(ALBUM REVIEW!) Some Nights :: FUN.

Long time no post!

Over the last 2 weeks, I have been listening to FUN's album Some Nights. If you haven't, I recommend you get on Spotify or Youtube and check them out!

The song that is most popular on the radio (I shit you not, I literally heard it 6 times in a 3 hour time span on 2 different radio stations, during my indoor softball games, and from random people passing by humming the tune) is their single We Are Young featuring Janelle Monáe.

However, I highly recommend taking 50 minutes out of your day and listening to the whole album from start to finish.

Many artists have a style that they stick to...a sound that is uniquely theirs and hard to break away from. This isn't that big of a deal because if you like their sound, you stick with them.

But what sets FUN. apart from other bands is the fact that their sound is still uniquely theirs and each song is so uniquely different. This is not something that many artists can do. It's hard. It's complicated. But it is also super freaking amazing. It's almost as if Queen's Freddie Mercury has been reincarnated and reinvented.

Anyway, enough reading. Get to listening!

London Town - Simon Lynge

I'm very proud to share a zip code with this guy. Simon Lynge lives in Port Townsend, WA with his wife and son, and he's a world touring musician who (among other things) toured with Emmylou Harris last year. He's originally from Greenland and went to school for music in Europe - got huge as a singer-songwriter somewhere in there and moved to PT after falling in love with the Pacific Northwest.

I've wondered for a while about spreading original music effectively in the modern world while at the same time cultivating a sane-making, soul nourishing home and community life. Simon Lynge has been a great example to me of how much of that is possible. Both he and his wife are working artists and between Simon having an LA-based agent, holding delicious intimate concerts at the beautiful backwoods homes of supportive fans around the Quimper Peninsula, and frequenting the Uptown Pub open mikes to keep his chops up, he seems to make it work. He's an incredibly grounded guy and really gracious and sweet to talk to and play with.

Besides his example as a working musician, he's also a BOSS songwriter with refreshingly solid mastery of his voice and guitar. That and he's gonna come up with the next "Imagine" one of these days for how simple and true his songs can be.
Like this one!

I love listening to him. I love seeing him and his lady and his son around town. I hope to play with him more. And I hope he keeps writing!

For more info check out his website: http://www.simonlyngemusic.com/

Rolling in the Deep :: Adele

I love this song. I cannot adequately express how much I love Adele's music in general. I was hooked on her first album, 19, when it came out a few years back and I am just as impressed by her most recent album, 21.

Adele's voice is just incredible. I know some people have compared her to Amy Winehouse and found her lacking, but I don't think this is the case at all.

I should get back to work so I'll keep this brief. Check it out, Rolling in the Deep.

Red Cave :: Yeasayer

So apparently there's this band Yeasayer and I thought I wasn't super into their music so I didn't really pay much attention to their stuff.

Then I go to an LVC event and one of the houses sings an acapella version of Red Cave and I am hooked. The song is in my head for days, and I can't figure out where the song came from. Is it an old folk tune? Is it from some communist song book? Then I finally hit on the right combination of search words and find out that it's by Yeasayer off their old album "All Hour Cymbals," how embarrassing for me!

Regardless, it's an excellent song. The song is structured in a round, and there's something almost primal about It reminds me of singing with your head thrown back at the top of your lungs under a starry night sky on a crisp fall night around a fire with your nearest and dearest. For you listening pleasure I've included links to both a live version of the song and the actual recording. I was tempted to provide you with multiple versions of the song live, but then I remembered that I am not the only one who can use youtube, and you might not be as hooked on the song as I am.





Lyrics

I went out past the willow and the well
caught my breath upon the hill
at the edge of the domain

and I went down
and further down
and when I got up,
I'm at the red cave

and with that sound
as if I had been put under a spell
she led me to her whirlpool
warm despite a winter's day

Mary's house in the hollow of the
white hazel rapid whirlpool
and the church of the red cave

I'm so blessed to
have spent that time
with my family and the friends
I love with my short life i have met
so many people I deeply care for

I'm so blessed to
have spent that time
with my family and the friends
I love with my short life I have met
so many people I deeply care for

The Ooks of Hazard :: Kids (MGMT Cover)

I really enjoy this group! One of my students sent me a link to see the video, and then it was passed on again to me by a fellow staff member. There's something pretty magical about a bunch of older folks covering MGMT's popular hit, "Kids" ON UKULELES!

Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy this song and hopefully this group will put out some more fabulous covers and originals :) Until then, I'll keep listening to this one.

Bitches Ain't Shit :: Dr. Dre (Adapted by Bacchantae)

It's not often that I can listen to rap music that is highly misogynist and get a laugh out of it, but the women over at Columbia University that form the A Capella group Bacchantae have gotten quite the chuckle out of me this morning.

I happened upon this post over at Sociological Images this morning and felt it appropriate to return to the blogosphere with this share.

This group managed to take a song so violent towards women and put a mirror up in the face of misogyny. They make a mockery of the objectification of women and perhaps the more people who listen to this genre of music can find a way to listen to something that doesn't support being a jerk - to put it nicely...

I hope they get just as many views on YouTube as Lady Gaga got for "Bad Romance"!

Enjoy :)

Shape Up :: Total Babe

Shape Up by Total Babe

Well hey there world. We've all been sadly remiss in our blogging. I figure life happens, people get busy, blogging drops by the wayside. However, the time is ripe for our grand return to the blogosphere. Who knows, maybe we'll even venture out into the twitterverse.

Today I bring you the tune "Shape Up" by local Minneapolis band Total Babe. These folks played at the Twin Cities Avengers Glamboree fundraiser back in the early spring and totally stole the show. Since then, they've been busy getting rave reviews in all sorts of places, from the City Pages to Bust magazine. If you happen to be in the Twin Cities, they'll be playing at First Ave with Jeremy Messersmith and Chastity Brown coming up on September 18th at 6pm.

"Shape Up" has an amazingly catchy hook, but as a deficient whistler I'm impressed by anyone that can whistle a tune. Listen for the perfectly complimentary violin arrangement, a common thread through all of Total Babe's music. For more metaphorically minded musical descriptions, scroll on down through the Total Babe myspace page and read all those rave reviews.

Life is Good Blues - Laura Viers

I've heard her name dropping all around me lately, and in the last 24 hours I've fallen head over heals into her music and can't seem to find my way out. This is the first I've seen what she looks like. It has been hard to imagine the face of someone who is thinking and composing the way she is.

This one is killing me I'm learning to play it before it succeeds.

Jailer :: Asa

I'm rather surprised at how awesome some of the music is at Starbucks. Every once in a while, I catch myself jamming out to their playlist. And then the barista fucks up my shit when they ask for my order--"welcome to Starbucks, how can I help you today?" I mean, you can help me by letting me finish out my last step ball change, for real...

But in seriousness, I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when Starbucks gave me Asa's "Jailer" as a promotional gift (yay recession!) The song has a really good political message, but it doesn't make me want to sob in the way that Tracy Chapman does.

Check out her live performance below or the offical music video:



Lyrics:
Am in chains you’re in chains too I wear uniforms, you wear uniforms too Am a prisoner, you’re a prisoner too Mr Jailer

I have fears you have fear too I will die, you sef go die too Life is beautiful don’t you think so too Mr Jailer

Am talking to you jailer Stop calling me a prisoner Let he who is without sin- Be the first to cast the stone Mr Jailer

You suppress all my strategy You oppress every part of me What you don’t know, you’re a victim too Mr Jailer

You don’t care about my point of view If I die another will work for you So you threat me like a modern slave Mr Jailer

You don’t care about my point of view If I die another will work for you So you threat me like a modern slave Mr Jailer

If you walking in a market place Don’t throw stones Even if you do you just might hit One of your own Life is not about your policies All the time So you better rearrange your Philosophies and be good to your fellow man jailer

I hear my baby say I wan be president I wan chop money From my government What he don’t know Be say Mr Jailer

Don't Know Why (You Stay) :: Essex Green

Essex Green is an indie-pop band based in Vermont. This song, "Don't Know Why (You Stay)" played on Pandora and caught my ear.

