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Friday (Midday) Music Open Thread


Sorry for the delay.

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Band I've been enjoying lately

The XX

The XX

Had one of the best debut albums in the past few years, what’s your favorite song? I adore Infinity.

Yeah Infinity is a great song

I really like how the intro song leads into VCR. Night time is also one of my faves.

The xx's album

is great. But they don’t sound to me like much of a live band…can anybody prove me wrong?-

I have heard this exact same thing and would be interested to hear if anyone's seen them and can confirm this
So I'm still disappointed in y'all...

for not backing me up on the fact that Beth Gibbons is a frighteningly good (emphasis on frightening) singer. Thus, I have no choice but to YouTube it up a bit.

Sour Times (relatively sweet singing)
Cowboys (sinister)
Silence (lonely singing)
Over (blending all three)

I heard she collaborated with Annie Lennox on something a while back, which is not in the least bit surprising, though her particular brand of strange is more introverted and has a lot more going on under the surface.

Have you heard the new Portishead?

So different, but still good.

As in Third?

I gave it one listen, walked away for a few months, came back, listened to it religiously for about two weeks, then realized that I was crazy about the first two tracks and lukewarm about most of the rest.

If you’re referring to the stuff that’s leaked for the new album though, then no.

Alberta Cross

Just saw these guys at the Black Cat in DC and was quite to very impressed with how they sounded live. Their debut album – “Broken Side of Time” – is most excellent.

I'm not much of a Ministry fan

but Al Jourgenson is a ridiculously talented dude. I just heard a song from one of his side projects – 1,000 Homo DJ’s, covering Black Sabbath’s Supernaut. It kicked my ass and I can’t stop listening to it.

Not that this is a surprise but YouTube commenters are idiots. Trent Reznor did not sing this song, at least not this version.

So I never got into The Mountain Goats, but then I was watching Moral Orel and heard...

“Old College Try”. Now I’m giving them another chance. I just love that song to death.

No Children might be my favorite song ever
Try

this. (music starts at 1:25)

Long post about the brilliance of this album

http://johnbai3030.blogspot.com/2009/03/greatest-album-ever-recorded-1-in.html

A Mountain Goats thread on a baseball blog

and nobody’s mentioned “Cubs in Five” yet? (Quality’s not great, but with Darnielle it barely matters.)

The shitty thing about listening to The Mountain Goats

is that when you listen to songs from other bands, you think, “did they even put any effort into writing this song?”

Yeah, I guess I misphrased that. I gave them a second chance and it took.

I’ve been listening to Tallahassee quite a bit recently.

The Mountain Goats, you say?

I’ve been completely in love with this song lately.

HAIL SATAN!

I've been listening to

Tom Waits’ version of Danny Says by The Ramones a lot lately. What cover versions do you like more than the originals?

Definitely Nina Simone

I shall be released

In a similar vein:

Jeff Buckley’s cover of Nina Simone’s “Lilac Wine”

I love that song.

Didn’t realize it was a cover, actually. Now I’ve gotta check her original.

I didn't realise her version of 'Feeling Good' wasn't the original

Muse’s is definitely my favourite version of that song though.

Hell yes

also his incredible cover of “Be [Your] Husband”

Also, Hallelujah.

That’s pretty obvious though.

I think my favorite Nina Simone is "Trouble In Mind", followed by "I Shall Be Released"

Both are in my Favorites of Favorites of folder.

Also, purely for the weirdness factor

Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash duet covering Redemption Song. First time I heard it on the radio I nearly died.

My Morning Jacket

covering Erykah Badu’s “Tyrone”

And Jim James' cover of Going to Acapulco by Bob Dylan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6z7gNDK89U

Johnny Cash covering Hurt.

Really, anything Cash did on the American Recording series = an incredible cover.

Cold Cold Night covered by the White Stripes.
Anyone covering Leonard Cohen.
NOFX covering Vincent (Starry Starry Night).
Kris Kristofferson covering To Beat the Devil.
Bob Dylan covering Delia.
Phosphorescent covering Reasons to Quit.
Snoop Dogg covering Lodi Dodi.

Agreed, the American Recordings were incredible.

Other covers that surpass originals:
Jimi’s version of “Watchtower” is an easy choice. I love many covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” especially Jeff Buckley’s and Rufus Wainwright’s. I also like R.E.M.‘s cover of Cohen’s song “First We Take Manhattan.”

