Musical March Madness: Brand Bracketology

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1634081/20100316/story.jhtml

I need to find a way to upload my completed bracket, but for now, here are the highlights:

Midwest Region
In a shocking upset, way-under-seeded crowd favorite The Hold Steady take out overhyped 1-seed Nickelback. Sure, it's never happened in the men's NCAA tourney; but in real life, no one actually likes Nickelback. Petite but voluble Pete Wentz makes it to the Sweet 16 before being muscled out by Detroit's own White Stripes, who go on to win the region over the very entertaining but predictable (read: West Virginia) Foo Fighters.

West Region
Exhausted from all of the late-night streaking to gear up for their comeback, recently reunited Blink-182 couldn't stave off a surprisingly robust Modest Mouse in the second round. Laws of the animal kingdom prevailed however, as M. Mouse were trampled by Gorillaz. The battle of the mid-90's heavyweights was intense but in the end, Green Day's soaring and politically charged anthems dominated Weezer's why-can't-I-get-the-girl poppy angst.

East Region
Both the second and third round match-ups had bands looking over their shoulder at imitators, duplicators and usurpers to *their* thrones. Creepy brilliance and haunting vocals weren't enough for Radiohead to outlast critical-darlings-gone-mass-appeal Coldplay, who in turn barely managed to hold off Vampire "We Care About Africa MORE Than You; Just Check Our Beats!" Weekend. But in a bracket-buster, Canadian upstarts Arcade Fire blazed through challenges both big (drunk and bloated Duke, ahem, U2) and small (Animal Collective without most members, who were off pursuing myriad zoological side projects) to take the region.

South Region
Overall number-1 seed Kings of Leon had a fairly easy romp through the South region, with few substantive challenges in the early rounds. Too busy either making out with chicks or preening in the mirror (respectively), Adam Lambert and John Mayer couldn't stop the hometown favorites. In the bottom of the bracket, Them Crooked Vultures proved surprisingly robust despite their age but ultimately suffered from Dave Grohl's split focus on fellow Elite Eight competitors Foo Fighters.

Final Four
In a battle of aggression, relevance and pure volume, the focused and continually prolific Green Day elevated past the influential but recently abandoned White Stripes. They went against Kings of Leon, who yelped, stuttered and wailed their way through Arcade Fire, in the final match-up. While KoL have dominated radio and sales in the past year, the depth and endurance of Green Day's catalog was too much to overcome.

Cause life's like this

FINALLY, yesterday, the Video Gods* graced me with a showing of Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry. From the beginning, no less. Two observations, upon rewatch:

1. There is nowhere NEAR enough Hot Milo in this video.
2. Especially when he is wearing the aforementioned unacceptable porkpie hat in one scene. WTF is with the hat? I know in the grand scheme of high-waisted denim overalls and peed-in shorts that make up Fergie’s regular vestments I shouldn’t get so worked up over one egregious piece of millinery. But that hat just punches me in the rage bone. I need way more shirtless, guitar-strumming Hot Milo if I am to ignore That Hat.

So naturally, having seen the vid again, I thought I could return to my previously peaceful toggling between MTV and VH1, leaving those trickier high-number channels out of the equation. But, glutton for punishment that I am, of course this morning I had to just check really quickly and see what might be on MTV2. They play exactly two types of music on MTV2 in the morning: hip-hop (70%) and screamo (30%), that “I AM VERY SMAD + LOUD” brand of rock. To which my response is that {sigh} I am so old but SHUT UP and wash your hair already and you know what, I ALWAYS liked Brian Krakow better anyway.
Except…for this:

I do not understand what happened to My Chemical Romance. This was probably my #1 most despised band before I really knew anything about 30 Seconds to Mars. They are shrill, angry and worst of all, seemingly humorless. As near as I can understand it, they discovered Queen sometime before writing and recording their most recent album The Black Parade, and it did them a world of good. The first video, for the title track, had the benefit of a surprisingly melodic and rousing chorus AND the lead singer’s hot new haircut/color. As for this video, well, the angry/disaffected cheerleader thing will forever be a rip-off of Nirvana, and I can’t support Gerard’s return to the black hair, but…THIS SONG. It is BEYOND catchy. You know it completely the very first time you hear it. It’s the auditory equivalent of Hey! It’s That Guy! In fact, where DO I know this song from? Oh man, this is going to drive me nuts…

*Simon LeBon and Toni Basil , natch.

