The links go to YouTube videos of the songs.

• Local H – Eddie Vedder
• Spot – Moon June Spoon
• John Mayer – Daughters
• John Mayer – Why did you mess with forever?
• RHCP – Breaking the Girl
• Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars
• All American Rejects – Dirty Little Secret
• The Killers – Mr Brightside
• Lilly Allen – Womanizer (Cover) (seriously, it’s good)
• Marty Casey – Baby One More Time (Cover) (again… good)
• Oasis – Wonderwall
• Radiohead – High and Dry
• John Frusciante – How Deep is Your Love (Bee Gees Cover)

Clazziquai Project – Prayers (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Felix da Housecat – Radio (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Digitalism – Pogo (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Anna Tsuchiya – Ah Ah (Shinichi Osawa remix)

Shinichi Osawa – Maximum Joy

Eri Nobuchika  – Lights (Produced by Shinichi Osawa)

Eri Nobuchika – Sing a Song (Produced by Shinichi Osawa)

Mondo Grosso – Hikari

Mondo Grosso – Shinin’

About 2 years ago I made some mixed CDs for my friends. I called them “Intro Packets” and they were meant as introductions to non-mainstream music. Some of the songs eventually became mainstream, such as Hide and Seek by Imogene Heap. I made 6 intro packets, and I’ll be posting the playlists every once in a while.

1. Air – All I Need
2. Asian Kung Fu Generation – Re Re (live version here)
3. Autour de Lucie – Les promesses (Not available on YouTube)
4. Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around the Block
5. Basement Jaxx – Stop 4 Love (Not available on YouTube)
6. Grand National – Drink to Moving on
7. Hooverphonic – Blue wonder Power Milk (Not available on YouTube)
8. Hooverphonic – Renaissance Affair (Not available on YouTube)
9. Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
10. John Legend – Ordinary People
11. Phoenix – Too Young
12. Pleasant Stitch –Something Real
13. Telepopmusik – Breathe (Extended)
14. The Streets – Has It Come To This
15. Vast – Touched
16. Zero 7 – Give it Away

Download song5.mp3

Vast – Touched
DRM-Free MP3

Akino Arai – Kirei na Kanjou

Cafe Tacuba – Chilanga Banda
DRM-Free MP3

Sorry there wasn’t a Music Monday last week. I’ve been working a lot on a project at work and I had zero time to write, or sleep, or anything. But now that it’s done, on to the music. Let’s start off with 5 songs that sound like each other:

Garbage – Cherry Lips
Stone Temple Pilots – Big Bang Baby
Nikka Costa – Everybody’s Got Their Something
Better than Ezra – Juicy
David Schwartz – I get up

There are slight variations in the sequence but they’re still oddly similar. Am I missing something? Are they all paying tribute to some great song I don’t know about? Is it some subconscious thing? Whaaat’s going OOoon? I can understand the last one by David Schwartz, it’s for the show Arrested Development, and since the song opened with Everybody’s Got Their Something they needed something similar.

There’s been a lot of talk about the upcoming death of the RIAA given that Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails and Madonna left their traditional labels. It’s been reported that Radiohead’s In Rainbows sold about 1.2 million copies at an average price of $8. It’s great these guys are trying new things but I wonder how long they’ll like being without a label deal. Let’s face it, you cannot be as famous as Radiohead is without a label promoting your music. Any indie band, no matter how good it is, will never be able to pull these kinds of numbers. Thom Yorke has talked about the leaving the “decaying business model”, but come on! They’re still capitalizing on the fame their label got them. And they still did the same shit the RIAA does – making fans pay for music more than once. Initially they didn’t tell anyone they would also release the album as a CD, so anyone who wants a high quality recording will have to pay for it again.

It kinda sucks that only big names can leave their labels successfully. I used to listen a lot to VAST. Once Jon Crosby left his record deal I lost track of his latest stuff. By the way, I found an awesome video of Touched that uses footage from Equilibrium, it’s ridiculously better than the original.

I’m still waiting for the next big artist to be fully independent and right now it looks like it’s Jonathan Coulton of all people. And his success is fueled by the fact that he releases his music under Creative Commons license. He says he makes just enough from MP3 to make a living, but Valve asked him to write a song for their game Portal. How cool is that? Unfortunately it looks like the mp3 for that is only going to be available via Steam, sometime in the future.

