Deja Vu

Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games

So I missed a song post last Monday, too.  School has kept me pretty busy since we're deep in the midst of forensics season (and doing quite well, to boot) but I've carved out a small chunk of time for tonight...

This week's song represents one of the strangest cases of pop music in television advertising that I'm aware of.  Of Montreal's Wraith Pinned to the Mist and other Games is one of those songs that defies easy categorization.  It's got a fun, bouncy bass line and a snappy synth percussion line, giving the song a light poppy feel.  At the same time, lead singer Kevin Barnes' vocals have a dreamy, ethereal quality that fits much better with trippy psychedelic rock than with straight up pop.  And the song's bridge sections are far more complex and nuanced for anything squarely in pop or rock territory.

But that weird advertising connection?  Give a listen to this song and you'll probably recognize it as the jingle for a rather prominent national restaurant chain.  The lyrics have nothing to do with steak or with Australia (and in fact, Antarctica is the only place prominently featured in the song), but Outback Steakhouse managed to get the song re-recorded with new lyrics for the commercials.  Plenty of fans have decried Barnes for selling out and compromising his artistic integrity, especially considering the rather crass lyrics changes, and I'm not sure that I don't agree with them.  Still, go back to the original song, and it's awfully hard not to fall in love with the sheer artsy goofiness of it all.

Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games - Of Montreal

Check out the band's album The Sunlandic Twins, too, when you have a moment.

Kiss

Yes, I realize that I missed posting a song last week.  Things were busy.  They're still pretty busy this week, but I'm carving out a chunk of time to post a pair of tracks to make up for last week.

One of the signs of great songwriting is other artists can take a song and record a cover version in a completely different style, and the end result is still just as enjoyable.  Take Prince's Kiss as an example.  The original is a near ubiquitous slice of slick funk, elegant and angular, and sexy all at the same time.

Chris Thomas King, perhaps best known as the guitar player from O Brother Where Art Thou, turns the song into a scorching blues rock anthem, filling out the sound and rounding out the bottom with a rock-solid thump.

Age of Change, on the other hand, drag the song through the dirt, muddying it up and giving it a garage rock snarl with a hint of industrial music overtones.  If the original sounds like classy cocktail naughtiness, this version is all cheap beer and stale cigarette smoke.  And it's every bit as enjoyable in both versions.

Kiss - Chris Thomas King

Kiss - Age of Chance

Naturally, check out Chris Thomas King's Why My Guitar Screams and Moans and Age of Chance's Crush Collision when you have a moment.

A Song for You (on Your 40th Birthday)

I know there are people out there who hate the indie music scene.  With a passion.  They claim that it's too whiney, too twee.  That's it's too carefree to be taken seriously.  That it's far more self-important than it has any right to be.

In many cases, those complaints are valid, but I still love those songs.  Often because of those complaints.  My Little Pony's A Song for You (on Your 40th Birthday) is a prime example.  A piano riff that never rises above grade school complexity.  Cartoonish sax and horn arrangements that sound like something out a carnival.  Breathy vocals with no punch or power behind them.  But all together there's so much original character to the song.  There's no way I'd ever say that the song rocks, but it listening over and over again is more than enough to remind us how good it feels to be alive.

A Song for You (On Your 40th Birthday) - My Little Pony

Look into the full album of Think Too Much when you've got the time, too.

The Things We Do For Love

Anyone who claims that don't harbor a secret (or not so secret) love cheesy seventies schlock-rock is either a liar or they're someone who's simply no fun to be around.  Electric Light Orchestra may be de facto kings of all that  charmingly slick-cheesy power pop, but they've got plenty of contemporaries who rose to the same level of brilliance on more than one occasion.

Such is the case with 10cc's The Things We Do For Love, a song that until recently I didn't realize was recorded by 10cc, whom I've always associated more with the moody I'm Not in Love and the faux reggae Dreadlock Holiday.  Mix together the shimmery guitar sheen of the intro, the honky-tonk piano line behind the verses, the sublimely, sharply cartoonish guitar solo, and the fantastic harmonies that just slather on layer after layer of addictive musical bliss, and we've got a song that I could listen to over and over, getting giddier and giddier each time.

