Another week, another post from me spotlighting my three current favorite songs. Let’s make this a LIVE EDITION just for the hell of it, yeah?
First up is Haim, recent winners of the BBC’s Sound of 2013 music industry poll . Performing new track “Falling,” the band is a joy to watch as they let loose with their throaty vocals and R&B-tinged grooves. I saw them play at Mumford & Sons‘ mini-festival in Portland last summer and they’re all kinds of awesome.
English rock band Foals just released their third album a week or two back and I’ve essentially had it on repeat ever since. “Last Night” is a particular highlight that builds into an epic climax and is totes worth the listen. Tickets for their show at House of Blues in May just went on sale and it’s performances like this one that have me already counting down the days for it.
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper sure sounds like a bizarre name for a single singer-songwriter to go by, but please don’t let it distract you from her brilliance. Her soon-to-be-released album is ridiculously emotional and it’s performances like the one above of my personal favorite, “Bird Balloons,” that make it clear she’s going to be having an enormously successful 2013.
That’s it for this week. Enjoy the rest of the day off and keep on jamming!
Chances are that you’ve heard at least one song by WALK THE MOON before. Their single “Anna Sun” has already peaked at #10 on Billboard’s Alternative songs chart, and the band has been featured on MTV’s Unplugged, VH1’s You Oughta Know and countless other charts, television shows and music magazines. With disco-flavored dance beats, catchy melodies and a serious penchant for face paint, it’s hard not to find this foursome instantly loveable.
WALK THE MOON formed in Cincinnati, OH in 2008, and in November 2010 the band independently released their debut EP i want! i want!. The EP included their first single, “Anna Sun,” which has helped to gain them some serious momentum on the indie scene. Of the single, lead singer Nicholas Petricca says, “It’s about college, about maintaining that little bit of being a kid. Don’t be afraid to play.” And play they do.
Their self-titled full-length album, released this past June by RCA Records, opens with the track “Quesadilla.” In the very first seconds of the song you get bright synths, playful percussion, an enthusiastic scream, and several lively rounds of “Hey!” in the background. Their cheerful, melodic, upbeat sound doesn’t waver throughout the rest of the album; tracks such as “Tightrope” incorporate a nice clean bass and their signature dance-beats underneath sunny guitar licks, and Petricca’s pleasant voice has a way of turning every track into a sing-along.
WALK THE MOON is an album just teeming with energy and good vibes, and this lively force doesn’t go anywhere during the band’s live shows. From reading reviews of WALK THE MOON’s live shows or watching performances on YouTube, one can get a sense of the positive feedback loop created by their music. The band’s playful, fun-loving energy is something that the crowd feeds off of as they bounce around the venue, and the band in turn gets their momentum from the energy of the crowd.
Between the colorful face paint (WALK THE MOON likes to bring to share with the crowd) and the smiles on both the band and the audience, you can tell that WALK THE MOON just likes to have fun. And this is something that resonates beautifully with the band’s mission: “We want our music to be the most fun thing you’ve ever listened to in your entire life,” said bassist Kevin Ray in an interview with SXSW, “We want it to not just affect you emotionally, but also physically in that it makes you want to dance.”
You can purchase there new album, WALK THE MOON, by clicking here. They just recently released a full list of Fall 2012 US tour dates, which you may view by clicking here.
That might have been the saddest thing I read when I first got into Dear and the Headlights. The music is so great, the lyrics are crafted beautifully, the songs harmonize and resonate like an orchestra… and they were a band. They broke up in July of 2011 because what their music had become wasn’t what they started with. They were friends who decided to make a band, got it big, and went sour from within (even though their product was oh-so-sweet.) Oh, well. I could go on about what a tragedy it is, but that isn’t the point of this post. This band is another one of those You Gotta Know musicians in my repertoire.
Saintly Rows (Oh Oh)
Paranoia posed in saintly rows outside my windows
Cacophonous caws, bacterial ponds flap
Pavement moans
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Caustic alarmed cavernous psalms
They swing from your lips then tie your tongue up like you asked them to
Out come the gaunt ghosts of your thoughts
They’re shrieking in prose and breathing rhymelessness archaic gloom
Cover your mouth, sound trickles down and drips from your chin
Drooling vibrations in an empty room
There just pull your eyelids down they’re begging for your sleep
Find yourself in white stairwell a trembling voice now speaks
Whirring back and forth from firework to figure eight
Now your trembling hands don’t seem so hard to make behave
Paranoia posed in saintly rows outside my windows
Single filed piled while flashing smiles network imposed
Dumbstruck and shoved oxygen snuffed then beg for embrace
Passion like cancer has a wandering eye
Caskets for hands bury your plans right next to your songs
When t-shirt vending is how you spend your time
Out come the gaunt ghosts of your thoughts
They’re shrieking in prose and breathing rhymelessness archaic gloom
Cover your mouth, sound trickles down and drips from your chin
Drooling vibrations in an empty room
There, just pull your eyelids down they’re begging for some sleep
Find yourself in white stairwell a trembling voice now speaks
Whirring back and forth from firework to figure eight
Now your trembling hands don’t seem so hard to make behave
I hate to run without saying anything more about Dear and the Headlights, but unfortunately they do not tour, they have barely any stock left in their merch store online, and they only have a couple videos online. This is sadly the story of an amazing band cut short, but hopefully you can enjoy their music now as they would have wanted.
