Song of the Day

Archive for August, 2010

Buy Song: We No Speak Americano – Single at iTunes

I wanted to post two other videos to show how this song came to be, but instead I’ll just give you their links. You’ll know what I mean in a second. First of all this song has hit the top of the charts in something like 15 countries already, but most Americans probably haven’t heard it, despite having over 10 million views. Ok, I’ll admit that less than 50% of Americans even use YouTube. Regardless, I do enjoy this song and that’s why it’s here. The video that I posted is interesting, although because I saw a different video for it first I’m a little biased towards the other one. Anyway, here’s the story.

Yolanda Be Cool is a band out of Australia, that apparently has only released three songs. Two in 2009, and this song in 2010. What makes this so funny to me is that, in other words, it’s not really a band, and it’s not even really their music. They got their music from an old 1958 song by the The Carosone Sextet. The song was sampled and recompiled, which is obvious, and they didn’t make the samples, but what makes it funny is that the name of the band was taken from the film Pulp Fiction, (you might recognize it) along with the name of one of the band members. Then on top of that, the video seems to have been knocked off somehow by somebody named Pink Louder or at least the song was used and the video of the original song from 1958 was sampled and re-edited independently. And all of this is compiled by the fact that this song is a chart topping hit right now!!! I find all of this totally hilariously awesome. Not to mention I do enjoy the song and the cheeky punchy beat which makes it sound almost like they are making fun of all those other bands out there that try so hard to be a real band making their own music and touring, when apparently all they have to do is copy some old samples and throw ‘em together in the most minimalist of ways, and Vio-la!!! Ok, so guess what my next spare time hobby’s gonna be…

Anyways, here’s the other two music videos. The first is the re-edited version of the song, and the 2nd is the original song and original video from 1958. Enjoy!

Watch the re-edited version of the original song and video here, it’s my personal favorite, because it’s so much more fun and I just get a kick out of the smiles on their looks on their faces!

And watch the original song and video here.

Here’s a link to the band’s MySpace page.

Buy Song: New Shoes on iTunes
Buy Album: These Streets on iTunes

Paolo Nutini is a Scottish singer songwriter who released his first album “These Streets” in 2006. His second album “Sunny Side Up” was released in June last year. He’s had huge success in the UK and Europe and is doing most of his touring there. I recommend both of his albums, although you should keep take a listen to several of his other songs before you do so you can get a taste for his style which can move been pop, indie, and folk.

Other songs of his that I recommend are “Candy” and “Pencil Full of Lead“.

If you enjoyed discovering this song, please share Song of the Day with your friends to help them discover new music every day that they wouldn’t normally hear on mainstream radio or TV.

You can watch all of Paolo’s music videos and video blogs on his website here.

Buy Song: Alors on danse on iTunes

Stromae being from Belgium sings most of his songs in French for your convenience. By singing in French he allows you to not be bothered by the particulars of the lyrics to the song and encourages you to develop an appreciation for his sound from the sparks and flashes of images that come to your imagination. [Aside: Granted I could say this about any non-English singing artist, I just haven't said it yet so I thought I'd grace your ears with these words here, at this moment, consider yourself blessed (regardless of whether or not I was the person who said you were blessed of course). Moreover, because he repeats the chorus line again and again throughout the song, it's hard for an American not to copy the title of the song and paste it into Google's handy translator to find out what it means; "Then We Dance". But honestly, there are more lyrics to the song than just the chorus, and the phrase "Then We Dance" is general enough of a statement that it allows for plenty of subjective interpretation of the song. If anything you're probably thinking that it's a DANCE song because it's talking about dancing and the melody is highly reminiscent of classic house and dance songs, and has that oh so provocative and popular backup horn. Well, sure it's a dance song... and what? Don't you like Danc'n!?]

I appreciate the double perspective of the video. It’s fun, and I also love that in the video he ends up singing the song to an audience when he’s really drunk, which helped to show me that this song really could be sung when he’s completely smashed out of his mind drunk, which in itself, is worthy of some applause. So kudos to Stromae, the well dressed, skinny French singing, dance producing brand spank’n new artist from Belgium.

