Friday, December 28, 2007

New Music: New Goldfrapp

Okay, so the bootleg of Goldfrapp's new "Seventh Tree" album has been floating around the internet for the last couple weeks now, but I didn't notice it until Perez Hilton got to it. Oh well. Anyway, the Youtube link he posted to the song was broken, so here's an embed that works. I was apathetic at first, but it's growing on me. First thing you need to know is that this is nothing like anything I've heard from Goldfrapp before. It's very acoustic and mellow and... Alanis-ish? I don't know, I'm having trouble placing it, but this sounds a lot like something else. Comment if you have any ideas.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Remixes: Death Cab vs Madonna

Who knew that a ridiculous bullshit pop song like "Hung Up" could be classed up so well? Well, that's what Party Ben when he mashed up the "Hung Up" vocals with samples from "Soul Meets Body" by Death Cab (one of my all-time favorite songs). And the result? Doesn't suck at all. It's actually kinda cool.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Music Videos: The Go Team

We're back from Christmas Break, and we're posting one of our favorite music videos of the year. The Go Team's Youtube-famous Ms Pacman video was wicked and we just wanted to post it in the five minutes we have to throw up a new post. Happy holidays, enjoy the vid.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Random Track of the Day: The MIA-Timbaland collaboration

I've been meaning to post this ever since "Kala" was released, but I just never got around to it. "Come Around" was a track that MIA and Timbaland collaborated to produce that was originally intended to be included on "Shock Value", but for whatever reason, it didn't make the cut, and ended up on MIA's new album instead. It's "Shock Value"'s loss; this song is better than 90% of that album. At least it eventually found the light of day, because it's ridiculously addictive. Also, the song proves why MIA is one of my favorite lyricists working in the music industry right now. The lyrics are copy/pasted below the Youtube embed. The "In a far away land" verse is ridiculous. In a good way, obviously.



M.I.A.:
Check my coat in and I paid the dollar,
Sidekick rings, "what's up? holla!"
Text the address, I'll see you later
Baby come down
Come down, come down, come down
run down, run down, run down
Run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run down
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on

In a faraway land we got shit made
Ray-Ban shades, warheads laid
Babies born in air raids
My girls run the Everglades
Indian tribesmen gamble spades
Indian chicks, they get men laid
Milk and honey, smoke high-grade
Gold and diamond, gems and jade
Ride up on our tanks, invade
Blow up thing to save our nam
Mina, Rina, Tina, Sabrina
Being a super Indian babe
We black market, we black made
We hit shit out when it rains
Would you come down and catch my train?
Would you run down and play this game?

Check my coat in and I paid the dollar,
Sidekick rings, "what's up? holla!"
Text the address, I'll see you later
Baby come down
Come down, come down, come down
run down, run down, run down
Run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run down
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on

Timbaland:
Baby girl
You and me, need to go to your teepee
The moon is full, and I'm shining.
Baby, I know you see me.
Put a hump or two on your back
Jst like that
Oh girl you're on fire.
I don't wanna be in love with you
Imma just break you off and say goodbye
The night is young
Don't make me wait,
You just might miss your chance.
I'm gon' tell you the truth
Timbaland, I'm the motherfuckin' man.
Today's the day, girl, let me get that
Don't get mad
In fact, let me hit that
I've been overkilling them, I break backs
Come down, run down
Girl, where your place at?

M.I.A.:
Check my coat in and I paid the dollar,
Sidekick rings, "what's up? holla!"
Text the address, I'll see you later
Baby come down
Come down, come down, come down
run down, run down, run down
Run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run, make a run down
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on
A dun da da dun da da dun da da dun da da dun dun
Beat goes on

Timbaland:
Don't get it twisted baby girl, baby boy 'cause Timbaland ain't dead
Don't get it twisted baby girl, baby boy 'cause Timbaland ain't dead
Bounce

Covers: Jamie Cullum British-ifies "Frontin"

Here's another cover in the category of "Hip Hop Covers That Most Hip Hop Fans Would Despise". Jamie Cullum did a British Jazz-sounding cover of Pharrell's old hit "Frontin", and it was really cool even though on paper you would expect it to be boring as hell.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

New music: Lupe Fiasco

The new Lupe Fiasco album "The Cool", came out today, and it sounds amazing. It's an album that you can't really fully process at once, so I need to find time to listen to the whole thing without distractions. So far, I think the best song on the album is "Streets on Fire", which just radiates intense atmosphere from the first second. I wish there were more people like this guy in the music industry.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Music Videos: MIA (mostly) Uncensored

I love the new MIA single so much. "Paper Planes" is ridiculously addictive, so I was disappointed when MTV fucked up the music video by watering down the concept and then editing out the gunshot sound effects that the song is so memorable for. And MIA was PISSED. Luckily, a better version of the video has surfaced since then. It doesn't have nearly as much edge as the original concept, but the audio of the song is completely intact.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Live Music: Tori Amos ("Get the Fuck Out!")

I love this video so much. Tori Amos is doing a damn good job of performing "Code Red" when a couple girls in the front row start to disrupt the show. So, Tori stops the song out of nowhere and says "Get the fuck out of my show", and tells them that the front row is only for people that care about the music. And it was awesome. There's about eight minutes of fantastic performance to go with it, too.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Music Videos: The White Stripes

Yay! The "Conquest" EP by the White Stripes just got released. The video for the EP's title track has been floating around the internet for a few weeks now, but it's worth repeating a few times so I'm posting it anyway. Crazy-good stuff.

Remixes: Hollaback Killers

This remix is ridiculously cool. It flawlessly remixes the march-stomp from "Hollaback Girl" to match the vocals of "Somebody Told Me". It puts a really interesting twist on both songs. I could live without the synth riff from Hollaback that gets dropped in half-way through, but the rest kicks ass.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Music videos: Amy Winehouse's "Love Is A Losing Game"

The new video for "Love Is A Losing Game" just came out. It's nice. I really would have rather seen "Me and Mr Jones" or "Addicted" be her new single, but this'll work too.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Acoustic: Jeff Buckley

Just in case I haven't said this enough times on this blog: This man is so fucking talented. I went digging for some acoustic versions of Jeff Buckley's work this afternoon, and here's the two best tracks I found during the short amount of time I had. The first is "Last Goodbye"-- this version is a little more alternative and less "radio friendly"-sounding than the album version, and it's a sound that works extremely well for the song. The second is "Lover You Should Have Come Over", a version that's a little quieter but still packs just as much intensity as the original. I always thought that the album version of LYSHCO was his best song, even beating his cover of "Hallelujah". I can't believe that dozens of artists aren't lineing up to cover "You Should Have Come Over" the same way dozens of artists lined up to cover "Hallelujah".