The Things We Do For Love - 10cc

Look into the original album, Deceptive Bends, as well when you get a moment.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here

I'm gearing up toward writing my yearly list of overlooked songs for Epinions, and I've noticed that many of the songs I've posted here over the last few months are making the shortlist for my final selections.  I have yet to write about one of the first ones to earn a definite spot on the list, though.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here is certainly a odd choice for a pop music gem.  The duo She & Him earned most of their pre-debut album buzz for the fact that the titular "she" is actress Zooey Deschanel, and if  there's anything that Bruce Willis, Lindsay Lohan, Eddie Murphy, and Russel Crowe have proven, it's that actors who want to play at making music churn out crappy, crappy albums.

After the album came out, though, Deschanel was probably too busy apologizing for the vortex of banality that was The Happening, to do much to promote the album.  (I'll admit to having suffered through the feature-length Twilight Zone episode that was The Happening, but I much prefer to remember her as the older sister in the fantastic Almost Famous.  I'm digressing, though...)  If she had had the time to do any in-depth promotion for the album, then more than a handful of people would know about the fantastically melodic, sweetly orchestrated pop that she had made with indie rocker M. Ward (the titular "him").  The album Volume 1 is full to the brim with the glistening exuberance of all those old girl groups  that Phil Specter helmed back in the sixties.  It's all retro charm without ever feeling dated or forced.

The lead single, Why Do You Let Me Stay Here made its way onto plenty of critics best-of lists for 2008, but never seemed to make it anywhere near the forefront of public consciousness.  Nevertheless, I'm hoping that Volume 1 gives way to Volume 2 before too long.

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here - She & Him

Be sure to check out all of Volume 1 when you have a chance, too.

Mele Kalikimaka

Poi Dog Pondering are one of the best band's that you're not familiar with.  Part pop act, part folk rockers, part jam band, part orchestral collective, the Chicago band has a wide and varied catalog and apart from some of their forays into dance club music, all of their albums are must-hear delights.

Back before they were one of the best kept secrets of the Chicago music scene, though, they made Hawaii their home, so it's not too big a surprise that they recorded their own version of Mele Kalikimaka for a Christmas compilation a number of years ago.  What is surprising is that The Dirty Dozen Brass Band join the band to round out the track.  With the bright, shiny sax and trumpet lines that mix in with the steel guitar solos and the tropical lyrics, the song creates some sort of Maui-meets-New-Orleans holiday song.  Neither city has particularly strong Christmas connotations, but when Poi Dog Pondering and the DIrty Dozen Brass Band come together, it doesn't feel like there's any place more fun to celebrate the season.

Mele Kalikimaka - Poi Dog Pondering with The DIrty Dozen Brass Band

Find this track as part of the single for the song Jack Ass Ginger, while you're celebrating the holiday.

Right As Rain

I don't know how it happened, but the spark that made Motown so amazing back in the sixties has somehow resurfaced amongst the female population in Great Britain.  Yeah, I know that's not exactly breaking news, but the fact that the train wreck that is Amy Winehouse hasn't managed to derail that momentum becomes a bigger deal every day.

Every few weeks, it seems that a new chanteuse emerges over in England, following that soulful Motown tradition, so Adele is hardly alone in that music scene, but she's got a certain depth and maturity that sets her apart from the rest - and that's more than a bit of a surprise when we consider that her debut album came out earlier this year when she was only 19.

Give a listen to Right As Rain to get an idea of what I'm talking about.  Syncopated electric piano riffs have never sounded this classy, and the snap of the percussion line that rounds out the arrangement gives the song a feisty energy that won't quit.  And the vocals?  Irresistible energy without every sounding forced or gimmicky.  In fact, Adele pours her heart and soul into the lyrics without ever seeming to exert any effort at all.  Few songs this year can even come close to this one.

Right As Rain - Adele

Check out the full album of 19, while you're at it, too.

