Playlist: Pop Rock Pitch Meeting

Sorry for the hiatus; I've been trying to actually make some kind of career out of writing, so it's been hard to blog when my typing fingers are bleeding from banging out unfunny dialog all night. But I'm back, no more excuses, with free music.

My roommate and I play a game where we pitch new movies using ridiculous parings, i.e. "Its like Jaws meets Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" or "Think Pirates of the Caribbean with a touch of Love Actually." Maybe you have to be there. Regardless, for this crop of pop I have for you, I'm going to try this style as well. Bear with me, it'll work. Enjoy!

The Features - Lions
Pitch: Kings of Leon meet The Kinks
Slightly more sinister, yet at the same time brighter, than KOL. The choral chant on this song will stick in your head for days. iPod commercial fodder for sure, despite the introspective and dark verses. I'm told this is the current Nashville sound.

fun. - All the Pretty Girls
Pitch: ELO meets musical theater
I know it sounds a little gay, but I don't mean it as in cliché "musicals." It's full of spastic instrumentation and narratives, almost operatic breakdowns, with that Jeff Lynne Beatle-y brightness and catchiness. A second single, "Benson Hedges," may give you more of an idea. My favorite new band, including the guy from The Format.

Flying Machines - On A Whim
Pitch: ELO meets Queen
Yes, more Jeff Lynne. It's amazingly catchy and spastic, like Fun., but less horns and strings and more guitars and bass. It's got the rock side of Queen and he has a bit of Freddie Mercury in his voice.
disclaimer: DSST brings to my attention that they are one of the bands with an NBCU "residency." i had no prior knowledge to this before rocking out to them.

Yeasayer - Ambling Alp
Pitch: Cure meets MGMT
Hipster pop with an 80's sonic structure and a very vulnerable and honest vocal melody. Party in Brooklyn.

The Postelles - 123 Stop
Pitch: Elvis Costello meets The Strokes
Young NYC guys, who have Albert from the Strokes producing them, churn our peppy, unapologetic pop. This song is specifically Elvis Costello vocally and with its staccato guitar and bass.

Mason Jennings - Ain't No Friend Of Mine
Pitch: The Black Keys meet Beck
This song is as straightforward as the pitch; dirty simple blues with syncopated vocals. Throughly bad-ass, especially for the arpeggio breakdown.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Buriedfed
Pitch: Bon Iver meets Conor Oberst
Not quote country-fried, but definitely cold-weather sounding. It's got a rambling and depressing story, with a slow buildup into a full on barn-burner. By the end, you're caught up in some fast and drunk party around a bonfire in the woods.

The Explorers Club - Don't Forget the Sun
Pitch: The Beach Boys meet, well, the Beach Boys
There's nothing but adoration for Brian Wilson here. No other influence but Surfs Up and Endless Summer here. But, they do a great job at it, even miming Mike Love's lead vocals. All original songs, but they sound like covers. Which is a good thing. More proof in another single "Forever."

Song of the Day 10/20/09

Sloan - Take It Upon Yourself

I like this song. It's a light, lo-fi pop song by Sloan, the Canadian Oasis. Seriously, they're huge up North. Even bigger than Barenaked Ladies. Which, as we all well know, is a huge deal. I really liked their 2006 single "Who Taught You To Live Like That?" and the album it comes from Never Hear The End of It was very ELO-esque. But this song is nothing like that; it's like a throwback to the 90's when they were throwingback to the 60's. Woh.

Playlist: The Music of Fall

Football is dominating my weekends; I start to sweat less waiting for the subway; my favorite dive bars and restaurants are busier with NYU undergrads; new TV shows capture my nights; and I begin to terribly underpack when I go out to CT or up to Boston. It's that time of year. And with it, a few songs that just feel like Fall. Some sound like tailgating with a cold beer in iced-through hands, others remind me of that punch-to-the-gut dread when you know you forgot to do your homework. Still others convey the reds, browns and oranges of this time of year. But mostly, they are just songs that I first got into, or first meant something to me, around this time of year in my past. Will they mean the same to you? Maybe not, but each does have a undeniably "Autumn" tone. Enjoy.

Grateful Dead - Box Of Rain
For me, this is the single most exemplary Fall song. Obvious rain comparisons aside, it sounds of those autumn colors, it's at a tempo of calmness, and bleeds that self-reflection that comes from watching leaves fall and walking with your hands stuffed in your coat for the first time.

Steely Dan - My Old School
The title and lyrics of this one bring this one to the list. But the music, from the marching-band horns (especially with syncopation in the breakdown middle-eight and outro), to the crunchy guitar that sounds like it's being played by a guy wearing a turtleneck, and the simple piano driving some kind of narrative flashback, firmly plant it in September for me.

Ben Folds Five - Barrytown
BF5 are one of my favorite bands, and got me through a lot during college. I know this is a Steely Dan cover, and trust me, there are plenty of Ben's songs that could fit here, but "Barrytown" is a snapshot of the trio as they were breaking up, and being their last recording together, it sounds somber and very settled. It's sad, but confident. It's like watching nature slowly die off and hibernate for the impending winter.

