Year: 2009 From the latest Decemberists album. The album is really meant to be listened to all at once, but this song is a particularly sweet and pleasant tune.
Apr 122009
Mar 222009
Origin/Composer: Alasdair Clayre Year: 2009 This song that was made famous by Vashti Bunyan appears on the charity album Dark was the Night. Feist’s smooth, haunting voice combines with Ben Gibbard’s flowing harmonies and hypnotic rhythm guitar playing to create this song that will take you away.
Mar 152009
Year: 2000 This song pretty accurately describes my last three weeks. It’s finally done.
Mar 082009
Year: 2006 I’ve heard this song a lot lately, and even though I laugh at words like “hateration” and “dancery” and the ridiculous uses of words like “percolatin’.” The song is addictive, though. It’s been stuck in my head on and off for weeks.
Mar 012009
Year: 1981 I recently got a few Rush albums, and I’m starting to really like them for their musicianship. Their playing shows so much virtuosity, especially in guitars and drums. There’s secondary improvisation everywhere and no two lines are exactly the same, and there’s subtle nuances in the playing of the drums that add to the piece.
Feb 222009
From their album Dear Science. On my scratchpad in my Google Sidebar, I have a long, long list of artists, albums, and songs that I have been wanting to get my hands on. TV on the Radio was the artist at the front of the list about a month ago, and after buying Dear Science, I was so amazed that I ended up buying their entire discography. They feel like a slightly more indie Red Hot Chili Pepper, and every bit as versatile and unpredictable. In the span of one album, they shift from crackly acoustic emo to RHCP-esque rap/lead-guitar/drum trios to grand, sweeping, multi-layered melodic curiosities to Beck-like riff-driven addictions. I love them because they sound like they are first and [more . . .]
Feb 152009
Year: 2007 It’s always a little embarrassing when I admit that I started liking an artist or a song after hearing it in some video game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero or DDR, especially because I game very little, and take a small pride in that. However, there are a few, like this song, and Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover, that have caught my attention.
Feb 082009
Origin/Composer: Clipse/The Avalanches Year: 2007 The Hood Internet is a band that does mashups between hip-hop songs and rock songs, mostly alternative or obscure. Many of them make me wonder why hip-hop artists don’t work on making their loops and samples richer and more interesting, because The Hood Internet manages to make even the most mundane songs sound interesting.
Feb 012009
Origin/Composer: Chris Bryant / Stephen Clark Year: 2008 An impressive original from the Duke a cappella group Pitchfork‘s album Disconcert. Download this song here.
Jan 252009
Year: 2008 Third Eye Blind has just released an EP of three songs, and once again, they have a brand new sound. What’s really cool about this release is that they also released the entire instrumental mix of two of the songs on the EP, including this song, and held a remixing contest. The results of the contest can be found here, where you can listen to all the top finishers. The song of the week is actually the top finisher in that contest.