Hot Girls in Good Moods

Anyone who hears a Butch Walker album and falls in in love with the music in a very specific, focused way is in for a bit of a disappointment.  He's re-invented himself completely for each new release, so as great as everything he's released is, there's never any hope for a repeat.  I still haven't heard all of his latest album, Sycamore Meadows, but I've liked the melancholy folk-pop feel of what I have heard.  For tonight, though, I'm looking back at his last album, The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's-Go-Out-Tonights in all its awesome glory.

While the album may not be an homage to any one particular glam rock group from back in the seventies, it is a fantastic paean to the whole glam rock scene.  WIth echoes of Slade, Badfinger, Mott the Hoople, David Bowie, and so many more, Walker took everything that made them great - solid walls of rock guitar, power chords galore, and oozingly decadent delivery for the vocals, not to mention over-the-top, self indulgent layers of production, to create a glam masterpiece for the new millennium.  The opening track, Hot Girls in Good Moods, is a deliciously depraved way to start off the album, and stands on its own as a great rock single, to boot.

Hot Girls in Good Moods - Butch Walker

Take a moment to look into all of The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's-Go-Out-Tonights, too.

OK, It's Alright With Me

There are plenty of weird musical genres out there.  I'd throw out a few examples, but no matter what I tossed out, I'd risk offending someone, since even the most bizarre styles have their die-hard fanatics.  I don't think anyone would deny, though, that the "white-boy-funk-pop" genre is an awfully goofy sounding one.

Of course, goofy doesn't preclude enjoyable.  Jason Mraz seemed poised to turn into a real star in that genre before his ego got in the way of his second album.  No one really seemed to pick up his fumble and follow in his footsteps.  At least no one until Eric Hutchinson, who's debut album Sounds Like This absolutely wallows in that self-consciously goofy sound of old school funk transposed into modern, suburban, middle-class america.  If the album took itself too seriously, it would grow awfully weary fast, but Hutchinson's wink and nod gives the music more than enough giddy fun to keep me coming back for more.

Give a listen to OK, It's Alright WIth Me, the album's opening track.  We've got light, frothy piano riffs reminiscent of classic Fred Astaire dance tunes mixed with sticky funk beats straight out of the seventies.  Hutchinson's vocals simmer with an earnest soulfulness, the harmonies sparkle like Christmas lights, and the pop hooks throughout the whole song dig their barbs in and refuse to let go.  It never breaks free of the goofiness of "white-boy-funk-pop," but that just makes the song so much more endearing.

Ok, It's Alright With Me - Eric Hutchinson

Be sure to check out all of Sounds Like This when you have a moment, too.

Can't Get You Out of My Head

Patrick & Eugene have a new album coming out tomorrow.  That probably means nothing to you since there almost no chance you've heard of them before.  I'm awfully excited though, even knowing that I'll never find a copy in a store anywhere, since they've got one of the most unique sounds out there.  It's part vaudeville, part trip hop, part jazz, part pop, part psychedelic prog rock, and all of it is over-the-top exuberant insanity.

There one of those groups that offer up a healthy mix of original songs and covers, and their covers of definitely worth a listen.  Consider their version of Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head off of their debut album from a few years back.  Based around a tight, minor key ukulele and saxophone rhythm, filled with cheeky "la la la, la la, la la la" rhythms, Patrick & Eugene's cover sounds almost exactly what we might have heard on the Muppet Show if Jim Henson had survived to resurrect the series early in this new millennium.  Go ahead and accuse this of being nothing more than a novelty cover, but there's no denying how infectiously fun it is.

Can't Get You Out of My Head - Patrick & Eugene

Don't forget to look into the band's debut, Postcard from Summerisle, when you have the chance.

Standing By

If imitation is, indeed, the sincerest form of flattery, Paul Simon's ass must be absolutely smooched raw by The Actual Tigers.  Or at least, the seventies version of Paul Simon.

As great as Paul Simon's mixing of foreign rhythms with folk inspired pop on albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints was, there's something about his hits from the seventies that's hard to top.  Songs like Kodachrome, Loves Me Like a Rock, Mother and Child Reunion, Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard, Late in the Evening, and so many more captured a certain acoustic pop aesthetic that helped to define seventies pop, but still sounds fresh and relevant three plus decades down the road.