R.E.M.'s cover of "Superman" is one of my favorite covers.
Iron and Wine doing the Flaming Lips' Waiting for a Superman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5gBt-zpb-w

I wish I could like Iron and Wine, but I find the music incredibly dull.
That's because you're an evil evil bastard

Seriously… if you can watch this video and still dislike Iron and Wine then I give up. I’m sure you and Days of the New will be very happy together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_1Zz9ud83I

Ouch.
I only hurt you because I love you

I hope you know that.

That's a good one.

‘Love Vigilantes’ is a great cover too, though I don’t know about ‘better than the original.’

Boooo. I feel that anyone who prefers Jimi's version of "Watchtower" just hasn't sufficiently listened to the original.

On the other hand, I believe everyone needs to listen to more Dylan.

Heh.

I’m with you on “everyone needs to listen to more Dylan” but think everyone needs to listen to more Hendrix too.

True dat.

Anecdote: I was recently getting a haircut. The woman who does my hair had the radio tuned to a local station that plays oldies. Hendrix came on. After about three minutes, in the middle of a guitar solo, she changed the station to country. Then she proceeded to comment about how she likes that oldie station, but sometimes they play “garbage.”

Considering that she was cutting my hair, I felt that I was in no position to correct her and instead bit my lip.

Never argue with someone holding a cutting implement near your jugular.

But MAN that would have floored me!

Dylan was a great songwriter

But is there any other era that he could’ve made it in? I’ve heard some of his live recordings and am amazed that he made it anywhere. He really can’t hold a key to save his life. I do enjoy listening to him though partly because of that style.

Took me a long time to find out Johnny Cash's Hurt

wasn’t the original one. Man I love that song.

It's not the original one, but it is the better of the two.
I love this question

This is my Common People Memorial List, as I cannot answer this question without invoking Common People I’m retiring it from consideration and putting it in the Hall of Fame.


Alcohol by the Murder City Devils
(Kinks cover)
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young by the New Bomb Turks (Faron Young cover)
What’s So Funny ‘Bout (Peace Love and Understanding) by Elvis Costello (Nick Lowe cover)
Whiskey In The Jar by Metallica (Thin Lizzy cover)
Hurt by Johnny Cash (NIN cover) which gets bonus points for being a heartbreaker of a video
I Don’t Want To Grow Up by the Ramones (Tom Waits cover)

Pulp/William Shatner's Common People?

Shatner’s covers are amazing but fall strictly in the ‘awesome but still novelty’ category for me.

I'd agree on the whole, but not in this specific case.
Oh dude

Go find this cover and it will blow your mind. Ben Folds produced it, plays on it, and Joe Jackson sings on it. It’s absolutely brilliant. Here. Your life will never be the same.

I listened to it again before I posted to make sure my opinion hadn't changed.

Doesn’t detratct from the Shatner version, I just really love the original.

As do I

but I think the Shatner just shades it – Jarvis Cocker brings a lot of derision to it, but Shatner/Jackson bring sneering contempt and anger and I like that just a little bit better.

Shatner kills Mr. Tambourine man, too.
Nirvana

covering Fang’s “The Money Will Roll Right In”

I prefer Nirvana's cover of Where Did You Sleep Last Night over the Muddy Water's version.
This is quite possibly the most intense cover of any song anywhere ever
Actual title is "In The Pines"

just to be a picky bastard

Mudhoney's version is my favorite.
Mudhoney's version of The Rose is pretty stellar as well

Some say love, it is a river…

I liked the Griffins' version.

Insert non sequitur here.

Their cover of "The Man Who Sold The World" was pretty awesome
Big Black's version of Kraftwerk's "Das Model"
YESYESYES

I play that every time I go to the Brotherhood in Oly.

Hadn't thought about this song in 15 years. Thank you!
Albini's sarcastic, shrill voice over the top of that is just wonderful
Hmmm...

I think The White Stripes were one of the few bands to do right by a cover of Robert Johnson’s Stop Breaking Down. I love Exile on Main St., but the Rolling Stones just couldn’t pull this one off in the same way.

Though I’ve never heard the Teddy Edwards original, the Tom Waits cover of Little Man is pretty amazing.