Friday, December 7, 2007

Remixes: Tegan & Sara v Mylo

Another track from our playlist of all-time favorite mashups. This one is the Party Ben mashup of "Walking With A Ghost" by Tegan and Sara and "Paris Four Hundred" by Mylo. The combination works 20 times better than you would expect it to.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Covers: Chromatics does "Running Up That Hill"

I never cared about Chromatics that much (mostly because I thought "Nite" was one of the worst songs I had ever heard), but this is some pretty good work from them. They did an electro-style cover of "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush and recently made famous to a new indie generation by Placebo. It's a nice half-way point between the two; it's not ridiculously over-the-top (not just regular over-the-top, but 80's over-the-top) like the original, and not dragged down by ugly vocals that take several listens to get used to. Don't get me wrong, I think Placebo's cover is brilliant, but those vocals are really hard to take the first few times around. But this is the near-perfect balance of subtlety and accessability.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Covers: Tegan and Sara do "Umbrella"

It's not news that Tegan and Sara are one of the many, many artists to cover "Umbrella". However, the only videos I found when I first look had such bad audio quality that I could barely get through watching the whole thing. But yesterday, I found a 2-minute clip that, although short, is still worth it for damn near perfect audio quality (at least compared to the others). Turn your snob off for a couple minutes and just enjoy a nice cover of one of the year's most entertaining bullshit pop songs.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Random Track of the Day: Leticia Wolf, Part 2


We've posted about an awesome but relatively unknown artist named Leticia Wolf before; we talked about her "Heart-Shaped Box"-ish sounding song "Married to Grunge" two months ago, snd now we've found a track of hers that we like even more, so we're posting that too. It's an earlier song called "drain" (no capitalization), and it's a much different side of her than we saw in "Married to Grunge". This is a much more real and vulnerable side that really lets Wolf's lyrical skills show through. "Married" coasted on the lyrics (repeating the same line 20+ times) but made up for it with an intoxicating instrumental and production, while this is more lo-fi and basic guitar work with deeply personal and well thought-out lyrics. It's a lovable and relatable breakup song that's so smartly written that it makes you want to cheer for a verse describing how she cleaned her tub during the weekend. You need to hear it to believe it.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Essay: Of Montreal frontman on why Punk/Indie elitists can go fuck themselves


Kevin Barnes, one of the most creative and interesting artists in the indie world, has written a brilliant article about how ridiculous the old-school-punk mentality is, especially when it comes to whiny indie elitists slamming bands for becoming commercially successful. I agree with every single word in this piece. After the ridiculously unfair backlashes against The Killers, Rilo Kiley, Against Me, and countless other indie bands lucky enough to discover mainstream success, it's good to see someone in the industry taking a stand against all the bullshit.

Here it is:

Selling Out Isn't Possible
by Kevin Barnes

Are you a sell out? Yes. Don't let it bother you though, cause apparently I
am also a sell out, and so are your parents and everyone you've ever known.
The only way to avoid selling out is to live like a savage all alone in the
wilderness. The moment you attempt to live within the confines of a social
order, you become a sell out. Once you attempt to coexist you sell out. If
that's true, then selling out is a good thing. It is an important thing. If
we didn't do it, we'd be fucked, quite literally, by everyone bigger than
us physically who found us fuckable.

The pseudo-nihilistic punk rockers of the 70's created an impossible
code in which no one can actually live by. It's such garbage. The idea that
anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sell out is completely
out of touch with reality. The punk rock manifesto is one of anarchy and
intolerance. The punk rockers polluted our minds. They offered a solution
that had no future. Of course, if the world would have ended before
Sandinista! was released then everything would have been alright. It
didn't. Now we have all of these half-conceived ideas and idiot
philosophies floating around to confuse and alienate us. I think it is
important to face reality. It is important to decide whether you are going
to completely rail against the system or find a way to make it work for
you. You cannot do both -- and if you attempt to do both you will only
become even more bitter and confused.

When I was younger, and supported my parents, I chose to float between
the two. A lot of people choose to do this. There are so many confused
young people running around now polluted by this alloyed version of the
tenets of the punk rock manifesto. Of course they're confused. It isn't
possible to be in chorus with capitalism and anarchy. You must pick one or
the other. Very few people are willing to do it, though. The worst kind of
person is the one who sucks the dick of the man during the daytime and then
draws pictures of themselves slitting his throat at night. Jesus Christ,
make up your mind! The thing is, there is a lack of balance. When
capitalism is working on a healthy level, everyone gets their dick sucked
from time to time and no one gets their throat slit. It's impossible to be
a sell out in a capitalist society. You're only a winner or a loser. Either
you've found a way to crack the code or you are struggling to do so. To
sell out in capitalism is basically to be too accommodating, to not get
what you think you deserve. In capitalism, you don't get what you think you
deserve though. You get what someone else thinks you deserve. So the trick
is to make them think you are worth what you feel you deserve. You deserve
a lot, but you'll only get it when you figure out how to manipulate the
system.

Why commercialize yourself? In the art industry, it's extremely
difficult to be successful without turning yourself into a cartoon. Even
Hunter S. Thompson knew this. God knows Duchamp and Warhol knew it. Some
artists are turned into cartoons and others do it themselves. I prefer to
do it myself. at least then I can control how my cock is photographed. Why
should it be considered such an onerous thing to view the production of art
as a job? To me, the luckiest people are the ones who figure out a way to
earn a living doing what they love and gain fulfillment from. Like all
things in this life, you have to make certain sacrifices to get what you
want. At least most of us do. If you're not some trust-fund kid or lotto
winner, you've got to slave it out everyday. People who wanna be artists
have the hardest time of it 'cause we are held up to these impossible
standards. We're expected to die penniless and insane so that the people we
have moved and entertained over the years can keep us to themselves. So
that they can feel a personal and untarnished connection with our art. The
second we try to earn a living wage or, god forbid, promote our art in the
mainstream, we are placed under the knives of the sanctimonious indie
fascists. Unfortunately, there isn't some grand umbrella grant that
supports indie rockers financially and enables us to exist outside of the
trappings of capitalism.

