Song Of The Week #27

Having just read The Great Gatsby, I am naturally very interested in the film, which should be coming out some time next year. The trailer seems decent enough, and  it certainly doesn’t hurt that some pretty neat tunes are featured.

Jack White – Love Is Blindness

Jack White, better known for his role in rock duo The White Stripes, is an American musician and (according to my dear ol’ friend Wikipedia) number 70 on the Rolling Stone’s list of greatest guitarists of all time. Not that I actually care what the Rolling Stone has to say.. I always find their reviews to be much too harsh, and in many cases severely biased.

Early in his career, Jack formed, together with is then-wife Meg White, The White Stripes and with their single Seven Nation Army achieved world recognition. After many a happy year though, the duo split apart due to ‘a myriad of reasons …but mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band’.

Love Is Blindness, originally appearing on U2’s 1992 Achtung Baby, was covered by Jack White on the 2011 tribute album AHK-tong BAY-bi Covered. The album celebrated Achtung Baby’s 20th anniversary by gathering a well-known host of artists (The Fray, Snow Patrol and Depeche Mode, to name a few) to cover each track.

The song is featured in the trailer of The Great Gatsby, and can be listened to here.

Enjoy!

 – Jonathan

Song Of The Week #26

Oh hey look, it’s my favourite time of the week. Let’s take a peak at today’s menu:

Lucy Rose – Middle Of The Bed

I am subject to occasional bursts of curiosity. Curiosity in other people’s taste of music, to be exact. During these episodes I enjoy picking up other people’s Ipods and shufflin’ them. Most of the time the result isn’t half that bad, and more than once in a while I find something I fall in love with completely. Here is example of one such moment.

I came across Lucy Rose a little over a month ago, roughly around the time she released her debut album Like I Used To. What I’ve learned since then?

Lucy Rose is an English (aren’t they all?) artist who, before having released her debut, was best known for her back-up vocals on Bombay Bicycle Club’s acoustic album ‘Flaws’. In May of 2012 she was signed to Columbia Records and a couple of months later, released Like I Used To.

Her debut single Middle Of The Bed came out on August 8, 2011.

Cheers!

 – Jonathan

Song Of The Week #25

It seems the more I dig in to the folk-rock scene, the more gems I recover. The inevitable question: How has this genre passed me by all these years?

First Aid Kit – The Lion’s Roar

First Aid Kit are a Swedish sister duo made up of Johanna and Klara Söderberg.

After having gone viral on YouTube in 2008, with the release of their Fleet Foxes cover “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, the sisters released their debut EP Drunken Trees to a score of positive reviews. Two years later the duo released their debut album The Big Black & The Blue and January of this year saw the release of their second album, The Lion’s Roar.

I’ve never thought of listening to folk music, and I never would have thought I’d actually like it. The whole reason I got into it was because a friend of mine kept bugging me with Fleetwood Mac and the like. I guess I realise now that bugging me about folk may not have been the worst thing they’ve done.

Anyway, The Lion’s Roar is a beautiful track, and I strongly urge you to listen.

The Lion’s Roar was released on the 23rd of January, 2012.

Cheers!

 – Jonathan

Song Of The Week #24

For me, It’s always a pleasant surprise when I go through my Ipod and discover songs I’d long forgotten. Although, If i’m to be 100% honest, my memory isn’t exactly the best and thus, this sort of surprise happens to me quite often. Nontheless, allow me to present a song I thought I’d lost:

Absofacto – No Power

Absofacto is the musical prowess of Jonathan Visger, native of Anne Arbor, Michigan and lead singer of the (slightly more famous band) Mason Proper. To date, Visger has managed to release a little over a dozen Eps, as well as a couple of singles.

My very first run-in with this band was whilst reading an article written by birp! (coincidentally also the very first time I’d even heard of birp!) and was immediately drawn to Absofacto’s music.

His music is best described using his own words: ‘It’s in the vein of experimental pop. I do whatever I want, but it’s always in a pop context.’

No Power is a single which released on December 15, 2009.

Enjoy!

 – Jonathan