I had no idea Stop Breaking Down went further back than the Stones!

Crazy.

That's because of the white hegemony perpetrated by the institutionalized... um...

OK, we’ve gone down that argument road before. Nevermind.

They did the same with Son House's Death Letter
I'll have to check that out then.

I kind of feel like I’ve always preferred The Black Keys, as their early stuff is fantastic and later offerings haven’t been bad either (I can also listen to their version of “She Said, She Said”, while I wouldn’t touch the Beatles version), but I respect the White Stripes insofar as they know their old school blues and are able to capture the rawness of it when most efforts to this point have failed utterly.

Me too, actually.

And I can’t believe neither of us thought of the Black Keys cover of Junior Kimbrough’s Have Mercy on me or Meet Me in the City.

Both are great

But I didn’t really know of Kimbrough before I got to the Keys. My experience was mostly with really old blues. I could stand to listen to the originals of his work a bit more.

Which, reminds me, let’s do this for shits…

Grown So Ugly
Robert Pete Williams (original), vs Captain Beefheart (1967) vs The Black Keys (2004)

Covers of blues originals kind of goes without saying

but I agree that the Key’s “Meet Me in the City” is fucking brilliant.

Speaking of Jack White

The Raconteurs do an incredible version of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” Enjoy!

I'm not sure if I like it better than the original,

but A Perfect Circle’s cover of Imagine is one of my favorite covers.

Link

If you would like to take a listen.

I think I'll dig out my copy of aMOTION later

I haven’t watched it in aaages.

I dig, especially with the video.

Maynard has such a cool voice.

"Karma Police" done by Finch is fantastic...

I love Radiohead’s version, but this is just too good in my opinion.

Well…I guess Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” is better, but that’s now the definitive version of that song, so I almost consider it more his.

Doesn't equal the originals, let alone surpass them,

but I totally expected Korn’s cover of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” suite to be awful and was pleasantly surprised. They emphasized their own style, but not at the expense of making it unrecognizable.

Best Pink Floyd cover ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsCEgcRozY

Not a fan, actually. Never did like disco much....

Luther Wright and the Wrongs covered The Wall in its entirety as a bluegrass country album, which I thoroughly enjoyed. (Here’s “Goodbye Blue Sky.”)

I like it because it's sacrilicious

Sort of takes the piss out of Floyd in a “Why so serious?” way.

I don't know if technically counts as a cover considering Amazing Grace is such an old song,

but Bela Fleck & The Flecktones version from the Live Art album is fantastic.

Nina Gordon's version of "Straight Outta Compton"

Mostly because it’s just so mind-boggling.

Forgot an obvious one:

Jones Street Station covering John Hartford’s “Tall Buildings.” They always close their live shows by unplugging all their mics and instruments and doing it like this.

Sharon Jones and the Daptones covering Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done For Me Lately?"

Ludella Black’s cover of ’I’ve Just Seen a Face’
Lightning Bolt’s cover of Guitar Wolf’s ‘Planet of the Wolves’
Sholi’s cover of Googoosh’s ‘Hejrat’

and a bunch of others mentioned in this thread.

Oh, and Math and Physics Club's cover of Beat Happening's 'Angel Gone'
Agreed.

Killer track.

DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN...

sir.

The new Beach House album Teen Dream is simply spectacular

WOW

Norway

Is such a fantastic single, I hope they go on tour soon. They’re amazing live.

Digging the Locksley love.

It’s been a lot of fun watching them get big(-ish) over the past few years.

Current musical obsession: The Antlers. The album “Hospice” is depressing as all hell, but it’s outstanding.

So, here's a fun question.

Ever had a band that blew you away with the first song you heard by them, enough to make you buy the album it came on, then realized that song was almost entirely different from most of their work, and still loved them anyway?

That happened to me with The National. I ran across Abel (which I hear was originally styled as ballad) one night randomly watching MTV2, then went out to buy Alligator and heard Secret Meeting come on, and loved them all the more.

TV On The Radio was like that for me

After hearing “Wolf Like Me” I bought Return to Cookie Mountain, and was like, whoa.

I was the opposite...I bought the album because of that tune as well.

But the rest was very “meh.”