The thing is, I like capitalism. I think it's an interesting challenge.
It's a system that rewards the imaginative and ambitious adults and
punishes the lazy adults. Our generation is insanely lazy. We're just as
smart as our parents but we are overwhelmed by contradicting ideas that
confuse us into paralysis. Maybe the punk rock ethos made sense for the "no
future" generation but it doesn't make sense for me. I like producing and
purchasing things. I'd much rather go to IKEA than to stand in some bread
line. That's because I don't have to stand in a bread line. Most people who
throw around terms like "sellout" don't have to stand in one either. They
don't have to stand in one because they are gainfully employed. The term
"sellout" only exists in the lexicon of the over-privileged. Almost every
non-homeless person in America is over-privileged, at least in a global
sense.

Obviously, I've struggled with the concept. I've struggled because of
the backlash following my songs placement in TV commercials. That is, until
I realized that the negative energy that was being directed towards me
really began to inspire my creativity. It has given me a sense of, "well,
I'll show them who is a sellout, I'm going to make the freakiest, most
interesting, record ever!!!" ... "I'm going to prove to them that my shit
is wild and unpolluted by the reach of some absurd connection to mainstream
corporate America."

I realized then that, for me, selling out is not possible. Selling out,
in an artistic sense, is to change one's creative output to fit in with the
commercial world. To create phony and insincere art in the hopes of
becoming commercially successful. I've never done this and I can't imagine
I ever will. I spent seven years not even existing at all in the mainstream
world. Now I am being supported and endorsed by it. I know this won't last
forever. No one's going to want to use one of my songs in a commercial five
years from now, so I've got to take the money while I can. It's the same
with pro athletes. You only get it while you're hot and no one stays
commercially viable for long. It's not like Michael Vick is going to be
receiving any big endorsement deals anytime soon. As sad as it may seem,
one of the few ways most indie bands can make any money whatsoever is by
selling a song to a commercial. Very very few bands make enough money from
album sales or tour revenue to enable themselves to quit their day job.

Next time you see a commercial with one of your favorite bands songs in
it, just tell yourself, "cool, a band I really like made some money and now
I can probably look forward to a few more records from them." It's as
simple as that. We all have to do certain things, from time to time, that
we might not be completely psyched about, in order to pay the bills. To me,
the TV is the world's asshole boss and if anyone can earn some extra bucks
from it and they're not Bill O'Reilly, it's a good thing.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Remixes: Skeewif's Bitter:Sweet remix

God bless Bitter:Sweet and their crazy songs. The coolest duo in electronic music create the most remixable songs in the industry. "Dirty Laundry" was a irresistable piece of underappreciated brilliance, and damn near every remix I've heard of it has been genius. The best of the pack though is the Skeewiff remix. It strips the original down and then glosses back over it with a new slick rock-tinged riff that draws you in and doesn't let go. One of my favorite remixes of the last few years.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Covers: Shawn Lee does Kylie

I'm in love with Shawn Lee and his Ping Pong Orchestra, and Lee's work is actually one of my strongest influences as a producer. I still have his "Hits the Hits" album in heavy rotation on my iPod a month and a half after its release, which is impressive considering how A.D.D. I am about music sometimes. We talked about his Bollywood take on "Toxic" a while back, and now we're back for more. The closing track is one of the albums strongest songs; a jazzy instrumental cover of Kylie's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head". He didn't just switch out some instruments; he clearly put a lot of thought in tweaking the song just right so it would be completely different from the original, but still instantly recognizable. Impressive work. Expect more posts related to Shawn's album in the future.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Remixes: Raconteurs vs Gnarls Barkley mashup


The Legion of Doom is responsible for the some of the best mashups in the business, and this one's near the top of their list. Indie rock and R&B soul are really fucking hard to mash together, but this is an example of how to do it RIGHT. It's "Steady As She Goes" vs "Crazy", and it owns.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

New Music: One Republic

OK, here's the thing: "Apologize" does nothing for me. I think it sounds like it's O.R.'s trying too hard. So I was really surprised when I heard their new album, "Dreaming Out Loud", and really enjoyed it. It's not groundbreaking, but it's totally listenable and worth an hour of your time. I assumed One Republic was going to turn out to be one of those 1.5-hit wonders like The Fray, but this is a really solid album that could put them on the map for a while. Here's the video for their upcoming single "Mercy", a song that's ten thousand times better than anything I had come to expect from "The Apologize Band".

Monday, November 19, 2007

Live Music: Justice Live Set


If you don't give a fuck about electronic music, move along, you can come back for tomorrow's post. But if you do, you might be interested this: Someone posted a video of 10 minutes of a live DJ set Justice did during the I Love Techno 2006 event. I recommend watching this to any DJs reading this blog, because it's pretty cool to see them in action for a long period of time.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Live Covers: Ryan Adams does Alice in Chains

On his live tour for "Easy Tiger", Ryan Adams (with The Cardinals) has been covering "Down in a Hole" by Alice in Chains, one of the best songs from 90s rock. He totally sells it, and it's brilliant. Totally worth the nine minutes.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Music Videos: Gwen Stefani regains some credibility

"The Sweet Escape" was a fun song, but it wasn't enough to forgive the godawful shittiness of "Wind it Up" and 2/3 of her last album. But this new single is good enough to put the past behind us. "Early Winter" is Gwen's best song in years, and I would love it if it was a huge hit. Unfortunately, the commercial failure of "Return of Saturn" taught us that America doesn't like Gwen to be serious, so this might end up being as obscure as "Now That You Got It". Too bad. It really is amazing.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Random video craziness: God the DJ

Not many Youtube videos are worth 7.5 minutes of your life, but this one absolutely is. It's called "God Is a DJ", and it's the most wickedly surreal short film I've seen in forever. It's ten kinds of brilliant, and whoever made it deserves all the money and success in the world.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Random Track of the Day: Sia

I've gotten so used to thinking of Sia as the down-tempo performer from Zero 7 and "Breathe Me" that I was a little shocked when I heard this song. In "The Girl You Lost to Cocaine", from her new album "Some People Have Real Problems", she's pissed. Really pissed. And it's amazing.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Remixes: Eurythmics vs Eminem

This mashup is hella old, but it's one of the best ever made, so I'm posting it anyway. I will never get sick of this.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Random Track of the Day: Ryan Adams

I kinda forgot what a good album "Love is Hell" was until I ran across it yesterday while I was iShuffling (my word). Yeah, there's a stretch in the third quarter where the album wallows way too much to be engaging at all, but there's still some classic stuff on there. One of the more impressive tracks was its quiet opening song, "Political Scientist". It doesn't do anything special sonically, but the lyrics are ridiculously well-written. They're the kind of lyrics that you can study for days and still not get a complete understanding of what he's trying to say. It could be about corruption, and how politicians sit on the sidelines of their town while the core falls to pieces. It could also be about The White Stripes. Really, it could. Check out the bold lyrics below the audio. Is it one, the other, both, or neither? Or does it even matter?



