lot of coloured balls (and a riff reminiscent of New Order):

Video :: Hide me by Golden Filter


You really can’t trust much on youtube I guess - the video for this song also accompanies music from another band. I haven’t a clue which one is real and which one isn’t and could really care less...

Headless Heroes

Keith Loutit is an amazing artist who works in tilt-shift and time-lapse. Here's a sample of his work shot in Sydney, Australia with music by Headless Heroes...

Video :: The North Wind Blew South by Headless Heroes

The North Wind Blew South from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Check out further depth of field altering/ minature world creating pieces like Bathtub III and Metal Heart here (thanks Schuyler!).

Also, Headless Heroes (a project moreso than a band) beautifully cover The Jesus and Mary Chain (with yet another great video):
Song :: Just like honey (The Jesus and Mary Chain cover) by Headless Heroes
Video :: Just like honey (The Jesus and Mary Chain cover) by Headless Heroes

This Land

Pete Seeger is my hero. Not only has he overcome and accomplished so much (and is still going strong at nearly 90), he has somehow managed to get me to sit through five minutes of Bruce Springsteen:
Video :: This land is your land by Pete Seeger et al at Obama inauguration

(further hero alert at the 2 minute mark)

I'm pretty sure Pete and the choir weren't faking it to a backing track like Yo Yo and Itzhak. This is what us northerners grew up with. The Travellers were The Weavers of Canada:
Video :: This land is your land by The Travellers

New Soofyan

From the to-be-released charity album "Dark was the night", here's a new 10 minute epic from the genius that is Sufjan...
Song :: You are the blood by Sufjan Stevens

Insanely good

Video :: My Girls by Animal Collective

Is it much to admit I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in a precious race
And children cry for the one who has
A real big heart and a father's grace

I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

Hope

Today was a huge day what with Obama's inauguration AND the release of three massively anticipated records. The A-list day included new albums from Andrew Bird, Antony and the Johnsons and Animal Collective. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective has got to be the most built up album in a goodly long time and so far it well exceeds the hype.

Video :: Brother Sport (live) by Animal Collective
Video :: Epilepsy is Dancing by Antony and the Johnsons

Also…

The Decemberists recently released a new single, The Rake Song, free to anyone with a pulse. The new tune is definitely meatier and is said to channel Black Sabbath. Realistically, it is more 54-40 than Sabbath. Good thing.
The Rake Song by The Decemberists

Add Dirty Projectors to the long line of David Byrne collaborators… this peppy tune from 4AD's soon to be released AIDS benefit disk, "Dark was the Night":
Song :: Knotty Pine by Dirty Projectors w/ David Byrne

Loney Dear is back with a new album. Still twinkly and Swedish but now with added propulsion…
Song :: Airport Surroundings by Loney Dear

Beirut has a couple of EP’s coming out soon. One of them is a collaboration with some Mexicans (and Greyfriars Bobby apparently!?!):
Video :: La Llorona by Beirut


And... just because these guys are my current fav band (and any band you suffer through Saturday Night Live for - you know is damn good!)... "He doesn't know why" by Fleet Foxes. Love the harmonies, love the hair, love the beards, love the goats...
Video :: He doesn't know why by Fleet Fozes

Song :: Mykonos by Fleet Foxes

Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before

The new song and video from Morrissey’s soon to be released “Years of Refusal” record, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris”, are all too familiar. The tune is surely good enough to get stuck in your head but the video is an uninspired, insipid performance complete with all-the-rage white background, standard PETA reference and bizarro drummer diving. Add to this the greying of the quiff, the widening of the girth and what appears to be the rotting of the front teeth (and resulting apparent shifts in enunciations), and you have a music video that really should not have been made. Worship-worthy legacy remains intact however.

Bad Video :: I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris by Morrissey


Good Video (good hair; good cycling) :: “Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before” by The Smiths

Pound

Why not start your day with the relentless poundings of “Machine Gun” by Portishead? From the album “Third”, one of the best of 2008 (and a definite “grower”), “Machine Gun” is a song that is named for its sound not its lyric and is sure to drive any pesky headaches away. Treat a headache with a headache, that’s what I always say.
Video :: Machine Gun by Portishead

PORTISHEAD "MACHINE GUN"
Uploaded by portishead

Here's the original headache-chasing theme song “Close (To the Edit)” by Art of Noise. The little girl in the video, with her choppy, destructive attitude, still gives me nightmares 24 years later. Seriously.
Close (To the Edit)” by Art of Noise.

Embracing Winter

One of the best songs from last year from Seattle's Fleet Foxes...

Video :: White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes


Song :: White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes
“I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime.”

If you put me to the test

When ABBA first came on the scene in the 70’s, it was so totally uncool to like disco or ABBA that even uncool me and my rollerskating buddies wouldn’t be caught dead listening to it. Growing up, probably the only other artistic expression I despised more than ABBA was the musical. But I have come a long way. I now find ABBA tolerable and I am able to suspend reality long enough to enjoy musicals.

Mama Mia! (the film) has won many awards, is the highest grossing musical of all time and is the most successful British-made film ever. What does this tell us? Other than an obvious need to question the legitimacy of Wikipedia entries, these stats provide further evidence that the masses still have not got a frickin clue.

Mama Mia! Is the worst movie I’ve ever seen walked out on halfway through. In this sad sack farce, everyone appears to have their voices dubbed, the lush scenery is redundant, James Bond looks like he’d rather suffer multiple colonoscopies than sing or dance and Meryl Streep is so god dang annoying and airbrushed that you just want to shove some baklava down her throat and hoist her up by her dumbass suspenders. Sure, it is meant to be corny. I can do corny (“Hairspray” reference alert!). But there is a difference between fun corny and bad corny and that’s way too many times I’ve spelled out corny so I’ll stop there.

I’d rather sit through Keanu Reeves in “A Walk in the Clouds” or be subjected to Andie MacDowell butchering her lines in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” than watch Mama Mia! again. I owe my wife a new Christmas present.

Here’s the music of ABBA done right via reallyREALLYbadvideosfromtheearly90’sdotcalm:

Video :: Take A Chance On Me (ABBA cover) by Erasure

New Music

Video :: Sleepyhead by Passion Pit