She Crazy

I've mentioned before my love for Lady GaGa. I just found another reason to love her more:



My Thoughts:
1.) Electric piano does not equal acoustic.
2.) Foot on piano does equal awesome.
3.) I want to be her best friend.

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Off With Your Head

I was not really a Yeah Yeah Yeahs (YYYs hereafter for brevity's sake) fan upon hearing "Date with the Night," the band's first single. In fact, I kind of hated it. I can handle screamy and abrasive, but to me, it was, "Look at how screamy and abrasive we are!" without anything interesting about it. I had written the band off when I heard "Maps," which went a long way toward rehabilitating them for me, but I considered it mostly a fluke and continued to mostly ignore their output.



This began to change, however, when I heard a review of the new YYYs album, It's Blitz!, on the NPR show Sound Opinions, in which the hosts each gave it a "Buy It" ranking (their highest mark). The song clips intrigued me, so I sought out the album, and whoa do I love it.

It's Blitz! shows a dancier, calmer, more vulnerable side to the band that is instantly becoming after the borderline obnoxious swagger of their past output. There are a number of surprisingly affecting ballads, in which Karen O. shows off the yearning and likability we first saw in "Maps." The best of these is "Hysteric," which is so successful in winning you over that you don't really notice the cliched nature of lines such as "You suddenly complete me." (Close second: "Runaway," which is propelled by an aching piano line and moody synth strings.)

There's still some edge to the sound, lest ye be concerned the YYYs have lost their edge. "Dull Life" is yelping and energetic without being grating, and lead single "Zero" is probably the most instantly exciting song on the album. The best track on the album is of this vein: "Heads Will Roll" features Karen declaring "Off with your head/dance 'til your dead" over a thumping disco beat and it's awesome. (This may have to be my new life motto.)

How you feel about this album will probably have a lot to do with what you thought of prior YYYs work. If you're one of those "Date with the Night" fans, you might see this as a cop-out from the band, or even worse, a mellowing with age. However, for me, It's Blitz! is just a refinement of their earlier sound to something more interesting, engaging, and ultimately, more satisfying.

You should probably get it.

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You are the Blood

You may have heard of the excellent new compilation "Dark Was The Night," put out by Red Hot to raise funds for AIDS research. It's not amazing from start to finish, but there are a ton of great bands on here (Arcade Fire, Spoon, Grizzly Bear), some pleasant surprises (My Brightest Diamond's cover of "Feeling Good" - I thought I was too attached to the Nina version, but I guess I was wrong), and only a minimal amount of Feist and Ben Gibbard to sit through. It's pretty much a white person's wet dream. The highlight for me, though, is Sufjan Stevens's epic contribution "You are the Blood."



I've been a Sufjan fan since Michigan came out; although the initial draw was "omg someone made an album about my state," I've stuck with him over the years and can even admit that Illinois was better than Michigan. I got sort of Sufjan-ed out for a while, though, as he became more ubiquitous (I blame Little Miss Sunshine) and then seemed to disappear. But with this new track, I'm ready to hop back on board.

"You are the Blood," at just over ten minutes long, is possibly the strangest song of Sufjan's career. I just tried to type out a description of it, but it doesn't really do the song justice; one can't get a sense of this without giving it a listen. (Multiple times. The first is sort of overwhelming.) It encapsulates pretty much every phase of Sufjan's career: meandering Michigan-esque moments, the dense electronic blasts of Enjoy Your Rabbit, and the bombastically orchestrated Illinois are all showcased to great effect. If this is where Sufjan is heading, I think we all have reason to get excited about him again.

(PS: I've uploaded the mp3 for you! It looks like it can only be downloaded ten times, but go here to download it. Run! Don't walk!)

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Introducing: In Heavy Rotation

New blog feature today! I will now have an Imeem playlist on my sidebar that represents my recent favorite music. (By "recent," I mean what I've been listening to lately, not that the music is necessarily recent. Although I wish it could be the latter, I'm not as up on new musicks as I should be.) I hope to update it every other week or so, and if I feel strongly enough about it, I'll post a little entry about the updates.