It's got catchy lyrics, some rhythmic syncopation, and I love the subtle harmony on the chorus. Happy Wednesday!

Jonté :: Bitch You Betta

AND GENDERFUCKING?

A friend sent me this song, and I immediately knew I had to blog about it. He needs no introduction, however. You know Jonté through his choreography in Beyonce's Freakum Dress.

The only accurate description I can give Jonté is fierce. There's all sorts of gender-transgressive work being done here in both dance and dress. His HX magazine interview in late March 09 described him and his choreography as unapologetically fem. Nigel Lythgoe, famed for his homophobic, transphobic, and sexist comments as a judge on So You Think You Can Dance, would explode if he ever saw Jonté's artistry.

Now after watching the music video 28 times, I realize there's nothing particularly spectacular about the song, or his vocal skills. Full disclosure: I haven't heard his other songs, but the excerpt of Candy Sweets on his Myspace page sounds promising.

What I love about it is the shameless genderfucking throughout the video. The only time he presents as male is in the 16 seconds at 1:00 through 1:16. That clip shows male dancers, wearing "dude clothes," moving in what is traditionally recognized as masculine dance. But even those precious 16 seconds is queered in the way he says:

back up cuz i'm black and i'll give your ass an attack bitch, you try and come on crack your face can make you look wack cuz you really up to that i am really cute in that i am in high heels you're in flats

I mean, yes, he really did just say, "I'm in high heels, you're in flats." And come on, he's in bright blue skinny jeans! My favorite example of his gender-transgressions is at 1:56, where he's donned a pink, nearly bottomless, 1-piece, thing (I don't even know how to describe it!), doing the infamous Beyonce booty-bounce, talking about how he's going to "make your pussy pop." At 1:56, he has two women in flower-print bathing suits drumming on Jonté's crotch, heralding an orgasmic (CGI) explosion.

What's interesting is that Jonte has appropriated this hyperbolically feminine gender expression, which is no barrier to his song and dance servicing the sexual needs of his female partners. To me, it reads as a clever critique of representations of girl-on-girl love. That despite the theatrics, costumes, and the flying cats, the final thing the clip cuts to is the orgasmic CGI explosion--marking sex as the focal point for your attention, not the caricatures of femininity and lesbian sexuality.

To some degree, however, I have to also believe that not all is queered. Jonté, in fact, protects part of his hetero or homo normative identity at 1:00 - 1:16 by presenting (in both dance and dress) masculinely. When he says, "back up cuz i'm black, and i'll give your ass an attack." I mean, butt sex? or is it vagina sex? With a nebulous audience, Jonté can enjoy an unidentifiable sexual identity, which demonstrates the limits to which he participates as a genderfucker. Secondly, his appropriation of feminine gender expressions can be read as an affront to female identities. But more importantly, in the pussy-pop clip, Jonté is still a male bodied individual providing sexual pleasure (i.e., "i'm gon' make yo pussy tickle") as opposed to approaching sex as a mutual experience.

And I've not even thought about how "bitch" is used in the song, or how Jonté is racialized in the video. Nonetheless, the song is fun even past its layers.

Caroline Smith and The Good Night Sleeps :: Closing the Doors

Caroline Smith and The Good Night Sleeps :: Closing the Doors

For those of you who enjoy good female vocal leads and instrumentals that make you wanna dance with someone, this is your group. I have been hearing Caroline Smith and The Good Night Sleeps on 89.3 The Current for quite sometime now, but I always confused them with the musical stylings of Ingrid Michaelson. However, this morning, I was paying attention and learned the real name of the group who has been signing a song I can't get out of my head as of late. I also learned that they're based in Minneapolis - which means I am so going to see them when they're next in town :)

Thus begins our summer music circuit. I hope you all enjoy this new group as much as I do!

