http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvz2PLiHyo4
Daniel Merriweather's a big hit in the UK and I can't wait for his album Love and War to finally drop in the US. The adorable blue-eyed soul singer hails from Australia but in this track, helmed by Mark Ronson (best known for making Amy Winehouse sound like the 1960s) Merriweather makes like old school soul and I'm in love. The driving piano draws you in from the first seconds and than Merriweather starts in with the nonsense refrain before shifting to lyrics that are a variation on the apathetic our-generation-needs-to-wake-up refrain that's timeworn but hasn't been this pleading for a long time. "Tell me do you still believe, everything that you read?" Merriweather asks and I can safely say I believe everything that he sings. Add in Wale, the DC rapper perhaps best none for his shrill collabo with Lady Gaga, and you've got a perfect marriage of traditional R&B and old school smooth flowing rap (although Wale does seem to diss my boy Daniel when he refers to him as the "background singer" - I mean, I know you're Wale, but this is Danny's show). "Change" is the perfect jam for car rides and slow mo dancing at the end of the night with a beer in hand and sleep in mind.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Spy - Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44yYrQGRtu8
Item: Shakira is bat shit crazy. Like nucking futs. And on her most recent album she seems to have gone even further into her own private fantasy where world music from Colombia mixes easily with klezmer clarinet (a la Led Zeppelin) and dirty electro dance beats (a la Crystal Castles). Add to that the fact that Shakira has always had a voice she can manipulate so in the same song she can sound like a hall of horror movie children, the sexiest temptress you ever said no to, and leather.
Item: This track is Shakira and Wyclef's third collabo and while "Hips Don't Lie" may be ubiquitious I offer this track as more engaging and smoldering with a kind of white hot sexual heat. The beat makes me wanna dance, the digitized child voice cawing in the background makes me want to play it again, the thinly veiled innuendos linking spies and sex (it's a stretch, I know) make me want to grind.
Now, I know that Shakira is a bit overexposed but for some reason her "She Wolf" album seems to not be getting the love it deserves and that's a shame. I offer this track as one of my faves off the album and one that is guaranteed to never be a single even though it's kind of like lightening in three minutes and twenty eight seconds. "Spy" shows Shakira at her wackiest with that creepy nonsense cooing, her hard-edged come-ons and a driving beat making me want to dance. Dirty.
Item: Shakira is bat shit crazy. Like nucking futs. And on her most recent album she seems to have gone even further into her own private fantasy where world music from Colombia mixes easily with klezmer clarinet (a la Led Zeppelin) and dirty electro dance beats (a la Crystal Castles). Add to that the fact that Shakira has always had a voice she can manipulate so in the same song she can sound like a hall of horror movie children, the sexiest temptress you ever said no to, and leather.
Item: This track is Shakira and Wyclef's third collabo and while "Hips Don't Lie" may be ubiquitious I offer this track as more engaging and smoldering with a kind of white hot sexual heat. The beat makes me wanna dance, the digitized child voice cawing in the background makes me want to play it again, the thinly veiled innuendos linking spies and sex (it's a stretch, I know) make me want to grind.
Now, I know that Shakira is a bit overexposed but for some reason her "She Wolf" album seems to not be getting the love it deserves and that's a shame. I offer this track as one of my faves off the album and one that is guaranteed to never be a single even though it's kind of like lightening in three minutes and twenty eight seconds. "Spy" shows Shakira at her wackiest with that creepy nonsense cooing, her hard-edged come-ons and a driving beat making me want to dance. Dirty.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Sia - Buttons (CSS Remix)
My New Year's Resolution? To dance more. Who's going to help me? Sia the whacky Aussie with a Motown voice and indie sensibilities (check some of her insane vids for her awesome songs). Her moment in the pop music spotlight came when her song "Breathe Me" was used in the final episode of HBO's Six Feet Under and subsequently on the soundtrack. That song was breathy, ethereal and unnerving - like Sarah McLachlan having a mental breakdown. Her second album introduced a more soulful sound and the original version of "Buttons" hails from there (it's a hidden track). This remix by those zany Brazilians CSS adds glitchy keyboards to the sound of a one-woman girl group charting her descent into madness in the wake of a bad breakup. Unlike many remixes though, her voice is not buried and you wouldn't want to bury the way that Sia's voice hits notes with such a cleaness. She massages words, makes them trills, and drives home the anguish and anger without losing her cool ice queen sound. Sia is in full control of her clear notes as she's ringing phrases like bells. It's like Phil Specter's Wall of Sound by way of an eighties Madonna track. Or, rather, it's more unique than that, and it'll lodge itself in your head as did with me from the first time my brother played it for me. Toss it on and join me on the dance floor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrjMlNxQ-co
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrjMlNxQ-co
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