Tunes on a Tuesday

This is yet another day where I feel kind of incoherent (lack of sleep) and don't want to bother thinking of a theme to tie my music together, so I'm just going to throw up a few songs that I like.

80 Days (mp3) by Tin Cup Prophette, from the album "Liar and the Thief" (iTunes). Tin Cup Prophette is yet another band from Athens, Georgia. This song was introduced to me by Paste Magazine. I love the slight dissonance in this song and the use of string instruments. And singer Amanda Kapousouz's voice has a quality that's interesting to me. It's not necessarily that she has great voice, but there's just something about it. I really like the other songs on their myspace too. The song Going Numb kind of reminds me a lot of Psapp.

Take Me to the Riot (mp3) by Stars from their new album "In Our Bedroom After the War (purchase). Their album was released on the internet months before it's original September 25th shelf release date. They knew it would get leaked before then anyway, so they just released it on the internet four days after it was complete. Probably pretty smart on their part. I really like the album. So far no song has really stuck out to me as a favorite the way Your Ex-Lover is Dead did on their album "Set Yourself on Fire." But as a whole, the album is very strong. I chose Take Me to the Riot to post because it is more upbeat and I'm in an upbeat kind of mood.

Speaking in Tongues (mp3) by Eagles of Death Metal from their album "Peace Love Death Metal" (iTunes). This is a great dance rock song. It is entertaining in every sense of the word. It just makes me want to shake and shimmy and jump around. Plus it's amusing/funny when he "demonstrates" speaking in tongues as part of the song.

Ok, that's all the songs for today. Man, I wish I had money and could afford to go to concerts more often. The White Stripes are playing tonight. But alas, I am not going. So many other good concerts coming up this summer. *sigh* Tata dahlings.

Currently on repeat

So I didn't end up going to Spoon last night because it was pouring and thundering beforehand so I thought it might be canceled (that and I just wasn't in the mood to get soaked). From the sounds of it, it wasn't actually canceled after all. Oh well, que sera sera.

Tonight I have decided (rather than pay $30 to see The Pierces, despite how much I love them) to go see Ron Sexsmith for free. While I have never actually really heard any of his music, he is featured on the song "Song No. 6" by Ane Brun, which is one of my favorite songs of the moment. The fact that this song is currently on repeat on my playlist actually says a lot about it. It takes a lot more for me to like calmer songs than upbeat songs lately. This song is very calm, but it is just so sweet and romantic. It's a song about singing a song about the person you love. I really like the rhythm of the chorus. That's actually what made me give the song a chance in the first place. I found this song on a Paste Magazine music sampler. If you don't know Paste Magazine, you should get on that. It comes with a free CD of up-and-coming music every month, and usually a DVD with videos on it too.

Another song currently on repeat is the song "Apres Moi" by Regina Spektor, from her 2006 album "Begin to Hope". I have this bad habit where I tend to listen to the same 50 songs on repeat (what the 50 songs are changes as I go through different phases of finding new music and getting sick of old music) despite my 30 gigs of music on my iPod. In an effort to expand my musical horizons and stop experiencing music ruts and feel like I'm not wasting valuable computer space, I have begun to listen to my entire music library on shuffle. Somehow, this amazing song had gone unlistened to until a few days ago when it popped up on shuffle. It has been on my iPod since at least December and I didn't even know it. The title of the song comes from the famous line "Apres moi, le deluge" (English translation: after me, the flood) by King Louis XV of France. That's really interesting that he said this because 15 years after he died was the French Revolution, so he was definitely right. Anyway, the song by Regina Spektor is one of the most haunting (I know I use that word a lot but apparently I love haunting music), dramatic songs I've heard in a long time. This song has pretty much everything I love about music - it's dramatic, it builds, it has an awesome piano part and there are string instruments. It also stood out to me because a lot of her music is very sparse sounding - very few instrumental parts and her voice. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of her songs and the sparseness works, but this song is so full and rich. It has a heavy piano part plus a ton of other instruments. And it builds. I love songs that build. For a lot of the beginning it is just her and her voice (though the piano part is not so sparse as in some of her other songs), but toward the end more instruments come in, the piano part gets even heavier and backup vocals come in too. Really, the perfect song by my standards.

Even though I didn't go to Spoon, I'll include one of my favorite Spoon songs (and one of their most popular, I know. I'm running low on time today to really look and think about what song of theirs I should put up), which I also got off a Paste Magazine music sampler too. "I Turn My Camera On." Ok, that's all for today. Tata dahlings.

Song No. 6 by Ane Brun ft. Ron Sexsmith - iTunes
Apres Moi by Regina Spektor - iTunes
I Turn my Camera On by Spoon - iTunes