Let me take a minute and introduce you to a new addition to The World Forgot. His name is Josh and he will be contributing occasionally by posting odds and ends. If you look below this post you’ll see his review of the OK Go concert which he attended this past weekend. I thoroughly encourage you to check it out. He’s a good kid and he’s pretty much awesome. Now, on with the show.
This week we were put back into the melodrama that is the Upper East Side’s prep school for life. Well as long as your life consists of trust funds, Ivy League schools, and love triangles. Fortunately the music included in this episode was the best of the series. Well maybe the second best seeing as how the premier used over twenty two tracks. Enjoy the tunes, especially these songs by Beck, Mika, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
mp3 : Beck - Timebomb
mp3 : Mika - Happy Ending
mp3 : The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Kiss Kiss
mp3 : Nekta - Guess Who
Other music in the sixth episode included tracks by 5 Alarm, Sofi J, Becca Styles, and Miss Eighty 6. And again I reiterate that the tracks up above by Beck, Mika, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are all solid.
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I saw OK GO play the other night at Butler and it was completely worth it.
Using a friends student discount, the night only cost 9.00.
They had a screen set up behind them which they utilized amazingly. Every song either had a guy in the wallpaper costume dancing behind them, things blowing up in reverse (these two were not the music videos. It was almost like they took a scene of a music video and instead played that one scene the whole time), or just some stop motion mannequins changing clothes. Every third song or so they would then switch to the cameras that they had mounted on all their equipment around the stage. All in all, I can’t think of a better way to use a screen behind the band.
They played almost all of of the songs off of Oh No and, in the middle of the performance, grabbed acoustic guitars and a small bell set and moved to the small stage, in front of the main stage. They told us that they wanted to play the whole concert there but pointed out that none of the lights were set up for that stage. So they invited the crowd to join them and handed out flash lights to the audience so they could play an amazing, acoustic version of A Million Ways. That song alone would be worth the 9.00 ticket.
Quick overview of awesome: Damian climbed up to the first balcony on the metal bars used to mount lights on the side of the stage and bent it when he jumped off. He also ran threw about 15 rows, standing on the arm rests. The show was really high energy and amazingly fun. If you have the option to go see them in concert, it is highly recommended by me. The band also had 2 choreographed jumps, where they all jumped at the moment the music stopped and landed at the same time to begin playing again. It was beautiful.
I wish that I had recorded them playing A Million Ways acoustic, but alass, I didn’t. So I’ll leave you with the album version, which is still very good and may be my favorite Ok Go song.
mp3 : Ok Go - A Million Ways
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Alright, so I have about three minutes to post this music before I burn the house down with whatever has just begun to smoke in the oven. It’s probably apple pies. Some quick thoughts. The new EP by The Fray isn’t really new at all. It’s just a new release of an EP they put together back in 1993 or so. Don’t be fooled by clever marketing. Also, Oreos are amazing but the resealable package does nothing for me. It’s not even close to an airtight seal and, thusly, my Oreos get stale. At least I’ll always have Ziploc bags that fit around a bag of Oreos.
Speaking of the Fray, these guys are really good. I love their music. And I wish I could say the same about this music used in Gossip Girl. The OC, Scrubs, even Lost have all used killer soundtracks much to their advantage during episodes. I feel like Gossip Girl is reaching for something which always feels trite, contrived, and simply bad. Yes, bad, that’s what I think. Many of the artists featured on their weekly episodes are simply bad. Luckily on this week they had the brilliant idea to include Ozzy Osbourne, who I believe they were making fun of, and The Little Ones who actually turned out to have a decent sound.
Enjoy the tunes, keep reading, and if you so desire keep watching Gossip Girl on The CW.
mp3 : Kat Deluna (feat Elephant Man and Ivy Queen) - Whine Up (Spanish Version)
mp3 : Ozzy Osbourne - Mama, I’m Coming Home
mp3 : Prima J - Rock Star
mp3 : The Little Ones - Pot a Brewin (Radioclit Mix)
Other music in this episode included tracks by Cadence Blaze, Two Hours Traffic, All Wrong and the Plans Change, and Zooland. Good luck finding anything by them. I tried and came up empty handed.
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I like this band a lot. I think they have a completely unique style of crafting music that is at once precocious and a true aural delight. And I find it odd that these qualities exist in a band created by Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade. You see, I view Wolf Parade as basic Modest Mouse rip off artists without much real interest to their music, lyrics, or style and yet from this band musical goodies flourish.
