24 Hour Auditory Cortex Glitch

Ok Go is a great band that makes some great music and some FANTASTIC videos. This is another creative and fun video they put together using a car as their music machine and driving along a course littered with actual instruments as well plastic drums, glass jars, and other objects used as such. The lead singer went to stunt driving school before doing this video so he could do all of the specific handbrake turns and controlled speed driving to make this happen and they calculated out driving speeds to match up with tempos to get the timing right. It all comes together for a fun video.

I’m pretty sure a number of people already know OK GO and a majority of their songs, particularly any with their classic music videos. This is certainly is not my favorite song of their but it’s a song that I’ve been going back to a lot lately. I like the musical build of the song and of course the lyrics are ones that I feel connected to right now. It’s great to sing out as you are zipping along side streets through the city,

One thing I always feel a need to add for most people is that they should give their first album a listen to (and no that is not Oh No). It’s their self-titled and they have a number of good songs on it. Also the video for Get Over It is very good too, though a more classic music video then their other ones.

This is a song I like to go back to at times. It’s such an intense piece by Ani DiFranco that you can’t help but feel your heart being ripped out of your chest. I like to blast it out of my car or home stereo system and just belt out the song. It always feels like a weight has been lifted off of me after doing so.

I became a fan of Ani back in college. A few friends of mine showed me some of her work and I just got attached immediately. The clever/emotional lyrics, the fun attitude, the great acoustic guitar work, the sexy hair and smile… what’s not to love? I still think Little Plastic Castle is my favorite song, even if it is silly for me to sing it aloud. But I do it anyway because it’s great and so are a number of her other songs. She is a great singer/songwriter and seems like a great person.

Also, if you never gave her last album (Which Side Are You On) a listen to, you should. It’s a solid album.

This is a band I found out about a couple months ago and I very much so enjoy them. This song is a lot of fun and always brings a smile to my face. I love the smoothness of the vocals and the soft and seemingly simple but beautiful instrumentals. The music video plays with the music as a fun and enjoyably cute little story.

The band Kings of Convenience are a duo from Norway that really center on some great harmonizing vocals that in many songs harken me back to Simon and Garfunkel. They have some cleverly named albums (“Quiet Is The New Loud” and “Declaration of Dependence”) and while this is a more upbeat song, a lot of their other songs are a little more toned down and rely heavily on the vocal harmonization. If you are looking for something to relax to (I find it perfect for a rainy/overcast day), I’d highly recommend giving the album “Riot On An Empty Street” a listen to.

I am a huge fan of David Bazan and this is a song that I have not stopped listening to lately. This version of the song with the string quartet backing him is very nice and I like how he embellishes the vocals and the song itself, extending it out and using every second he can with the quartet. It makes it a beautiful song with a grabbing message.

For those that don’t know who David Bazan is, he is a great artist that originally played in a band called Pedro The Lion. He’s mostly known by critics for his songs that explored his personal questions with religion and Pitchfork labeling all of his albums as poor to mediocre. That second one got so bad he wrote a song about one of the Pitchfork critics and The Onion made a spoof post about how Pitchfork gives music a 6.8 out of 10. What most fans know him for is some very simple instrumentals with some extremely well written and personal songs that make you feel like you know David, his world view, his struggles, his experiences, and his being as a whole better through each song you hear.

I was a fan of Pedro the Lion but I’m a bigger fan of his solo works. Some of it is by himself and some with a band backing him up but it’s pretty much all quite good. Curse Your Branches and Strange Negotiations are my two favs. Just listen to the first songs off of both and you’ll understand why. But I definitely recommend checking out his stuff. It’s very lovely and worth it if you want some music you really have to listen and think about the message with.

So I’ve definitely been enjoying the soundtrack for The Great Gatsby, but I have to say that my favorite song from the album is Jack White’s cover of “Love is Blindness”. It is a building, swelling, high intensity type of song that grabs you in a way that feels too short when it’s over but is actually a fairly standard 3 1/2 minute song. Part of it was used in the original trailer for the movie and I remember hearing and thinking that this sounds great, but not immediately recognizing it as Jack White. I think I was too mesmerized by Baz Luhrmann’s visuals in the trailer to give it too much thought. But listening to the song on it’s own is very much worth it.

The song itself is originally a U2 song written in the early 90’s. If you go back and listen to that one, it has a haunting feel to it. It’s a 90’s ballad that fits to the times and I could see what U2 was doing there and it isn’t bad, though I would argue Sting did a better job of those kinds of vocals in The Police. Jack White makes this version of the song his own though with this cover. His version makes it a more gut wrenching and emotional song that rips at you. The crescendo to the chorus leading to Jack just screaming out the words just grabs at you to make sure you see exactly how blind love is.

Great job by Baz getting this song for the soundtrack, which is a soundtrack I’m very much so liking so far. It wasn’t originally written for the movie like some of the others but comes instead from Jack White’s solo album “Blunderbuss”, which is another great album that people should check out as well.

