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Yes, yes, it is indeed true that Guilty Pleasures #1 took the form of 'Girlfriend' by Miss Avril Lavigne. But oh, do I have a treat for you. There isn't much to add to my last post here, apart from that this remix by Lil Mama is even better than the original. Pant-wettingly good, I swear. Take it, and run!
mp3: 'Girlfriend (Lil Mama Remix)' - Avril Lavigne
It has been far, far too long since Die Hard With A Vengeance. So long in fact that I can't even wait til the early July release of Live Free Or Die Hard before posting on just how excited I am. Whilst my sister twitches over every bit of McFly news on release, and my friends drool over gossip surrounding a Spice Girls reunion (despite the fact they never listen to their old stuff anymore), I sit here so filled to bursting with anticipation of John McClane's return that my leg hasn't stopped bouncing in a week.
The first Die Hard came out in 1988, about half a year after my birth. The second installment, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, came out in 1990. It took until 1995 for the third film, part re-invention of the series, Die Hard With A Vengeance, to arrive. I reckon my dad must have shown me the first film in the same year. I remember I was eight, and there were two bits of dodgy home-editing on my behalf - a brief flash of breasts near the beginning, and a bullet through the head twenty minutes or so later. I'm pretty sure that was it. Every swear word, including the whole 'Yippee-kay-ay...' bit left in for my eight year old eyes and ears. Sure, there were those two brief edits, and I got a stern-faced conversation from my father about appropiate words before we started, but ultimately I was watching an eighteen-rated film ten years early. And I got hooked quick.
mp3: Old Habits Die Hard - Mick Jagger & Dave Stewart
Due to the magic of zamzar.com, my new online file converting buddy, I can finally put this blog's namesake up. Zero 7 are, without a doubt, the best ambient dance act ever to come out of anywhere. Massive Attack would give every single one of their limbs to be as consistantly beautiful and mesmerising as Zero 7. The band's first two albums featured vocalists such as Tina Dico, Sophie Barker and Sia - all fantastic performers with unique voices. Both albums had a couple of standout tracks that remain today in my top twenty-five of all time (it's an elaborate list). By the time it came to their third album, 'The Garden', Zero 7 grew within themselves to create something unlike their previous works, but maintaining the chillout vibe. They dropped Dico and Barker, keeping only the perfectly child-like voice of Sia, and adding not only their own voices but the Swedish tones of Jose Gonazalez on four of the tracks. The result was fantastic - though no single track alone compares to earlier works 'Destiny', 'Distractions' or 'Somersault', the album as a whole is complete, an example of perfection. Some tracks grow on you over time, and The Garden is filled with those. In particular, 'The Pageant Of The Bizarre' is a late night circus oddity (and almost claimed the title of this blog itself' and 'You're My Flame' is the greatest cliched love song ever to exist. Amongst these is hidden 'This Fine Social Scene' - a swooning despair over the death of going out. As a song, it captures my best friend's everyday complaint and draws it into the juiciest lament ever. As an album, The Garden is perfect, and according to a list I made on Amazon, the seventh greatest album ever made.
mp3: 'This Fine Social Scene' - Zero 7
Yesterday it suddenly decided to become hot. I don't know what 'it' is particularly, but I know it decided to become hot. I'm not a fan of heat, being heavy-set and heavily affected by it - but I'm glad to see it back. It seems about right now I'm finishing my first year at university to be outside in the evenings, dancing, so to speak, in the moonlight. That said, at the moment the moonlight won't set in til 11 at night. Which I'm certainly not complaining about.
Not many people realise these days that 'Dancing In The Moonlight' was not originally by Toploader, but by Seventies one-hit-wonders King Harvest. I only know because of an old Seventies album my friend lent me a few years back. Personally, I prefer the original, it seems more chilled out, and more likely to involve some sort of placing of flowers in gun barrels. That pleases me.
mp3: 'Dancing In The Moonlight' - King Harvest
mp3: 'Dancing In The Moonlight' - Toploader
I love me a bit of Sixties summer pop, and Love, the long-forgotten band of Arthur Lee, will fill that slot nicely, regardless of whether or not they'd like being called pop. They are. I've got to admit though, like a lot of my musical discoveries of the last few years, my love for, um, Love stemmed from their featuring on a soundtrack. This time round it was the soundtrack to 2001 comedy, and All-Time Top 5 Film (No. 4) of mine, High Fidelity. I really must recommend the soundtrack to you, almost as highly as the film - so far it has introduced me to The Beta Band, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, John Wesley Harding and, although I already thought of his music as regularly flawless, Stevie Wonder's track 'I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)'. So yeah, a great soundtrack. My favourite, even, beating the ever-popular Garden State for once.
So today's tracks are by Love. Two tracks that I love. By Love. They really couldn't have chosen a more awkward band name, could they? The first track is opener to their grandest album, 'Forever Changes', and is a lovely swooping summer track that keeps throbbing forward. The second track is the one from the 'High Fidelity' soundtrack, and my favourite love track - not unlike a Velvet Underground song, if the Velvet Underground were better vocally. Or Bob Dylan, if, you know, Bob Dylan was better vocally. Funnily enough, the soundtrack sandwiches Love between The Velvet Underground and Dylan, and though the Dylan song is one of his best vocally (Most Of The Time), Love still shines through. Which, you know, sounds like a song lyric in itself.
