Rob Thomas : Give Me the Meltdown Video

TMI is on a video roll lately. Check out Rob Thomas's new video for "Give Me the Meltdown," one of the few half way inspired tunes on this summer's Cradlesong. It looks deceptively like Youtube fan crap, but that's kind of the point. The effort is amusing to an extent, but the video detracts from the song. You get so focused on the crazy people in the "footage" that "Meltdown" is reduced to mildly relevant background music. Take look anyway.

Vampire Weekend : Cousins Video

Vampire Weekend released the video for their latest single, "Cousins," from their upcoming sophomore release, Contra. The feel of both the video and the song are definitely in the vein of "A-Punk," but I suppose that's forgivable. "Horchata" was pretty good. Really, with a band like Vampire Weekend, there's only so far they're ever going to stretch. We accept that and keep listening.

Look for Contra in the new year.

Years Go By and I Still I Think of Random Car Commcericals

Early this decade, there was a commercial that showed a car full of twenty-somethings cruising around some city at night, grooving along to a really infectious, pulsating song. I thought it was cool. It felt young.

This morning, I was listening to NPR's All Songs Considered podcast. This particular episode centered around defining the decade and one of the contributors mentioned a song that really grabbed him in 2002, mainly because of its video. They played a clip and I had a 'holy crap, it's that song!' moment.

So, here's "Days Go By" by Dirty Vegas. I don't know anything about the band. I barely even remembered the song, let alone knew the title. Random, right?. Check it out.

Click me!

Also, here's the commercial I was talking about. Not as cool as I remember. Pretty sure my folks thought it was really annoying. Anyway, enjoy.

Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa Video

Rolling Stone brings us the premiere of Bob Dylan's latest, "Must be Santa"(plus non embeddable video) from his new Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart.

I am fairly certain that if Santa actually showed up at this chaotic Christmas house party, he'd either get gang mugged or wind up too drunk to finish making his deliveries. Also, the relationship between Bob Dylan's age and level of creepiness on a graph looks like this.

And why, yes. That is an exponential growth rate. Thanks for noticing.

Beatles on a Stick

Looking for a Christmas gift for your favorite Minimalist/Beatles fan? EMI is releasing the entire re-mastered, 14-album Beatles collection in stereo on-- get this, on a flash drive this coming Dec. 8th. Yes. A flash drive. An Apple-shaped flash drive, to be exact.

Can this possibly be the same thing? Granted this is about as close to digital as EMI is going to allow the Beatles catalogue to get any time soon, but seriously, a flash drive? This feels wrong.

Obviously I still advocate the tangible album, be it cd or vinyl, but this is way beyond that. Album art in itself was integral to the outward signs of the band's growth. Meet the Beatles was miles away from the Revolver cover, and that's part of the experience of the band as a whole-- it's the progression. Digital tracks exist in a vacuum, I don't care how iTunes is starting to package digital liner notes. The Beatles on a flash drive are The Beatles without context.

Fortunately, only 30,000 flash drives will be made, so it will probably only be the die-hard Beatles fans who spring on it, but I don't think it bodes well.

I cringe to think that some 12-year-old kid's first experience with The Beatles would be getting handed a flash drive with everything already on it. No context, no collecting-- it's too easy. The rest of us had to wait for holidays and birthdays to get new albums. Or, if you're old enough, you had to wait for the band to release something new.

Is it not sweeter that way?

Birds and Whales, Plus Assorted Misc.

I took this at Grimey's New and Pre-Loved Music back in June.

First up, last Saturday Andrew Bird and St. Vincent played at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville-- I decided no to do a full blog post about it because that would have required me making notes and such through the concert, and it was all too perfect to do anything else but melt into the seat. I was dead center, only a few rows back from the stage. 'Nuff said. It was an experience.


Speaking of Andrew Bird, while on a short car trip last Friday, my friend played for me a band called Noah and the Whale. Noah and the Whale hails from the UK and has a lot in common with The National, sound-wise. Throw in more Andrew Bird-like instrumentation and you've got a pretty good picture. From the first song, "The First Days of Spring," to the epically orchestral "Love of an Orchestra," they had me. Their debut album, which came out Oct. 6th, is also called The First Days of Spring. It's lovely, layered orch pop, for lack of a better term. Like The National, Noah and the Whale has a certain entrancing quality and swells and flows like the music. Truly, it took a few bars before I thought to myself, "I have to have this."

Give it a listen, the album comes courtesy of my Googling skills and NPR.


Finally, in case you hadn't heard, Ben Gibbard is involved in a project to put words from Jack Kerouac's Big Sur to music. He partnered with Sun Volt's Jay Farrar to create One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur, a 12-song album set for release on October 20th. For more, you can click here for NPR's All Songs Considered blog write up. The entire album is also being streamed by NPR up to the release date. I'm listening as I type, in fact.

Flight of the Conchords's I Told You I was Freaky also comes out on the 20th, so budget yourself accordingly.

Cheers.

Vampire Weekend : Horchata

As Vampire Weekend's new album, Contra nears its release date, we bring you their first single, courtesy of Drowned in Sound, one of my fav British music websites.

"Horchata" is exotic, syncopated goodness. This bodes well-- not a watery continuation or a divorce from their signature sound. Take a listen.



You can catch Contra January 12th.