New Music!

[Gazoo]

New to iTunes today: Beatles tunes:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=77132
and, special Beatles iTunes page: http://www.apple.com/the-beatles/

As I posted in response to KFOG's Facebook query, I bought "Old Brown Shoe," the only importance absence from my collection of albums.  (I'm not going to buy Past Masters just for that, and Hey Jude never made it to CD AFAIK.)

As an aside: Sound quality is irrelevant to me; I don't have well-attuned ears.  (Great quality for an erstwhile music critic, eh?)  So I don't care - or notice - if a track's been "remastered" in any special way.

[RGMike]

I may have posted this before, but I really find it rather clever: French artist Ben L'Oncle Soul doing a Raphael Saddiq-ish cover of "Seven Nation Army"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4XKNNl31Gc

[sundaygal]

OMFG.  St. Etienne are releasing a Christmas album...!!!

http://www.nme.com/news/saint-etienne/53929

Here's a clip of I Was Born On Christmas Day featuring Tim Burgess of The Charlatans U.K., which came out in 1993.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4--Lkb_Oldo

[sundaygal]

Hey Jude emerges as the biggest seller on iTunes U.K, followed by Let It Be.

Didn't people already have these in their musical libraries???  It's almost the musical equivalent of not having salt and pepper in your spice rack!

http://www.nme.com/news/the-beatles/53928

[RGMike]

Yet another in the spate of date-specific covers albums is Marc Cohn's Listening Booth 1970. I heard his very white version of "Signed Sealed Delivered" the other day; and Geoff might be interested to know that he actually dares to cover "New Speedway Boogie"!

[ggould]

Yet another in the spate of date-specific covers albums is Marc Cohn's Listening Booth 1970. I heard his very white version of "Signed Sealed Delivered" the other day; and Geoff might be interested to know that he actually dares to cover "New Speedway Boogie"!

I heard an interview with him when I was up in Tahoe last July talking about this album.  Perhaps I'll check out a sample on iTunes. NSB is a pretty good song; curious to hear his take on it.

[Gazoo]

I may have posted this before, but I really find it rather clever: French artist Ben L'Oncle Soul doing a Raphael Saddiq-ish cover of "Seven Nation Army"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4XKNNl31Gc

*LIKE*

[RGMike]

Gaz has expressed love for the TingTings here in the past; I've heard this this new song of theirs ("Hands") a couple times now and... I dunno if it's typical of their stuff but to my ears it sounds like something Pink rejected. Someone with more knowledge... help me out here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UieEGtd7m-M

[Lightnin' Rod]

Amazon sent me a special 1-day offer today, $1.99 for Robert Plant's latest album, "Band of Joy", on mp3.  Couldn't pass that up.

So far, I'm liking it well enough.  Kind of an extension of the bluegrass thing for the most part, including a slowed down cover of "Cindy, I'll Marry You Some Day" (getalong home, cindy cindy, getalong home cindy, cindy, I'll marry you someday) -- I much prefer the Darling's version from the Andy Griffith show.  Also a couple of very nice songs ("Monkey", "Silver Rider") that are very Wilco-ish in flavor, and a Beatle-y "You Can't Buy My Love" that is quite enjoyable.  The single "Angel Dance" is pleasant, even if it doesn't stand out -- I didn't realize I knew it (probably from Kfog) until I played it from this today.

Well worth the dollar nintynine.

[urth]

The single "Angel Dance" is pleasant, even if it doesn't stand out -- I didn't realize I knew it (probably from Kfog) until I played it from this today.

Angel Dance is a Los Lobos tune, written by David Hidalgo and Louie Perez, so you may know it from their version, going on 20 years old now.

But a buck-ninety-nine for that record sounds like a score. Nice one, Rod.

[Lightnin' Rod]

Angel Dance is a Los Lobos tune, written by David Hidalgo and Louie Perez

One of the problems buying stuff digitally -- no liner notes!

[radical347]

The new Shawn Mullins song is dumb.

Everybody wants a puff of your pipe dream, everybody wanna lick of your ice cream.  I just want to light you up, light you up, like a fire.  I just want to turn you on, turn you on, take you higher.

Uhh... 

[Gazoo]

Gaz has expressed love for the TingTings here in the past; I've heard this this new song of theirs ("Hands") a couple times now and... I dunno if it's typical of their stuff but to my ears it sounds like something Pink rejected. Someone with more knowledge... help me out here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UieEGtd7m-M

I'm hearing this now for the first time - thanks for the alert.

Goddamn.  They've pulled a Liz Phair.  Someone must have convinced them that they could get over the hump of radio saturation if they tilited their sound in the robot-vocaled, trash-synthed style now pursued by Pink, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and a bunch of minor leaguers.  They'd come so close on the last album, which I found irresistible - "That's Not My Name" went platinum despite peaking at only #39, and "Shut Up and Let Me Go" went gold while missing the 40 altogether (#55).  And that's not even mentioning my favorite, "We Walk," which made my year-end Top 10.  But what I'm hearing here is their attempt at "the next level" of hitdom - and I don't like it.

[Wayback]

Music gift guide, Part 1:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/11/pop-music-gift-guide-because-its-hard-to-wrap-mp3s-.html

Part 2: some music related books, video, tour pkgs and such:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/12/pop-music-gift-guide-part-2-music-gifts-that-will-move-the-recipient-to-the-beat-.html

[RGMike]

NTM (unearthed by Larry Grogan): a soulful cover of "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by The Kelly Bros (who?) -- very Young-Holt Unltd. Me likey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUFbFwkDI1U