Fresh Tracks for February

February may have just dumped two feet of snow on Boston, but that’s not all the month has to offer. It’s barely a week in and already there’s tons of great new music to jam to.

James Blake’s haunting trance music makes a return to our ears with “Retrograde,” which was accompanied by this delightfully bizarre video featuring an asteroid attack on Earth. The synth in the background quietly builds to several points in which it truly lets loose, demanding my entire body to spasm with glee.

Scottish synth-pop group CHVRCHES burst onto the scene last year with the attention-grabbing “The Mother We Share,” but it was follow-up single “Recover” that really won me over to the band’s fandom. Lead vocalist Laura Mayberry stole my heart with the first time I heard the chorus and there’s no sign that she’s ever letting go (especially if I keep leaving the song on repeat).

“Before I Ever Met You” from LA-based artist Banks is emotional and honest and totally jam-worthy. I stumbled onto it on a blog early last week and I’ve been rocking out to it ever since.

That’s it for this week. Good luck getting to class on time with all the snow!

Josh

Awesome Concerts Within Our Reach

When you’re not enjoying one of our amazingly free LIVE events, you should be hitting up the legendary venues within your reach right off of the Charles River Campus.  Here are some of the shows I’m looking forward to this semester with a few tracks by some of the artists below. There are tons of venues in the Boston area (BU Central included), so check ‘em out and explore the local scene.

Solange Knowles at Paradise Rock Club – February 19th

Passion Pit at Agganis Arena – February 9th

Alt-J at Paradise Rock Club – March 2nd & 3rd (*both shows are sold out #sadface)

The Rocket Summer at Brighton Music Hall – March 27th

Local Natives at House of Blues – March 30th

Andrew McMahon (from Jack’s Mannequin) at Paradise Rock Club – April 8th

Wavves & FIDLAR at Brighton Music Hall – April 8th

Cold War Kids at Paradise Rick Club – April 10th

Alicia Keys & Miguel at Agganis Arena – April 10th

James Blake at House of Blues – May 8th

Alex Clare at Paradise Rock Club – May 9th

Vampire Weekend at Agganis Arena – May 15th

Paramore at House of Blues – May 15th

Losing You – Solange Knowles

Matilda (Acoustic) – Alt-J

Do You – Miguel

Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend

Dion: King of my Heart

If you’ve read a few of my other posts, you may have noticed that I really like old music. I love swing and jazz and the type of music they played on American Bandstand; songs like the ones on the Grease soundtrack. As I’ve said before, I attribute this to my mom. She grew up in the 50′s and went to Woodstock and was a screaming Beatles fangirl–so basically my mom is one of the coolest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Of course, this means that she raised me listening to the music she loved, as most parents raise their children, so I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Shirelles, Sha-Na-Na, James Taylor, and the like.

Now, I’m not the type of person who believes that my music taste is somehow more sophisticated or mature or whatever just because I like older music while more people my age seem to like the more mainstream stuff. I really dislike those people. I will say though, that one of my pet peeves is modern-day artists who sample older music and completely butcher the original song. I’ve definitely heard some hip hop/rap that has successfully sampled music from the 60′s and 70′s, but the bad outweighs the good.

Recently, and I’m not about to bash my roommate’s taste in music, don’t worry, said roommate was listening to a song by the rapper G-Eazy. I’d never heard of him or the song she was playing, but something about the underlying track caught my attention and I felt like I’d heard the song that had been sampled. When I looked up G-Eazy’s song, I found that the sample was titled Runaround Sue by Dion and so I found that song and listened to it. While I’m still not sure whether or not I’ve actually heard it before, I did fall head over heels in love with the song, so obviously I looked up the rest of Dion’s music and found a whole bunch of tracks that I put in my current playlist. Basically, despite our slightly different tastes in music, my roommate is the reason I discovered Dion and his fantastic, swoon-causing music. A few of the songs are by Dion & the Belmonts, the Belmonts being the group he was a part of before he decided to continue as a solo artist. Anyways, here are my favorites by Dion (& the Belmonts) and I hope you enjoy!

Emily

Runaround Sue

Dream Lover

A Teenager In Love

Why Can’t We Be Sweethearts

I Wonder Why

Take Good Care Of My Baby

Will Love Ever Come My Way

Queen Beyonce…possibly one of the greatest Super Bowl performances of all time?

Well.

I don’t know about you all, but that Super Bowl halftime show from last night still has me overexcited like a little kid on Christmas morning. I’ve already re-watched it more times  than I’d like to admit and it has left me speechless and grinning like an idiot every single time. The performance was technologically and visually creative, but, best of all, Beyonce’s vocals were incredible, and like always, she sounded like a live studio recording. Quite possibly, one could think the halftime show was a “retort” to critics that did not like the fact that she lip-synced the National Anthem at the 2013 Presidential Inauguration Ceremony. Well, she sure showed them! And let’s not forget, the all-female band of musicians and dancers! I mean, can you say “female empowerment”! I was sitting on the edge of my seat before the show began and, after it, I was practically left a puddle on the ground because of the awesomeness that is Beyonce. I don’t care what the NFL

At first I had planned to dedicate this entire post to Queen Bey, but then I decided I’d instead give an overview of my favorite Super Bowl performances of all time and ultimately decided if Queen Bey did, in fact, have the best Super Bowl performance of all time. Keep in mind that I was not actually born when all of these shows happened – some of them I had to look up and watch.