There is a Bleach Musical. W… T… F?

Another song that has stuck with me for about a year: Kirei na Kanjou by Akino Arai. It sits at position #3 on the all-time playcount right behind La Ritournelle. I have no idea how I started listening to her, but I’m a huge fan and several people have asked me for her stuff upon listening. Her voice resonates with me for some reason. As it turns out, this song is the ending theme for the anime Noir, so I was able to find it on YouTube.

On the Mexican music front, I want to share the song Chilanga Banda by Cafe Tacuba. It’s originally by Jaime López, and 90% of the words start with “ch” and it’s mostly Mexico City slang. (lyrics here). We Mexicans love the ch sound (Chile, Chilango, Chinga tu madre, for example). Don’t ask me what the lyrics mean, cause I have no chingada idea.

And lastly, I’m going to start linking to Amazon’s MP3 store for any songs in here that are available to buy. That way if you like something you can get it legally and I don’t get in trouble. Yay! Cake for everyone!

Sebastien Tellier – La Ritournelle

Hayashi Miki – ???

Julieta Venegas – Amores Perros

I’ve always hated Japanese rock groups that sing in very low voices with extreme vibrato – it’s a rock song, not a freaking opera. L’Arc～en～Ciel has been one of the worst offenders and I’ve resisted listening to them for a long time, but they finally got me with My Heart Draws A Dream. I’ve been listening to that song over and over, trying not to think about the shame of being reeled in like some trout. I think I like it because for some reason it reminds me of listening to Miguel Bose songs when I was a kid – random, I know.

I’ve been thinking about the reasons why people like songs (besides a real interest in the musical quality of a song). I’ve come up with four so far:

Peer Pressure: you want to be able to talk about music with our friends. It’s 100% the reason why I started listening to Green Day when Dookie came out.
Saturation: A song keeps playing on the radio over and over and over. It’s the only possible explanation for Britney Spears and Rhianna’s Umbrella.
Memory Road: A song might remind you of something. I hated, hated Seven Mary Three’s Cumbersome, but now I kinda like it because it reminds me of high school.
Nonconformity: you want to listen to what others aren’t. I’m guilty of this, for a long time I felt very proud that I listened to obscure stuff, how douchy of me. To this day I hate Zach Braff for the Garden State soundtrack. “Oh, it’s that song from Garden State!” *CRINGE*.

None of these reasons can explain why anyone can listen to Creed and Nickelback. These people just plainly suck and have no soul.

New Rule: It’s ok to be a music snob, but if you don’t play any instruments and have no concept of music theory, you’re not cool, you’re just a pretentious asshole.

I want to introduce you to a song that I’ve been listening to for a year straight – Sebastien Tellier’s La Ritournelle. It’s pretty impressive that this song hasn’t gotten old for me yet. I was listening the Ministry of Sound – Chillout Sessions cd and this song came up when I was halfway asleep. Usually chords are looped in fours, but what got to me was that this one has them grouped in fives. It’s a little bit awkward at first but as you listen it makes sense. I listen to a different mix than what I’ve posted (here’s the closest thing) – on the one I listen to the song builds and builds and the lyrics don’t come in until 2:12 and end at 3:00. It’s an interesting decision and that’s why I love it.

This song by Hayashi Miki… can’t… stop… watching… song… stuck… in… head. It was written by Yasuharu Konishi, who was part of Pizzicato Five. It would have been better as a Pizzicato Five song. This singer doesn’t have much talent but still…. song… stuck… in… brain. By the way, from the P5 wikipedia entry: “The catchphrase ‘A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular’ captured the group’s ironic stance and eager attitude.” What the hell? “A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular” is the name of a Hooverphonic CD. Someone’s plagiarizing someone here.

It’s a little bit weird that I write a lot about Japanese music since I’m sooo Mexican (ah, the wonders of globalization). Therefore I’m going to write a little bit about Mexican music from now on. I’d like to introduce you to the song Amores Perros by Julieta Venegas. It’s one of those songs that has stuck with me for years. Please enjoy.