Next week, I’ll be reviewing Grouplove, the indie band that isn’t that indie since you know their music from the radio but they still don’t sell out concerts.
These four songs are songs that I’ve listened to on repeat for the past few weeks (along with some others, mind you), and I have yet to get sick of them! Three of them are by artists that I was introduced to just this summer, but all four songs are relatively new to me (am I making sense?). They’re all songs that you can kind of listen to in any situation, whether you’re walking to class, studying for class, hanging with friends, or just spending some quality time by yourself! Just to quickly introduce myself, I’m Emily and I’m new to the BU Central team! I’m a freshman in CAS and I’m studying biology/pre-med.
Coconut Records/Nighttiming: Coconut Records was created by Jason Schwartzman (you may have seen him in The Darjeeling Limited, Marie Antoinette, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, etc.) and it’s an indie pop musical solo project, although his albums have had contributions from other artists. The opening of Nighttiming reminds me, somewhat, of the music that plays every time Kramer enters Jerry’s apartment in Seinfeld. If any of you listen to and like Best Coast, Coconut Records may be right for you.
Real Estate/Out of Tune: Real Estate is an indie rock band, and I would liken it to other bands like Vampire Weekend and Best Coast (again). I really love listening to Real Estate when I’m relaxing or studying because even though it’s not like listening to soothing, classical music, there’s something about Real Estate and the composition of their music that’s incredibly tranquil and it makes me feel like I’m lying on a beach in California.
Robyn/Hang With Me: So, I guess I’m really late with Robyn, but she’s a Swedish pop artist who’s been singing since the ’90s. I definitely recommend listening to her whole album, Body Talk, because, for me personally, it’s been quite a while since I found a new album that I fully enjoyed–of course, there are a few individual tracks in Body Talk that I’m not the biggest fan of, but as a whole, the album is really fantastic. Other tracks I recommend are Call Your Girlfriend, Fembot, Dancing On My Own, Dancehall Queen, the list goes on. Really, just listen to the whole album.
Sufjan Stevens/The Henney Buggy Band: Sufjan Stevens is an American singer and songwriter, and I’ll be honest, I don’t know much more about him. I haven’t listened to any of his other songs, but they’re mostly indie folk and indie pop, and I have heard good things about his music from other people. I don’t really know what it is I like about this song, but when I listen to it, it kind of makes me feel like I’m watching a Wes Anderson movie.
Anyways, I guess it all depends on the type of music that you enjoy, but I urge you all to give these artists/songs a listen. I haven’t gotten sick of them yet, and I’m not sure if I ever will, but I’m quite content with keeping them on my Spotify playlist for at least another month.
Let me get straight to the point. I only sort of discovered Imagine Dragons two days ago, but they’re all I’ve been listening to since. SO GOOD.
This Vegas indie rock band practically brought me to tears when I first heard their instant classic, “It’s Time.” Check out an incredible performance it below.
If you didn’t enjoy that impossibly epic song, you probably have no soul. Here’s another great new song, “Radioactive,” off their new Continued Silence EP.
Hope y’all are spending time planning out awesome spring breaks. I’ll be volunteering in Mississippi for ASB. Enjoy the time off!
If any of y’all have chilled in BU Central while I’ve been on shift, chances are you’ve heard Geographer before.
The band has described their sound as “soulful music from outer space” and that certainly isn’t far from the truth. The use of synthesizers and cello in addition to standard band instruments gives them a distinct place within the Indie Rock genre, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they totally blow up in 2012. The fact that two band members are Berklee graduates is just the cherry on top of their immaculately-produced tracks. Standout songs “Kites” and “Verona” from 2010′s Animal Shapes EP are posted below.
Geographer will soon be touring with labelmates Miniature Tigers and The Chain Gang of 1974 when they hit up Brighton Music Hall on March 24th. Tickets can be bought , but I know I’ll just pick mine up at the Paradise Rock Club box office any day now and skip the service fees. I’ve been pretty obsessed with the band for several months now, so I’m hella excited for this ish.
Hope the semester is going great for everybody out there. It’s Monday evening, so that means it’s time to introduce y’all to some new bands!
First up is a band that’s not so new to 2012, but just got some major exposure last week when a track was featured in last week’s episode of the British teen series, Skins. I now present Apparat.
Apparat ain’t so easy to place into one genre, but Electronic Ambience is probably my best guess. “Black Water” made me tear up for a few days and it’s pretty much impossible to regard this song as anything other than perfection.
Next up, a band that I originally wrote my first blog post about over a year ago. Yellow Ostrich! Yellow Ostrich can best be classified as quirky indie-rock with a pop sensibility. Their first album was a joy to listen to and I’m expecting the same of their forthcoming second album, Strange Land, which is expected to be out in early March. I’m love love loving their newly-released single “Marathon Runner” and I’m sure y’all will too.
Yellow Ostrich will actually be hitting up Boston on March 3rd at Great Scott. Sadly the show is 21+, keeping away my 20-year-old self, but I’m sure it’ll be fantastic. More details can be found here.
Hope y’all like tonight’s selections. See ya next week!