On this latest effort the music is intriguing and diverse. There seem to be layers upon layers that can only truly be appreciated after repeat listening. And understand, I try to digest all of my new music aqcuistions in this manner, but it’s not always this fun to put a new album on repeat for a couple of hours. Anyway, the album is called Random Spirit Lover (iTunes), and is a worth follow up to the previous effort, Shut Up I Am Dreaming (iTunes). Check it out and enjoy the song below, it’s track three off of the new album. And yes, this really is the title of the song and not a Sufjan Stevens contest for longest song title of the decade.
mp3 : Sunset Rubdown - Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days
Honestly, it just sounds like they’re having fun. Which I’ve heard can be hard to do if you call Canada home. (Oh, I said it!)
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It seems as if a lot of my posts lately have focused around new albums. And that might be true due to the fact that there has been so many quality releases lately. Following their breakout, critically lauded full length, Everything All The Time (iTunes), their second album with label Sub Pop is equal parts anthemic rock mixed with the salt of a maturation process born of the stardom which accompanied their dramatic rise in pop culture.
To be blunt the new album, Cease to Begin (iTunes), is solid music from start to finish and is a must have for any music fan who appreciates good music. Lyrically I’ve not yet decided if it’s better than their previous effort, but I think that has to do in large part to the fact that I can’t honestly say what they’re singing about. And that’s alright with me as I tend to listen to a lot of Band of Horses songs with the interpretation that the voice is yet another instrument and not playing the part of a narrator. Included here below are my two favorite tracks on the new album. I think they exemplify the qualities I love in Band of Horses and if it’s your first listen to the band this is a good of a starting place as any.
mp3 : Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost
mp3 : Band of Horses - Island on the Coast
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He has a new album up on iTunes, also available on cdbaby, and I would say this is one album that is a must download for anyone who appreciates solid music. He’s a touch piano man, a touch new folk revival, and a ton of heartfelt lyrics wrapped up into one performer. In the past he was headlining with a band called The Ramparts before he moved to New York to get serious about his career. And from the reviews I’ve heard from personal friends in the NYC area his shows are personable and amazing.
If you’re a skeptic you can head over to his myspace page and listen to some of the tracks that you’ll find on the download ready album. Honestly, his music speaks much louder than my reviews ever could. Please make sure to listen to the stand out tracks Got No Place and Hospital. It’s the type of music you can get lost in. And if you want a little more substantial offering either open iTunes or download the tracks here below. And maybe, just maybe, if you ask nicely I’ll do a few more posts about Zach here and put up the loads of tracks I’ve culled from various web locations.
mp3 : Zach Williams - Across the Bridge (Live at Rockwood)
mp3 : Zach Williams - Fears (Live at Rockwood)
Trust me on this artist, you will not be disappointed. He is easily in my top five best artists of 2007 and that is a not something I would say lightly.
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Norah has the looks of the girl next door and the voice of a multi Grammy winning artist. She’s cute and talented, a daring dynamic that is often overlooked in today’s pop culture driven ear torture. Granted the next greatest pop or hip hop star from Barbados might look nice but it’s more than likely that they will possess the same talent as a bag of drowning kittens. [Not that I would ever condone or encourage harming kittens in any way shape or form].
But her good looks meets great vocals aside Norah Jones is something special. The other night I found myself watching a little public television. And on my local PBS was a Ken Burns miniseries simply titled The War. The miniseries is brilliant and I highly recommend watching it. Not only is it filled with amazing, and true, stories from World War II, but Mr. Burns has filled each episode with a brilliant selection of music. You can’t go wrong when you have Count Basie, Les Paul, Wynton Marsalis, and Duke Elllington on on album. Honestly, click here and check out the entire track listing, it is rather impressive.
Anyway, at the end of the episode who else but Norah Jones and her trademark smoky vocals to ease us from drama to the eventual fade to black. The song she sings here is called American Anthem and is not a Norah original. But she owns it. And in the spirit of covering an artist with more depth than simple single mp3 link I thought it would be great to include another cover that Ms. Jones has done. The other included track here is a cover of an Arcade Fire song. If you listen carefully to the track you’ll hear that whoever attends Norah Jones concerts really has no idea who Arcade Fire is, which I thought was ridiculous on first blush, but in hindsight seems to make a lot of sense. They aren’t exactly targeting the same audience. Or are they?
mp3 : Norah Jones - American Anthem
mp3 : Norah Jones - Ocean of Noise (Arcade Fire Cover)
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It’s official, Stax are way better than Pringles. Way better. I don’t even know why I would ever buy Pringles ever again. Stax are just that good.
