Song of the Day

Archive for November, 2010

More songs I like by Crystal Castles
Untrust Us
Celestica
Crimewave (Warning: explicit video)

For some reason I feel like I need to write an excuse for posting bands that I think a lot of people already know about, but then I realized that most people reading this are those looking for a description of the band and haven’t heard of them already. Well, everyone has to hear a song for the first time don’t they and there’s nothing special about hearing a song before someone else has. Although some people like to think that just because they’ve heard a song before someone else has that it makes them special in some way, but I strongly disagree with that. The only think special about them is that they know of something good that they should be sharing with others, that’s all.

About this band, well, to make things easy and to throw in a little bit of self-depricating unexplained irony, I’m just going to copy and paste some blurbs from other sources like Wikipedia and Last.fm. LOL Read below.

Crystal Castles were named after the lines “The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles” and “Crystal Castles, the source of all power”, both lines referring to fictional character She-Ra’s fortress in the sky. It is also a reference to the Atari arcade game Crystal Castles, as the band’s sound often echoes arcade game noise. Read the rest of this entry »

TV on the Radio is a band that has been around for a while and are fairly well known, I’ve been wanting to add a track of theirs here but hadn’t gotten around to it until now. This song of theirs is by far my favorite. The music video compliments the song quite well and the song plays almost as a direct narrative to the story in the music video. But this song has its own energy that is much bigger than the story itself and speaks of an inner force and energy that can come out in all of us. I suggest listening to this song and imagining letting the strength of your own inner beast come out and inspire you to follow your dreams and pursue your goals with a renewed vigor.

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Recommended songs by the Fruit Bats that I like:
Primitive Man
Union Blanket
The Ruminant Band

The Fruit Bats are a good wholesome indie band with a lot of great songs. Their style comes across natural and without pressure like organic produce, except it’s not more expensive than its genetically modified and pesticide/herbicide/insecticide laden counterparts. In a way, listening to this band seems to carry no pop-cultural value, which is to say, all the popular kids in school (ie. the ones who typically aren’t that friendly and who are more concerned with what others think of them than having any genuine intrinsically created thought) will tend to shy away from this kind of music because it has a fake popularity value of zero, however I think among people who are thoughtful, considerate, friendly, and genuine this type of music will ring a bell of honesty and bring joy to their day.

So I wish you all the best while listening to this band, and I hope you pay its love forward.

Disclaimer: I only used this video because it has the full version of the song that I wanted.
Another version of this song is available here, without any Twilight clips. hehehehe
Colorblind Video

And I guess if you’re a Grey’s Anatomy fan then you should take a look at this video for the song. I didn’t use this one because it has words dubbed over the track in some spots.
Grey’s Anatomy version of Colorblind by Natalie Walker

Natalie Walker has outdone Counting Crows in this version of Colorblind in my humble opinion. The rest of the album “Urban Angel” is beautiful, but this song stands out above the rest for me. It was really hard to find a music video with this version of the indie song, so please forgive the Twilight clips if they turn you off. If you’re not a Twilight fan, just ignore the video and listen to the song.

More songs that I like from Pretty Lights:
Out Of Time
Finally Moving
Stay

Happy Thanksgiving! I can thank my sister Linnea for introducing me to this super groovy band. She heard about them because they are from Boulder Colorado, which is close to where she went to school. Although now she’s graduated and going to school in Pennsylvania.

Oh-tay!

More songs by the Nujabes that I like:

Counting Stars
Mystline
Sky Is Falling

More great songs by Fences:
Hands
My Girl the Horse
From Russia with Love

I just found a song by this band on NPR’s website the other day. NPR has its own Song of the Day blog too. Fences song “The Same Tattoos” stood out to me because of the rich but careful sound-scape and soft earnest vocals. They remind me of a mix between Snow Patrol, Matt Pond PA, and Greg Laswell. I didn’t take the time to research the band at all, so I don’t have much else to say about them specifically. I assume their an up and coming indie band that that is working to build a name. One thing I noticed was that all of the tracks on this album of theirs are very easily playable. It’s great when you find a fantastic song and buy the album to realize that you love all of their other songs just as much. But I’ve had it also happen a lot that I buy an album based on a single and find that the rest of the album doesn’t come close to meeting those expectations. Does anyone know why that seems to happen often? Why bands have only one or two great songs and the rest seem less carefully constructed? Maybe there’s a good reason for it.

Other songs I like by Cat Power:
Cat Power – Lived In Bars
I found a reason
Living Proof

Cat Power is powerful. I didn’t read up on her like I do with most of the artists I post on here. I usually read the Wikipedia article and summarize what I find interesting and say something else I find on Last.fm and what else I glean from the artist. But I’m too lazy tonight to do that. But I will say that her song The Greatest kicks my butt and that the video was just a fan made music video made by a guy with only two videos on YouTube. Pretty crazy eh? Well, I think the music video is amazing and matches the song well. k, enjoy! If you know of some other great Cat Power songs, please comment below.

More music videos by The Drums that I like:

The Drums – Forever & Ever Amen
The Drums – Me and the Moon

I made this the Song of the Day because it’s catchy. The whistling, casual run down the beach at night, the care-free message of surfing in the lyrics and plea to just do what you want to.

This music video is actually a scene from the off-beat musical-comedy cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s a very interesting film that I saw at a small art-house theatre in Salem Oregon back in 2002. The soundtrack is pretty good and the film is definitely worth seeing. Although this song in particular stands out to me as a classic. The film came out almost 8 years ago, but my guess is that 99% of the people you know have never heard this song before.

I have to admit I’ve got a soft spot for any song with a piano accompaniment, but this song is truly amazing and can become somewhat addictive, I recommend buying the song and adding it to your slow-song playlist. If for some reason you’re personally turned off or offended by transexual lead singers, or an all female Philippino band, well then you’re a bigot and I feel sorry for you. Otherwise I’m almost certain you will enjoy this song.

If you have any bands or songs that you think are under appreciated or some great bands that are not well known, please let comment here and let me know. Song of the Day is a project not for everyone, not just you or me.