Anyway, whatever. Enjoy this Song of the Day. And if you like it you should really go check out his song Te Quiero here.

Click here for Stromae’s website.

So, after much deliberation and research, I discovered that radio stations and major media are serving your best interests by playing a full variety of the latest music that is out there, and you don’t have to wait 2 years until a band makes it big to hear them on the radio or on TV. …. *pffftt* JUST KIDDING! HAHAHAHAH!!!! Yeah right.

Anyway, take a look at this London rock band that formed in 2001. They’ve got two albums out now, their first studio album came out in 2005, and their 2nd one just came out last year. Do you like their music? Have you heard of them before? I certainly hadn’t until my recent music searches. Why is it that it takes so much time an energy to find great new bands? Why is it that if you’re lucky to hear a great band like this that it takes 2 years for the great songs that you already have loved for so long to make it to the radio stations? Because radio stations only play what is safe and what they think has the largest general appeal. And sometimes, they would never even play it because it just doesn’t match their playlist of Corn Flakes and Pop Tarts that they play every day.

Well, I’m here to tell you that now, at least with this blog, you have one more reason to feel like it’s easy to find good music. If you think you won’t remember to check this blog everyday for new music. Just click here to sign up and subscribe to my Song of the Day daily song feed. And I’ll just email the song and its description to you. It’s like a big piece of cake, or maybe a hot apple pie right out of the oven, or slightly undercooked chocolate chip cookies that have that hot doughy center! It’s mmmmmmm GOOOOD!!!!!

I heard the song “Very Busy People” by The Limousines just 3 days ago and out of the hundreds of songs I could have posted today I am really loving these guys the most. Musically they remind me of the indie feel and innocence that “The Postal Service” had, except with more adolescent vocals and lower production budget. Also, their lyrics speak more directly to contemporary youth about things in our daily lives as opposed to the poetic and quirky love songs that The Postal Service produced.

So, I am really digging this band which consists of two guys who started working together while living thousands of miles away from each other, trading music and ideas the same way The Postal Service was created. (In fact the name of “The Postal Service” is in reference to the US Postal Service mail delivery system that the members of The Postal Service, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, used to exchange music samples and develop what eventually became their album.)

Anywho, I just had to post this one on Song of the Day, and I hope you enjoy it! Also, if you appreciate my blog, the best way to support it is by simply sharing it with your friends, adding a post about it on your Facebook, or emailing the link to other people who you think would enjoy it.

Thanks for listening!

Buy Album: Everybody Wants to Be On Tv at iTunes

Elvis Lives!

It was funny when I went to look for the song on iTunes to see if it was available, and the only results I found were Karaoke versions of this song! Hahahaha! I’d never heard of these guys until a few days ago, and had never heard any of their songs. I posted this video because it cracks me up, and something about seeing everyone dressed like Elvis in the video cracks me up.

And in this screenshot I took from the video at the part with the guy with the disco pants on you can see a woman in a skirt holding a dog leaving the store with the elvis doo and what I can only hope is an oh so trendy California Chiuaua! Whoever made this video is going into my “Kickass” book.

Of course, I also think this is a great band, although I’m working on getting into some of their other songs like “This Ain’t A Love Song“, but I just can’t do it yet. Maybe it’s because it sounds so much like another British band Keane;

for about a year the only Keane song I liked was “Crystal Ball“.

I’ll keep this one short today, it’s gonna be a busy Saturday. BAAAAA!!!!!!

