Tag: music

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music

Of Monsters and Men

Amazon had a sale a few days ago where a bunch of popular albums were on sale for $0.99. The main reason I went was to get a backup copy of Ceremonials by Florence+The Machine, because that’s an album well worth owning two copies of. But I think I ended up buying half of what was on offer, because who can say no to new music for a buck?

The two best new things I picked up were The Lumineers by the Lumineers, which tickles the same part of my brain that likes Mumford & Sons. (Who I am hopefully going to see at the end of August squee!)

But even better was Of Monsters and Men, a band from Iceland. Their first album is called My Head Is An Animal, which is the second line from the first song, Dirty Paws.

I love this song in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

It’s a strange little song if you really listen to the lyrics, but the first few times I just let it wash through my head and ran along with the guitar like I really was in the words. In the comments of the youtube video I posted, someone states that the band members said in an interview the lyrics originated in a game where they went around the circle and made up the song one line at a time. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can believe it, the way the song is constructed.

Either way, I love Dirty Paws because it feels like a dream, or a fairy tale. And:
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines


Beautiful.

I like every song on the album, but my other favorite is Little Talks, which also has one of the trippiest music videos I’ve seen in a while. But it adds that sort of fairy tale feel to the song that I love so:

And the lyrics are absolutely beautiful, a conversation between the living and the dead.

Lakehouse and Mountain Sound are also excellent. Well, the entire album is excellent, I think, but I generally tend to like songs with a more driven beat to begin with. I really hope I get a chance to see these guys in concert at some point.

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music

Another reason to love the Dropkick Murphys

I already love the Dropkick Murphys to a ridiculous degree – they’re right up there with Flogging Molly as one of my favorite bands. And now they just released one of the songs from their upcoming album in support of the Union protesters in Wisconsin. You can listen to it on their website:

Take ‘Em Down

Sure gets my blood going.

Lyrics:

When the boss comes callin’ they’ll put us down
When the boss comes callin’ gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin’ don’t believe their lies

When the boss comes callin’ he’ll take his toll
When the boss comes callin’ don’t you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin’ we gotta organize

CHORUS:
Let them know
We gotta take the bastards down
Let them know
We gotta smash them to the ground
Let them know
We gotta take the bastards down

When the boss comes callin’ you’ll be on your own
When the boss comes callin’ will you stand alone?
When the boss comes callin’ will you let them in?

When the boss comes callin’ will you stand and fight?
When the boss comes callin’ we must unite
When the boss comes callin’ we can’t let them win

CHORUS

We gotta take the bastards down

When the boss comes callin’ they’ll put us down
When the boss comes callin’ gotta stand your ground
When the boss comes callin’ don’t believe their lies

When the boss comes callin’ he’ll take his toll
When the boss comes callin’ don’t you sell your soul
When the boss comes callin’ we gotta organize

CHORUS

CHORUS

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music

Trebuchet!

George Hrab’s new album is out now – Trebuchet! He put the entire album as a podcast, so if you haven’t heard his music before, go give it a listen there. (Dogma Free America also put the whole CD at the end of their most recent podcast.) I’m liking this publicity angle that George is taking – I really think this is more the way in to the future, rather than the more controlling methods of the RIAA, for example.

The album is a lot of fun. I downloaded it on iTunes the day I heard the podcast, and I’ve listened to it several times. I don’t think there’s a song on the album that I don’t like. Though I will admit that my favorite is still FAR. I am totally unashamed to admit that I had that song on repeat when I was out on a bike ride, and was singing along at the top of my lungs. Who cares if the other pedestrians thought I was off my head.

There’s also a song on the album called “Hai, Yookito ‘Ya.” While I should have realized that it was Ukranian – and I did recognize George’s mom’s voice at the beginning – my immediate thought was that it sounded Japanese, so I spent about 20 minutes making myself crazy over it. At this point, Japanese has become my default language on anything that sounds even vaguely like it; I guess that’s what I get for taking four years worth of classes. All is explained in his interview on Skepticality. However, I still think we should start calling George 勇気人 (brave man) or　雪人　(snow man) or possibly just 有機人 (organic man) since I’m pretty sure he’s a carbon-based life form. They all actually sound the same (other than the middle name actually has a shorter “u”) so he won’t even know which he’s being called at any given time.

And this was of course the day after I found out Devo had come out with a new album, called Something for Everybody. So I got a double dose of awesome, funky, geeky music.

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awesome music

Here Comes Science!

I’ll admit it; I actually haven’t listened to They might Be Giants in quite a long time, probably not since high school. I originally got turned on to their music because I watched Tiny Toon Adventures (and I am not ashamed!) and there was an episode of it that was just animated music videos to songs off of Flood. I bought Flood and enjoyed it, but after that I got a little too caught up in being a teenager and listening to music that involved a lot of screaming and the sounds of people torturing electric guitars with dental instruments.

I heard that the band’s been putting out more kid-oriented music and then my friend Chelsea posted on Twitter that the Here Comes Science was really awesome. Since I’m a slave to anything that is about how cool science is, I bought the album from iTunes and just finished listening to it.

It is a really awesome album. Seriously. It’s also definitely kid-safe, kid-friendly, and something kids can enjoy. They may not get all the words, but particularly songs like “The Bloodmobile,” “Cells,” “Solid, Liquid, Gas,” and “Speed and Velocity” put the scientific concepts in to terms I think kids could easily understand. (Man, it would have been nice if someone had explained the difference between speed and velocity to me before I hit the evil brick wall of Physics I in college. Bonus points for in an upbeat song.) And man, are the songs upbeat! I can’t listen to “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and “I Am a Paleontologist” without bouncing around.

And of course, as a bonus to the fun tunes, the lyrics are most excellent.

The first song (“Science Is Real”) lays it out immediately:

I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like those stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science

Squee!

And of course, for the budding skeptics out there, we’ve got “Put It to the Test:”

If somebody says they figured it out
And they’re leaving any room for doubt
Come up with a test
Yeah, you need a test

Are you sure that that thing is true?
Or did someone just tell it to you?
Come up with a test

The essence of skepticism, in one cute, bouncy song.

Evolution is mentioned several times in the album, and gets a song all of its own as well, “My Brother the Ape:”

But I’ll admit that I look more like a chimp
Than I look like my cousin the shrimp
Or my distant kin the lichens
Or the snowy egret or the moss
And I find it hard to recognize
Some relatives of ours
Like the rotifer, the sycamore
Iguanas and sea stars

I love it! I think kids will love this to bits. And heck, I’m not a kid and I love it to bits too. I need to dig up Flood as well and put it on my iPod again.