Snow Patrol Leak Alert!

Snow Patrol’s new CD has been making its way around the internet the last few days and I’ve heard most of the new songs. I really enjoyed Final Straw, “Run” was easily one of my favorite songs of 2004, and “How To Be Dead” and “Chocolate” weren’t far behind. The album as a whole didn’t work for me as well for as the individual songs.

The new album might have the same problem. So far I really love Chasing Cars and You’re All I Have, but I’m really not liking “Hands Open” (the Sufjan shout-out is pretty cringe worthy) and I haven’t completely grown into “Set The Fire To The Third Bar”.

MP3 You’re All I Have
MP3 Chasing Cars

These are just samples, I’m definitely going to be buying this album when it comes out and I would hope that you do too.

Emma Burgess

Emma Burgess probably tops my list for best Myspace artist submission of all time. She sent me a nice little message along with her friend submission, her page is really well done (as myspace pages go) and her music is some of the most refreshing, I’ve heard in a long time. Most importantly, she’s a huge Queen fan (as seen from her influences list and Bicycle Race quote).

The songs she has on there are all labeled “demo”, but don’t let that throw you, they are all exceptional. “Best Thing” is her most rocking song and she kindof sounds like Gwen Stefani (which for me, isn’t a bad thing), “Blame” is a Ben Folds-like midtempo piano song, and “Mass.” (my favorite) is an absolutely gorgeous folk song.

Someone should make a blog exclusively about the girls of indie folk because there’s a ton of good ones out there right now: Jenny Lewis, Laura Veirs, Haley Bonar, Inara George and now, Emma Burgess.

MP3 Mass.
MP3 Best Thing
MP3 Blame

Go to her myspace!

I’ll choose not to comment on the AD situation.

The New Amsterdams – Story Like A Scar

The former lead singer of The Get Up Kids, Matt Pryor’s band, The New Amsterdams, released their fourth full length album yesterday. I’ve really enjoyed New Amsterdam’s past work which puts the acoustic guitar as the centerpiece and mixes folk music, soft rock, and pop sensibilities into their songs (which usually clock in under three minutes).

I’ve only listened to a couple of their new songs, so I can’t comment on the quality of the album, but the two songs I have seem to fit in well with the rest of their catalog. They are playing at Lollapalooza, so if you’re going make sure to check them out.

Here’s two songs from the new album:
MP3 Turn Out The Light (acoustic)
MP3 The Death of Us

Here’s two of my favorite songs from from their past albums:
MP3 Stay on the Phone
MP3 Worse For The Wear

Buy the new album.

Hot Rocks

Hot Rocks are an alterna-indie-rock-crunch-pop outfit from Nashville that sounds something like a mixture of The Offspring and The Strokes. It’s not for everyone but the songs are pretty fun, if you like a little alterna with your indie. I, for one, don’t mind rocking out in my car a little to the opening of AOK. Here’s a couple of their songs:

MP3 AOK
MP3 Another Night

Be their friend!

Midlake

Midlake is definitely one of the best bands I’ve experienced this year, second only to Page France. I learned of them through GVB’s post of the absolutely stellar Roscoe (and two other new songs more recently) and decided to get their old CD, Bamnan and Slivercork.

Every song on the record is fantastic, I’m really surprised that this band hasn’t reached Sufjan Stevens status yet (it might come when the new CD hits). I love how the band draws on classic rock as well as current influences with their songs. Balloon Maker sounds like it could have been on Magical Mystery Tour, and some of the other songs would have fit well on In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. And they’re Earl approved (thats Jason Lee).

There is so many great songs on this album, that it difficult to pick some so here’s three of my favorites:

MP3 Ballon Maker
MP3 King Fish Pies
MP3 Moppers Medley

And just in case you haven’t already heard it, off of their upcoming album:
MP3 Roscoe

Buy Bamnan and Silvercork.
Be their myspace friend.
Download their 2005 live performance of “King Fish Pies” on Craig Ferguson introduced by Earl.

String Quartet Tribute – Coldplay

Everyone’s a little sick of Coldplay and I’m certainly no exception. This doesn’t mean, though, that they can (could?) put together some great pop songs and they’re debut CD had a bunch of them. Here’s two songs from Parachutes as interpreted by The String Quartet Tribute.

