Showing posts with label Cold War Kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cold War Kids. Show all posts

03 June 2008

Top 6 songs of the moment


Guy Blackman & Jens Lekman - A Dark & Quiet Place.mp3 from Adult Baby
The most homoerotic song ever! Regardless of your gender or orientation, it'll make you want to take your pants off. Slow, sultry and tinkly... whimsical and yet serious all at once with gorgeous male-on-male vocal harmonies.

Van She - Kelly (Cut Copy mix).mp3 from the Kelly 12"
Like the first time I heard Cut Copy, I heard this Van She song and was convinced it was straight from 1985. The chorus, the synthesizers, the sound effects... This 7+ minute remix is just icing on the retro cake.

Damien Rice - Woman Like a Man.mp3 from B-Sides
Dark, hot, brooding, sweaty and powerful (and that's only the guitar!), this is a song for those of us who like it rough. For the heady feminists out there it produces a cultural conundrum: it is a degrading command or an observational compliment? Throw in some cello and ethereal female harmonies, and you will only say YES.

Islands - I Feel Evil (Creeping In).m4a from Arm's Way
I should have just uploaded the entire Islands album, because, really, that's almost all I've been listening to lately. Also, will someone PLEASE PLEASE get on the anticipated/inevitable Creeper remix or mash-up?? For reals, people. It's screaming for it.

Cold War Kids - Saint John.mp3 from Robbers & Cowards
I'd listened a bit to CWK some time ago but never really "got into" them until recently, with a revival of their true greatness courtesy of the recent Sasquatch festival. This song is a bit odd and off-tempo for them, like a jangly olde-tyme revival preacher. The schizophrenic cymbals and determined bass offset the choir-like vocals calling out for mercy from death row.

Flight of the Conchords - Bret You've Got It Goin' On.mp3
There's no reason or excuse for this, save for the fact that it's brilliantly written. It makes me want to be a guy so I can sing it to other guys. All I can do instead is Jam out with my...Clam out? (ooof, sorry for that one.)

30 May 2008

The worst (album) covers

Here at VK, usually when we talk about covers, we're referring to a song played by a band that was originally done by another band. However, I don't think that actual albums covers--that is, the "artwork" on the face of the album--get credit where they are due.

Oftentimes, a great piece of art not only draws the eye, but enhances the vibe and message as the musical component of the album. At its best, the work can be as sublime, moving, beautiful or curious as the songs it's packaging.

HOWEVER! Bad album artwork can really backfire. The Sun-Sentinel has put together a gallery of the worst album covers of all time. You can even upload atrocities you've seen, and vote for the worst.

Most, like this, are simply an overbearing punch of retro SO ugly, even Threadless wouldn't pick it up for kitsch value (ouch!):



Others are "merely" an affront to the basic aesthetic sense of those who have better than 20/400 vision, but are an all-out insult to those with even a modicum of graphic design preference:


Others... there is simply no excuse, and nothing to say:


WOW. Well. On that note, let's take this "covers" term and deliver some random cover songs for you as well.