So, I’ve been in a bit of a music rut lately. Frankly, I just haven’t had the time to look for music and not much has been catching my ears lately. Well, hopefully that dry spell is over. Sneaky Sound System is an Australian electro/pop duo consisting of Black Angus and Connie Mitchell. I got the album a few weeks ago after reading the music roundup on Towleroad. Finally today I loaded it onto my iphone. I had a freak out dance party in my room by myself at about 8AM (I had just taken an Awake pill). I walked to work instead of biking, because I wanted to listen to it–yeah. And I’ve been listening to it between every podcast today (i.e. 4-5x). My first reaction while listening to it (and this may be indicative of electronic music either rotting my brain or taking it to a whole new level) was that I liked their sounds. I wish I had better words to describe electronic music, but essentially I just like the sounds. Blip-bloop-bleep. Their music seems to pull from multiple genres and I hear influences of disco, 80s electro, and contemporary house. It’s bumpin’, but it won’t give you a headache. Connie Mitchell is gorgeous and her outfits bright and sparkly, stimulating multiple senses. The videos are fun and playful. I’m currently tapping my foot and squirming in my seat finishing up this post. Get your headphones and have at it.
The video for We Love kind of reminds me of a downtempo Benassi-Prydz hybrid.
The Bugle: John and Andy take down Qaddafi’s take-down. If you want to make an assassination funny, look to these guys.
Best of the Left: Two-part episode (#538 & #539) about the Occupy Wall St. movement and how the mainstream media is grossly misrepresenting and underreporting it.
Stuff Mom Never Told You: Cristen and Caroline discuss women in this fall’s TV lineup, mostly focussing on Whitney and The New Girl. They weren’t so impressed by either Whitney (agree) nor TNG (disagree). In my opinion, the glaring omission from their analysis was Up All Night starring Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph, and Will Arnett. UAN is probably one of the more progressive shows in terms of gender roles in society with Applegate as the workaolic breadwinner and Arnett as the stay-at-home dad but manages to not fall into clichés concerning those two ever-the-more-common archetypes. And Rudolph’s Oprah-Tyra hybrid is enough alone to warrant watching the show.
Made in Brazil: Ru-Mix: You Don’t Want to Dance with Me. This podcast is a couple weeks old, but I finally got to listen to it this past weekend. It’s bangin’. DJ Ru-Bot describes it thus, ‘Yes, that summer faux-mance is over, ever unconsummated, and the only way to cope is to bring that heartbreak right where it belongs: the dancefloor!’ I def felt summer summer nostalgia while listening to it. Winter is around the corner–le sigh.
this has already been a great summer in terms of music. there are quite a few contenders for what will be known as the summer jam of ‘011. today while i was listening to one of them, i found so many layers that i had to blog about it. (this is gonna be one of those pop philosophy posts)
lmfao came onto the scene a few years ago with ‘i’m in miami, bitch’ which not only became the safe-for-radio hit ‘i’m in miami, trick’ but eventually became the only song i can think of that quickly became a geo-centric hit. ‘i’m in la, trick.’ ‘i’m in nyc, trick’ and the doubly funny ‘i’m in the bay, trick.’ but i digress, they had a hit, and then defied the odds to come out with another hit ‘shots’ which once again made it cool to quote lil jon in a bar. (seriously, who can say the word ‘shots’ anymore without repeating it? ‘shots! shots! shots! shots, shots, shots!’)
i, like many others was totally ready to chalk it up to them being a two-hit wonder. and then this spring i started to hear a song that i now know heralded in the reign of ‘party rockin.’
lmfao party rock anthem
now i’m not entirely sure what party rockin’ is, but from what i can tell from the video, it involves shufflin’ everyday, fake glasses, real fros, positive attitudes and a new breed of jeans that are equal parts cotton, spandex and leopard. now this is a movement i can get behind.
now my favorite aspect of this song is the ways in which it unabashedly draws from it’s own history. if you’re like me and loved this song from the start then i’m sure you also felt like it was vaguely reminiscent of another song. you know the song it’s sampling..
rick ross hustlin’
no, not ‘hustlin’ tho i do dig how they evolved that sample. no i’m talking about a dance song that helped dance music find its rightful place in the hearts and playlists of the young in 04. that’s right i’m talking about ‘call on me’ by eric prydz
eric prydz call on me
‘call on me’ no doubt evokes a great nostalgia in any fan. not only does the beat remind one of scantily clad jazzercisers, but of that fantastic time where we, as americans had money in our pockets, hope in our hearts and an idea as to why we were in a war. the song was an underground powerhouse that had frat boys dressing in unitards for multiple years.
but what many people don’t know is that this song was itself a sample of an early hit by steven winwood called ‘valerie’
as you can tell, this is a song you know you’ve heard before but most likely wouldn’t be able to name with a gun to your head.
so why am i talking about all of this?
creativity is standing on the shoulders of giants. everything we as artists, we as humans experience touches us, changes us, influences us in our future endeavors. this is a concept that is rarely as evident as with the hit ‘party rockin’ so i felt it worth noting. you can very easily see the influences that created the song and to be honest, the song is a lot better for it. would i like this song nearly as much if it used a different sample? no, because it wouldn’t be the same song.
sometimes i think that the only difference between pop culture and plagiarism is showing your sources. what do you think? does this song deserve to be ‘summer jam ‘011’? stay tuned as i talk about my other favorites from this summer..
ean.weslynn 