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.