I Don't Need A Sample, I've Got

[vimeo 4189528 w=480&h=300]

This is how I imagine recording a fresh track must look like. Everyone recording their channels together, dancing around the studio and improvising lyrics as they go: "I don't need a sample, I've got a girl with a banjo." From the very beginning--the girls singing the sampled vocal--it's immediately jubilant, in the same way that this now-famous Minnesota couple's wedding is. Everyone is just so fucking happy. Where Nyle surpasses Chris Brown is [not in girlfriend beatings, but] in the way the song builds. The increasing layers of instrumentation and Nyle's vocal crescendo make it bigger and more exciting as it goes on. That is after all what you expect from a song titled "Let the Beat Build."

The sample, if you didn't immediately recognize it is from the Lil' Wayne song of the same name, which is really from the Eddie Kendricks song "Day By Day." The Lil' Wayne song is one of my favorites from Tha Carter III, but this cover (so to speak) has a different energy, partly because of the video, but mostly because the lyrics just feel more inspired.

SWFMC Seeks Mouthwash For Potty Mouth

Hey I'm Kid Sister.

This is a mad foot-tapping-head-bobbing-hand-waving-summer song. Try to sit still without dancing to this chorus. Fall 2009 might turn into white-girl rapper season. The genre was introduced to me by Amanda Blank (whose debut was also just pushed back) but "Might Like You Better" just doesn't do for me what "Right Hand HI" is doing. I'm not giving up on the former, there are some good remixes out there that make it more danceable, and RCRD LBL just released a new free track from I Love You. Also, just stumbled across a scathing review of Blank's first single: 2/10 = ouch.

Here are my picks for freshest white rapper chick songs:

Kid Sister - Right Hand HI

Kid Sister - Pro Nails vs. Cool Feeling (Them Jeans Blend) [Video]

Amanda Blank - Make It Take It

Amanda Blank - Might Like Jeffer Better (Drus Mashup by Boys Noize)

Spank Rock - Bump (featuring Amanda Blank)

That last one is technically Spank Rock, but it features the DIRTIEST words I've ever heard a girl say.



Excerpt from a January interview with Kid Sister:

Pitchfork: Well, I'm just going to write that you got Lil Wayne and Rihanna to jump on the CD...

Kid Sister: You're totally right! No, I wish it was Lil Wayne, he's a crazy guy. Seriously. I don't mind them-- everyone loves Wayne and Rihanna. The only thing on the radio I can't stand right now is that Usher song "Trading Places." I fucking hate that song. It's like he's going on a date with a dude or something-- he just sounds like a nerd. I can't stand dudes singing about normal, everyday shit-- unless it's R. Kelly. It's like, [sings, R. Kelly-style] "I checked my voice mail and got two messages...I need to pick up printer paper at Office Max." If you want to do that type of thing, you have to be insane. You can't just talk about boring shit.
"

Oh, one more thing. Not sure if she's white or black, since she looks both. But the meaning of SW&BF just isn't very clear.

Wild Horses (Not The Stones)

Listen to this and then tell me it sounds dated. Well, if you think that it does. It sounds like it could be 80's new wave, but then again, it sounds kind of like it could be an unplugged Passion Pit B-side. Find out who it is and where it's from after the jump.

Prefab Sprout - Wild Horses

I guess Caroline Polachek calls it her theme song. Thanks to Ke for pointing me towards this euphoric summer song, which, let's be honest, is the best kind of summer song.

Prefab Sprout is best known for "Cars and Girls," but don't expect much if you're looking for more of "Wild Horses" (1990). This new wave sound is old, but this song doesn't feel like novelty. It feels like something being recorded now-ish. Which is about as high praise as you can give, since good music doesn't age. But who knows? maybe this will feel like novelty in a couple of weeks.

We generally accept that fashion moves in cycles, so couldn't we assume that music does too--and maybe even in tandem? So if the 80's were really coming back, it would make sense to see Ray Bans and synths on the same stages, wouldn't it?

I Am Leaving

Another summer song. I love the layered vocals and the the wall-of-sound synths. Beneath these production additions is a simple folk-pop song, in the same way Annie Clark becomes St Vincent with a band and a keyboard. I think the first time you hear a St Vincent album, the distorted guitars can be slightly shocking and conflicting with Annie's sweet voice. In this Blue Roses song, the synths complement the melodic lines. Two ways to slice a cake I suppose.

Blue Roses - I Am Leaving

St Vincent - The Strangers

"Blue Roses is to be found, kept and cherished; it is to be absent as the dust begins to settle, and longed for as ambience resumes. Blue Roses is the serendipity that can only happen when you thought you’d stopped looking; as you realise how life sounds without it, you begin again." Read the rest on her website.

Laughing With

The first time I heard this I played it three times. I love the melodrama and the piano harmonies. The lyrics, though clear and understandable, seem intentionally vague. Just like looking at an outline of a cube, where depending on how you think about the front side, you are able to change the cube. "No one laughs at god in a hospital" could mean either he's not a funny topic or that he has a poor sense of humor.


Regina Spektor - Laughing With

Where Are You Running To

Not a big MJ guy--never was--but after listening to the nostalgia orgies of the past twenty-four hours, I'm reminded that art can matter. That the stuff of great artists--their songs, their paintings, their books--becomes a part of our lives, and that whether you're talking about the first time you saw the "Thriller" video or the first time you tried to moonwalk, you're not really talking about Michael Jackson. You're talking about yourself. The art is just a market, allowing each of us to find our way back to some earlier, happier, more carefree version of ourselves." --Richard Dorment for Esquire

Michael Jackson vs. Ratatat - Billie Jean (Remixed by The Hood Internet)

Some Japanese butterfly must be flapping his wings. Because the musical fairies that deliver oral inspiration seem to have been washed away by the June rain. Only a couple weeks ago there was more music than any normal person can handle, but now, perhaps simultaneous with death of MJ, there seems to be none.

Solid Gold is a band from Minneapolis that I've been hearing for a year or so now. I hadn't given too much thought to them previously, but I've been listening to "Who You Gonna Run To" a lot lately. The song comes from the 2008 EP of the same name, and I'm reaching that point where I enjoy most of their songs that make it to my ears. This is not a full endorsement yet.

A great thing about summer is how people seem to forget about the musical racing and live blogging and tweeting just a little bit, enough so we can dig up some (relatively) oldies.

Solid Gold - Who You Gonna Run To