Oooo, I really got into Neutral Milk Hotel back in college, long after they broke up. So, I was delighted to find this live performance from ’98, filmed at NY’s Knitting Factory.
I’m going to have a good weekend! The parents are in town and our good friend Diana is having her party. Exciting! Have a grand one, yourself!
Via Pitchfork

Tags: Jeff Mangum, Knitting Factory, Music, Neutral Milk Hotel, New York, pitchfork, video
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Pitchfork has been running a new feature called “5-10-15-20″, in which they “talk to artists about the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives. ” I thought it would be a fun game to play with myself, so here we go!

Age 5 – Phil Collins: “Sussudio”
Though it came out a few years before I turned 5, I’m going to use it as it was still probably my favorite. My mom says I used to freak out and dance around whenever it would come on the radio. I still think it’s a great, fun song, though American Psycho ruined it for me a little.

Age 10 – Ace of Base “Don’t Turn Around”
Hey, don’t judge…! It was one of my first cassette tapes that wasn’t children-themed. I was young and loved listening to the radio. So, pretty much any music I could dance to was perfection to my little ears.

Age 15 – Radiohead: Anything from “OK Computer”
As cheesy as it sounds this was probably the first time I really felt the impact music could have. I remember so overwhelmed by “Exit Music” that I just broke down and cried. It could have also been the moodiness of that age, but the fact that the album has remained so amazing, to me, through the years, says a lot about its quality (as if I needed to be yet another person that praise this album).

Age 20 – Oukast “Last Call” & “Prototype”
Listening to this album just seems to crystallize a small slice of my life. The coolness of Savannah, driving around with my college boyfriend, working late in the computer labs, living with Morgan and Nia in our fabulous first apartment.

Age 25 – Lykke Li “Little Bit”
I had a friend turn me on to Miss Li and it was love at first listen. I felt a special fondness for “Little Bit” almost immediately. I was cute and quirky, capturing those first feelings of falling for someone remarkably well. It has quickly become “our song” and Jack even set it up on his phone that it plays for me whenever I call him (so, I get to hear it at least once a day).

Tags: Ace of Base, albums, lykke li, Music, No Jacket Required, OK Computer, Outkast, Phil Collins, pitchfork, radiohead, songs, Speakerboxx, The Love Below, The Sign, youth novels
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I know this is waaaaaay after the fact, but I can’t believe I didn’t post the above video before, which is, far and away, my favorite!

I also just found this one on Pitchfork, and if you completely forget that it’s all an advertising ploy, is quite enjoyable!

Tags: beyonce, dan band, Music, picadilly square, pitchfork, single ladies, video, youtube
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This song, video and album make me endlessly happy!
Via Pitchfork.tv

Tags: animal collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Music, my girls, pitchfork, song, video
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’09 will be a great year of music if Animal Collective has anything to say about it! There is something that absolutely fascinates me about the evolution of a band/artist. To watch them transform and still remain true to themselves. Animal Collective has made this look/sound nearly effortless, intriguing, and beautiful. Keep rollin’ fellas!

Rating: 9.6
Since their inception, Animal Collective have wandered the territorial edges of music, scoping out where boundaries had been erected and looking beyond them. They’ve punctuated perfectly likeable indie rock songs with bleating vocalizations. They’ve seeded pretty instrumentals with irritating noise. They’ve juxtaposed West African rhythms and melodies cribbed from British folk. They’ve stayed on a single chord for 10 minutes. But Merriweather feels like a joyous meeting in a well-earned, middle place– the result of all their explorations pieced together to create something accessible and complete.

Although it will be tagged as Animal Collective’s “pop” album, Merriweather Post Pavilion remains drenched in their idiosyncratic sound, a record that no one else could have made. The album is named for a Maryland venue that last year played host to Santana, Sheryl Crow, and John Mayer, but its songs won’t be heard on the radio, and besides, Animal Collective’s M.O. requires them to exist outside of rigid formats. Nonetheless, they’ve found a natural way to integrate the sing-along melodies, sticky hooks, and driving percussion that have long been hallmarks of celebratory popular music.

Quoted from Pitchfork

Tags: album, animal collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Music, pitchfork, review
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I’ve been so into the apartment recently, I’ve been slacking off on keeping up with my music. I was going to put this “Weekly Album” series on a little hiatus, or until I found some really good music. I still think I’m planning on doing this; so it’ll be more “Great Albums” and less “Weekly.”

Well, just this morning, my great friend, Morgan, pointed me in the direction of Lykke Li and I have fallen head over heals for her in the past few hours I’ve been listening and researching. Beautiful words, beautiful voice and a beautiful face. …If nothing else her dancing, much like MIA, makes me happy through and through!