He is drinking water from the faucet from the river
From the tributary it comes through rusty pipes
Outside his window sees the water
That's supposed to be clean by the chemicals
Polluted by the candy factory lines

Someplace on the edge of town
Someplace on the edge of town
Is where they live
Political scientists

So now she is crawling on her hands and her knees
She is dirtying her jeans choking on her own perfume
With a pen she writes below the sink
In someone’s restaurant
This place is inconvenient for my name
She forgets to write it anyway
She forgets to write it anyway
The government supplies the cocaine
Political scientists

There’s no guarantees
There’s no guarantees
There’s no guarantees

Banging hard upon her crooked drum
She feels them tearing down
Salvation Army houses back in Michigan
Her husband’s divorced
But he treats her that way of course
Because he needs her just like he needs medicine

She forgets to write him anyway
She forgets to write him anyway
What’s red and white and nearly over?
Political scientist
Political scientist
Political scientist

There’s no guarantees
There’s no guarantees
There’s no guarantees

Thursday, November 8, 2007

As Seen on TV: "Stripper" by the Soho Dolls

New segment: posts about awesome under-the-radar songs that have gotten some exposure from being on big TV shows. I actually discover a lot of music this way. I might never have heard of Sia if she hadn't been played on "Six Feet Under" ("Breath Me") and "Nip/Tuck" ("Numb"). I might never have heard of Page France if they hadn't been played on "Weeds" a couple weeks ago. I might never have given The Bravery's last album a second chance if "Believe" hadn't been plastered all over "Friday Night Lights" ads. So, now we're going to start pointing out the best unknown songs to surface on TV soundtracks.

First up: "Stripper" by the Soho Dolls, a Eurotrash-influenced pop gem that's rock-bottom shallow but still adrenaline-filled. NME put it best by calling their music an “Utterly magnificent slab of haughty electro-sleaze which makes Peaches sound as predatory and erotically charged as KT Tunstall. Let them get frosty on your ass – it is winter after all.” The song got a pretty good plug during two Burlesque club scenes on last night's "Gossip Girl", a show that, like "Stripper", doesn't pretend to be deep or intellectual and just enjoys being wild and ridiculous. People seeking deep meanings in their music should move along and come back for tomorrow's post; people just looking for a good time can stick around and press play below.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Live Music: Tori Amos

OK, so if you like Tori Amos at all, you've probably heard about her recent performance of "Me With A Gun". The song is normally acapella, but yesterday she performed it with a full band. She performed in the character of Pip, one of her alter egos created for "American Doll Posse". The performance is totally chilling and a little scary, since the new instrumental for the song is really dark, apocalyptic rock that Marilyn Manson would play on a bad day. Even though using the props is a little hack, it's a brilliant performance overall.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Music Videos: More Jenny Owen Youngs

I heart this video. It's the video for Jenny Owen Youngs' surreal indie pop cover of "Hot in Herre", and it's completely fucked up in the most awesome way imaginable. It's a demented gem featuring hard-partying eskimos and polar bears, a hillarious contrast with the sluttiness of the original song.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Live Music: Brandi Carlile

Wow. Just fucking wow. I never would have thought Brandi Carlile would be able to maintain that amaazingly huge voice from the studio during a live performance, but she pulls it off flawlessly, and here her voice sounds even better live than it does on the album. It has a raw, intense quality that the album version lacks. It's "The Story", and it kicks ass.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Mark Ronson DJed TomKat's wedding.

Seriously. Here's a link to a video where he talks about what an awful dancer Tom Cruise is. Also, he makes jokes about Amy Winehouse not showing up for the shooting of the "Valerie" video, so there's clearly no bad blood between them. Good thing, because that's the best producer-singer match since Butch Vig and Shirley Manson.

Go here for the video

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Remixes: Daft Punk vs Eminem

One of my favorite recently-discovered mashups: Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger" and Eminem's "Without Me". Actually, HBFS works better for Slim Shady than it worked for Kanye. It's kinda amazing.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Music Videos: "EAT IT LICK IT SNORT IT FUCK IT"

I'm a little annoyed that I'm posting about Britney Spears twice in a row, but this Myspace gem leaves me no choice. I would a be a terrible music blogger if I didn't. If you give two fucks about pop culture, you've probably heard that when a reporter asked Britney how she was doing, she replied, "Eat it, lick it, snort it, fuck it". For no reason. At all. Now that phrase has become a camp phenomenon, some brilliant genius put together a parody music video of a dance remix of BS's new slogan. It also gets in some jokes about "It's Britney, BITCH". Smart, smart, stuff.
Eat It, Lick It, Snort It, F--k It

Add to My Profile | More Videos

BTW, if Daft Punk ever decided to make this a real song, it would be hotter than hell.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Covers: Hard-Fi does "Toxic"

Why does "Toxic" cover so much better than 99% of bullshit pop songs? We've already talked about the versions by Mark Ronson and Shawn Lee and haven't even gotten to the Chapin Sisters' cover, and here we are posting a fourth great cover. Who would have thought a pop-trash gem like "Toxic" (we mean unironically, we seriously love that ridiculous song) would make a really cool Brit-punk track? Not us, which is why we were totally surprised when we heard and approved of Hard-Fi's cover (which features a little sampling from "The Clash").

Monday, October 29, 2007

Music Videos: Semi-Precious-Weapons

Justin Tranter and Co now have a video for "Magnetic Baby" out, and it's catching on thanks to being pimped out by Perez Hilton. I'm a little proud of discovering them over a year before Perez got to them. I don't why. Anyway, the video is one of the most fucked-up MVs of the year, and you need to watch it. Now.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Music Videos: Jenny Owen Youngs' first video!

