Who Does It Better? Love Is Blindness

by cover, musicactivism, rock, who does it better? • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I just got put on to the ridiculously amazing cover of this song in the new trailer for The Great Gatsby.  ”Love is Blindness” was originally performed by U2 off their classic “Achtung Baby” album, and was covered by Jack White (of White Stripes, Raconteurs, Dead Weather, and general awesomeness fame) for a charity album that came out last year to benefit Concern Worldwide. The album had some amazing artists cover each of the songs from “Achtung Baby”.

Anyway, who does it better? I think my vote is for Mr. White…

U2 version:

Jack White version:

The Great Gatsby trailer:

 

Summertime!

by hip hop • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This weekend is the official unofficial start of summer, so with that its time to kick off into summer music mode. Luckily, we have some fresh video of the Fresh Prince performing his classic “Summertime” last night at the release party for the new Men In Black 3 movie.  Scroll down below to see the original video classic. If it aint broke then dont try to fix it…

If you’re going to San Francisco…

by 60's, singer songwriter • Tags: , , , , , ,

Well Im headed to SF today so I had to pick the most obvious song to commemorate the journey. Im totally gonna cheat on this one because Wikipedia has a description that sums up this song best, so here it is:

“San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” is a song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was written and released in June 1967 to promote the Monterey Pop Festival.

McKenzie’s song became an instant hit. The lyrics tell the listeners, “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”. Due to the difference between the lyrics and the actual title, the title is often quoted as “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)”. “San Francisco” reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and was number one in the United Kingdom and most of Europe. The single is purported to have sold over 5 million copies worldwide. The song is credited with bringing thousands of young people to San Francisco, California during the late 1960s.[citation needed]

In Central Europe, young people adopted “San Francisco” as an anthem for freedom, and it was widely played during Czechoslovakia’s 1968 Prague Spring uprising against Soviet rule.[citation needed]

The song has been featured in several films, including Frantic, The Rock and Forrest Gump.”

 

Who Does It Better? Paint It Black

by 60's, cover, rock, singer songwriter, who does it better? • Tags: , , , , , , ,

This 1966 classic from the Rolling Stones entitled “Paint It Black” became a favorite of mine growing up as the theme song to the short lived (but amazing) TV series “Tour of Duty.”  Mick Jagger of The Stones said the track was written about a girls funeral. Newer  generations of folks have gotten hip to this song from it being covered by Vanessa Carlton on her 2002 debut album. While part of me feels like its sacrilegious to even pose this question…who does it better???

Music without words

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by euro, indie rock, post rock • Tags: , , , , , ,

Music in an artform whose medium is sounds and silence.

Music with voices or words, is a song. You dont need voices however to have great music as we know since music has been performed for centuries without necessitating words.

While you may not hear them on the radio, there are many artists across all genres that are making beautiful music without voices and here are two of my favorites.

First, is Austin, Texas based band Explosions In The Sky performing “Your Hand In Mine”. Gotta love the methodical build up of this track only to have it brought right back down in the end.

The second is legendary Icelandic band Sigur Ros performing their beautiful and haunting “Untitled Track 3″. This song actually does sneak some vocal “ooohs and ahhhs” in there but Im including it anyway because Ive been listening to this track tonight and it inspired the post :)  To me this is a song you put in your headphones and close your eyes and listen to and no matter what is going on around you, it makes it all slow down and moves your distractions away.

Check it out, enjoy, and let me know what other lyric-less tracks you like.

Explosions In The Sky

Sigur Ros

This Woman’s Work

by cover, soul • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

One of the most beautiful soul performances Ive ever seen has to be Maxwell’s cover of “This Woman’s Work” on MTV Unplugged in 1997. The song was written by legendary songwriter Kate Bush, and Maxwell took it to the next level with this performance at Brooklyn Academy of Music. One of the interesting things about this Unplugged is that prior to taping this, Maxwell had only released one album which was “Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite”. Typically Unplugged status goes to well established performer. Nevertheless, this song made its rounds on R&B and adult contemporary radio, appeared on the Love & Basketball movie soundtrack and college mixtapes across the country.

Enjoy this live performance from the MTV Unplugged and tell me he doesn’t suck you in with song…

For the Summer 2012 playlist

by reggae • Tags: , , , ,

This one has Summer 2012 written all over it!  To do the song justice, you might have to close your eyes and not watch the music video because its pretty awful (at least in my mind) and kinda detracts from the song. Nevertheless, tell me you can imagine yourself poolside, beachside, lakeside or on a boat listening to this track this summer?

Coldplay tribute to Beastie Boys’ MCA

by 80's, concert review, cover, hip hop, rap, rock • Tags: , , , ,

The music world lost an icon this week with the passing of Beastie Boys Adam “MCA” Yauch. When they released their first album, the legendary License to Ill, in 1986 many people had trouble taking this trio seriously. Some of that came from their sophmoric humor and antics, some came from the fact that it was three white kids from NY trying to fuse rock and roll and burgeoning rap music genre.  The result however was pure innovation that paved the way for so many others and in many ways led to the music we see so often today which mixes hip hop, rock and dance.

Their influence went far and wide, and that is exemplified below in a beautiful tribute by Coldplay on May 4, 2012 at the Hollywood Bowl. Just another reason to love Coldplay too.

Check it out.

When was the last time you went busking???

by indie rock, pop, rock, singer songwriter • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Just found this deep in the internets…Damian Rice and Glen Hansard “busking” on Grafton St in Dublin, Ireland singing Rice’s “Blowers Daughter” and then transitioning into Radiohead’s “Creep”.  What is “busking” you might ask? Just another word for street performing, we just dont really use it here in the US.

Busking on Grafton St is not an uncommon tradition, and Christmas Eve seems to be a special day for this. Damian Rice and even Bono have turned up to busk in recent years. You can check out Bono’s busk below too which is pretty amusing as he forgets the words to “One” twice. It then segues into “Knocking on Heavens Door” which is cool. Its all for a good cause though as proceeds from these busks go to aid homeless people in Dublin.

Enjoy!

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK-oV8g3Y1A&feature=related]

Falling Slowly…

by folk, singer songwriter, soundtrack • Tags: , , , , , , ,

I was just put on to this song and I LOVE it. Embarrassingly enough, I have yet to see the movie “Once” that this song, “Falling Slowly”, hails from but its now moved to the top of my watch list.  Just a beautiful love song performed by Glen Hansard, who I know from the band The Swell Season, and Marketa Irglova. Take a listen and put this on your Sunday afternoon mix. Also, for the heck of it I found a version of this song with Hansard accompanied by Eddie Vedder, so check that out below.