Happy Thursday!
The end.
Love,
Meggo

The Major Lift :: Years

"The Major Lift" is purely instrumental track that just reeks of optimism. This song had me from the first brass fanfare. I'm a french horn player on a year long sabbatical, so I'm a complete sucker for a great brass line.

"Years" is a project by Ohad Benchetrit of Broken Social Scene and Do Make Say Think. I'm not sure the best way to describe the music. Words like orchestral-avant-indie-rock come to mind.

Here's "The Major Lift," the next embedded player down has all the tracks of the self-titled album "Years" in it.

Enjoy!!

The Major Lift - Years

Years

Animal Collective :: My Girls

Animal Collective :: My Girls

This isn't the first time we've blogged about Animal Collective, but it's been a while, so hopefully you'll enjoy this particular jam. I have heard this song a couple of times now on The Current, 89.3 and today it has brought me out of my blogging hiatus. This song is really great for a variety of reasons, which I will list now!

1. It is incredibly simple - from the repetitive lyrics (which only have 3 versus), to the uncomplicated melody, to the basic background beat, to the texturing of the background keyboards.

2. This video is weird and that is why I enjoy it, plain and simple :)

3. The genre of music they create has been labeled as "freak folk" and "noise pop".

4. Instead of saying "wife" or "husband", they say "spouse" and I like that. It also rhymes with "house", which is probably why they used it...or is it???

So, please enjoy this song - and add it to your list of summer jams '09!

The end.
Love,
Meggo
---

---

Animal Collective :: My Girls

Is it much to admit I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by my spouse
I only want a proper house

I don't care for fancy things
Or to take part in a precious race
And children cry for the one who has
A real big heart and a father's grace

I don't mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

Pretty Wings :: Maxwell

It's true, I'm a recent Maxwell convert, thanks in no small part to my dear colleague and friend, Paula-Raye. My god, this man just has the sweetest voice.

After an 8 year break, Maxwell dropped "Pretty Wings" in late April 2009 in preparation for his July 4th album release: BLACKsummer'snight (pre-Order here).

The song "sings"--if you will--for itself, telling the story of the purest form of innocent love in spite of life's reality. It's refreshing against today's pop, auto-tuned contrivances a la T-Pain. And even more so, the lyrics carry a narrative in the way only a neo-soul artist can tell. Maxwell reminds me of the time when talent mattered. Not to mention the fact that the music video was so well-done.

The man has me hooked. Hope you enjoy it!



Lyrics:
Time will bring the real end of our trial
One day there'll be no remnants
No trace no residual feelings within ya
one day you won't remember me

Your face will be the reason I smile
But I will not see what I can not have forever
I'll always love ya I hope u feel the same

Oh you played me dirty your game was so bad
You toyed with my affliction had to fill out my prescription
Found the remedy I had to set u free

Away from me
To see clearly the way that love can be
When you are not with me
I had to leave, I have to live
I had to lead, I had to live

Chorus
If I cant have you let love set you free
To fly your pretty wings around
pretty wings your pretty wings
your pretty wings your pretty wings around

I came wrong You were right
Transformed your love into a lie
Baby believe me I'm sorry I told you lies
I turned day into night
Sleepless, I died a thousand times
I should've chose you
Better nights Better times Better Days
I miss you more and more

Repeat Chorus

Pretty Wings Pretty Wings
Pretty Wings Pretty Wings
Pretty Wings Pretty Wings
Pretty Wings Pretty Wings

For the Taste :: Black Blondie

Black Blondie is a local Minneapolis band that plays alternative/experimental/R&B music (that's a self-description off of myspace, folks).

Highlights:
Lead singer Samahra's amazing vocals, snarly lyrics and riot grrl attitude.
Drummer Kahlil Brewington's extremely effortless sounding rhythms that subtly push the songs forward, completely setting the tone of the songs blending perfectly with bassist Liz Draper and Tasha Baron's sexy keyboard/organ/synth parts she creates without using samples.
The songs meander through genres, sometimes reminiscent of 60s motown, then shifting into 80s synth pop, sliding into eerie gritty ambient R&B.