Starting playlist is after the jump:



"On the Train" by Theatre of Disco - Catchy! Weird! Vaguely unsettling!
"That's Not My Name" by The Ting Tings - I know I'm way behind on them (gasp - I didn't even know who they were before their iPod commerical), but it's still a fun song.
"Strange Overtones" by David Byrne and Brian Eno - From their excellent new album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. This is my favorite track from the album.
"The Ladies Who Lunch" from Company, as performed by Elaine Stritch - I'm not a musical gay, but this is great enough to awaken that dormant gene.
"Fireworks" by Animal Collective - Not very recent, but I'm in the midst of an Animal Collective resurgence.
"Silence" by Portishead - This is the opening track from my favorite album so far this year (Third, which is also Portishead's first in 11 years).
"8:08 PM @ The Beach" by Fred Falke - Ah, laid-back dance.
"Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy" by Devo - Brian love Devo.
"Cities" by Talking Heads - I just rewatched Stop Making Sense, so some Talking Heads representation is essential.
"Modern Love" by David Bowie - His best from the 80s.

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Please Don't Stop the Music

Here's a fun little article for a Friday. A professor in Scotland has been undertaking a study to see what personality types like different sorts of music. Although it's a little bit icky that the professor cites marketing as a possible use for the research, it's still fun to look over the genres and see how well you match up with the supposed personality type of your favorite music. It's like a musical horoscope!

Example: Out of the listed genres, I probably identify with "indie" and "dance" the most, although both of those are really vague. Based on that, I am creative, outgoing, not gentle, not hard-working, and I have low self-esteem.

Sounds about right!

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Mommy Mix

In two short days, I will be in a car with my parents for upwards of nine hours as we drive from Washington, DC to Ann Arbor, MI. Normally, a long car ride means that they play a lot of James Taylor and Bruce Springsteen while I try to turn my iPod up as much as possible without blowing out my eardrums. This generally results in a dearth of communication between us. Sad.

This is why I've created the Parent Playlist, full of music from my collection that I think they may enjoy. They get exposed to something new, and I get to listen to tolerable music. Win-win. My only criteria for this mix were that the songs might be palatable for my parents, and they had to be good for driving as well. Full mix after the jump.

Parent Playlist

1. The Queen is Dead by The Smiths
2. Feel the Love by Cut Copy (I'm not sure how they'll react to this one, but I've been listening to Cut Copy almost non-stop for the past few months, so I couldn't resist.)
3. Me, Myself and I by De La Soul
4. A-Punk by Vampire Weekend
5. South is Only a Home by Fiery Furnaces
6. You Got Yr Cherry Bomb by Spoon
7. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts by Sufjan Stevens (I really want them to like Sufjan. Really really.)
8. Disconnect the Dots by Of Montreal
9. The Well and the Lighthouse by Arcade Fire
10. Me and the Major by Belle & Sebastian
11. Last Nite by The Strokes
12. That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings (This has been a recent favorite of mine, so I included it even though my parents will probs hate it.)
13. Crystal Clear by Fiery Furnaces (First repeat appearance! I don't think they would love Fiery Furnaces, but these songs are both fun.)
14. All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! or Forever Hold Your Peace! by Sufjan Stevens (Duh, it's about Lansing. And I still really want them to like Sufjan.)
15. Babydoll by Laurie Anderson
16. American Boy by Estelle feat. Kanye West (My mom loves Kanye.)
17. Move Your Feet by Junior Senior
18. Huddle Formation by The Go! Team
19. All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem (These last three might be too much for them, but we'll see. Gotta push them a little bit.)
20. No Cars Go by Arcade Fire
21. Mansard Roof by Vampire Weekend
22. Gettin' In The Way by Jill Scott
23. Flash Light by Parliament (A good 50% of my mixes probably end with this song.)

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The only thing warm is the blood in our veins

I feel the need for a dose of ferosh on this surpisingly torpid Friday, so I think I'll spotlight one of my favorite bands in recent times: Glass Candy.

One of the flagship acts of the Italians Do It Better label, Glass Candy is firmly rooted in disco traditions, but still bring a modern spin. The band is currently in its second incarnation; a few years ago, they were much punkier and abrasive. The dance element was there, but it wasn't as prominent as it is on their most recent LP, B/E/A/T/B/O/X.

Positives:
- The lead singer's name is Ida No, which is awesome because she sounds like a Carmen Sandiego villain, i.e. Justin Case or Sara Bellum.
- The beats are way danceable and catchy.
- Although the emphasis is much more on the music and the sound, the lyrics aren't tossed-off; this is still something you can enjoy if you're just hanging out.

Negatives:
- Ida's vocals can get a teensy bit too high-pitched at times. Very infrequently, though.
- Some people don't like fun, so they probably wouldn't like this.

See for yourself if you like fun, and sample my favorite Glass Candy song:

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