Lastly, here’s a quick list of band links for Scouting for Girls.
MySpace
Their Official Website
Scouting for Girls on Wikipedia

Buy Song: Little Things at iTunes

I found Pomplamoose on YouTube last year sometime, I don’t remember when. Their videographic spark and fun approach to presenting all of their music through creatively edited music videos on YouTube caught my attention. One thing I couldn’t help notice was that Nataly Dawn, the female in this two person home-grown group, doesn’t blink very much when she sings, and the looks she gives the camera come across as oddly hypnotic with a pinch of seductiveness. When I listened to several of their songs and trying to decide which one to post I found myself having to look away so that my ears could communicate with my brain without my eyes interrupting. Snapping out of it isn’t easy because as the songs continue, the video cuts and changes every time a new sound or instrument is used and I find myself drawn into the video the same way a young child would be of a rambunctious street performer with their eyes affixed to the performer, not out of entertainment necessarily but out of a constant inability to draw their attention elsewhere. And so the experience of watching their songs being performed is made even better by the fact that their songs are original, quirky, entertaining, catchy, and well produced.

If you like them I highly recommend that you also watch the following videos.
Beat the Horse
Twice as Nice

Check out more of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn at the Pomplamoose website.

Buy Song: Drown In the Now at iTunes
Buy Album: Divided By Night at iTunes

If you’re not familiar with Crystal Method or Matisyahu, this song’s for you. Crystal Method has been around for a long time and you’ve probably heard their music in movies like Mortal Kombat or The Replacement Killers. I bought their first studio album Vegas back in the late 90′s and really enjoyed their stuff. Their music reminds me the band The Prodigy except not so dark, with less talking and more of a dance house electronic sound. Almost all of their songs would make a good soundtrack to an action sequence in any martial arts movie. They’ve put out 5 studio albums since 1997, about one every 3-4 years. Here’s their website.

The other artist, Matisyahu, is an American Hasidic Jewish reggae musician. This song is pretty removed from the sound of his regular genre. If you’re into reggae, or even if you’re not, check him out. Here’s some links to other songs of his on YouTube.
Kind Without a Crown
One Day

I really like the beat of this song when it gets into the chorus. And the video is produced with the same maximum contrast filter that you see in the film Sin City and the music video Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age. I really enjoyed the cinematography of both works, and I think whoever made this one was probably involved in the making of those others too.

I got tired yesterday and didn’t post anything here on Song of the Day, so I’m thinking I’ll pack two more in between today and tomorrow.

If you’re enjoying this blog and find it helpful and discover a new music artist that you didn’t know about before, please forward the link on to a friend and spread the word. If you want to get updates from me and have the links and posts emailed to you, click on the subscribe link above or on the Subscribe banner on the right and signup.

Peace!
Owen

Buy Song: We Own the Sky at iTunes
Buy Album: Saturdays = Youth

I sort of cheated today by posting this song. I’ve been listening to this song for about 2 years now, although I think most people still have never heard it. It came out in 2008 when M83 released their 5th studio album Saturdays = Youth which is somewhat of a tribute to certain musical themes that emerged in the 80′s. Most of the songs on the album feel like a soundtrack to a series of dream-like memories of someone’s child-hood. M83 is the only song on the album that I can still come back to again and again and enjoy the whole way through.

The video for this song was the winner of a contest that the band apparently held sometime recently. So if you go on YouTube you can find a couple other videos with the same name. I thought it was pretty well done, although sometimes when you know a song first and then see the music video it can be a blend of amusing disappointment as the video doesn’t live up to the expectations of your imagination. Like seeing any movie after reading the book.

In any case, I love this song and hope you do too! So far most of the songs I’ve posted here on Song of the Day have been pretty gentle. And with that cherubic girl at the top of every page of this site listening to her headphones with a look on her face like she’s listening to her favorite Celine Dion track, I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m only going to be posting soft alternative and eclectic electronic tracks on here. Also, to clarify, the thing about the music industry and the mediums that we use to hear new songs that really bugs me is that amazing music can come out, and if it doesn’t fit just right into the massively produced Pop or macho dramatic love-scarred rugged male rock genres the music doesn’t get played on the radio or on TV. If you follow this blog and see how many good songs and artists you find on here that you wish you’d heard about earlier, please ask yourself this question, “Why do I never hear this stuff on the radio”. That’s my point. And the reason is, because radio stations and TV don’t care about spreading good music or supporting new and upcoming music artists that are amazing. Instead they care about money. And a lot of the radio stations you hear are either owned or supported by giant media conglomerated like ClearChannel, that have very specific criteria for what can and can’t be played on air. And those criteria that they use are designed to support only those artists that are being promoted by specific major record labels so that the majority of people go out and buy that music so the giant media conglomerates can make their profit.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this picture besides the fact that most people IMHO believe that if there was good music out there, the radio stations will play it, and that they can rely on large radio stations to play all of the new music that comes out and give them a good idea of what is out there and available. That’s the problem, and as a result, many musical artists who don’t fit the major media labels’ mold never reach your ears.