It's about fucking time! I've been in love with "Fuck Was I" for over a year (Ever since it was played on the second season premiere of "Weeds), and now there's finally a music video! The one that's posted on Youtube is tragically censored, but you get the idea.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Live Music: Against Me

Don't you fucking dare call them sell-outs. Sorry, sensitive issue. "New Wave" was one of the best albums of the year and it pisses me off that people are bashing it just because it made money and had a famous producers. Pathetic elitist indie snobs who hate change for no rational reason strike again. Here's a live performance of knockout single "Thrash Unreal". This guys voice is so amazing live. Just amazing.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Live Music: Ryan Adams goes punk rock


Found an MP3 of Ryan Adams performing a punk rock version of "New York New York" live in February of '06. It's so stupid and ridiculous, but I love it for some reason.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Covers: Stereophonics live Goldfrapp cover

Can't say that I saw this one coming. One of my favorite covers of the past year was Stereophonics performing Goldfrapp's inescapable "Ooh La La" live on stage, recorded for their "Rewind" EP. "OLL" transfers surprisingly well from slick electronic to rough rock, and Kelly Jones totally owns it here.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Random Track of the Day: "With Arms Outstretched"

I've had a fucked-up day and I need some Rilo Kiley to get me through the rest of it. I always loved "With Arms Outstretched" from "Execution of All Things". The instrumentation is simple and the vocals are far from perfect, but Jenny puts miles of charisma into it and makes the song really endearing despite how flawed the technical aspects of it are. Check it out.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Music Videos: Serj Tankian

If you ever wanted to know what a drunk acid trip in video form looks like, just watch this video for "Empty Walls". You don't even need to watch it with the sound on.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Acoustic: Merit's "Locked From the Inside"


Finding out about the band Merit is #3 on the list of reasons that I'm glad to have Keith and the Girl in my life. Merit can tear a stage up with an angry, relentless lyrical bitchslap of a rock song (see: "Man on a String", "40-16", "FUDR") and can also make you pump your fist alongside an emotional, hurting, but still raw electric guitar (See: "Blue Bedroom"). But they can also sit down behind an acoustic setup and just play a song that packs a punch despite how quiet it is. Their acoustic version of "Locked From the Inside", from their self-titled album, is the best example.



If you like this side of them, buy "Morning Breaks", the closer from "When We Fight". You won't regret it.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Covers: Shawn Lee's "Toxic" Instrumental


Holy shit, y'all. This is amazing. Shawn Lee, the R&B-funk producer and solo artist behind underground hit "Kiss the Sky" (Which got some impressive screentime on "Damages" a couple months ago) has a cover album that was released in the US today. The album tackles hits like "Hey Ya", "Get Ur Freak On", "Rehab", and "Can't Get You Out of My Head", and several of them are purely instrumentals. Basically, what Mark Ronson did with "God Put A Smile On Your Face", but more dynamic, and more successful. The best track on the album is the overhaul of "Toxic". He kidnaps the song, drags it off the dancefloor, and dumps it somewhere in the jungle, and the result is ten times cooler than anything you'd expect. Well played, Shawn Lee. Well played.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Live Music: Stereophonics

To celebrate "Pull the Pin"'s UK release, here's a live vid of Stereophonics performing "I'm Only Sleeping" with some help from Oasis.



It'll be a while before this album shows up in the US, but the songs are streaming everywhere. My quick take on the whole album: I enjoyed it, but I really wished they hung on to more of the edge they picked up on their last album. The only place where the really try to go back to that sound is "Bank Holiday Monday", and once you've heard that song enough times, it really stops being convincing and doesn't sound as bad-ass as it wants you to think it is. Even though they eased up a little, they're still not nearly as limp as they were on album #4, which is always a good thing. Standouts: "Soldiers Make Good Targets", "Stone", "Drowning", "Lady Luck", and "Crush".









Friday, October 12, 2007

Acoustic live: No Doubt

"Comforting Lie", from No Doubt's album "Return of Saturn", is easily their best non-single to date (Except maybe for "Tragic Kingdom"'s title track), and here's a solid live acoustic performance from a few years back. After all this "Wind It Up" bullshit, it's really easily to forget what an incredible songwriter and lyricist Gwen really is. If you need to be reminded, check this out.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

A Day in the Life of Mark Ronson

Awesome 4 minute documentary-style clip of Mark Ronson in action, talking about the discovery of Daniel Merriweather, "Version", and his radio show. Plus, you get to see what a taping of East Village Radio looks like. The poster disabled embedding, so you'll have to go here to get it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IRrOcUctR98

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Live Music: Riverboat Gamblers

Riverboat Gamblers = the absolute best unknown live band in the world of this decade. There. I said it. Now here's the proof. "Ice Water", live, March '07.



I will not be able to die completely fulfilled until I see these guys live.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Live Music: Hole on Jools Holland, 1998

This is one of the videos I show people to justify why Hole is my favorite live band ever. It's "Reasons to Be Beautiful", easily their most underrated and underappreciated song in my opinion. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Remixes: Arcade Fire vs Daft Punk mashup

Here's one of my favorite mashups of the year. It's "No Cars Go" by Arcade Fire and "Around the World" by Daft Punk. I don't why, but the best mashups are always the ones that you would never expect to work. Huge credit to DJ Tatami for making this work so well.



You can download it from his blogspot (http://djtatami.blogspot.com/) here:

Right click and save

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Live Music: The Clash

How is it possible that I've been doing this blog in one form or another for almost a year and I still haven't posted something about The Clash? Well, better late than never, so here's a live performance of "White Riot" from 1978.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Random Track of the Day: Letita Wolf

Sometimes every once in a while I like to post about an artist so obscure that they only have 1600 search results on Google. Leticia Wolf is one of those artists. She may be a complete unknown, but the girl's got talent. "Married to Grunge" is an absolutely chilling song about a band fucking up a relationship. It's got too many rough edges to be a ballad, it's too vulnerable to hard rock, the vocals are too polished to be Grunge, but it's too left-of-center to be mainstream rock. It balances a lot of elements, but it works so well that I don't even care that the last third of the song is basically the same 12 words repeated over and over again.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Covers: Marilyn Manson, Sonique, and Nina Simone do "I Put a Spell On You"

Three people, one song, three completely different tracks.

