Ochocinco
Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy (with Ashlee Simpson)
Dim sum
The 2010s are off to a good start for musical releases. So far this decade, I’ve had intense love affairs with albums by She & Him, Vampire Weekend, Frightened Rabbit, and Dr. Dog, as well as flings with The Tallest Man On Earth and Broken Bells. And then came The National. Well, not yet actually. Their fifth album, High Violet, doesn’t officially get released until next Tuesday, but it’s streaming in its entirety on NPR’s site (I heart NPR), and a resourceful person with flexible morals can find it for download in the wilds of the internet.
I count The National’s last two albums, Boxer and Alligator, as two of my ten favorite albums of the Naughty Aughties. I consider the band itself one of my five favorite active bands in the universe. I haven’t had enough time with High Violet to bestow the hyperbolic praise that I’m sure I eventually will give it. The track, “Anyone’s Ghost,” however, already fits nicely in my list of favorite National songs.
My favorite music site that I’ve found recently is Black Cab Sessions, which has posted dozens of videos of great (and some not-so-great) musicians performing in the backs of London taxis. You’ll find big names like Death Cab for Cutie, The National, Fleet Foxes, some dude named Brian Wilson from some band called The Beach Boys, and a bunch of others. My favorite video, though, is this one from Lykke Li. You can’t tell how good a singer she is from her produced record, but in a confined space with a camera in her face, she shows off the goods. Enjoy.
Here are 15 covers of note from the ol’ Noughties, in no particular order:
Flaming Lips – Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Kylie Minogue) – Who knows if this is meant to be as hilarious as it is, but that’s part of what makes this band so good: their humor. It doesn’t match up to Kylie’s masterpiece, but it’s still a pretty good Flaming Lips song.
Muse – Feeling Good (… someone before Nina Simone, but hers is the one) – DOUBLE-covered by Adam Lambert! Clever man, Lambert, getting around the genre requirements in American Idol by copying other people’s covers. But I’ll be damned if it wasn’t pretty damn good, especially for that show. VIDEO
Johnny Cash – Hurt (originally by Nine Inch Nails) – Needs no explanation. Just good. VIDEO
Dynamite Hack – Boyz in the Hood (Eazy-E) – So, did these guys know were gonna be found out as hacks (I have no idea if they are; just assuming since their only hit song was a cover)? Or is it just cruel irony? This is an outstanding cover, but gets really annoying after a few listens. It’s actually kind of a mash-up of Eazy-E and “Black Bird” by the Beatles. I don’t know where I got this mp3 from, but the ending is different than what was on the radio. As I got the file in the wild west of Napster circa 2001, I have no idea who put in the little spoken part at the end: “They ripping off everybody.”
Seu Jorge – Changes (David Bowie) – Part of a whole album’s worth of Bowie covers by the multi-talented Brazilian who played many of the songs as the on-screen soundtrack for Life Aquatic (an okay movie)… and he also played a leading character in City of God (one of the best movies… period). VIDEO
The Blow – Come on Petunia (“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police) – Not entirely a cover, yes, but deserving for its successful recreation of a very well-known melody.
Jose Gonzalez – Teardrops (Massive Attack) – There are a lot of electronic -> acoustic covers on this list. VIDEO
Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson) – I don’t know why this works, but it does. VIDEO
The Books ft. Jose Gonzalez - Cello Song (Nick Drake) – Not sure what Jose Gonzalez brought to this, but he’s definitely a wiz with re-doing songs very very well. He also does a nice little cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats.” Can you tell I know nothing about The Books, and only know this song because it’s on Dark Was The Night? VIDEO
Gary Jules – Mad World (Tears for Fears) – Again, DOUBLE-covered by Adam Lambert, and made famous in the soundtrack to Donnie Darko. It’s maddeningly awesome. (Boooooooooo).
Rodrigo y Gabriela – Stairway to Heaven (duh) – Blasphemy, some would say. Those people are annoying. VIDEO
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Killing the Blues (written by Rowland Salley, performed by a bunch of well-known people) – Can’t say I’d have ever known this was a cover if I hadn’t stumbled upon it on the internet (aka – the enemy of wonder … credit KM’s friend for that) VIDEO
The White Stripes – Death Letter (Son House) – Somehow both the White Stripes and Son House entered my awareness around the same time. Son House is really the only old blues guy I listen to (I’d like to fix that), so it should say something about how awesome he was that he transcends genre to sound good to my Indie-addled ears. VIDEO
Yoav – Where is My Mind? (The Pixies) – Kind of creepy. Kind of hate it. Kind of love it. VIDEO
Iron & Wine – Such Great Heights (The Postal Service) – The cover made closest to the original, time-wise, on this list. If I didn’t know already, I’d have trouble guessing which one was the original. VIDEO
This is kinda creepy.
I chose The XX‘s “Intro” as my cellphone ringtone when I first got my Droid, months ago. I used some app to crop down exactly the part I wanted, and whenever someone calls me, I hear that awesome song in my pocket.
People have been telling me for years that I look like Apolo Anton Ohno, the half-Japanese speed-skater. I probably looked more like him during the last Winter Olympics, when I was skinnier and had a goatee.
So, AT&T made a commercial featuring Ohno and the song that I edited to be my very own ringtone. And now I have to change my ringtone, because whenever someone hears it, they’re gonna think I used it to sweat Apolo’s style. Why’s it always have to be about you Apolo!? Why can’t it be about ELI?
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