MP3 Don’t Panic
MP3 Everything’s Not Lost

I worked a little more this afternoon on the God Only Knows cover I’m putting together. It could turn out pretty good, depending on how well the vocals are. Here’s the updated the version:

MP3 God Only Knows (as interpreted by me)

Everyone's covering "God Only Knows". Why not me?

Inspired by this post at Marvellous Music Melodies, I decided to take a stab at my own cover of the Beach Boys classic. Its not so much a cover so much as me trying to faithfully recreate the rare rehearsal recording of the song (including the little clicks in it). I did this all in a couple hours (between homework) and so far all I have is the intro and the first verse (without vocals). See what you think.

Note: I’m obviously not a professional, you can critique me if you want but be nice. I still have alot of work to do to finish it. I just thought I’d give you a sneak preview.

The Original:
MP3 Beach Boys – God Only Knows (rare rehearsal)
(thanks to supergurg)

My take on it.
MP3 Taylor – God Only Knows (very early demo) *updated

I did this with a MIDI keyboard and the program – Garageband, if you were wondering.

Classic Albums #4 – Bookends

Simon and Garfunkel were one of the best folk acts of the late 60’s and Bookends is their most acclaimed album. Most of the album revolves around two everyday people with hopes and dreams traveling across America. It’s told with Brian Wilson-like pop arrangements among S&G’s more typical acoustic guitar ditties. This is the album that gave us songs like Mrs. Robinson, America, A Hazy Shade Of Winter, Fakin’ It, and the hilarious opening scene of Almost Famous.

Here’s two of my favorites from the album that you might not have heard.:
MP3 At The Zoo
MP3 Old Friends

Buy it here.

Previously:
Classic Albums #1 – Pet Sounds
Classic Albums #2 – Hunky Dory
Classic Albums #3 – Who’s Next

PLOrk: Princeton Laptop Orchestra

PLOrk is just what you probably think it is. A bunch of college students laying on the floor in an audiotorium playing on their Mac Powerbook laptops and making some sort of music. I can’t decide yet if the music is genius or mediocre, maybe its a bit of both. It’s very much like the minimalistic music I listened to in Music Appreciation last year.

Each student plays a series of notes on their laptops and when put together they make something that is often repetitive and can either be consanant (melodic), such as “On The Floor”, or dissonant (unharmonized), such as “The PLOrk Tree”. “Conflict” is probably the most active song in their catalog, featuring dozens of different loops and samples with interesting results. As I said you might hate this music, you might want it as background/study music (like me), or you might be a big fan of experimental music and love it.

MP3 On The Floor
MP3 The PLOrk Tree
MP3 Conflict: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Parse Error

Visit their website for the rest

Staring At The Sun

I was scrolling through my music library the other day and I noticed that I had a lot of songs named “Staring At The Sun” (only one being a cover of another). I thought that this was uncanny that artists would be so attracted to the image of looking at a large ball of plasma. So here’s all the songs and a little blurb about what Staring At The Sun illistrates in the song.

MP3 TV On The Radio – Staring At The Sun
TV On The Radio uses staring at the sun as someone who’s on their back dying (or perhaps participating in intimate activity outdoors).

MP3 U2 – Staring At The Sun (Live From Rotterdam)
U2 uses the phrase to express a collective desire to look away from the hardships in the world by staring at the sun. “I’m not the only one who’s happy to go blind.” The imagery in this song is vividly amazing.

MP3 Simple Kid – Staring At The Sun (this link will be up in about an hour)
This song is for slacker teenagers and its about through partying, getting high, etc… they’re feeling like they are purposely destroying themselves, thus staring at the sun.

MP3 The Offspring – Staring At The Sun
Offspring uses the phrase as an analogy for people that are being self-destructive, or compromising themselves to try to “fit in.”

MP3 Mute Math – Stare At The Sun
This is a slight variation on the phrase we’re using, but it’s close enough. The song is about looking deeply into something to find something that’s not there.

Bonus:
MP3 The Subways – Staring At The Sun (TV On The Radio Cover)