Song of the Day 04/09/11: Radiohead – Everything In It’s Right Place

Is there really any commentary necessary?

Song of the Day 03/16/11: Radiohead – Little By Little

IF you love Radiohead, you probably already listen to this song every day since their new albums release. IF you hate radiohead, just wait for the next song of the day because this song is Radiohead through and through and wont succeed in winning any new fans. Neither will the rest of this album. However, like all Radiohead, if you listen to this song enough times, you WILL love it. So if youre on the fence, know that Radiohead isnt about making instant fans, its about a growing appreciation over a long period of time relating to the music. There was a time when i hated everything Radiohead had to offer with the exception of Paranoid Android. Now i can honestly say, I love Radiohead. So hears to giving them another chance haters.

Song of the Day 11/23/12: Crystal Castles – Mercenary

Still feeling like my last couple electronica songs of the day were to main stream? Then check out my favorite track off of the Crystal Castles new album: “Mercenary”. Exercising some extreme subtly, the song is a quiet and contemplative piece with some hallow vocals courtesy of Alice Glass.

Song of the Day 10/01/12: Crystal Castles – Alice Practice

So, there’s a cool story behind this track.  I’ve posted some Crystal Castles material on this site before but most of it comes off their second album Crystal Castles.  This song appears on their first album Crystal Castles (yeah seriously…they are really creative with their album titles.).  When Alice Glass got together to record an EP with producer Ethan Kath, the sound engineer secretly recorded Alice’s soundcheck.  Kath later discovered it and released it along with a couple of other tracks under the name Crystal Castles, online.  Alice Glass had been out of touch with Kath for quite some time when she finally found out about the release, once labels start wanting to pick them up.  Definitely one of the coolest unintentional performances I’ve heard, “Alice Practice” sounds like a member of the Glitch Mob playing around with some 8 bit sounds, smashed together with the wildest of Karen O’s (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) performances.

Song of the Day 09/22/12: Alex Clare – Too Close

Have you ever thought to yourself: “You know, I’m kind of interested in that new dubstep sound that everyone is talking about, but it’s just so loud and heavy!  Skrillex’s voice just doesn’t work for me.  If only Gavin DeGraw and Adele had a child who’d make softer dubstep music for me…” ?   If you have, you don’t have to wish anymore!  Because Alex Clare is more than willing to be that man for you.

Song of the Day 09/19/12: Justice – On’n’on

I’ve featured Justice a couple times before, but somehow forgot to add “On’n’on”, my favorite song off of their second album.  I love the falsetto echoing vocals and the guitars that sound like they were taken from Black Sabbath and then placed on top of one of the happiest dance beats around.  This song is so much fun!  So get up and dance while you make your breakfast!

Song of the Day 09/07/12: SOLA-MI – Mother Mother

This is a strange one.  SOLA-MI is a side project of Derek Webb, along with Josh Moore on production and Latifa Philips on vocals.  The album is called NEXUS (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), and I believe it is meant to accompany a movie.  But as far as I know, that movie doesn’t exist.  So I’m not 100% sure.  The song is equally as strange changing from subtle digital beeps, to a bursting chorus.  Unfortunately, the only video I could find also includes the intro track, “Keynote”.  “Mother Mother” starts at around 1:04.  I’m not sure what exactly is so special about this track, but I do know that it has been completely stuck in my head ever since I heard it last week.  Oh and you can download the whole album for free here: http://sola-mi.com/

Song of the Day 08/13/12: Rose Noire – Ave Maria

Initially, I wasn’t going to recommend this as a song of the day, but since I’ve been listening to it constantly the last couple days I finally gave in.  Rose Noire is a Japanese visual kei duo comprised of two siblings, Louie and Jill.  Both siblings graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music.  While Louie was obsessed with hip-hop from a young age, and later rock, r&b, and club music, his sister reached out to classical music and mastered the violin.  They then formed a band in order to use their classically trained music skills to make something completely different.

Louie is the vocalist and producer, while his sister focuses on art direction and violin.  I guarantee that the resulting music is like nothing you’ve ever heard before.  I picked “Ave Maria” for the song of the day because it’s a cover.  It will at least sound familiar to anyone who’s heard that song (seriously, has anyone never heard “Ave Maria”? If so, stop reading this and go youtube any of the 100 versions of it).  If you like this Rose Noire song, I dare you to go listen to some of their more experimental work.