WTF of the day

So my mission to see the Fergie/HOT MILO video again goes on fruitlessly to this day. But I have not given up, and in fact have added Fuse and MTV2 into my morning rotation. And while I may be suffering from an acute lack of HotMilo in my life, I am being compensated for my efforts by a guarantee of at least one video every single morning that makes me put the remote down for a second to go, “…the fuck?!?” I hope I can make this a regular feature; there is certainly plenty of WTF out there:



Please watch as much of this video as you can handle*. Now let’s just sit Elliot Yamin down and ask, what HAPPENED here? Is it 1994? Is this one of those booths where they take an All-4-One video and insert you lip-syncing?

*It might not be much. Or you might be like me and find yourself physically unable to turn away until the whole thing is done. I think maybe the fact that I just saw this again recently really helped.

Mixtape (thank god it's not) Monday!

Choosing a name for your band is not easy. It is the very first impression you will likely make on anyone. While it is possible to randomly overhear music without knowing who the artist is (a dangerous situation in which one can find oneself bopping along to Stars Are Blind, because I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS A PARIS HILTON SONG, OK, AND IT’S DAMN CATCHY AND YOU KNOW YOU LIKE IT TOO. Ahem.) it's rare. So when it comes time to pick a name for your band, you want something generally short, not already in use by any other of the 8 billion bands on MySpace and of course somewhat evocative of your sound. Well, sometimes two out of three is the best you can do.

Death Cab for Cutie – Marching Bands of Manhattan
Think back to when you first heard of Death Cab. Oh shut up, hipster troll, my reader(s) and I first heard of Death Cab because they were Seth Cohen’s favorite band. And come on, with the word Death in the title, I know I was not the only one surprised by the band’s vaguely-castrati sounds.

Acid House Kings – Do What You Wanna Do
Recently discovered from one or another of the awesome mp3 blogs I like to crawl through. I remember thinking to myself, ugh, there is no way I will like this band. Clearly the expectation here is psychedelic/dance/electronica, like a raver tripping at Woodstock. Imagine my delight to get happy, jangly pop, complete with handclaps!

Teddybears – Cobrastyle
On the other end of the spectrum, we have a band name that sounds like they should be playing PopFest on a double bill with the Pipettes. While there are handclaps present here as well, the vibe is more synth-Shaggy. Also, you have heard this song before. It has been featured in several commercials and movie trailers, and most prominently (at least in my house) on the soundtrack to FIFA 2006 for Sony Playstation.

The Damnwells – Kung Fu Grip Kiss
Wow, double whammy here. The name to me sounds like an angry and unwashed punk band, but the Damnwells actually play indie/alt-country rock that’s more rocking live than some of their tracks would lead you to believe. Strike two is the song title. I almost demoted this song back down to 3 stars after an initial 4-star rating, simply because I couldn’t believe I would like a song with such a ridiculous name. Well, suffice to say the song has actually made the incredibly rare leap to a FIVE star rating, and their concert (note: NOT my photos) kicked some serious ass (in a hygienic and non-punk way).

Rigby Lane – link to their MySpace page
This pains me in a way, because I know these guys and they are awesome people. The band’s previous incarnation was called Catherine St. and while everyone agrees that was a basically acceptable name, numerous changes in the lineup dictated an entirely new band name for the remaining members. Here is the problem: they are not, I repeat NOT, actually a Beatles tribute band. I know, right?


