26 February 2013 - Train featuring Ashley Monroe - Bruises

Where to begin? I am a huge Ashley Monroe fan. HUGE. I loved her first album Satisfied and of course I adore her girl group The Pistol Annies (with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley). "Hippie Annie's" new album Like A Rose comes out next week and I'm fairly certain that it will be one of my favorite records of 2013.

. . . And then there's Train. Blech. Boring. I tried to give them a chance last summer when I saw them with my wife at a music festival in Virginia Beach. I mostly just drank crappy beer and impatiently waited for to them to end their set so we could rush 20+ blocks down the boardwalk to go catch Jamey Johnson.

And now to the present. I recently saw today's video on the CMT Countdown. Needless to say I was conflicted. I wanted to love it, because it was Ashley. I wanted to hate it because it was Train. It took me a few months to admit it, but I freakin' love this song. Enough to give Train another shot? We'll see.

25 February 2013 - Yael Naim - New Soul

A simple song, or so it seems.  Really, it's a densely layered song with horns, guitar, piano, and drums, with ten seconds of striking silence (at the 2:14 mark). Yael Naim had never had a big hit in the US, and she hasn't had one so big since. And, even though it's a dense and complex song, it's sung sweetly, earnestly, and simply by the artist.

The video, in which she moves into an apartment, only to push on the walls and find that her apartment is in the middle of a lake on a raft, is kind of fun and sweet, too.



A lot of people think that this ad made the song a big hit. Actually, the song had already peaked on the US pop charts - it peaked in the Top 10 and fell very very quickly - when this ad came out. The song had a 2nd life from this ad, racing back up the pop charts.  MTV's heavy rotation, however, is what made this song a hit, not Apple.

Enjoy the ad anyway.

22 February 2013 - Feist - 1234

You all remember when you first saw this video. Sure.  It was this commercial.



But, before it was an iPod Nano commercial, it was really a video.  It wasn't just made for the commercial. And, because of the commercial above, Leslie Feist scored the biggest hit of her career, based mostly on the strength of downloads, and won a Juno award for Single of the Year.  It deserved it, too - the sweet, jangly, yet melancholy folk-pop that brings bits of piano and banjo into the mix and builds to an exciting ending is truly compelling.

Plus, you can tell they had a lot of fun making this video.



Little known fact: the song was a cover.  Originally written by Sally Seltmann for her New Buffalo project, it was  shelved before release.  When New Buffalo toured with Feist's band Broken Social Scene, Sally brought the song forward.....  and here it is, performed live well before it was recorded for the above video.  At this point, it was still called "Sally's Song". The arrangement is a little different - more horns, slightly different lyrics - but it's clearly the same song.



One thing that this Canadian indie singer-songwriter got that most Canadian indie singer-songwriters don't get (not even Carly Rae Jepsen) is a trip to Sesame Street.  I mean, she did record a song about counting......

21 February 2013 - Postal Service - We Will Become Silouettes

WOW! I just found out that I'm likely going to see The Postal Service this summer (add to that concert, a Belle and Sebastian/Yo La Tengo show that I'm getting tickets for tomorrow and it's gonna be 2003 all over again!). I played the hell out of Give Up when it came out 10 years ago and I still give it the occasional spin when the mood hits. Let's go back a decade and check out my favorite track (and video) from Give Up.

20 February 2013 - Fiona Apple - Sleep to Dream & Criminal

In continuing with the "why haven't we already posted this" theme, I bring you Fiona Apple.

This song, an early single, set Ms. Apple up for greater airplay success to come, earning heavy rotation on MTV, when they still occasionally played videos.  The tune is bassline-heavy, with a compelling piano/guitar arrangement - she is a pianist first.  Combine that musical dark dream state with her husky voice and the fact that she looks a LOT younger than she actually is, and you've got a hit on your hands!



Really, in the US, Fiona Apple is a one hit wonder. And because I'm a populist and pander to the wants of the people, here is her biggest hit. In all seriousness, it is an excellent song that deserved every bit of airplay it received (and the Grammy she earned for the performance). It's a little lighter-hearted in sound, but equals "Sleep To Dream" in darkness of theme.



Update: I was reminded that we DID feature Fiona Apple on Totally Covered, with her Beatles cover. Another great song.

19 February 2013 - Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts

WOW! I'm kind of surprised that we haven't covered Christina Perri here already. She did make my top 10 of 2011 though at Your Forgotten Favorite (now Your New Favorite Song). As I wrote back then, this song blew me away the first time I heard it on the radio. Two years later, the song and video still gives me chills.

18 February 2013 - Steve Burns - Mighty Little Man

A song co-arranged (and co-performed - check the drummer in this video) by Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips?  How is this a Wicked Guilty Pleasure?

Because it is primarily written and performed by Steve Burns, who at one time was best known for wearing a green striped shirt, hanging around with a blue puppy and being oblivious to the paw prints around him.   Yes, THAT Steve Burns, long rumored to be dead (he never was), victim of male pattern baldness, and.... musician.

Surprisingly, he isn't singing about the mail never failing.  He's singing about adult themes, with adult arrangements to his music.  Clearly, there is a Flaming Lips influence to the music - several of them are involved with this album, including Drozd and Michael Ivins.  But it's not the Lips - it's Steve Burns, and he found a voice all his own - a voice with a reasonably hard rock edge and an awful lot of emotion.   I hope you enjoy it and seek out his album, Songs for Dustmites.  It deserves more attention than it got, because it is fantastic.



For those not familiar, here is Steve performing his best-known song from 'Blue's Clues".  I did use this song as my "You've Got Mail" sound for many years.



[UPDATE: 3 November 2017]. This song is now the theme song of the hit CBS show "Young Sheldon". We could not be more excited.