Song of the Day 08/11/12: Radiohead – Optimistic

I’ve been a fan of Radiohead for a long time.  However, I’d be the first to admit I’m a surface fan.  While I love all their albums and I have my favorite songs, on the whole it’s hard for me to hear one of their songs and know it by name.  I also couldn’t tell you what almost all of their songs are about (I know what Creep is about!  lol).  I’ve been saying it’s only a matter of time and energy between me being a fan and me being an obsessive fan of theirs.  Recently, I’ve been slowly listening through their albums again and I’m trying to make a point to differentiate and understand more of their music.

That being said, this post isn’t going to talk about that.  Hahaha!

I’m actually just here to say that it has come to my attention that “Optimistic” is my favorite track on Kid A and I am loving it!  Those chugging guitars and vocals that hang over the track.  One funny thing, and true Radiohead fans will probably be like “You have no idea what you’re talking about Isaiah!”, but I realized that there’s a strange connection between “Optimistic” and my favorite song off of Amnesiac, “The Pyramid Song.”  They are almost identical in what they offer, except at a different pace.  “Optimistic” is a fast version of “The Pyramid Song” or “the Pyramid Song is a slow version of “Optimistic”.  They just have the same kind of build, singing style, and repetitive beat that I seem to love most about Radiohead.  They even both have the “oooh ooooh” parts.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Who knows?  I guess it says a lot about my favorite things in a Radiohead tune.

Song of the Day 07/18/12: Crystal Castles – Baptism

One of the most common musical requests I get, is music to blast from car stereos in the summer that isn’t the latest pop song.  If you’re looking for something outside the box, definitely check out Crystal Castles.  The best description of their music in one word is: LOUD.  Alice Glass loves to scream/sing inaudibly.  My favorite section is when it finally builds at about 3:20 seconds.  There are 30 seconds of pure dance music bliss there.  I also love the main beeping theme, because I always picture Ethan Kath using only one finger to tap a button to play that part.  I’m warning you, Crystal Castles can become extremely addictive and in some cases ruin other forms of music for you.  It comes from a series of bands that I claim responsible for my development of robot ears that need to hear certain strange beeps and bloops, and metal grinding noises in music in order to appreciate it.

Song of the Day 11/19/10 Part 2: The Bug – Poison Dart

Part 2:

The second song is the truly different track.  The Bug is one of the many aliases of London based artist, Kevin Martin.  I know you probably haven’t heard of him either.  Neither have I really, but London Zoo is an album that is so hard to categorize or pin down, that almost every reviewer is forced to give it a good review.  It’s completely different and so incomparable to other work that it’s hard to say bad things about it, beyond “this is really annoying.”  One track off the album can’t really give you an idea of the whole album, considering the variety, but “Poison Darts” happens to be my favorite track.  If you play this somewhere and someone else recognizes it, then that person must listen to lots of music!   Anyways, like I stated at the beginning, these aren’t the kind of tracks you wanna listen to every minute, but they do work well when you want to be different or expand the musical horizons of a collection of people, while also showing off your own musical knowledge (and yes I know that admitting this makes me a sad sad human being, but still, you have to be honest, it feels good playing something no one else has heard of).  Oh, and if someone says The Bug isn’t good, that’s ok too since music is so subjective.  But you can drop the fact that it’s in the top 5 critically rated albums of 2009 on metacritic (though again, that’s owed to the fact that it’s hard to review the album).  Also, enjoy both videos, and know that the Bjork one is fan made, and won a contest.

Song of the Day 11/19/10 Part 1: Bjork – Innocence

Sorry I could not get this up last night, but on the brightside, it’s another double friday!  Plus, I’ll be putting up Saturday’s song of the day.

Today picks are a little special.  They aren’t every day listens.  One thing about expanding musical horizons and being a good music collector, is you have to have some things that are really obscure and that make people say “Interesting” or “bizarre,” rather than “oooh, i love this song!”  It’s also fun to be that person who plays the song that literally no one else has heard.  Even better when they haven’t even heard of the band.  The first track is by Bjork.  “Thats not obscure”, you say, “everyone knows Bjork, she wore that swan outfit.”  But ask someone to sing one of her tracks and one of two things will happen… They’ll give you a blank stare, or they’ll actually attempt it and you’ll have to politely ask them to stop.   Let’s face it, 99% of the time Bjork’s music only sounds good when she performs it, not when you do.  What I’m trying to say is, play almost any Bjork track that isn’t commonly known (as in basically all of them) and people will be forced to think.  I recommend “Innocent” because it’s off of her Volta album, which I happen to favor due to the electronic nature of the beats.  Oh, and both of today’s songs are totally car tracks too, cause they have nice bass.