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Has anyone else noticed that I fluctuate between listing the songs title first vs. band name first? Yeah, it annoys me too. In this post, listing the band name first made sense as that was the thematic thread tying together the mix. But I feel like my default is song title first, then artist name, like reading left to right in iTunes. I need to do some research on music blog standards. OR if you have a preference one way or the other, do tell.

A lack of blogging

…not because there is nothing to blog about. On the contrary, there are loads of things I’ve been meaning to share, but a change in my work environment makes daytime blogging infinitely more challenging. Why not just do it at home in the evenings like a responsible person? Look, it’s hard to argue with you when you won’t stop making sense. BACK OFF! No, sorry, please don’t.
Currently the things I feel most strongly in need of sharing (in ascending order of importance):

Thank Effing God the Yankees won last night. MH and I constantly play the “If X = Y, then T = D” game, wherein X is the current batter, Y is the desired result of the at-bat, usually a homerun, T is some form of reward and D is usually an alcoholic beverage. So it’s normally, “If Derek Jeter hits a homerun right here I’m going out and getting ingredients for margaritas”. And A-Rod’s top of the 9th two out at-bat would have been an IDEAL opportunity for this game, but unfortunately we were thoroughly convinced that a lead squandered is a lead lost and so were watching the MTV Movie Awards instead at the time.

Which brings me to point the second: was it me or was Mike Myers disturbingly hot in the black tie/black shirt combo doing his Austin Powers dance? I was a little distracted by the threat of Cam Diaz’s crotch coming out to attack, but DAMN. Boyfriend was kind of working it. As was maybe Shia LeBoef and he is at least 20 by now, plus I have heard rumors that he’s fibbing about his actual age so don’t look at me that way.

WHICH in turn brings me to my most significant point, WRT to “working it” and hot guys. Obvies I have been enjoying Milo Ventimiglia as Possessor of Emo Bangs of Hotness Peter Petrelli on Heroes. So much so, that he even looks better to me in old eps of Gilmore Girls (specifically, the sprinkler scene and the much later Jess-gets-his-shit-together last time we see him). But nothing really prepared me for this:

HE HAS NO RIGHT TO LOOK THAT GOOD. I'm just saying.
I might possibly enjoy this song, and Fergie’s oeuvre as a whole, despite her often tragic fashion choices. (A porkpie hat...that just hurts.) I often spend my small window of free/napping time in the mornings flipping between MTV and VH1 because at that ungodly hour they actually show music videos. Seriously though you guys, ever since I first saw this vid, all I do is obsessively check back and forth waiting for this video to play. And does it? No! I get Pink (which, Ok but the song is better enjoyed on the radio), Kelly Clarkson (which, awesome) and simultaneous Carrie Underwood on both channels (COME ON!) but no greasy-ponytail-wearing, fake-tattoo-sporting, HOTTER THAN FIRE MV have I seen in the last two weeks. I know that this is why God invented YouTube, but for reals, MTV. I need a pick-me-up in the morning – make mine a Venti.

Mixtape Monday!

Apparently I used up all of my storage allowance on EZarchive so I have switched over to box.net. Let's see if my reader(s) notice!

Today's Mixtape Monday is supremely dorky. As I mentioned before, I have this playlist, embarrassingly titled Only Connect (and I didn't even like Howard's End) where words in the band name or song title...whatever, you'll understand when you see it. The bonus is they are all lovely songs. I couldn't fit it in here, but after my last post about this, where I cracked there should be more songs with the word wolf in the title (because every damn band now is Peter and the Wolf, or Wolf Mother, or Sea Wolf, etc) I actually searched my iTunes library and found FIVE songs with wolf or wolves in the title. So that expanded the list substantially.
Anyway, ignore if you can my obsessive need to find patterns and connections everywhere and instead just enjoy the tunes!