Tim Blane – Tennessee

Teriyaki Boyz – I Still Love H.E.R.

Feist – 1 2 3 4

YUI – Love & Truth

I’ve already written about the SNL Digital Short Iran So Far, but there’s one last thing to say – aside from the fact that they got Adam Levine to be on it, the song becomes much cooler once you realize that they sampled Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th.

Radiohead is going to be offering their next album online, since they don’t have any label contract. The name of the new album is In Rainbows, and fans will be able to pay what they think it’s worth. Thank god another major artist is sticking it to the record labels, and thank god it’s not Prince this time. You can preorder it here.

I went to CollegeFest last week and I got hooked on Tim Blane. He was on one of the stages playing the song Tennessee and I ended up buying his CD. It’s very hard not to compare him to John Mayer. The style and the chords he uses are very similar. Tennessee’s lyrical content is very reminiscent of Neon, both songs are about “a crazy girl.” Nevertheless, the song is REALLY good, and I bet you’ll be hearing it on the radio in about a year. Fortunately for you, Tim Blane has put up the mp3 here.

I stumbled upon Kanye West’s Wikipedia page and read some interesting information – he did a song with Teriyaki Boyz. In case you don’t know who those guys are, it’s a group formed by Ilmari and Ryo-Z from Rip Slyme, VERBAL from m-flo, and WISE. Here’s the interesting bit of information, their DJ, Nigo, is the founder of A Bathing Ape. I was wondering how they got Pharell on one of their tracks.

The new hawtness is Feist’s 1 2 3 4, which is featured on the latest iPod commercial. I’m glad that she got the commercial and hopefully this will give her some mainstream recognition. All of her music is great and I would recommend picking up her previous albums.

The latest single from YUI is really good. She’s one of my favorite artists now. How hot is it that a girl who writes her own songs can also rock out? By the way, if you’ve wondered why there’s so much Japanese music on here, I don’t know what to tell you, I’m just addicted because it’s very accessible on the interweb. Some people have problems listening to music in other languages – I don’t since I grew up listening to American stuff without being able to understand it, so this is familiar territory.

^ NBC removed the video from YouTube for some reason. This is someone elses.

Iran So Far Lyrics

They say true love comes only once in a lifetime
and even though we’re from opposite ends of the earth,
my heart tells me you’re the one for me.
Mahmoud

I remember when it started, saw you in the news
you were hating gays and I was eating food
I was feeling you, and even though I disagreed with almost everything you said
you aint wrong to me, so strong to me, you belong to me
Like a very hairy Jake Gyllenhaal and me
Mahmoud make my heart beating out of my chest
my mind says no but my body says yes
Nuclear threat, the only threat I see,
is the threat of you not coming home to me.
Our love for each other’s like when atoms collide
Can’t express how I feel
And yo Adam let’s rhyme

And Iran, Iran so far away
is your home, but in my heart you’ll stay

He ran, for the president of Iran
we ran together to a tropical island
my man, Mahmoud is known for rilin’
smiling, if he can still do it then I can
they call you weasel, they say your methods are medieval
you can blame the Jews I can be your Jim Caviezel

S&M, nestlin’ when we’re wrestlin’
You can be the port that I put my vessel in
So I try to mute the tv but you can still see me
with your sleepy brown eyes, white pecan thighs
And your hairy butt…
Yeah.

And Iran, Iran so far away
come home, and in my arms you’ll stay
Used to look at the stars and dream
round the world the same stars we’ve seen
And a twinkle in your eyes Mahmoud.

Talk smooth to me, without a tie
your pants high waisted damn so fly.
We can take a trip to the animal zoo
and laugh at all the funny things that animals do
Like Eugene you got me strait trippin’ boo
hope you look at my eyes and say I’m trippin’ too
you say Iran don’t have the bomb but they already do
you should know by now, it’s you.

You crazy for this one Mahmoud
you can deny the holocaust all you want
but you can’t deny that there’s something between us
I know you say there’s no gays in Iran
but you’re in New York baby
so time to stop hiding,
and start living

Matchbox 20 – How Far We’ve Come

Britney Spears – Gimme More

Marty Casey – Baby One More Time

Lil’ Mama – Lip Gloss

I’m going to start doing my music writing on Mondays. Hopefully this will encourage me to write more and will give me some sort of structure, cause this site is all over the place.