Another thing that is just that good is the new Dashboard album titled The Shade of Poison Trees. Finally Mr. Carrabas went back to what we loved him for in the beginning. Largely acoustic tracks with a lot of pathos, ethos, and angst[os] in the lyrics. If you feel as if this formula has run its course then you need to take a second and listen through this album. Granted it’s not breaking new ground or floating at the top of any blogger’s Best of ‘07 list, but it is a solid album from start to finish and it shows a nice maturity in the Dashboard Sound. And for those of you not familiar with this trademarked sound [think everything tuned down to flats with a lot of D's thrown in for fun] this album is the perfect starter kit for a fun Dashboard education.
new songs
mp3 : Dashboard Confessional - Keep Watch for the Mines
mp3 : Dashboard Confessional - Where There’s Gold
old songs
mp3 : Dashboard Confessional - The Only Gift That I Need
mp3 : Dashboard Confessional - Tonight I’ll Take What I Can Get (Acoustic)
mp3 : Dashboard Confessional - Tonight I’ll Take What I Can Get
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The Weakerthans once sang “Late afternoon another day is nearly done. A darker gray is breaking through a lighter one.” And that’s what’s happening outside of my humble abode as I sit here to put some songs on the internet for you all to enjoy. But there’s a problem, I don’t really like these songs. If the songs used on Gossip Girl were one tenth as clever and deep as anything by The Weakerthans I wouldn’t struggle with the idea of putting them on my blog. But they’re not. They’re usually fairly run-of-the-mill vanilla hip hop or bad pop music. All disclaimers aside I shall persevere.
It must be hard to be on television. Or maybe she’s crying because their show is on the CW instead of any of the big networks. Oh well, get over it. Actually, the inside scoop is that Blair became emotional when she saw the latest episode and realized that only one good music track was used throughout the entire production. And that track is Moon River by Henry Mancini. For some reason this song always makes me cry. Or at least it makes me want to cry. Ever since it was used in the widely underrated movie Elizabethtown it has always brought back to me the feelings of when I lost my father. There really isn’t another song in this episode worth having on your computer. But feel free to listen to them if you’d like.
mp3 : Eve - Tambourine
mp3 : Georgies Bizet - Carmen Suite No.2 Habanera
mp3 : Henry Mancini - Moon River
mp3 : Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
mp3 : X5 - The Focus
Is it just me or does this track by Eve sound like a cheap cover of a late nineties Will Smith track. I mean honestly, it just sounds tired and old. Not to jump on Mr. Smith’s case, I actually love his work, but this Eve track just doesn’t sound like Eve at all. And be careful if you choose to grab the Sean Kingston track. It just might have the catchiest line of any song you’ve heard. Honestly, you’ll find yourself humming the chorus at inappropriate times.
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Well it’s officially here, the newest Radiohead album. And I must say that it sounds great. Again, though, I might be biased as I’ve loved them since the moment I first heard OK Computer. I’ve seen them in concert and I would hands down say that they put on the best show on the planet. I would bet that most of their appeal in concert comes down to the golden rule they follow when recording a new album. And that rule is that they will not put anything on a studio album that cannot be replicated in a live environment. With Radiohead what you hear on an album is what you get in concert. Only in concert it’s exponentially more awesome. And I realize the word awesome is dumbed down and watered down and anything else downed. It’s overused and misused and often abused, but here, in reference to a Radiohead concert, the word awesome begins to reclaim some of it’s old patina.
All that mishmash aside here’s a track that doesn’t actually appear on the new digital download of Radiohead’s newest, In Rainbows, which they decided to release on their own without the pressures [err, help] of a label. As many, if not most, of you already know they have two versions of their latest endeavor both available exclusively from the aforelinked website. You can order the digital download and pay them whatever you want to pay. If you want to pay nothing you can download the songs for free. And I’m pretty sure they’d accept more than nothing if you’d rather go that route. The other option is a special edition of the album which includes the digital download as well as; the new album on CD and on two 12″ vinyl pressings, a CD with more new songs, digital photographs, and artwork, lyric booklets and Radiohead stylized packaging. All of this for about eighty USD or forty pounds.
And like I said, this track doesn’t appear on the new digital download. Enjoy.
mp3 : Radiohead - Cuttooth
For those of you who are curious as to what the songs are on the new album I’ve included the track listing below. Some of you are lazy. Be grateful I am not.
Radiohead - In Rainbows
01 : 15 STEP
02 : BODYSNATCHERS
03 : NUDE
04 : WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
05 : ALL I NEED
06 : FAUST ARP
07 : RECKONER
08 : HOUSE OF CARDS
09 : JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE
10 : VIDEOTAPE
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I’m Josh. And I’m here to save this blog from the bad music that exemplifies today’s pop culture. (ie. Gossip Girl) So, on to the real music.
I got out of my Calculus class today and was totally drained.
(Lack of sleep) x (Reviewing my high school calculus class) = (A bad mood)
So I walk towards the door and turn my iPod on.
Cloud Control begins playing “Your 8th Birthday” right into my ears.
The guy in front of me holds the door open, just for me.
I walk around a couple, deeply in love,
dreading the fact they have to go to different classes,
unable to let go of each other’s hands.
I can’t help but smiling the whole way back to my place.
The world is beautiful. Don’t be confused by Gossip Girl and their pitiful music.
