Moody Blues - Classic to CHR

This never ceases to amaze me... It's fascinating to me how a band can go from this:

Moody Blues - "Nights in White Satin" (1967)

to this: (!!!!)

Moody Blues - "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" (1988)

Moody Blues - Your Wildest Dreams (1986)

Twenty years is a lot of time for a recording artist...

Pac-Man Fever!

I'm reading Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age, and in the section about the insane Pac-Man craze of 1981-82, they note that the game was so big that it even inspired novelty songs.

Check Out "Pac-Man Fever" by Buckner and Garcia.

Songs about video games are common enough these days, but remember, this was on the radio. The radio.

The Daily Swarm - The Beach Boys Have Been Fired from The Beach Boys...

The Daily Swarm - The Beach Boys Have Been Fired from The Beach Boys...

I guess no job is secure in these tough economic times... Seriously though it might be time for Mr. Love to have his pills checked.

Super Mario World Sight-reading by Tom Brier

My brother sends me these clips:

What a player! Sight-reading that whole thing? Phenomenal. I almost don't believe it.

And what a song, too! I'm sure this piece can evoke an emotion or two from people who can remember this glorious tune from childhood.

Also check this one:

Daphni - Pairs

New music from Dan Snaith's side project. Sounds like Caribou-goes-World Music.

Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing ft. Florence Welch

Great song, intense clip.

Feist takes Polaris

Expect the unexpected, I guess.

Feist was a good pick. I wonder if the jury will feel the need to go with a less well known act next year on account of picking two huge, internationally known artists in a row?

New Flying Lotus coming soon

Amazing animated clip to go along with this new Flying Lotus track:

One more week!

1000 posts!

Hey look, a base-10 milestone. It's coincidental more than anything else, especially considering all the unpublished drafts of posts I have sitting in the queue.

For fun here's the most-played track in my iTunes library... Cocteau Twins - "Heaven or Las Vegas"

Baseless Polaris Prize speculation

With the Polaris Prize announcement coming a week from now, I thought I would go for some wild and baseless speculation. I have only heard five of these albums in their entirety, but let's break down this year's list for some likely totally erroneous guesses at who might have a chance to win this year's prize.

The gala will be streamed live on Muchmusic.com on September 24th at 8pm

Here's the nominee shortlist:

• Cadence Weapon – Hope In Dirt City
• Cold Specks – I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
• Drake – Take Care
• Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur
• Feist – Metals
• Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
• Grimes – Visions
• Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
• Japandroids – Celebration Rock
• YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN – YT//ST

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If I'm on the jury, I would take the following into account:

No hip-hop record has ever won the prize.

No artist has won the prize twice.

No female artist has ever won the prize.

Last year's winner, Arcade Fire, could be considered a pretty big act compared to its fellow nominees. This may cause the jury to favour more 'indie' artists. However, the fact that Arcade Fire won at all was a surprise, in my opinion, considering they had recently won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

The jury is not afraid to go with an unexpected or underdog choice (Karkwa, Final Fantasy).

Past winners have been pretty much split between Toronto (and area) and Montreal (and area).

Adventurous musicality seems to be rewarded.

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Considering all this, here's what I'm thinking. Since I haven't heard all the albums fully, and simply for the purposes of this possibly foolhardy exercise, I will assume that they are at least perceived to have equal artistic merit:

Good bets to win: Cadence Weapon (genre, geography), Cold Specks (relatively unknown artist, female)

Could go either way/I'm not sure: Handsome Furs, Japandroids, Grimes, YT//ST

Unlikely to win: Fucked Up (previous winner), Feist, Drake (pretty big artists), Kathleen Edwards (perhaps not 'cutting-edge' enough)

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Welp, there you go. Totally uneducated, wild guesses.

Thoughts?

Popular post from the past month

Here are a few popular posts from the past month or so:

Can - Vitamin C

Florence + the Machine - Spectrum

Eno by train

Monterey Pop Festival 1967

Today in awful - Willie Nelson covers Coldplay

I guess web crawlers like when I write artist and song names in the post title. Looks like I'll try more of that.

Sleigh Bells - End of the Line

Great song.

I love that you can embed stuff from their official soundcloud page. The little things like that let me share this track with you quite quickly, and go a long way to getting a band's music out to a wider audience.

Saigon Sunday - Bronski Beat

Here's an iconic new wave song with a music video that proved in the early days of MTV that there was not only artistic merit to the art form but also that these silly vids could have a message too.

CCR's "Grapevine"

This version, however, actually IS pretty good. CCR had a few great R&B covers. That is, besides aping their entire style from the genre.

Smooth it through the grapevine

So bad... it's good...

Florence + the Machine - Spectrum

Apparently it's three months old, but it's new to me!

Labour Day playlist

Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley

Going through my fav albums list today... Hadn't heard this one in a while.

Oddly, the wiki page lists each song with its own individual track. There are only four tracks on my CD version, of which only the first three make up the "official" album.

Listening to it now there's an eclectic element to the whole record that I hadn't really thought too much about before. Kyuss's spiritual successor Queens of the Stone Age are pretty eclectic at times as well.

Hard to believe this one is 18 years old now. Somehow weirder that Queens' Rated R is ten though.