Thursday’s Bond Song Never In A Bond Movie is another female vocalist that could blow you away in the same way that Adele does in Florence. The hardest part with picking a song that she has that fits to a Bond song is that while she has an almost ethereal voice that I think blows you away in the same way Bond girls usually visually hit you on screen, there is a lot tone that doesn’t meld exactly in the song itself. The sound is really close to the unleashed intensity that marks a Bond theme but it has a tone of sadness that you would never find in a theme. I could see a song like this one though used in something like the aftermath of Vesper dying in Casino Royale. The burden of the song would match the inner turmoil of the loss in the darker, grittier Bond films. I think other good ones would be Blinding or Seven Devils.

What would be interesting though is to have the raw power of Florence unleashed in a Bond song. Just let her go crazy and blow away a theme and get a good orchestral piece to build and sway with her. I think that would be quite a sight for sore ears.

The next Bond Song Never In A Bond Movie is from Oh Land and I’m going with Wolf and I. I think Numb and I Found You are other good options but this song just sounds like a great modern take on a Bond theme. It takes the same sexy female vocals that most Bond films have but this one has solid electronics to it instead of guitars or horns. They serve the same purpose though bringing dips in soft musicality then rises to large orchestrations that blast you. Plus the concept of a female singing about Bond as a wolf in the night definitely fits. In general, I think Oh Land has a fantastic voice that could do stupendous job of a Bond song if ever given a chance.

Also, she rocks :)

We continue Bond Song Never In A Bond Movie with an artist that I wouldn’t have said initially but upon a recent listen to my collection I think might fit: Muse. Now I know a number of people would initially go, “Wait… WHAT?!” But listen to their cover of Feeling Good. It’s got the sexy tone to it with nice umph in the back ground. You get builds that go great in a Bond theme. I think the could make a great original theme song and with the recent ones by Chris Cornell and Jack White, I think this would fit right into the mix and maybe even blow those out of the water. I’d also say Supermassive Blackhole or Uno would be good alternates for this theme.

Muse in general is awesome and I love them. I particularly recommend their shows. In my opinion, they are the best modern example of straight rock and roll. They can bring it to sexy and riding and then blast off with loud and intense and crazy. Throw in the a great light show, fantastic musical talent by all of the group, and a raw intensity that is rarely matched by another lead singer and you’ve got an awesome frackin show.

So this is another Bond Song Never In A Bond Movie and I of course had to go with Bitter:Sweet. This is a group that has an entire album that sounds like remixes of bond theme songs. It’s big band mixed with sexy female vocals in the best way possible. For this song in particular there are loud horns, dancing bass, and sexy vocals that make this a song that could be playing as a Bond girl is first walking into a room and at a party Bond is attending and/or leading to the seduction.

As a whole, I really enjoy the heck out of Bitter:Sweet. I’ve mentioned them before on this blog but their music as a whole is so much fun to listen to. If you missed it the first time, give it a chance now. Particularly with a glass of fine liquor and in a dark room at night. Quite a fine and relaxing evening indeed.

So this is my first song for what I’m calling “Bond Songs Never In A Bond Movie”. I was listening to Portishead on my drive and thought about how awesome the song All Mine was. With the blaring horns and seductive female vocals, it sounds just like an old school James Bond song, or at least that’s the feeling and imagery I always got in my head whenever I first listened to it and it hasn’t left me since. Since the new Bond film is coming out this next weekend, I figured I’d do some Bond-y songs that never actually were part of a Bond soundtrack.

Actually, the first time I ever listened to this song was in college, I had listened to some songs from the first Portishead album Dummy before but nothing off of the 2nd album. I was on a kick of music videos and came across the Only You video by Chris Cunningham, which is an amazing video and if you haven’t seen it you should stop here and watch it…

Ok…

Good.

So yeah, I ended up getting the full album after that and always really loved the big accompanying sound with the soft vocals of this song. It jumps out at you and really grabs you quite quickly. I give it a speciic listen to every so often and have secretly wished it would be on a Bond soundtrack at some point.

So what do you guys think? Could this legitimately be used in a James Bond film? Any particular film or version of Bond you think it would fit well with?

I love LCD Soundsystem and I think James Murphy is awesome. I think he comes up with some great stuff for electronic music. I’m honestly not usually a big electronic fan unless I am wanting to get my dance on but LCD Soundsystem is definitely one of few exceptions to that rule. There’s another band that is an exception, but that’ll be for another day…

Also, this video is a pretty good fan vid. It fits to the beat and feel of the music quite well. So hope you enjoy that too.

But anyway, I think I mostly like Murphy’s music because it is interesting. The singing is fun and catchy. The electronics use a lot of cool instrumentals. This song is a great example. The lyrics are simple but they are fun and make me chuckle. And the instrumentals and beats are shifting, not stagnant, and fun. He also though can do more rock sounding songs and even spooky/creepy songs. Actually freaked out people listening to one of his songs before.

