Music I Am Fond Of

Raconte-Moi Une Histoire - M83 (from the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming) 

Okay, so this song might seem like the corniest thing ever. I’ll admit, it’s almost too saccharine, almost too adorable, with a precious little girl telling a cute story about frogs over some bubbling synthesizers and a steady, hand-clap driven beat. But if you put aside cynicism for a minute and try to get lost in it, it’s also a really great song from a really great album. This is what childhood imagination sounds like, or at least what it sounds like for me. And it’s great.

(By the way- the song’s title is French for “Tell Me A Story”. Now you know.)

Take It Or Leave It - The Strokes (from the album Is This It)

One of my friends recently found herself in need of pump-up music, so I decided to post one of my personal favorite energetic songs. There isn’t much I can say here- it’s a well-crafted, catchy piece of rock with insightful lyrics and a kick-ass guitar solo. The Strokes are pretty much the greatest, and songs like this are why.

Electric Feel (Justice Remix) - MGMT 

Remixing a song is tough work. The remix can’t be too different from the original song, or else it won’t appeal to those who like the original enough to hear its remixes. But it can’t sound too similar, either, because then what is the point of remixing? And you have to get your personal sound across while using vocals and songwriting from another band, which is hardest of all to do. It’s hard enough to cover a song well, but remixing is just incredibly difficult.

Luckily, though, there are bands like Justice that show us why it’s worthwhile. This remix to Electric Feel keeps MGMT’s mood and amplifies it, with some seriously funky basslines and overdriven synthesized brass that’s Justice’s signature style (or at least was when this album came out). It synthesizes two different band’s unique sounds together without compromising either the way only the best remixes can, and it’s awesome.

How You Remind Me - Vitamin String Quartet (Nickelback cover)

Early today I was browsing through a lot of Vitamin String Quartet songs, surprised at how many of them there are. The VSQ perform beautiful string covers of modern rock and pop songs that you’d never expect to be covered by string quartets- they’ve made tribute albums to everything from Radiohead to the White Stripes to Elliott Smith to Sum 41 to System of a Down and so on and so on and so forth and so forth. There was also a Nickelback tribute album, which I had to hear, and which promptly blew me away. Any band that can turn a startlingly mediocre post-grunge song into an epic, movie-trailer-worthy anthem is great. It’s proof of a lot of things- that covers can turn songs into something entirely different from the original, that it’s great to listen to songs that might be outside your normal tastes, and that string quartets make everything sound awesome.

My Girls - Animal Collective (from the album Merriweather Post Pavilion)

If this song were to be stripped of its looping and effects and general studio noise, if you got rid of the drum machines and beat that doesn’t quite sound like anything you’ve heard before, if you erased every arpeggio from its body, you’d have an earnest and ridiculously well-written song with some of the most beautiful harmonies out there and lyrics that say so much in a few words. But add all of the production to it, and you get something light and transcendent and beautiful. If you’ve never heard Animal Collective before, I’d recommend having an open mind and enjoying wholeheartedly. Because this is good stuff.

Amen Brother - The Winstons 

The majority of this song is a pretty ordinary funk groove, with a talented group of musicians playing a pretty standard song that, while sounding really good, doesn’t really do anything you haven’t heard before. But then, about a minute and twenty seconds in, it happens. All of the sudden, all of the instruments except the drums stop, and the drummer starts doing this crazy beat that you swear you’ve heard before. But you haven’t heard this song before, had you?

Turns out that’s the Amen Break, maybe the most-sampled recording of all time. This simple drumbeat turned to be so exploitable, so mathematically on-beat and easy to speed up and sound different, that it formed the basis for a lot of different kinds of music, from early rap to drum-and-bass to the PowerPuff Girls’ theme song. It’s become an incredibly recognizable part of cultural history, the kind of thing you’ve heard a million times but haven’t really recognized.

If you’re interested any more in the Amen Break, this video explains it a lot better than I could.

Junior Senior - Move Your Feet (from the album D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat)

As much as I love this song- and its happy blend of the unpretentious side of indie music with simple chiptunes and awesome cheesy new-disco is pretty much my favorite thing ever- I’d never want to separate it from its video, which might be my favorite music video of all time. It’s a video that’s as fun as the song it accompanies, and when the song it accompanies is the definition of fun it means you’re basically in for a party. Junior Senior in general are really good- if you need some music you can dance to without thinking, I’d recommend them.

So before Weezer recorded their second album, Pinkerton, they planned to record an entirely different and more ambitious album, Songs from the Black Hole. It was to be a space-themed alt-rock opera, chronicling the adventures of a bunch of twentysomething astronauts on a year-long mission in space. The space mission was a metaphor for Weezer touring as a suddenly huge band, and works as a reflection by Rivers Cuomo on how to live as a rock star as well as an awesome, sometimes anthemic record about space and relationships and fun.

For whatever reason, though, it was never professionally recorded or released, and it was considered a lost album. A few of the songs ended up becoming songs on Pinkerton, and a couple more resurfaced as B-Sides, but the majority of the album was lost. But then Rivers Cuomo started releasing a lot of his home demos of songs he’d never released, and eventually enough demos were made to release Songs from a Black Hole in its entirety. It’s definitely unpolished- Rivers never got to have most of the parts recorded by different singers, so most of the female parts are him using a falsetto. But even still, it’s an incredibly interesting and well-written look at what could have been. If it’d been released as planned, it would’ve been one of the most divisive and innovative concept albums of all time, and in my opinion, one of the best. But even still, it’s a great album, and a really worthy listen if you’re a Weezer fan. It comes recommended.

You can download the version of it I listen to here, though many of the songs are also available for purchase off of Cuomo’s Alone albums, which are also recommended.

Fight Test - The Flaming Lips (from the album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots)
 
When I first heard this album, I was in sixth grade. My perpetually-cooler-than-me brother, who was in high school, played it a lot and had it around a lot, but never played it around me. Curious at what he was hiding, and kind of intrigued by its album art, I snuck from his room and onto my iPod, and I started listening. From the time I heard this song, I was confused and surprised and generally amazed. The album used instruments I’d never heard to make songs about things I had never heard expressed in song. It was altogether different from anything I’d heard before, and that spread through the whole album. The Flaming Lips, along with a few other bands, taught me that rock music doesn’t always have to involve lead and rhythm guitar and drummers and lyrics about fucking. It doesn’t have to follow formulaic verse-chorus structures or use the same four chords for every song. Music can sound like whatever you want it to sound like and be about whatever’s on your mind. And nothing’s cooler than that, not even my brother.

Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem (from the album Sound of Silver)

I’m not sure what I can say about this song that’ll do it justice. I can only say that it’s one of the few songs that has ever made me tear up, and its lyrics describe a situation better than any other lyrics I’ve heard. It’s just about the perfect song for me. It comes highly recommended.