Each week I’m posting a few bands, songs, music videos, and websites that have caught my eye at some point. I should mention that many of the links to songs will probably be on youtube (aka they may include videos that I don’t consider to be particularly good) and that I’ve chosen the music videos based more on the music video than the audio track, although I will try to pick catchy and/or good music. Enjoy!
Bands
1) Scissors For Lefty: If I remember correctly, I saw these guys open for The Bravery a few years ago. Their vocalist reminds me a bit of Hot Hot Heat, but SFL’s music (in my opinion) is much better. I definitely suggest looking into these guys, particularly if you find The Bravery or Hot Hot Heat appealing or if you like indie music with a solid dancing beat.
2) Copeland: These guys are, unfortunately, on their farewell tour. I’ve admittedly been a fan of Copeland since my sophomore year of high school and have been happy to see their music evolve over the years. They have a very mellow sound, and their lyrics can occasionally be relatively “emo,” although I definitely wouldn’t classify them as an “emo” band.
Music Videos
1) The Morning Benders “Excuses“: This video is really cool in that the band managed to recruit a bunch of their musically-inclined friends from the San Francisco Bay Area to contribute. The song is also quite good.
2) Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” (ft. Beyonce): Think Kill Bill, Bonnie and Clyde, and a random collection of prison scenes… with a touch of Lady Gaga. Like her Paparazzi video, the music video for Telephone is almost like watching a short film with random spurts of actual music. It’d really be better to simply watch the video than to read my attempts at explaining it. I should mention that I’m not a huge Lady Gaga fan but that I was definitely intrigued by this video.
3) Bloc Party’s “Flux“: This was arguably the best song off of their latest album, Intimacy. The video is basically a crossover between Godzilla and The Power Rangers, which makes it pretty amazing in my book.
4) MC Lars’ “Signing Emo“: A wonderful parody on emo music in the record industry written and performed by a Stanford graduate. He also has some other fantastic tracks from his The Graduate album, including a rap about Moby Dick and a song about illegal downloading. What more could you possibly want? I’m also incredibly amused by his “Hipster Girl” song and video.
Songs
1) The Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire“: Because this song was featured in the video game Fallout 3, this band has recently received some much deserved attention. On a side note, the game is actually quite good, so the link that I’ve included is actually a trailer for the game featuring the song.
2) Muse’s “Uprising“: To be honest, as much as I enjoy this song, I actually prefer some of the hybrid classical/rock tracks on the album, which made me slightly disappointed when I learned that this was the main single. However, I’ll cut this awesome band some slack because of a funny incident that occurred around this song. Summarized, the band was asked to perform on a relatively popular Italian TV show but were instructed by the producers of the show and some of their own associates to play to a recording. In an act of hilarious defiance, the band switched places before the performance, went completed the entire act, and (if I remember correct) had their drummer pretend to be the front-man for the group.
3) Children of Bodom’s “Hate Me“: According to some of my more metal-inclined friends, these guys qualify as “melodic death metal.” Regardless, they’re easily one of my favorite “recent” metal bands, and this is one of my favorite tracks.
4) Copeland’s “Control Freak“: This is one of my favorite tracks from Copeland’s 2006 album, Eat, Sleep, Repeat, and has been stuck in my head for weeks.
Websites
1) PhD Comics: xkcd and this comic strip are constantly battling to be my favorite webcomic, although both comics target a relatively specific audience. A few of my personal favorites can be found here and here.
2) One of my friends posted this a while back. As someone who has actually attempted the “saltine challenge,” this was both hilarious and painful to watch. Basically, Daniel Tosh, a comedian featured on the Comedy Central show “Tosh.O,” attempts a number of ridiculous internet challenges… while on salvia.
3) Ok, so this one isn’t really a website, but this video NEVER fails to make me laugh. It’s called “The Count Censored” and features the count from Sesame Street with unnecessary censorship bleeps. Check it out!