mp3: 'Alone Again Or' by Love
mp3: 'Always See Your Face' by Love
I always loved it on Sesame Street when they sang the song about One Of These not being like the others. I'd have liked it even more if it were with this odd-one-out. Though to be fair, the lovely girl is obviously not the oddest of the bunch by a long shot. Still, it's The Shins, and it'd be wrong to complain about a band so consistantly perfect in the output. Their latest album, for instance, has only been around since February, and has already confirmed itself as in my All-Time Desert-Island Top-Ten list. 'Sealegs', in particular, catches my ear every time - it's terrific, typical of The Shins lyrically, but musically so offbeat for them. I am already preparing myself for the first rapper to notice how awesome the riff is, so when it's sampled I'm not too traumatised. I'm considering become a rapper myself, just so I can get to the riff before anyone else. It makes me happy and funky at once. And not funky in the 'smelly' sense, either - though I had a rough night last night, so that too may well be relevant.
mp3: 'Sealegs' by The Shins
I've just discovered an awesome website going under the moniker of Zamzar, and it converts files to mp3 online for free! This is fantastic and shiny, as many many tracks on my PC have been metaphorically segregated by their WMA status. Now I can convert them, without downloading numerous programs that will ultimately just cause great grief to my intolerable little mind, and put them up for your listening pleasure! Today I'm gonna treat you to the band who I've most wanted to post up here thus far.
And so it is with great joy and much hoo-hah that I present to you... The Audreys! Never heard of them? Well, that doesn't surprise me in the least, because other than via their own website I myself have not heard a single whisper about them since I saw them supporting the awesome Pipettes at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton almost a year ago.
The Audreys are a four-piece Aussie band who make some of the most summery alt-country pop this side of Alabama. Maybe if Sufjan met Albert Hammond and had a bit of a jam session the end result might just reach the sound of The Audreys. Two songs on offer here: The first, 'You & Steve McQueen', is the opening track on debut album 'Between Last Night And Us' and flirts with the broken country pop that the rest of the album lays down so flawlessly. The second, 'Long Ride' is a slow-burning beauty, and my favourite song of last year by some way. It sounds as if the band sung it in their sleep, or at least when in a druken stupor somewhere between tipsy and tripping over the furniture. Certainly far before that stage where you start vomiting in your cupboard. Eurgh. But this isn't selling the track to you, is it? Long Ride is beautiful, building from a gentle sweetness to heartbreaking harmonies. This is the sort of track you'd play at the end of a long road trip, just about to pull into some dodgy motel where three of the neon letters on the sign are not working, and another one has fallen down, smashed beside the ice cube dispenser. Enjoy, you don't find a song like this everyday.
mp3: 'You & Steve McQueen' - The Audreys
mp3: 'Long Ride' - The Audreys
Due to the magic of zamzar.com, my new online file converting buddy, I can finally put this blog's namesake up. Zero 7 are, without a doubt, the best ambient dance act ever to come out of anywhere. Massive Attack would give every single one of their limbs to be as consistantly beautiful and mesmerising as Zero 7. The band's first two albums featured vocalists such as Tina Dico, Sophie Barker and Sia - all fantastic performers with unique voices. Both albums had a couple of standout tracks that remain today in my top twenty-five of all time (it's an elaborate list). By the time it came to their third album, 'The Garden', Zero 7 grew within themselves to create something unlike their previous works, but maintaining the chillout vibe. They dropped Dico and Barker, keeping only the perfectly child-like voice of Sia, and adding not only their own voices but the Swedish tones of Jose Gonazalez on four of the tracks. The result was fantastic - though no single track alone compares to earlier works 'Destiny', 'Distractions' or 'Somersault', the album as a whole is complete, an example of perfection. Some tracks grow on you over time, and The Garden is filled with those. In particular, 'The Pageant Of The Bizarre' is a late night circus oddity (and almost claimed the title of this blog itself' and 'You're My Flame' is the greatest cliched love song ever to exist. Amongst these is hidden 'This Fine Social Scene' - a swooning despair over the death of going out. As a song, it captures my best friend's everyday complaint and draws it into the juiciest lament ever. As an album, The Garden is perfect, and according to a list I made on Amazon, the seventh greatest album ever made.
I love me a bit of Sixties summer pop, and Love, the long-forgotten band of Arthur Lee, will fill that slot nicely, regardless of whether or not they'd like being called pop. They are. I've got to admit though, like a lot of my musical discoveries of the last few years, my love for, um, Love stemmed from their featuring on a soundtrack. This time round it was the soundtrack to 2001 comedy, and All-Time Top 5 Film (No. 4) of mine, High Fidelity. I really must recommend the soundtrack to you, almost as highly as the film - so far it has introduced me to The Beta Band, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, John Wesley Harding and, although I already thought of his music as regularly flawless, Stevie Wonder's track 'I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)'. So yeah, a great soundtrack. My favourite, even, beating the ever-popular Garden State for once.
I always loved it on Sesame Street when they sang the song about One Of These not being like the others. I'd have liked it even more if it were with this odd-one-out. Though to be fair, the lovely girl is obviously not the oddest of the bunch by a long shot. Still, it's The Shins, and it'd be wrong to complain about a band so consistantly perfect in the output. Their latest album, for instance, has only been around since February, and has already confirmed itself as in my All-Time Desert-Island Top-Ten list. 'Sealegs', in particular, catches my ear every time - it's terrific, typical of The Shins lyrically, but musically so offbeat for them. I am already preparing myself for the first rapper to notice how awesome the riff is, so when it's sampled I'm not too traumatised. I'm considering become a rapper myself, just so I can get to the riff before anyone else. It makes me happy and funky at once. And not funky in the 'smelly' sense, either - though I had a rough night last night, so that too may well be relevant.
