4 November 2013 - Lorde - Royals

This might be the most unlikely #1 hit song of the year.  A sixteen-year old woman from New Zealand - no New Zealander has ever had a #1 hit in the US, by the way - and the song is really percussion-heavy, with some synth in for highlight.  But it's brilliant, and I am really proud of commercial pop radio for embracing such a different song.

Scott and I have been kind of dragging our heels on posting this one.  For me, it's because I didn't really like the song.  It bored me.  But it grew on me.  And then I caught this live performance, as played in the studios of the legendary KCRW.



Pretty much indistinguishable from the studio version, isn't it?  That's the mark of a solid artist. This version of the video is the one for the rest of the world, and not the US......



.....and this is the US version.  Not much different.


Update: 21 June 2014: The Japanese version..... well, that's VERY different.

1 November 2013 - Bertie Higgins - Key Largo

Here's lookin' at you, kid!  Perhaps the cheesiest song and video of the last thirty-five years.... it's a classic.  Full of emotions, and truly evocative of an era gone by.  

But did you know it was also an homage to a movie of the same name? Strangely enough, that movie stared Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. 

And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

31 October 2013 - David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

Happy Halloween! I thought I'd try to get in the spirit and find a "spooky" video. I figured, "Ooooh, I can post Ministry's Every Day Is Halloween video." Then I checked our logs and saw that Tony did that one last year. I posted a Groovie Ghoulies video last month (great planning genius). I could have done The Misfits, but I just can't accept them without Danzig and the videos with Danzig were pretty much unlistenable. I give up. Here's a live video of David Bowie playing Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) even though the song has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween scariness.

30 October 2013 - Phantogram - When I'm Small

It only seems like we've posted this song about 12 times.  We haven't.  But it's been a long time coming.

Casual readers of our blogs - specifically Totally Covered - will know that this song is a favorite of mine.  I have thrice - here by Antique Firearms, here by Lizzy Land, and here by Fine It's Pink - posted covers of this song, all of which blew me away in different ways.

In that last post, I mentioned that I was upstairs in my house while a football game was on downstairs, and I heard this very song. And wondered why the hell Phantogram was playing during a Bills game.  Of course, I came downstairs and saw that Clay Mathews was doing a Gillette commercial with that as the background music.

But enough about other people's versions of this song.  This song blows me away every time I hear it, be it their original studio version or one of the many live versions they've done.  The sparse drum beat - a machine when recorded and in this video - to start the song, followed by the guitar/keyboard wall of sound, joined quickly by Sarah Barthel's breathy and increasingly intense vocal - it's damned near musical perfection.  The song is intensely angry at its crescendo.  If you've never heard this song before in its entirely, I urge you to listen right now.



This live performance is from SxSW 2010.  Here, as in a lot of live versions of the song, Sarah's breathy vocal jumps in before the wall of instrumental sound.  It's a little different, but it still works.



When I first heard this version of the song - which features Josh Carter on an acoustic guitar along with a slighty less breathy Sarah Barthel, but no drums or bombastics - I didn't like it.  It is nothing but raw emotion, and for that reason, it has grown on me. I hope it grows on you, too.



OK, one last version, this is a remix of the song done by Remix Artists Collective - RAC , who we featured here as artists a couple of weeks ago - which brings in their signature keyboard sound.  It's a completely different song - a little dreamier, if you can imagine that - and less angry.

29 October 2013 - Sandi Thom - I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)

A mention of this hopeful Sandi Thom song popped into my Twitter feed over the weekend. I haven't heard it in years. It still sounds good to me.

28 October 2013 - Iggy Azalea - Change Your Life (feat. T.I.)

You know what I think about when I think hip-hop?

Blonde Australian women who make us use the jump break so kids who stumble upon this blog won't accidentally see nipples.

25 October 2013 - Soho - Hippychick

When I first heard this on the radio, my first thought was "hey, finally 'How Soon Is Now' is a hit!"  That opening guitar rift - famously played by Johnny Marr of the Smiths - was used with permission (and 25% royalty - no lawsuit necessary).  The Soul II Soul track playing in the background - yes, that's "Back To Life" - isn't as frequently mentioned, but it's also sampled heavily.

No one ever talks about how the Smiths lifted the rift from Bo Diddley, either, but.....

Anyway, this song is poppy and dancy and pure fun.   It doesn't matter how many samples they use - this trio (the Cuff sisters who are the vocalists, along with musician Timothy London) makes them all their own.



In my opinion, live, when musicians fill in for the samples, the song really pops.