Sorry for the lack of information about the band. It’s late and I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.
mp3 : Cloud Cult - Your 8th Birthday
mp3 : Cloud Cult - Take Your Medicine
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OMG guys, I am so sorry. I’ve been swamped this past week with some new music and I have done nothing to get any of it to your ears. Honestly I’ve been consumed with playing my new xbox 360, which I bought for the sole reason of playing Halo 3. Hopefully it won’t take of the rest of my life in the way that it’s taken over my blogging world.
Anyway, here’s some updates from the third episode of Gossip Girl. Enjoy the music. The show continues to follow the way of The OC as it winds high school drama with grown up love triangles, but I’ll confess to the fact that I still enjoy watching the drama unfold. And hooray, S and B might actually be friends now that Dan has proven he actually has some balls. Yeah, I really do watch the show.
mp3 : Will.I.Am - I Got It From My Mama
mp3 : Constance Billard Choir - Glamorous
mp3 : Feist - I Feel It All
Other songs that appeared in the episode, and which I couldn’t seem to track down, are Can’t Be Happening by The Marlows, Dusk Till Dawn by Ladyhawke, and Raise Your Hand (Lifeblood Mix) by The Lights. Sorry I couldn’t find them, maybe you’ll have better luck out there in the googleverse.
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Well it’s been a couple of weeks since the pilot for Gossip Girl aired on the CW and in the intervening time I’ve watched more of Entourage season 2, listened to the newest albums from Dashboard Confessional and Foo Fighters, and wondered what movie to rent with all these free redbox codes that are google easy to find.
Anyway, the second episode of Gossip Girl contained a lot of music but not quite as much as the premiere. Considering there were over twenty songs used in that first episode I’ll admit that it will be hard to ever live up to that impressive, albeit slightly scattered, quota. In the second episode the music selection followed a similar path weaving together under appreciated indie and pop music with garbage dance hip hop. Yes, sorry, Rhianna is garbage. If they really want to include some fresh and well crafted dance hip hop style music then they should look into the likes of Girl Talk.
Here’s the tracks I could find that were included in the second episode. Enjoy them.
mp3 : Ferraby Lionheart - The Ballad of Gus and Sam
mp3 : Gia Farrell - Hit Me Up
mp3 : Gym Class Heroes - The Queen and I
mp3 : Joss Stone - Tell Me Bout It
mp3 : Rhianna - Shut Up and Drive
mp3 : Rooney - When Did Your Heart Go Missing
mp3 : The Bravery - Believe
Definitely check out the track by Ferraby Lionheart and avoid the Rhianna track like the plague. I almost didn’t post it here but included it to attempt at being a well rounded and well read blogger. Also, I would check out the Rooney track and note that the lead singer of the band is the brother of Jason Scwartzman who originally played drums for Phantom Planet before dropping the music career to become fast friends with Wes Andersen and be a giant movie star. Well at least a giant movie star to people who watch good films.
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I feel like this post is long overdue. Or I just feel that way because Glass Candy has a sound, and a visual aesthetic, that leaves a listener feeling as if they just stepped out of 1982. Now normally I exaggerate and postulate and generally post snarky reviews here on The World Forgot, but in this I am totally honest. If this is 1982 then 1982 has never sounded so good.
Now if only there were some killer 80’s style videos to go along with the tunes. The track I’m posting here allegedly appears on their first full length album although at the time of this writing the track listing is still unavailable in most locations. [read: I couldn't find it]. It has a sound of an instant classic with minimalistic synth and filtered vocals that honestly hark back to the days when MTV was just starting out and SNL was amazing.
mp3 : Glass Candy - Etheric Device
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By now the blogosphere has slaughtered Brit enough. We’ve seen people and critics and even friends come out swinging. We’ve seen awkward cries to stop attacking Britney and just leave her alone. I think my favorite response to all of this crazy that surrounds Ms. Spears was from her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake when he appeared recently on Oprah. When O asked him about the entire situation all he had to say was that “she has an incredible heart” and “she’s a very talented and lovable person.” When O brought up the fact that some people thought Britney is close to a breakdown and she’s completely crazy J. Tim smoothly answered, “oh! Are people really saying that? I guess I didn’t know that.”
Stay classy Mr. JT. And stay yourself Brit. You have to admit, even with adding a lot of weight and making possibly the worst appearance, ever, at the MTV VMA’s [but really, aren't almost all of the VMA appearances lame] didn’t do a lot to bring the sexy back to Spears. But maybe she’ll take some advice from Gwen Stefani, “take a chance you stupid ho,” go back to the studio, and the gym, and drop a killer video for this song. It could use one.
mp3 : Britney Spears - Gimme More
And then again, maybe she won’t. I mean she really should take some time away from drinking, partying, and basically proving she’s independent to stay home and raise her two boys. Maybe that’s too much to ask for a pop princess. Maybe.
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