On the video list you’ll see stuff from Britney Spears and Lil’ Mama. You may think this is lame but please bear with me, there are totally non-sucky things to be said about them. But first, Foo Fighters… the new rock is out! Rock has been stagnating for quite a while now and I don’t tend to listen much nowadays, but thankfully there are still some bands like the foos that bring be back to the genre once in a while. The new CD, Echoes, Silence Patience & Grace, came out last Friday, and the new single is “Pretender”. I’ve been listening to it over and over for the last week. They brought in Gil Norton, who produced The Colour and the Shape, and Pat Smear will be touring with them. They’re still innovating – the awesome Kaki King plays on the track The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners. They still sound like the Foo Fighters, but with a more mature sound.

Matchbox-20 has a new single out, “How Far We’ve Come”, and it’s surprisingly good. I mean, this is the first Matchbox 20 song that I don’t hate. Airborne porkers have invaded an artic hell. I mean, seriously, where the hell did it come from?

Oh apparently Stars by Hum is the new hawtness. Cadillac has been using it in their latest ad campaign and I heard it play several times on VH1. Nevermind that this song was released more than 12 years ago. I was a huge fan back then but they had very little commercial success – mostly because their music can be weird.

Forgetting about the fact that Britney Spears is LAME, I’ll say that I actually like the new single, Gimme More. I actually like some of her other songs too, and that’s because they’re written by people with talent, even if she doesn’t have any. Try to listen to some of her songs in other contexts, without shame, and you’ll find out that they’re not that bad. For example, check out the great cover of Baby One More Time by Marty Casey. All of a sudden the song has this great dark quality that was hidden in bubble-gumness. In this case, imagine that Gimme More being performed by Maroon 5 (which is not that bad of a stretch), and all of a sudden it’s not that bad.

The last note is on the Lip Gloss single by Lil’ Mama. Again, you might think this is LAME, and it’s probably one of the most annoying singles of the year. However, there’s something very remarkable about this song – it’s the first hit song to have ABSOLUTELY NO MELODY. I recognize that this is hip hop and lyrics have no melody, but this doesn’t even have a hook. It’s not anywhere near the kind of music that I would listen to, but I recognize that musical taste is subjective, and in that spirit I have to recognize that this is a pretty innovative song, even if it makes me want to jump off a bridge.

I couldn’t find the mp3 anywhere through Google, but it turns out that it’s on the composer’s website. Go to this link: http://www.treeadams.com/television.htm and click on play music.

Now, I’m not going to post the mp3, but I’m going to show you how to get it. The music player is in flash… people often publish such players because they want you to hear the music without being able to get the MP3. Luckily smart people can get around that, it’s all a matter of finding out what data flash is requesting.

1. Install the livehttpheaders extension for firefox here: http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/
2. Once your browser has restarted, go to http://www.treeadams.com/television.htm and open the “Play Music” tab
3. Click on Tools>Live HTTP Headers
4. Click on the Generator tab, and check the box next to “request”
5. On the music player, click on the Californication theme
6. You should see the mp3 show up immediately on the Live HTTP Headers window. You might have to look through the list, but the file extension is .mp3
7. Navigate to the mp3 location and hit File>Save As. You have your mp3.

What the liveHTTPHeaders extension does is show you the browser’s http requests. I use it a lot in web development work to make sure that Flash is requesting data correctly. This tip will always be handy when you come across a site that obscures media through flash. Now, for anyone who’s thinking about making a music player and wants a little security, just stick the audio inside a swf file. No one wants those.

However, there’s one song that I really liked – Georgy Porgy – it’s at 3:17. I looked it up and it turns out that it’s a cover of a song by Toto (of Africa fame). It might be really old, but it’s new to me. I wouldn’t have known of this song if I watched MTV all day. It’s a really good song, and it’s another reason to reject the fashionist nature of the music industry. Guiding musical taste by what’s new on the radio is so retarded.