Okay. I'm done exploring pitchfork-y descriptions of music.

I think Black Blondie are awesome, and you should check out their new CD "Do You Remember Who You Want to Be?" OR if you are free and able to get over to the Electric Fetus, they are playing live at the Electric Fetus tonight, May 14th at 6:30pm. You can also catch them next weekend at the Memory Lanes Block Party, right by Pi (rest in peace).

Black Blondie

Sabali :: Amadou & Mariam

Ooh, so I'm a naughty music blogger.  I've been all caught up lately in my other blogging project, Affairs of Living.  Since food is only slightly more vital to life than music, that blog has been taking priority lately.  

But I'm back!  And I will try to write more often!  Hell, I'll try to write at all.  I don't think I've posted since sometime late last year... yikes.

Okay, there's a lot of great stuff out there right now.  The Decemberists, Beirut, White Rabbits, Grizzly Bear, Hot Chip, Andrew Bird, P.O.S., Camera Obscura, The Bird and the Bee, oh my where to begin, and that's just a start. 

I'm going to choose something just slightly less expected, and go for a song from the latest album from Amadou & Mariam, the legendary husband and wife duo from Mali.
Fellow blogger Aimée introduced me to Amadou & Mariam last year; she sent me back from Decorah with a burned copy of their 2005 album Dimanche à Bamako for the ride home.  I fell in love and listened to it oh-so-often.
Then not long after, I started hearing tracks from their latest album, Welcome to Mali, and it was just released in March.  While I really dig the whole album, I'm highlighting the first track, "Sabali".  It is so beautiful.   I love the way the way it builds, the sparkling electronic beats with the light, shimmery vocals, leading into the crazy arpeggios and trancy vocals.  Watch the video, Mariam so beautiful, and get lost in the sound.  

 I hope you enjoyed!  

Feeling Good :: Nina Simone

Amazing!

Birds
flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin on by you know how I feel

(refrain:)
Its a new dawn
Its a new day
Its a new life
For me
And Im feeling good

Fish in the sea you know how I feel
River running free you know how I feel
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel

(refrain)

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, dont you know
Butterflies all havin fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when day is done
Thats what I mean

And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me

Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the pine you know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel

Road to Nowhere :: David Byrne

David Byrne is simply amazing. This is a live version of an old Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere."

Do Me Wrong :: Roll Deep feat. Janee

I'm not one to look into the cultural histories of music. If a song has an interesting beat, or intriguing lyrics, then I'm in--which is why this song caught my attention. It's electronic backdrop mixed in with hip-hop/rap vocals was hot, but it also made me wonder. It turns out that Roll Deep is the poster child of what seems like the latest evolution in music: grime.

Grime is a UK based form of music that grew out of house and trance. Like house and trance, grime relies on electronic sounds, and synths. Unlike house an trance, however, grime has a lower and slower bass line and is popularly produced by London's hip-hop and rap scene.

Now what's striking is the re-appropriation of culture happening here. Kenyon Farrow writes that house music originated in underground scenes of urban black Americans in the '70's. But through the 90's, Russell Simmons, and the other godfathers of modern day hip-hop stripped house of the soul that it was so characterized with, and replaced that with the now popular sounds of rap: intensified beats, bass, and rhymes. That sound was picked up in Europe, which was then restripped and refitted with a crooning female vocalist, and electronic beats and synths, which is what we hear in today's U.S. gay clubs--a space often less visited by our black gay brothers and sisters.



Grime appears to be yet another fold within this history of music. Black rap and hip-hop artists seem to be reclaiming house music to create yet another vein of artistic innovation. Even more interesting is the way this sort of cross-pollination of culture and ideas has spanned across so many identities: from poor urban African Americans, to middle class gay white men, to Western Europeans--identities that have not always socially or politically aligned with each other. It's just so interesting that we can find pleasure in the luxury of music across groups of different people--people who often times hate each other. Well, I suppose that's a different post.

Anyway. I hope you enjoy the song!