I think it was during an interview on Fresh Air where I heard it mentioned that LCD Soundsystem is electronic music for hipsters and hipster music for electronic fans. It may sound weird but I think that actually fits in the best way possible.

It’s kind of sad that Murphy recently hung up the towel on LCD Soundsystem but who knows what he’ll come up with next. I know I’m excited to find out.

So I’m tossing another song your way that I hold tightly to the video and what you do you know, we have some more Thom Yorke singing on this one too. Woohoo!

So the video itself is great. It was done by Jonathan Glazer back in 1998 and the CG work for it at the time was quite stupendous. I don’t think it’s quite as pretty as the immense CG ninjaing of Chris Cunningham, but it was quite stunning for the time all the same. The man is ranting and raving while walking through a tunnel and people narrowly as well as quite unaccidentallly run him over. This eventually leads to a climax with a fantastic finale shot. In the behind the scenes for this video, apparently the tunnel was a pain to shoot in because there was so much CO2 getting captured in that small of an area. It was making the lead actor and the crew dizzy and nauseous. The end result is amazing though and I love watching this video again and again. Particularly on http://yooouuutuuube.com/

The song too is great. I’m a fan of Thom Yorke’s vocals and this song highlights them quite nicely. The instrumentals in the background are simple and support the staggering and lost feeling of the song. There’s a lot of sadness and hopelessness in the lyrics, but the phrasing and strain of the vocals plays it out well.

Definitely something I enjoy greatly.

So I’m going to throw some Radiohead your way and when I think of Radiohead, I always think of this video. They have a number of great music videos and this isn’t my favorite Radiohead song but this video always sticks forefront in my head whenever it wanders to Radiohead. There are two reasons for that.

First off is because the video itself is really interesting. It’s one long, continuous, still shot of Thom Yorke in a bubble helmet that slowly fills up with and then drains of water while lights and lyrics from the song are reflected on the front of the helmet. It may be simple but I think it is still beautiful. Plus it’s got a solid song that really features Thom Yorke’s vocals and he is a pretty darn good singer.

The second reason is because of the documentary “Meeting People Is Easy”. If you have not watched this documentary and strive to ever become a famous artist, never watch it. Ever. It basically pulls apart all the production and time and effort and drain it takes to do a giant world tour such as Radiohead did after OK Computer. The most depressing part for me that still clearly sticks in my head is when the people on this talk show are discussing the video for No Surprises and basically railing on it and how bad it is. Then after one person comments about Thom Yorke drowning in it, it cuts to them trying to make the video and Thom Yorke actually nearly drowning and them having to dump the water again and again and again and again. It is horrendously depressing. Radically well edited and absolutely awesome, but depressing as all hell.

So yeah, listen to this song and get your Radiohead time in tonight.

And totally check out that documentary.

This is a kick arse video that goes radically well with the song. I don’t really know who this Alexander Jorgensen is but he makes a very beautiful looking and well synced music video to this very nice song by The XX. I realize the song is short has very little singing in it, but it just has a great drive to it and I love the feel. I’m also a fan of Shelter, Infinity, and Night Time. Really you should just listen to the whole album. It’s solidly good.

I actually came across the XX when looking around on NPR. They were posting up about the Mercury Prize and how the XX won it. For those that don’t know, the Mercury Prize is for the best album of the year in the UK. T I was intrigued by this band and decided to check them out. I fell in love pretty upon my first listen. The intro obviously grabbed me pretty quickly and I just stayed quiet and listened to each part of each song. It really is quite entrancing music. I think you should check it out too.

So I checked out a few different really, really bad videos for this song but this one is super fun. I hope you can enjoy it too. Definitely lighter than the subject matter of the song.

For some people this is a loving song. While there is a lot of love in this song, I personally feel at times it is a hard song to listen to. It can actually kind of hurt to hear this song at times. There’s such a great longing that is attached within this song that I identify with greatly. A great wish to hold on to something that you cherish so deeply. When you develop such a strong bond, it can be hard to let that bond go away.

I remember bonding with a girl before we started dating over Postal Service. We would listen to Postal Service quiet often since they were this new, cool band that had some awesome music. Ultimately of course it didn’t last with her but I felt like the guy in this song for a while afterwards. I ached for that relationship to continue, far beyond where it should have ended, and apologized for so many mistakes. Afterwards though, I realized it just wasn’t meant to be. That we were different people and that honestly, she was at least a little crazy in a way that I wasn’t compatible. Also, a number of those things I apologized for weren’t things I did wrong. They were merely things I did to try to show appreciation that didn’t work as planned or that she twisted into something much worse then it actually was. My lack of self-confidence made me always feel like the bad guy. I guess because of that, I feel like the separation in the song isn’t really as bad as the is believing it to be right now.

I know most people know about Postal Service and really like them. I’m inclined to agree. I wish they would get together to put out another album but I don’t think it’s ever meant to be. I’ll just cherish this album though. It’s a very beautiful one.