Let's start with Marilyn Manson. I love this cover so fucking much. Not a popular opinion around fans of the original, but as a rock fan I think it's amazing. MM tears it the fuck it up and it sounds incredible. Some guy made a fake music video using clips from some 80-year-old movie and it turned out decent.



In 2000 Sonique made an almost completely ignored electronica-style cover of "Spell", and it turned out to be way better than I expected it to be. I expected to be totally hollow, as most of these synthed-up covers are (see: "Tainted Love" by Pussycat Dolls, etc), but the electro-production is actually used really well here and creates the same intoxicating effect the original did, but in a different way. It also spawned a brilliantly-shot music video.



The only big flaw is that she cops out with the fade-out ending instead of going for the big finish like Marilyn or Nina. Speaking of...

While I was searching, I found a hotter-than-hell slideshow set to the definitive cover of "I Put A Spell On You", Nina Simone's version. In this song, there's a quality in her voice that I still haven't heard anyone else have.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Music Videos: Regina Spektor

Big week for videos. Regina Spektor's vid for "Better" came out, it's ridiculous. In a good way. It features a crowd of Regina clones running around and stuff. I don't really know how else to describe it. Just check it out, you won't be disappointed.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Remixes: Chris Crocker Remixed (SHE'S! Not a. HUMAN!)

Some lols for your Friday before we leave for the weekend. It's the infamous "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!" video remixed to the beat of "Toxic" (aka the only legitimately good song that will ever have BS's name on it). The twist: It's remixed so that it sounds like CC hates Britney. It's not convincing, but it's hillarious, and it reminded us how much ass "Toxic"'s beat kicked.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Remixes: Peaches, Soulwaxed

As awesome as Peaches is, I never really got into "Fuck the Pain Away", but I love this remix of it so fucking much. 2 Many DJs (aka Soulwax) compressed the song into a wild 100-second adrenaline rush. No bullshit and no wasted time, it's as close to punk as electronic music can get. Available for Megaupload download. Enjoy.

Click here to download remix from Megaupload.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Music Videos: Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys' new video just showed up. Alicia Key's new song "No One" has really grown on me in the last few weeks, and I see this being a big comeback hit for her. Nice vid, too.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Covers: Leela James does No Doubt

One of the more memorable songs from Leela James' debut album ("A Change is Gonna Come") was her cover of "Don't Speak". She neo-souled it into a great R&B track that stands completely out of Gwen Stefani's shadow. I never really got into the rest of the album, but this is an amazing track. It starts out slow, but really turns it out towards the end. LJ's got a lot of potential, I hope she uses more of it for her own music in the future.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Music videos: Making of Feist's "1234"


So by now you've probably seen Feist's video for "1234" all over the new iPod commercials. If you've seen the whole video on Youtube you know how amazingly ambitious it is, and you probably wondered how they put it together. To find out, check out this cool find on Youtube:

Friday, September 21, 2007

Random track of the Day: Von Iva


I'm not going to lie to you people. I know almost nothing about Von Iva. What I do know though is that this song is hotness. It's called "Same Sad Song" and it's from their self-titled six-track EP. I've only heard a handful of songs from that EP and I already know that they're my favorite thing to come out the Dance Punk genre since The Gossip.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Live covers: Linda Perry and Courtney Love do "Rhiannon"

This may have been on the old blog, but it's worth reposting. It's a camera-phone video of Linda Perry (4-Non Blondes, "What You Waitin For" writer, a few other awesome things) and Courtney Love performing an acoustic set at the LA Gay & Lesbian center. It begins with a cover of "Rhiannon" that's insanely cool to watch if you're a fan of Linda and Courtney (which I still I am no matter how ridiculous she gets in her personal life).

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Covers: David Choi makes "Gimme More" suck less

Singer/Songwriter David Choi has Youtubed an acoustic pop-rock cover of Britney Spears' "Comeback" "song", the Danja-produced "Gimme More". He does a really amazing job with it and made me forget how awful the original was. It just proves the original sucked because of the vocals and nothing else. The beat was really well-done and it was written well enough (by bullshit-pop standards of course), but Danja should be shot for letting her vocals be processed to sound like that. We all know that a computer is responsible for 90% of how her voice sounds on the album, so why the hell couldn't he process her vocals to not be annoying as fuck? We may never know, but at least we'll still have David Choi's awesome version of it.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Music videos: Mark Ronson (sorta) featuring Amy Winehouse

You may or may not have heard the story behind the falling out between Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson-- the short version is that she ditched the shooting of the "Valerie" video to go on vacation or for something pointless like that. Well, this is the result. Instead of Amy singing in the video, we see a look-alike and a few other girls lip-syncing the track. It's a cool-looking video, but I was distracted by thinking about how it would have been different if Amy got her shit together in time for shooting the video. Oh well.

By the way, I will never figure out how MTV got the awesomeness of Mark Ronson to show up to that VMAs shitfest. He was one of the few good qualities of the show.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Random Track of the Day: W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.

"D.A.N.C.E." always annoyed the crap out of me, but this Wale song makes me not mind it. "W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E." was easily my favorite song on the Wale mixtape (If you haven't heard it, Google it, because it's brilliant). The awesome lyrics (Was I the only one a little surprised when he called out the Lindsey Lohan-Samantha Ronson situation?) somehow manages to salvage a sample from a song that I hate so much.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Friday randomness: Rilo Kiley watches Paris Hilton sex tape

Yeah, you read that right. No music today because I'm leaving town in five minutes, but I have just enough time to post this bizarre little gem from Youtube:

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Covers: The Pixies cover Jesus and Mary Chain

Not a whole lot of time to post today, but I found a vid on Myspace of the Pixies covering "Head On" by the Jesus and Mary Chain. They really rough up the song and give it an abrasive edge, which works a lot better than you would expect it to.

Pixies - Head On [Live]

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Live Music: The Duke Spirit on Henry Rollins Show

The Henry Rollins Show is in Audioclash's top friends list on Myspace for a reason. That show has some amazing musical guests and it's hooked me on a lot of bands I didn't know about before. The most recent is an amazing band called The Duke Spirit. They peformed "Lasso" from the upcoming Ex-Voto EP. I don't want to put them in "A box", but if I had to compare their sound to an already-established artist, I would say they're half-way between The Sounds and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. So if you love both those bands, you'll probably die unfulfilled if you don't check these guys out.