Stars - Lamar
Ok, what is the story with this song? I LOVE it, and you may recognize it from not one, but two promos for the Office. However, every time I try to look up this "Lamar" person, I come up with someone who is clearly not responsible for this lush pop gem. I will extend my $15 iTunes gift card offer to anyone who finds me this album.

your ex-lover is dead - Stars

Fallen Snow - Au Revoir Simone

Shut Your Eyes - Snow Patrol

Haligh, Haligh, A Lie, Haligh - Bright Eyes

Telescope Eyes - Eisley

I know, nothing revolutionary here, but you see where it's going. And except for the Bright Eyes song, all 4-stars in my book. The great thing about having basically terrible taste in music and owning up to it is that I never have to pretend to like a band (coughJane'sAddictioncough) when my heart lies elsewhere.
I promise to be back, hopefully tomorrow, with actual interesting things to talk about. I've missed my window to discuss:

Future Peter's look on Heroes: Loss of the Emo Bangs vs That Scar.
The unending awesomeness that is Blake
Why Reuben looked like he was posing for his 8th-grade yearbook picture?
Cinco de Derby: Isn't a Mint Julep really just a Bourbon Mojito?

But I'm sure there is plenty more where that came from. I was supposed to have a subscription to Premiere magazine (thanks, work!) but they of course folded, so the replacement has been Us Weekly. As if I didn't do enough damage to my brain cells on the weekend benders. My main reaction thus far has been, Katie Holmes. When POSH SPICE is your only link to the real world, things have gotten BAD. Y'all KNOW I loved the Spice Girls (that doll collection is going be worth serious $$ some day, I'm telling you) but you could never ever trust Posh to know what was going on. I'm not even talking about the "I've never read a whole book in my life" bit that came AFTER she released a "memoir". Back in the day, Ginger had to explain to her the math behind "If you put 2 and 2 together/You will see what a friendship is 4". Aw man. I really miss my sneakers with 4-inch rubber platforms.

Mixtape Monday!

Naturally, with all the talk of covers lately, that is the theme of today's Mixtape Monday. This was challenging for me to compile. Ideally I would want to do a more tightly thematic list, i.e. Really White Covers of Hip-Hop or everyone's favorite Crap Pop Songs Covered by Bands With Indie Cred, but unfortunately, I didn't have 5 solid songs in either category. So here is a smattering of both, with a dash of straight-up Actually Good Covers. Enjoy!

Bitches Ain't Shit - Ben Folds
Baby Got Back - Jonathan Coulton
Here we have the first category covered, and I think you'll enjoy these. Ben Folds has such a lovely, sincere delivery on lines like, "That's some real conversation for your ass". And Jonathan Coulton gives BGB the Jordin Sparks treatment - making it more of a song than you ever realized it could be.

Since U Been Gone - Ted Leo
Worth it for the "cover art" pic of Ted and our girl Kelly Clarkson. Bonus: he goes in to "Maps" in the second half, then brings it back on home.

Cry Me a River - Lost Prophets
Don't let the Gregorian-chant intro throw you - this is appropriately angsty and rocky and definitely worth sticking with.

It should be noted that neither of these songs in their original versions actually qualify as Crap Pop Songs. But for whatever reason, I didn't feel like including Ben Gibbard's take on Avril's Complicated. Oh, ok FINE. At least it's definitely a Crap Pop Song, whereas Since U Been Gone is maybe our generation's Good Vibrations - an indelible contribution to the pop music landscape, elevating the artist beyond previously reasonable expectations of quality, up into The Next Level.

Whew. Only room for one more song, and I'm already being generous given the bonus track above. But I love to share (take that, only-child-stereotypes). So my one contribution in the Actually Good Covers category:
Brand New Key - Betty Dylan
How good is this cover? Well, it won't change your life or anything, calm down. But, I used to HATE this song...no, wait, let's back up. Like many of you, I suspect, I had never heard the original Melanie version until Boogie Nights came out. And then I heard it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. For two whole weeks, thanks to the girl on my floor at Buckley who also borrowed my copy of Spaceballs and never returned it. (Bitch.) So at this point, I hate the song. I'm not going so far as to say that this cover rescued the song for me, after a certain point you have to let things go and it is a hilarious and dirty song. But I find myself really slow-jammy-rocking out to this Betty Dylan chick.

