Okay, folks...you know the drill.
Movie Theme – Beck, The Information
This particular track is a bit of a Moby-style ambient work, although I think this album as a whole is one of his more eclectically put together works. It’s an upbeat album, kind of reminding me of his Midnite Vultures shake-your-ass stuff. Beck is one of the more interesting cats around these days and always has something on the go worth listening to. His albums all range in style and genre and he very much puts forth the creativity of a great artist. This album, his seventh, came with sheets of stickers that you were supposed to use to make your own album cover. Fun! Here’s something to check in on http://www.beck.com/recordclub/ Posted on this website is a cool Beck experiment; The Record Club. He’ll gather a group of musicians (Wilco, MGMT and Feist have all taken part) and they’ll record a cover version of an album in it’s entirety in one day. He then releases one song per week on the website, each with its own video. Their version of INXS’s Kick was killer!
Hows About Tellin’ A Story – Devendra Banhart, Cripple Crow
Hhmmm….I’m not exactly sure how to verbalize this fella. First off, I think he’s pretty good. This album is quite rich in tone and sound. He’s…I dunno, maybe what you’d call Trippy Hippy. Or Freak Folk? He harkens back to the dirty hippy days of the 60’s for sure. You can see this guy living in a commune. He probably still busks for the hell of it. But it’s good stuff…nice guitar, good melodies. His voice is soft and has a trippy kind of warble to it. But from that truly hippy persona, you have to wonder….he grew up in L.A.
Shift – Grizzly Bear, Horn Of Plenty
Here’s a simply structured song from this monstrous double album. It’s a cute song: the keyboard playing a three-note descension, soft vocals transmitting the melody over top…a nice whistle chimes in to keep it casual and a bit of white noise in the background to balance the whole thing and to ensure you know it’s contemporary. Songs like this to me, are kind of inspiring in a way…mostly because I’m an amateur (albeit terrible) wannabe musician. Don’t get me wrong on what I’m about to say…I’m not dismissing the obvious talents of this band. Quite contrary. But I like to be reminded that music can be very simple. There’s no magic. I could teach my five-year-old to play that keyboard bit and I could sing over top of it, and add the simple single drumbeat later. It’s nice and refreshing and, as mentioned, inspiring to be reminded that music is in all of us, not just the over technically trained.
Hard To Explain – The Strokes, Is This It?
Even though the album is from 2001 (nine years ago already??) it’s still one of faves. This is the kind of guitar driven garage rock that I’m partial to. The website NME named this their album of the decade. I believe the band is on a hiatus now with many of the members doing other or solo projects. They hail from New York , although for some reason I always thought of them as a very L.A.
Hard Sun – Eddie Vedder, Into The Wild
This entire soundtrack for a terrific Sean Penn directed movie is really kind of a solo album by Eddie. Great album on its own merit, without even having to tie into the movie at all. But then, watch the movie…and whoa! It’s a match made in heaven! Indeed, the song list in order takes you through the movie, beginning to end in narrative. Then watching the visuals of the film with Eddie’s strong voice and acoustic guitar strumming is a powerful combination. The feel of the music is somehow almost as descriptive as the cinematography. I was never a huge a Pearl Jam fan to begin with, so I really don’t have any qualms saying this is my favorite piece of work by Vedder.
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