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!

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.

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.

Iran So Far is one of the funniest SNL Digital Shorts. I tried my best to put down the lyrics, but I couldn’t understand some parts. If you have any corrections please let me know in the comments.

^ 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