Ryohei, your cd sucks, but thanks for introducing me to this song:

Jump Jump
You should know, you should know that ahhh
Kris Kross is not having anything today
As we stand there totally krossed out
We commence to make youJump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump

Don’t try to compare us to another bad little fad
I’m the Mac and I’m bad give you something that you never had
I’ll make ya Jump Jump wiggle and shake your rump
Cause I’ll be kicking the flavor that makes you wanna Jump
How high? Real high
Cause I’m just so fly
A young loveable, hugable type of guy
And everything is the back with a little slack
And inside-out is wiggida wiggida wack
I come stompin’ with somethi’ to keep you jumpin
R&B abd bullcrap is what I’m dumpin’
And ain’t something about Kris Kross we all that
So when they ask to the rocks they believe that

Jump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump
uh huh uh huh
Jump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump

I let myself knockin’ knockin’
I love it when a girl is play jockin’ jockin’
The D-A-double D-Y-M-A-C
Ya you know me
I got you jumpin’ an’ pumpin’ an’ movin’ all around G
In the mix I make ya take a step back
They try to step to the Mac then they got jacked
To the back you’ll be sportin’ the gear that’s coincidental
And like you knowit so don’t be claiming that it’s mental

Two lil’ kids with a flow you ain’t ever heard
And none faking you can understand every word
As you listen to my cool school melody
The Daddy makes you J-U-M-P

Jump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump
uh huh uh huh
Jump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump

Now, the formalities of this and that
Is that Kris Kross ain’t comin’ off wack
And for all ya’ll sucks that don’t know
Check it out

Some of them try to rhyme but they can’t rhyme like this Go Go
Some of them try to rhyme but they can’t rhyme like this Go Go
Some of them try to rhyme but they can’t rhyme like this Go Go
Some of them try to rhyme but they can’t Go Go
Cause I’m the miggida miggida miggida Mac Daddy
Miggida miggida miggida Mac
Cause I’m the miggida miggida miggida Mac Daddy

I make you wanna
Jump Jump
The Mac Dad will make you Jump Jump
The Daddy Mac will make you Jump Jump
Kris Kross will make you Jump Jump
uh huh uh huh (repeat 3 more times)
Believe dat

This is what you want, This is what you get

Do You Believe in Magic?

First of all… wow, first update in a long time. I haven’t had time to post to the site because of work and school commitments, and trying to keep a crazy posting schedule didn’t help either. I think I’m going to scale back to at least one post per week, instead of the 3 or 4 per week that I used to do before.

The latest music find I have is a now-defunct Japanese band called Cymbals. I can’t recall exactly how I came across them, but I think it might have been through exploring related artists on Last.fm. Their sound is a very good mix of jazz and pop that I’ve had stuck in my head for quite a while now. I’ve only been able to get their music through YouTube – my favorite destination for japanese downloads doesn’t have it, and I can’t buy stuff off the Japanese itunes portal (which is retarded). I wish I knew of American bands that played this kind of music, because I could at least go to their concerts.

Sora no Niwa

I’ve been obsessed with Japanese music for about two years now. When I met Andre he introduced me to Bleach , Naruto and Densha Otoko . The music from these shows knocked me out. It was so different, and the experience came as I grew more and more frustrated with the formulaic music released in the US. Since then I’ve been searching almost daily for new Japanese tunes. Orange Pekoe has been a continuing focus of my obsession.

How I came to hear of them is remarkable. It happened the first time Andre took me to Blue Fin (which is apparently where he takes all his new acquaintances). Since he knows the manager there, we were getting pretty good service. They were playing something I had never heard before: Japanese Jazz. It was the best thing I had heard in a really long time and had to ask the manager what it was. He said he didn’t know, but that he would find out. We continued eating, and we don’t see the manager for a while, I imagined he forgot. But he came back with a burned cd for me right before getting our check . He burned it for me since he wasn’t able to find out who they were playing. That was awesome. Even more awesome: At the end of our meal the manager brought us free ice cream. Score!

I listened to that CD over and over that summer without knowing who the artist was. But I finally found someone in the interweb who could translate the lyrics and find out for me. The group was Orange Pekoe .

It’s hard for me to pin down what I like about them, but their music is very triumphant. They’re unique in that way. And Japanese is a great language for jazz… it has a lot of interesting syllables. The only sad thing is that they don’t tour the US. Boo.