Ryan Adams - Goodnight Rose
New York City Autumns are a whole different beast compared to those in New England, where I grew up and went to college. Here, it gets very blustery and cold almost overnight, and since you don't have the turning trees to show the transition, one can assume it's Winter before Fall even begins. But you have to enjoy Fall, let go of Summer, and prepare for the Winter. This song is off Ryan's 2007 album Easy Tiger and reminds me of that.

Bright Eyes - Four Winds
A roots-rock abstract-narrative full of fiddles, mandolins, organs, dobros, banjos, harmonicas, washboards and acoustic guitars. It sounds like a barn. A party in a barn. Catchy as hell, and fits a drive through the countryside when the leaves are at their peak.

Counting Crows - Rain King
Bringing it way back. This reminds me of high school. Actually, I'm pretty sure all Counting Crows songs remind me of the fall, or at most the winter. But this one feels like a Saturday afternoon when it's still warm enough to relax outside, but you're not sweating, and you're wearing you've got your brand new Football or Rugby sweatshirt on.

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust
Another high school song, with no apparent correlation to Fall other than it's the song I always wanted to play in my band, and we usually started practicing again more once school started. Also, fall of sophomore year was when I set up my parents HiFi for the first time, and Changes was the album of choice.

Oasis - She's Electric
One last throwback to HS. What white teenage male from the suburbs didn't worship Oasis in the late 90's? Like the Counting Crows, I could have put any song by the Gallagher brothers on here. But "She's Electric," because of the Harrison-esque guitar playing, makes it on the list. Which is a perfect segue into...

George Harrison - Wah-Wah
I've always been a Paul fan, and have had undeniable John love too. But not until I was well into my 20's did I get deep into Paul or John's solo material. George, however, I knew right away. To the uninitiated, All Things Must Pass is George's first solo record, released less than a year after The Beatles broke up. It's an opus, chock full of amazing songs that he had been storing up for years; ones Lennon/McCartney wouldn't let him put on the albums. Why does it remind me of Fall? Mostly because of the album art. But because of that, the music followed suit.

Steve Earle - City Of Immigrants
Here's the one song on this list I will probably introduce you too. Steve's a country singer who's had his share of problems with the needle, the law, and women (married 7 times). You may know him as Waylon from The Wire. Here's a song about his adopted home of New York City, with a perfect world-music feel to fit his roots sensibility. I got into this song in the fall of '07 and didn't stop listening to it until the Giants won the Super Bowl...

KISS - Back In the New York Groove
...because then I had to listen to this song. This is the New York Football Giant's touchdown song. So if you're playing along at home, it's Autumn, so football, so the Giants, so KISS. I know, it all makes perfect sense.

Kings of Leon - Revelry
This is my personal favorite song by the Followills off Only By The Night. It's spacey in a late night, cold, Fall in the City kind of way. You know what I'm talking about: the night when you're walking home alone from the bar at 3AM, maybe not quite as drunk as your friends were, but content. You huddle into your coat collar, walk tight and a little quicker than usual, and smile devilishly knowing that despite everything else that may be tough, you're young and having the time of your life. Or something like that.

The Shitty Beatles? They suck.

So Julian Casablancas, the lanky misanthropic lead singer and songwriter for the Strokes is putting out a solo record, Phrazes for the Young on October 19th. The first single is "11th Dimension" and it rocks.

To me, it sounds like a remix of a song from the second half of The Strokes' First Impressions of Earth, as if someone stripped the vocals and layed under them some hipster techno. But hey, its kinda growing on me. We'll see how the rest of the album turns out in a few weeks.

(and as for the post title, it's obviously from Wayne's World, but The Strokes used to play secret NYC gigs as the Shitty Beatles once they became popular. Also, countdown to the arrival of the Mono Box Set has begun, so I'm keeping it all tied together. SYNERGY!)

Tomorrow Never Knows: How I Won The Beatles

So over at Flavorwire (which is an awesome blog, pop-culture/design stories, check it out), they held a contest. Normally, I'm not one for online, comments based feats of strength, but they had me in the first line: Win The Beatles’ Limited-Edition Mono Box Set.

Officially hooked. The stereo box set is what I had my sights on, being cheaper and more of the familiar tunes I loved, but even then, and I'd probably have to not eat for a few days so I could afford it. But the mono? That retails at a whopping $270 bucks. And it doesn't include Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road or Let It Be. But I wanted it so badly. Mono is how those albums were recorded and meant to be heard. I want to go to there.

So the contest was "leave a comment explaining which Beatles song you’re most excited to hear in mono, and why." Here's the wordy, self-referential answer I submitted:

For a Beatles fanatic like me, there is really only one answer: Tomorrow Never Knows. Yes, I know; it's aural-apocalypse seems more fitting for the endless duality of stereo. But it was originally recorded in mono. It was originally mixed in mono. It was originally dreamt up, most likely in one of John Lennon's nightmares, to be heard in mono. And the fact that the song succeeds at being so sonically complex and full, while being in mono, is why I'm so excited to hear it in it's true form. It makes you feel like angels of death are swooping right next to your head, in mono. It jumps your heart to follow Ringo's chasing beat, in mono. And you fear what can only be assumed is the sound of the afterlife, in mono. Not a bad feat for a song with only one chord.

So I won. Got the email this morning. They're mailing it to me today. Is this real life? I can eat this week!