Definitely an acquired taste
Dammit this will make me sound like a preppy d-bag

But back when “Brick” by Ben Folds Five came out, I bought the CD just for that. And the other stuff on that album is just so radically different. Nevertheless, it’s a great album and I loved it all.

Whatever and Ever Amen might be the most underrated album of the 90's.

And while on the subject of Ben Folds, and considering the proximity to February 14, you aren’t human if his song The Luckiest doesn’t bring you to tears.

My music this week

Drop the World – Eminem/Lil WayneLost Hawks – Andre Nickatina
Oakland Blackouts – Heiroglyphics
3030 – Deltron

Deltron 3030.... so good

I’m going to be cliche and go with Mastermind

Mastermind is a classic

but yes, cliche. Everyone has heard mastermind, but I personally rank that as one of the most complete hip hop albums of all time. Dan the Automator is right up there with Dre and Jay Z for hip hop production in my book.

Absolutely.

I’ve been listening to Handsome Boy Modeling School a lot recently. Automator killllls.

Modeling sucks!
That one where they got Chan Marshall to sing makes me melt.

Chan Marshall has that power over me though.

.

I like the soundtrack from American Gangster.

And Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Yes I love them!
Also I'm enjoying Laura Viers at the moment.
Love love love.

I want so badly to see them live, I hear it’s just insane.

I'll probably catch flak for this...

but I feel that Days of the New’s second album is an underappreciated gem. After Travis Meeks fired the rest of his band following their crappy first album, he completely shed the post-grunge wanking and made something a lot more musical:

The Weapon & the Wound

Anyone else goin to Nickatina in Seattle at the Studio 7 on March 12th?
I heard

This band called the Mary Onettes (oh my, a clever play on words!) on the radio a week ago. They’re a wonderful Swedish band that decided they wanted to update and play music in the vein of The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, and The Replacements.

The singer really channels The Moz on a lot of songs and they have some beautiful lyrics, if anybody likes the above three bands, I’d recommend checking them out.

They had a great single on their first album

called ‘Lost’ and I’m just not sure anything they’ve done comes close to that.

Very 80s/synthie. I can’t speak for pdb, but I feel pdb will deny that they sound like the Replacements in any possible way.

I was not familiar with this band until these two comments

and I must say I really don’t hear the Replacements in there at all. I hear Blondie all over ‘Lost’, and Echo and the Bunnymen definitely, but no Replacements in the couple of songs I’ve listened to.

I guess I CAN speak for pdb! Woooo!

Hey everybody, I’m old!
What’s with all these fancy smartphones?
I like to drink beer and ride my bike, but preferably in reverse order!

It's really hard to drink beer in reverse!
Let's go drink

Lots of beer, ride bikes and listen to The Replacements

That sounds like most of the days in my college years in fact
It sounds like most of my weekend days only with the new addition of bicycles
Not that hard, but certainly unpleasant.
Well here's my first shot at one of these.

My favorite genre of music fluctuates monthly so I’m on my Indie Pianist/Singer and British singers right now and here are some songs:

Hush if you Must – Brooke Waggoner

You Give Me Something – James Morrison

My favorite genres move around pretty frequently as well.
Surfer Blood

They sound a lot like mid-90s Weezer and Built to Spill. I’ve been rocking their album Astro Coast pretty much non-stop for the last couple weeks.

Locksley reminds me a little of

Sam Roberts Band. Do people like them? I do.

For my money The Heavenly States are the best straight-forward rock band out now.

But nobody knows them. Check them out here. They’re great live and good folks too.

Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show - The Weight

The Weight – Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show

I think Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are awesome. They combine perfectly with OCMS for this piece. As far as I know, this concert is not available in any form except the video snippets such as this that have been posted at various places on the web. Love watching Gillian perform this piece. She looks as if she is totally enjoying the moment.

“The David Rawlings Machine”, which is much the same group as shown in the video, will be at the Showcase in Seattle Sunday night. I would be there, except that’s Valentine’s and my wife doesn’t really care for concert venues much, so we have other plans.

Right now

I am really into Shabazz Palaces and the new Beach House album that was mentioned above. I have also been rediscovering my love for Pete Doherty’s work. Down in Albion, released when he was with Babyshambles, is sloppier than some of The Libertines stuff but that carefree attitude is part of what makes the album work for me. If only the man wasn’t such an addict.

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