With so many surprises in the arrangements, you might overlook what a strength Li herself is, how well she unifies Youth Novels’ scattershot imagination. It’s easy to dismiss her style as overly cutesy– the babytalk chorus on first single “Little Bit”, for instance– and her fragility can seem annoyingly affected. But don’t be fooled– she’s in total command of the songs, and her breathy fuzziness fits the wireframe aesthetic better than a fuller voice would. There are also hints that Li would be as happy with a richer sound– on the beautiful “My” she’s rolled and washed by cymbal, string, and echo and lets them envelop her without erasing her.

Quoted from Pitchfork

And this is my new favorite song, “Little Bit”:

Tags: album, lykke li, Music, pitchfork, review, video, weekly, youth novels
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Whoops, had this written and everything yesterday, but looks like I saved it instead of posting… This week features one of my favorite albums from 2007, Myth Takes by !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk).

Rating: 8.0
Any tentative or half-baked delivery is all but absent from Myth Takes, which rampages through the annals of kinetic music without letting genre tropes override or diffuse the songs’ impact. The cerebral always takes a backseat to the visceral, and the album, while varied, is united by relentless propulsion. The title track’s elastic bass and spaghetti-western guitar licks are a tense backdrop for Offer’s smarmy scatting– not to mention an effective foil to the ominous funk-laden following track, “All My Heroes Are Weirdoes”. Mobile bass and telegraphic synths dominate the sex-jam “Must Be the Moon”, a sort of pimp-strutting nursery rhyme for the 21+ set (“One drink, two drinks, three drinks, four!”). “A New Name” holds two contrasting modes in balance: earthy funk verses and a spacey soul-noir chorus that sloughs off tiny ice-chip tones, testifying to the importance of bassist and sound engineer Justin Vandervolgen’s subtle tweaks. No longer experimenting for experimentation’s sake, every beat-breaking decision on Myth Takes serves to reinforce the monumental rhythms.

Quoted from Pitchfork

Tags: !!!, album, chk chk chk, Music, myth takes, pitchfork, weekly
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I’m in a very Beatles mood right now, and there’s nothing much I can say about them that hasn’t already been said a thousand times. I just love ‘em!

Rating: 8.5
They’re certainly the best band I almost never listen to. I’m guessing I share this with a lot of music obsessives; the Beatles’ music has been so thoroughly absorbed into our consciousness that we can play the songs in our heads any time we like. Which is why the idea of someone doing something new with the catalog– mixing and matching different songs, blending the whole thing into an epic suite– is potentially exciting. Any attempt to fiddle with this music is like long-distance brain surgery, toying with our collective memory with the hope of creating something new.

Quoted from Pitchfork

Tags: album, beatles, love, Music, pitchfork, review, weekly
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This is a beautiful EP that is over way to soon. It could go on for hours and I still don’t think I’d be able to get enough. Zach Condon voice and his music are rustic, yet regal. To me, it sounds like a European adventure. Rolling green hills, clear skies and friendly natives.

Rating: 7.8
Moving from his solo, Jeremy Barnes-accented bedroom recordings, Condon’s now part of an eight-piece band. Smart move. Gulag showed promise and also limitations: In retrospect, the most intriguing sounds often amounted to ambient pastiche. Pretty but vacant. Now, a solid, pulsing group of players fleshing-out his songs, Condon opens to something less paint-by-numbers static– it’s more alive.

Quoted from Pitchfork

Tags: album, beirut, lon gisalnd, Music, pitchfork, weekly, zach condon
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Both Jack and I have mad love for M.I.A. (as you can see in the side bar, right now) so it felt it time to post something by her. I don’t even remember how I came across her two albums, Kala and Arular, but I’m sure it had something to do with someone putting either one of those albums at the top of their “must-listen” list. Anyway, this here is just an EP, but a great EP, none-the-less. I could listen to DFA remix 100 times and not get tired of it!

You’ve heard it all by now: M.I.A. flies like paper, gets high like planes, samples Combat Rock and gets stuck in your, er, brains. “Paper Planes”, the Kala standout– and, when joined by Diplo, Bun B and Rich Boy, Pitchfork’s #4 track of 2007– has been ringing out from every Hummer and hot dog stand since its release last summer. Now, M.I.A. has collected five fine remixes of the gunslingin’, kid-singin’ track for the Homeland Security Remixes EP.

Quoted from Pitchfork

Tags: album, home land security, m.i.a., Music, pitchfork, remixes, weekling
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