You can listen to the studio version of the song on their Myspace page.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

New Music Tuesday: Kanye, 50, Alicia Keys, Rogue Wave, and Hot Hot Heat


The two biggest releases this week are obviously "Graduation" and "Curtis", but I already recapped those last week, so I won't go through them again. Here's the post.

New stuff: New Alicia Keys single, called "No One", the lead single from her third album. Her voice sounds a little more strained than usual, and the song is a lot more basic than what we're used to hearing from her, but it's still a solid effort. Should play well on the radio.



Rogue Wave has a new album called "Asleep at Heaven's Gate". One of the best American indie rock albums to come out in the last few months. My favorite song from the album, "Lake Michigans", plays like The Shins with a little more bite.



Hot Hot Heat's new album "Happiness Ltd" is out. The album is pretty basic stuff for indie music and doesn't really take any chances, so it didn't really do much for me, but I still really love the track "Give Up" and have ever since I found a bootleg of it a few months ago. Plays like a more indie version of Franz Ferdinand.



Next week: Chamillionare, The Donnas, LCD Soundsystem EP, Nelly, Twista, KT Tunstall, and Matt White.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Details on new Melissa Auf Der Maur album


Details about Melissa Auf Der Maur's new album are finally coming to the surface. All the ideas and tracks are in place, now we just have to wait for a label to pick it up, since Melissa and Capitol are no longer together. This article showed up in my Gmail Google Alerts, and it tells you everything you need to know about the concept album that's being released side-by-side with a short film and a comic book. Excerpts:

"Former Smashing Pumpkins/Hole bassist Melissa auf der Maur has completed her second solo album, "Out Of Our Minds," and it's part of a multidisciplinary Viking-themed project that includes a short film and comic book. They will all be released under her initials, MADM (pronounced "madam").

"MADM represents an eternal female force, travelling through time and space, on the hunt for the 'heart,' be it a human's heart or the heart of the universe," auf der Maur told Lowdown in an exclusive interview. "It's almost like a myth or fairytale that is explored in all elements: the album, the film, the comic -- as well as the web. Every one of them explores it differently."


""The album is pretty different from the last one, but, to me, it seems like a natural evolution," says auf der Maur. "It's far more dynamic. The last one was straight-ahead rock, I guess, but this one goes from heavy to atmospheric to sometimes just piano and five female voices to instrumental interludes. It's far more diverse." "

The film is 30-minutes in length and includes a totally separate soundtrack to the songs on the album. It also contains no dialogue, but is instead scored by instrumental, psychedelic, trance-y rock music, says Auf Der Maur, who stars in it. She says the short, which was shot in Vermont on 20 acres of land Stone's parents purchased in the sixties, is a surreal time-travel fantasy that jumps between three time-periods --present day, 10th century (the Viking Age) and the 19th-century (at a logging camp).

"In my mind, it was like a 'Twilight Zone' episode that could continue into a mini-series if it wanted to or maybe even a Twin Peaks [type] episode, something that a vague story and a cliffhanger to be continued. Because it's time travel and because it's fantasy, it's endless," she says.

I have no idea if this is going to be brilliant or a trainwreck, but I can't wait to find out!

Friday, September 7, 2007

Random Track of the Day: The Dollyrots

You may not know the Dollyrots' name, but you've probably heard one of their songs before. "Because I'm Awesome" is now plastered all over a set of nation-wide Kohls commercials, giving them more exposure than ever before. "Because I'm Awesome" is the kind of pop rock song that may annoy you at first, but slowly gets stuck in your head and digs itself into your memory until you can't forget it. In a good way. Here it is:

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Live music: Amy Winehouse



I always thought "Love Is A Losing Game" was one of the more boring songs on "Back to Black", but seeing Amy perform it live completely changed my mind about it. She pumps so much emotion into it onstage that it's almost as affecting as BtB's title track. Only the best live performers can really engage you with a not very interesting song, which is totally what she does here. Amazing work.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Music Videos: Snow Patrol



I really liked Snow Patrol's last album ("Eyes Open"), but my biggest problem with it was that most of the time SP sounded like the were trying really, really, hard to sound epic. "Shut Your Eyes" was one of the few songs that sounded almost completely effortless, which is why it was one of my favorite songs on the album. It's now the most recent single from "Eyes Open", and now it has one of my favorite videos in a long time. It's brilliantly directed and put together, and I dare you to look away after you click the play button.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

New Music Tuesday: Hard-Fi and Calvin Harris

This week, the only release I'm really excited about is the UK release of Hard-Fi's new album "Once Upon a Time in the West". The whole album is available for streaming on Myspace. The opening track, "Surburban Knights", wins Audioclash's "Best New Song of the Week" award. I knew I loved it four seconds after it started. It has that same fun, euphoric, makes-you-want-to-scream-out-the-lyrics effect that "Gold Lion" had. The whole album is pretty amazing as well. It's much more diverse and dynamic then H-F's first album. They've really evolved into a much more exciting and interesting band. This is already one of my favorite albums of the year.

"Surburban Knights":


Also, Scottish producer Calvin Harris's album "I Created Disco", is now available in the US. It was released in the UK last June. Something about the guy annoys me, but I've really come to respect his work as a producer. It's so unpretentious and uncomplicated and just fun to listen to. Here's "Acceptable in the 80's":

Monday, September 3, 2007

Album leaks: Kanye vs 50


You all know the story. Kanye vs 50, two of the biggest egos in the industry, Graduation vs Curtis, blah blah blah. Now that the albums are both floating around on the internet, America can listen to both albums and decide who the winner is. In my opinion: Kanye wins in a landslide.