The Actual Tigers' album Gravelled & Green is chock full of the musical ingredients of Simon's first few solo albums.  Every song simply drips with his sound, but my favorite is Standing By.  Chugging accoustic guitar riffs, stomping piano beats, lively shaker rhythms, tremolo electric guitar, and plenty of sweet, sweet tenor harmonies.  By the time The Actual Tigers released their album in 2001, Simon's sound had long evolved into something else, but for a brief period, there was still an open door leading back to those golden days of the seventies.

Standing By - The Actual Tigers

And naturally, you should get your own copy of the entire Gravelled & Green album.

Join with Us

I've griped before about albums that come out in Europe and then take forever to be released here in the states.  Let's add The Feeling's sophomore album, Join with Us to that frustrating list.

The band's debut album was a giant leap back two-and-a-half decades to the sweetly innocent pop of Supertramp, and I absolutely loved it.  Join with Us stays firmly rooted in that seventies time frame, but turns things a little bit darker, drawing its inspiration from the proto-prog rock sounds of Todd Rundgren and ELectric Light Orchestra.  Lushly orchestral and as self-indulgent as music can get without growing pretentious, the title track creeps up on us, starting out like something from the bygone days of AM radio gold, but it builds, almost imperceptibly, to something that really rocks.  By the tree-minute mark, when the power chords are churning away, the bass line is thumping viciously and lead singer Dan Gillespe-Sills is belting away on the otherwise throwaway line "ring, ring, beep, beep, uh-huh," it's hard to deny all that made shallow, throw-away rock from the seventies so great.

Join with Us - The Feeling

The album has no official release yet, but it's easy enough to get it as an import through Amazon.

Brooklyn

Creaky Boards is one of the many, many bands out there that simply squirm more defiantly the harder you try to pin them down and stick a label on them.  Consider their song Brooklyn off of their recent album Brooklyn Is Love.  We've got Beach Boys-esque harmonies, if the Beach Boys played slightly sinister klezmer music.  It's horn parts are equal parts Dixieland Band and Salvation Army Band.  The song resonates with the kind of indie attitude that tends to take itself far too seriously, yet its rhythms bounce along with an infectious playfulness.  The song is nothing but contradictions, and it's totally worth a listen or two.

Brooklyn - Creaky Boards

The album isn't coming out in stores until next week, but in the meantime, you can already purchase the tracks online through Amazon.  Go check it out now...

Burrito!

I really wish the Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants would have done a better job of letting people know that they give away free burritos to anyone who comes in dressed up as one for Halloween.  This year was the first time I knew about it, and I weep to think of all the years of free burritos I missed out on.

Anyways, I'd be remiss if I didn't document the whole process.  Here's what I started with:

And after about an hour's worth of work, here's the finished product:

It turned out pretty well, but as you can see, it wasn't designed to easily be removed:

And as I discovered later on, it also wasn't designed to offer easy access to anything in my pockets, including my wallet, my keys, and my camera.  Here's my friend Petra who helped me with the costume, but couldn't be persuaded to be as ambitious with hers:

At the restaurant I did eventually manage to get my camera back out, so here's the requisite documentation:

My brother claims that that last picture should be considered cannibalism, but really it's no different than the children's story about a wolf who dresses up as a sheep to attack a flock or seeing Mayor McCheese feasting on some hamburgers.

And of course, I kept the costume, so I'm all good to go next year...

You're an Ocean

The other day I was reading through some of the other writers' music reviews at Epinions, and I read through a review of a recent Fastball album.  I hadn't thought about Fastball for quite some some and didn't even know they had released anything in recent years, but it reminded me of how much I loved the song You're an Ocean from their album Harsh Light of Day.

You might remember them better from their big hit The Way about ten years ago, but You're an Ocean always felt much stronger to me.  It's honky-tonk piano riffs give the sunny alt-pop arrangement a real sense of character, and it seems such a relentlessly cheerful song.  It may come on a bit too strong, and offer too little substance to be a truly great song for the ages, but there are times when something this effortlessly enjoyable is called for.

You're an Ocean - Fastball

Take a moment to check out the entire Harsh Light of Day album, too.