This same exact thing happens in the film industry these days. Most major action movies that come out these days all have a bunch of things in common and are extremely predictable and just about as original in thought and execution as a soggy bowl of Rice Krispies. The reason is again the same. Money.

Major film production companies could give a damn about making a good movie, what they care about is how to sell the most tickets possible, and the way to do that is to try to appeal to the widest audience possible. What this means is they add a romance story to make young women who like romance want to go see it. They make it violent enough for action fans to feel like they need to go see it, but make the violence soft enough to keep it rated PG-13 so everyone can still come and see it with their kids. They add comedic asides amidst the action so people who love humor come to see it, they add some theme about saving the world so people who want to see the world get saved or who like to see “global disasters getting averted” will like it, and they throw in a super sexy girl, a male lead role that college guys can relate to, and a really easy to understand plot with enough exposition so that Americans who have been trained by the media to not think critically or use abstract logic won’t tell their friends not to watch it because it was too confusing. So what you end up with in the end is this genetically engineered Monsanto corn seed that will never yield new seeds of creativity and that is marketed in a way to keep you dependent on it and forgetting that you ever knew any other variations, and the word variety slowly fades from your memory.

Again, it’s not necessarily the fault of these large companies that this happens, they are just doing what is necessary to maximize profit. The two issues that concern me are, first, that the public trusts in these major media outlets to present to them a decent variety of things so that we as consumers can make the right decisions about what we want, but instead of seeing all the variety that’s on the market the only thing that’s blasted at us everyday is the white spongy artificial wonderbread variety. And secondly that the public is so uninformed that this is even happening that they don’t have the knowledge to speak up and say, “Hey, you’re not telling me the whole story, you’re not telling me about everything else that’s out there, and maybe if you gave me the chance to make a decision, I wouldn’t buy your wonderbread, but instead would buy creative and original melodies like this song by M83 here, or it’s filmatic equivalents.”

I hope you understand what I mean, and it’s the whole reason why I think it’s so important to speak up and share with the people you know, the really amazing things in this world that don’t have multi-million dollar advertising budgets. Because, how else are we going to find out about this stuff?

Buy Song: Happy Up Here at iTunes
Buy Album: Junior at iTunes

Röyksopp, which literally means “smoke mushroom” in Norwegian and makes me sound like I’m speaking English backwards with a lisp, is a two man group which crawled out of a massive rocky snowbank in northern Europe, also known as Norway, in 1998. This song is from their 3rd album called “Junior” which released in 2009, and their latest album “Senior” came out this year. Also check out the music video to their song What Else is There?

I love the way the video for this song was produced and synced with the music and lyrics, as well as the video game if you recall from the 80′s. I hadn’t heard of this band until recently, although I had seen the music video to their song “Remind Me” at some point a few years ago. In Europe everyone has heard of them, but in the US I think they’re just starting to crack mainstream awareness. I wonder if just having a name with an umlaut vowel (a vowel with two dots above it) scares most Americans away, the same way most Americans tend to not like watching movies with subtitles. Because the name of the band has no recognizable meaning or association in English I think it’s also harder for people to remember, and when it’s told to someone like, “Hey you should check out this band Röyksopp”, I don’t think the listener is going to be able to have anything to associate it with in their mind let alone begin to know how to type the thing in a google search. I think these small heterogeneous linguistic and cultural dynamics have played against them for the last decade, but they are still building fans in the US.

So, since they probably won’t be changing their name soon, if you want to
share them with a friend I recommend just sending them a link instead of trying to tell them their name.

Band’s website: Royksopp.com