"Curtis" exists for one reason and one reason and one reason only: so Curtis Jackson III can remind you how fucking tough he is. He really has nothing else to say. The album really doesn't do anything new or interesting, and except for "Ayo Technology", the entire first 2/3 of the album is forgettable and sounds exactly the same. It's a little hillarious that Fitty said that Kanye raps like a robot considering that he (50) sounds like he's sleepwalking through every track. He's taken that laid-back sound so far that he sounds completely bored with what he's talking about. And at the same time, the album takes it self so damn seriously. And honestly, I don't think I would dislike this album as much as I do if it wasn't for how fucking arrogant 50 is about what a genius he claims to be. The only two tracks that I really wanted to listen to a second time were "Ayo Technology" and "All of Me", and the only reason those tracks were good were because of the involvement of Timbaland and Mary J Blige. 50 himself didn't bring a whole lot to either one. Timbaland (collaborating with Justin Timberlake) produced "Ayo"'s trippy, slick, computerized beat, and MJB provided vocals for "All of Me", giving the album a way needed shot of passion. Buy these two on iTunes and forget about the rest.





Kanye's new album, though, is way more exciting to listen to, and there's more creativity in the first three tracks (not counting the intro, because who cares) than the were 50's last three albums combined. He pulls from an eclectic set of samples, not all of which totally work for me, but it's so much more unpredictable than "Curtis". "Graduation"'s production is damn near perfect, except for a small slump from tracks 7-9. The highlights besides "Stronger", which deserves every bit of the ridiculous radio play it's getting, are "Champion" and "Big Brother". Check out the album:

Friday, August 31, 2007

Remixes: Bitter:Sweet's Blackjoy Remix



Damn you iMeem and your 30-second samples! I may not be able to find a place to embed the Blackjoy Remix of Bitter:Sweet's "The Mating Game", but I can link to where you can buy it. It's a 6-minute long remix, and not a second is wasted. Just as good as the original, if not better.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Acoustic: Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Gold Lion" (Sad version)

Here's one of those acoustic versions that completely turns the original song inside-out. "Gold Lion" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was an amazingly fun song that made you want to jump up and down with the "Ooh-ooh! Ooh-ooh! OOH-ooh!" (fans of the song know what I'm talking about). Then, they recorded an acoustic version for the iTunes store that turned it into a tragic ballad that sounds completely different, but still very recognizable. Amazing stuff. YYY's label banned their full songs from iMeem, but you can buy the whole song here.


Wednesday, August 29, 2007

New music Tuesday: Aesop Rock and Collective Soul

Aesop Rock, definitely one of the most amazing artists in the Alt-Hip Hop world right now is back with new album "None Shall Pass". The title track has damn good lyrics, and I really have no idea how this guy is able to put words together the way he does. The distant, trip-hop-like beat also really adds a lot to the song. The best new song of the week:



By the way, "Float" is an amazing album, and you need to buy it right now.

Also in hip hop, Nelly's new single "Wadsyaname" was released yesterday. It's not bad. I won't spend too much space on it since you've probably already heard it on the radio by now:



Finally, Collective Soul's new album "Afterwords" is now available. I couldn't find anything from the album on iMeem or Odeo, but here's the iTunes link to check out what the album sounds like. It's pretty good, and isn't nearly as pop-sounding as its first single "Hollywood" made it seem.

Next week: Hard-Fi and Calvin Harris.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Random Track of the Day: Curve



If you're a fan of Garbage and want to hear the band that they borrowed their sound from, here's Curve. They had a lot of success in the UK during the 90s, but a lot of people I talk to hear in the states don't know much about them. "Gift" and "Come Clean" are two of my favorite albums, and here's "Gift"'s opening track, "Hell Above Water" on iMeem. It sounds like a really amazing B-Side right off of "Version 2.0".

Monday, August 27, 2007

Live Covers: Ben Folds covers Liz Phair




I actually don't know where this came from, but I found an audio recording of Ben Folds covering "Chopsticks", a song from Liz Phair's second album "Whip-Smart". It just makes me laugh when everyone in the audience screams and cheers with joy when he delivers the line "We can fuck amd watch TV..."

Friday, August 24, 2007

B-Sides: Nine Black Alps

Last year, before releasing "Everything Is", the Nine Black Alps put out a self-titled EP that caught a lot of peoples attention. Most of the EP later showed up on "Everything Is", the only modification being that "Cosmopolitan" was re-recorded in a different key. However, "Attraction", both the second best song on the EP (the original "Cosmopolitan" being the best) and the song introduced me to the band, was left off the album. It's as good as anything else on the album, but was probably held back because the tone was so different from everything else on the LP. In case you missed the EP, here's "Attraction" on iMeem:

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Covers: Garbage does Ramones

Here's the thing about covers; to quote a wise man named Keith Malley,
"You can always make a song rock harder". That's what Garbage did when they covered "I Just Wanna Have Something to Do" at a Ramones tribute show. They took a simple mid-tempo punk song, pumped it up to 150 BPM, slapped some electric guitars on it, and made it a different song. A song that rocked harder. Your mileage may vary on whether you like this version better, depending on your tolerance for Shirley Manson, but if you like both Garbage and Ramones, you WILL love this. Just so you know.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Random track of the day: Blaqk Audio

Blaqk Audio's album "Cexcells" was released last week, and I forgot about it. If you don't know about them, Blaqk Audio is an electro-rock band side project of some members of A.F.I., the only emo-looking band from the '00s that I really have no problem with. The vocals on "Cexcells" do nothing for me, but the production on the beats and instrumentals is amazing. I bought the entire album on iTunes just so I can pull the songs apart and use samples of the instrumentals. Check it out on iMeem.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

New music Tuesday: Imperial Teen, Rilo Kiley, Imperial Teen, MIA, New Pornographers...


Lots of new stuff today. It's a big week for indie rock.

First of all, Rilo Kiley and MIA's new albums were released today. We told you about "Kala" last Wednesday and "Under the Blacklight" yesterday, so check out those posts for more info.

Imperial Teen is finally back after a five year hiatus with "The Hair, The TV, The Baby, and The Band", an album named after the projects that IT's members worked on during their hiatus. The album is more of the simple, happy-making indie rock we've come to expect from them. It's fun, but not much of a step forward for the band. It's probably the safest thing to do after coming off a long break, but hopefully their next album is a little more adventurous. Their website, imperialteen.com, was relaunched today, and you can listen to four of their new songs. Here's the album's first single, "Shim Sham":



The New Pornographers new album "Challengers" is now available. It has the same problem as Imperial Teen's new record: entertaining, but more of the same from them. Here's the opening track, "My Right Versus Yours":



I'm pretty much ODed on indie rock now. Not much gets released until September 11 when Kanye and 50 face off with new albums, with only VHS or Beta, Calvin Harris, and a UK Hard-Fi release dropping until then.