Cherry, Cherry

Okay, I realize that the words I'm about to type will probably destroy any sense of cool indie rock caché I may have built up over time, but if hearing Neil Diamond's Cherry, Cherry doesn't fill you with a sense of giddy excitement, you're not really alive.

From that iconic acoustic guitar riff with handclaps that open the song, the tambourine rhythms that keep everything moving along, the thumping piano fill that thunders in forty-five seconds into the song, those "doo, do doo doo, do do dah do do" backing vocals, and Mr. Diamond's dulcet baritone crooning, Cherry, Cherry is pure bliss in distilled musical form.

Forget that Neil Diamond is found in the easy listening section of the local record shop.  Forget that ridiculous mullet he wore back in the seventies.  Forget that treacly song of his that was inspired by E.T.  If you can't enjoy listening to Cherry, Cherry, you're dead to me.

Cherry, Cherry - Neil Diamond

And the standard disclaimer - you should pick up a Neil Diamond album of your choice when you get a chance.

Boo Boo Goo Goo

I don't know if this is a more recent trend or if I've just become more aware of the music scene in the last few years, but there are plenty of great albums that are released in Europe months and months before they get released here in the United States.  We're still waiting for the second album from The Feeling, which has been out over there since this past spring, but at least we finally got our hands on the newest offering from The Caesars, Strawberry Weed a few weeks back.  Never mind that Europe had  rocking out to the Sweedish band's album for months already, and they got the full two-disk, twenty-four track album, as opposed to our twelve track version, it's still nice to have their album.

Even before I got my copy of the album I was addicted to the first single, Boo Boo Goo Goo.  Silly title aside, it's one of the finest examples of raw, uninhibited garage rock this year.  With hints of early Kinks and early Who, it reaches back to a time when R&B was still a close neighbor to rock 'n roll, and swaggering attitude was just as important as substance - more important, in fact.  The song hasn't exactly made waves here in the states, but it has raised the bar for indie rockers everywhere.

Boo Boo Goo Goo - The Caesars

Check out the whole album of Strawberry Weed or even, for the more ambitious, the two disk import version.

On the Radio

I did indeed pick up Ben Folds' new album last week, and while I did enjoy it an awful lot, I still can't say it's a "great" album.

But after playing You Don't Know Me a bunch of times, it reminded me of how great Regina Spektor is, how her musical style seems to have rubbed off a little on Ben Folds, at least on the song I posted last week.

I debated a little while over which song of hers to post, and eventually settled on On the Radio, the one that seems closet to You Don't Know Me to me.  With it's simple, staccato vocals, its subtle string arrangements, it's hook-heavy piano riffs, it's peerless classy sheen, and its interplay of soft and loud, it's a perfect counterpoint to Folds' solo work.

On the Radio - Regina Spektor

As usual, point yourself over towards the album Begin to Hope when you have a moment.

a new marketing strategy for Apple?

I was looking through Apple's iTunes store earlier today, and happened to notice something odd on the app store page.  Have a look for yourself:

Is this some sort of new gimmick for Apple?  Are they going to be releasing personalized app for everyone who's bought an iPhone now?

You Don't Know Me

Ben Folds is amongst the most underrated performers out there right now.  His work with Ben Folds Five - power pop with no guitar, sticky-sweet harmonies disguising darkly cynical lyrics, perfectly eccentric character studies in each of the songs - was nothing short of brilliant.  After the band's breakup and the start of his solo career, his songs started to get a little more "grown-up," a little more mellowed out, and seemed to lose a little of its edge, but he still wrote some up the most nuanced, substantial pop songs I've ever heard.

Tomorrow his newest album, Way to Normal, comes out, and I'm awfully eager to pick up my copy.  I've already heard the album's first single, You Don't Know Me, and if it's any indication, the album will probably be going into heavy rotation for me right away.

It's more heavily produced than his earlier material, but the solid, stomping piano rhythms, the slick string arrangements, the aw-shucks humility of the vocals, and the guest vocals from Regina Spektor (another truly under-appreciated grown-up pop singer) make it one of the most memorable new songs I've heard so far this year.

You Don't Know Me - Ben Folds

Don't forget to pick up a copy of Way to Normal, too.