So here they are, from the King of Pop to Queen Bey herself to the-singer-with-the-whole-unmentionable-nipple-slip-incident, these are some of the best Super Bowl performances of all time. What are yours?

1. Michael Jackson, 1993

2. Beyonce, 2013

3. Bruce Springsteen, 2009

4. U2, 2002

5. Prince, 2007

I couldn’t find the video on Youtube, but here is a link to an article with the video! http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/world-at-play/5-best-superbowl-halftime-shows-video

Honorable Mentions:

Janet Jackson, 2004

The Rolling Stones, 2006

Music and memory

Remember that one artist or band that you heard when you were younger and you thought you’d never heard anyone so cool? How you spent the next few hours, few days, few weeks listening to their music and trying to memorize every single lyric? How you tried to learn as much as you could about them and wished you could just be friends? Of course, there are still the occasional musicians that come along, but I always feel like I’ll never be as starstruck by a singer as I was with Lily Allen.

I was first introduced to Lily Allen and her music when she sang on SNL in 2007. My mom had just started letting me watch SNL with her and it was the first time that I had ever “discovered” a singer that I liked that I hadn’t heard on the radio. I rushed to my room, sat down at my big desktop computer and looked her up on iTunes. And that’s the story of how I became a Lily Allen fan.

Now, whenever I listen to one of her songs–namely Smile and LDN–I’m swept back to the moments I spent sitting at my computer, singing along to her songs and scrolling through her fan sites. There are other songs that do the same, mind you, not just Lily Allen’s, like Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls or What’s Luv by Fat Joe, but right now I’m just talking about Lily Allen. She may not be relevant anymore, and she may no longer be making music (at the moment, at least) but I still enjoy her music and I hope you do too!

Smile

LDN

Alfie

Not Fair

Fuck You

Knock ‘Em Out

Naive Cover (by the Kooks)

The Fear

Happy listening!

Emily

Blue fire burns blue! (New Music from EASY ELLIOT)

Dude, I did it.

I succeeded in completing a personal goal for the third year in a row. I’m pumped, and you should be too.  Because my goal was to release music (duh) and I know the BU Central community would be down for me to share it.

 

Easy Elliot’s new album ACETONE

When I’m not bashing drum-kit behind Milk or belting boy band jams with the Dear Abbeys, I lock myself in my room and write music. Then, I plug-in the axe and record the whole mess. Following that, I spend lovely months meticulously mixing.  The whole thing – it’s a sideproject of mine I like to call Easy Elliot, and the third album I just released is called ACETONE. It can be listened to on BandCamp. Or ‘liked’ on Facebook.

Why the name? Well, my dad walked in the room while I was mixing the last song, called “Poets”, with a cotton ball doused in acetone (nail polish remover). Being as odd as he is, he then proceeded to light it on fire.  Its flame was a beautiful blue. After a minute of glowing and sparking, he blew out the fire and the cotton ball remained un-singed. Amazing: such a strong chemical that can strip almost any material from its host, yet when it burns so beautifully it leaves the host unscathed. I was mesmerized.  I hope that this album tickles your ears the way the blue flame of acetone tickled my eyes. And wipes your slate clean.

- Jesse

Like Easy Elliot on Facebook

Listen to Easy Elliot on Bandcamp

While I admit that my winter break was embarrassingly unproductive,

I can say that I managed to create a playlist that consisted of all songs that I had never heard before (or had heard once or twice) and ended up loving. It’s always so refreshing to the ears to listen to new music. And it’s an especially great way to start the new year! The playlist is a mixture of a whole bunch of different genres, so hopefully you’ll find at least one song you like. Maybe you’ve heard a few of them–or all of them–before, but either way, enjoy! (P.S. I dare you not to swoon when you hear Nat King Cole singing)

Angels // The xx

Shiver Shiver // Walk the Moon

Sometimes I’m Happy // Peggy Lee, June Christy

Fuck You Tonight feat. R. Kelly // The Notorious B.I.G.

L-O-V-E – Multilingual Version // Nat King Cole

White Walls – feat. ScHoolboy Q, Hollis // Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Thin Line – feat. Buffalo Madonna // Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Poetic Justice // Kendrick Lamar, Drake

The Last Hope feat. Kardinal Offish // Drake

Runaround Sue // Dion

Soulman // Ben L’Oncle Soul

The Sign // Ace of Base

Hope your spring semester has started off well!
Emily