That's it for today kids! According to EW, it is Adrian Pasdar's b-day and he is another year of awesome. I also caught up on Grey's Anatomy over the weekend, and what is UP with that show? I would throw in a Seriously?! there, but I don't want to give them the satisfaction. Alan Sepinwell of the NJ Star Ledger has it about right here. Shut Up, Izzie, is really all I can say. I can honestly say I am not really looking forward to whatever crazy shit they have planned for sweeps. Was Denny's death already last May? Huh. And yet the rage at that ridiculous turn of events feels so fresh.
I hate to leave things on such a crabby note, so...Explorer's Club! Again! Tell me you don't love this song!!!

A totally original idea...

Gather round, kids, we’re going to play iTunes Roulette. Here's how it works: you take your entire iTunes library, put it on shuffle and record – HONESTLY – the first 10 songs that play. Those are the rules of iTunes Roulette and they are unflinchingly rigid. In the interest of full disclosure, please note this is my work computer where I mostly have random songs from mp3 blogs as opposed to full albums of my own crap. Here we go!

Hallelujah – k.d. lang
Wow, this certainly makes my earlier comment about MOKB's Covers Project seems oddly prescient. Wish it had been one of my 5+ versions of There is a Light That Never Goes Out, ideally the Joseph Arthur one. Hallelujah is tricky – there is no question it is overused in TV/movies and not just by Josh Schwartz. There are some arguably great covers of it out there. (I suppose anyone other than Leonard Cohen is doing a cover version). But as Captain Obvious as it may be, the Jeff Buckley version is still not only far and away my favorite, it is one of those songs that makes you wonder what life was like before you knew that song existed. Weren’t you just a little bit less until that song came into your life? Heady stuff – I could do a whole post just on that, but we haven’t the time or space here. Moving on!
Skyway – the Replacements
FANTASTIC – love this song. Instant 4-stars for me. Wow, we are off to a reasonably promising start.
Creep – Brandi Carlisle
Slap me if you must but when this started I was confused, though not disappointed, wondering when I got a Dilana track in my iTunes? Yeah, sorry, this song just reminds me of Rockstar: Supernova.
Umbrellas – Sleeping At Last*
Based on this song and "Ships" by Umbrellas, I created an entire playlist where words jump from song titles to band names (and sometimes back again). Most useful words: stars and eyes. If only there were more songs with Wolf in the title.
*hmm, seem to have misplaced the link, sorry about that
Put Your Hands on Me – Joss Stone
What the H happened to this girl? The gross look-at-me hair and skanky outfits; I’m just not down with any of it. I can’t quite fathom why I have this song. Though I might still like Fell In Love With a Boy.
Forever – The Explorers Club
AAAA – OMG – I – words – font too small – cannot express – breathe – ok, ok, I think I’m back.
I BEYOND LOVE this song. When I first heard it, ok, well, this guy had the exact same thoughts so just read it there. It’s both an accurate and precise description. I could listen to this OVER AND OVER AND OVER. If there is only one song you take with you today, let it be this one. To get this song in iTunes roulette is like…I don’t know, I’m just too happy for words.
Fireworks – Whitest Boy Alive
Well, this is a nice break for me. Nothing at all to write about this song.
Miss You Now – Stereophonics
Um, sure, this is fine too.
So Nice (Summer Samba) – Astrud Gilberto
Why yes, Pottery Barn, I would LOVE a mojito right about now.
Baby Fratelli – The Fratellis
While not nearly as kick-ass and catchy as Flathead, this is still a nice slice of garage rock with some Beatles-circa-Help!-esque vocals.
All in all, a VAST improvement over the time I played iTunes roulette on my home computer. Yeah, that was a wealth of embarrassment which I will naturally share with you some Friday in a From the Archives.