SOUNDTRACK: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS-The Distant Future EP (2007).
We really enjoyed the Flight of the Conchords series on HBO. Although the stories weren’t always great, the music and music videos were hilarious. Probably better than the show itself was the live special that they showed on HBO before they aired the series. Their comedy/music performance is simply great. What works best about the songs is that they can be funny repeatedly, but that they are also great songs too.
This EP is a good taste of their music, and I understand they have a full length coming out soon too. The only disappointing thing about the EP is that the song “Business Time” does not contain all of the lines from the show and the live rendition (where he trips getting out of his pants, which is the funniest thing ever). So I may have to look for the older live CD they have out.
Although they have some information on their official site, http://www.conchords.co.nz/, you’re better off going to What the Folk!, where you can hear a lot of great downloads. There are some great tracks available here like “Business Time” (several versions) and “Hiphopapotamus v Rhymenocerous.” I suppose your tolerance for this depends on your tolerance for “novelty” music, but I think they’re pretty great.
Oh, and Mel, from the show was featured in this month’s Radar magazine.
[READ: November 21, 2007] The Name of This Book is Secret
Sarah received a copy of this book, and it was sitting on top of a pile in our office. I was very intrigued by, well, everything about it, and it was the author’s name Pseduonymous Bosch, that really caught my attention. Actually, the entire design of the book is eye catching and interesting. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE CARS-Greatest Hits (2002).
SOUNDTRACK: HÜSKER DÜ-Warehouse: Songs and Stories (1987).
My friend Al, who introduced me to Marillion, also introduced me to Hüsker Dü (go figure). And he did so with this album. I think for big time Hüsker fans, this is something of a sellout, but for me, it is such a great poppy punk record. And it is clearly a lead-in to Bob Mould’s far more commercial solo stuff. I guess what is amazing to me is how it’s a pretty noisy album, and yet it was considered a sellout. By today’s standards, sure, it’s pretty commercial, but back in 1987, it was still cutting edge.
SOUNDTRACK: THE KINKS are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968).
This record seems to be a very important record in the history of British pop rock and in the history of The Kinks. I feel that I had always heard about it in practically hushed tones (much like the hushed tones of the record), and yet I had never heard it. Finally, my friend Carrie gave me a copy of it and I listened and was surprised that I didn’t know one single song on it. You can look here and see that I have two Kinks greatest hits records, and not one song from this record is on any either of them.
SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-American Girl Posse (2007).
I had been pretty down on Tori records since Scarlett’s Walk, which I felt was kind of blah. The Beekeeper followed and it didn’t do that much for me either. So, I was basically not that excited when this latest record came out. I probably would have gotten it eventually, but then my wife bought it for me for my birthday. Thank you!
SOUNDTRACK: INVERSE ROOM: Pieces for the Left Hand (2005).
Inverse Room
SOUNDTRACK: THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN-The Good, The Bad & The Queen (2007).
Once upon a time, Damon Albarn was just the singer from Blur. This was long before he became a multi-band, genre-hopping, composing man about town. Blur were a fun, poppy band who wrote fun poppy hits and sort of bubbled under in the U.S. until they hit it big with “Song 2” or the Whoo Hoo Song, if you will. I think that “Boys and Girls” or is it “Girls and Boys” from one of their earlier albums was a minor hit here. At least that’s how I first heard of them.
SOUNDTRACK: MATTHEW SWEET-Inside (1986) & Earth (1989).
Inside is so so keyboard heavy, it could be ANY synth band from the 80s. And, the keyboards are so loud in the mix that Sweet’s voice, which is not very powerful to begin with is almost totally lost. Sweet’s voice is not even that powerful on his 90s records. He has a very delightful, but very soft, voice. So, you can barely tell much about the songs, because it seems that every one has synth horns or whatnot masking what’s really happening.
Earth falls in line of what you think the Matthew Sweet sound is. It’s still pretty heavy on the synth, but you can see the song structures that Sweet perfected in the 90s. There’s nothing really striking on Earth, but it’s a good bridge to his 90s albums.
SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-Castaways and Cutouts (2002) & Her Majesty (2003) & Picaresque (2005) & 5 Songs (2003) & Billy Liar [single] (2004) & The Tain (2004).
I Just Read About That... 