Have you heard about what Beck is up to these day? It’s super cool. He calls it Record Club: “is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day“. He brings together a wide variety of artists to record a classic album in its entirety, all in one day. Beck is the coolest. For real.
I love the creativity involved in this project. And the musicians involved! The collaborations are pretty neat. Beck even put together little videos for each of the tracks. Check out a sampling of my favourite offerings from the 3 albums worth of material Beck has released through Record Club.
Beck brought together Devendra Banhart, Ben, Andrew and Will from MGMT, Andrew from Wolfmother and Binki from Little Joy, among others to cover every song from the 1967 album The Songs of Leonard Cohen.
I love lists! Really, I do! It seems only fitting that I unleash a list enumerating my favourite tunes of the decade, because really, it’s what everyone else is doing. I know I’m a little late on this, but I’m doing it anyway! There was lots, and lots and lots of really good music released in the last 10 years… making creating this list a daunting but fun task. So, here goes nothing:
From Ludacris’ 2003 album, Chicken-n-Beer, Stand Up gets the booties shaking in the big room clubs, with it’s large beat, and Luacris’s commands When I move, you move.
This catchy tune was my introduction to Sinden and the Count of Monty Christal (Hervé) in the summer of 2008. With its thick base, and catchy rhymes, it had me looking the other way about the subject matter. It still has me bopping away a year and a half later.
Yael Naim was one of many artists made popular by Apple’s marketing team. You can’t fault them though, they have good taste, and New Soul deserves recognition for its beauty and honesty.
This song will always remind me of The OC. With the elegant use of a vocorder (I didn’t know that was possible!), Heap created a signature track, with beautiful simplicity, that stroke a chord with many, including Jason Derülo who heavily used samples from Hide & Seek in the now popular tune Whatcha Say.
Made popular by Apple’s brilliant marketing campaign for the iPod, Canadian darling, Feist, found near overnight success with the very catchy 1, 2, 3, 4. The tune even earned her a spot on Sesame Street!
With a lovable, almost Beach Boys-esqe experimental style, Animal collective got a lot of attention for their album Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009. For me, My Girls was the stand out track on the album.
From The Arcade Fire’s debut album, Funeral in 2004, Rebellion (Lies) is a good example of the quality of the entire album. Beautiful, and highly repeatable!
From the 2001 album, Satellite Rides, Buick City Complex not only speaks for the accomplishments of The Old 97’s this decade, but it also specks for the troubled times of the automotive industry that was a major focus so many times over the past decade.
They’re tearing the buick city complex down
I think we’re the only people left in town
Where are you gonna move, where are you gonna move?
Do you wanna mess around?
Hopefully, from the 2001 album, At Dawn, is a helpless love song that always grabs my attention when I come up on iTunes. The stand out jewel from My Morning Jacket’s releases.
A note one this series: I can’t be giving away the full 100 tracks. That just wouldn’t be right. So, as you can see, I’m trying a new thing with the Amazon mp3 clip widgets from their affiliate program. You can listen to a bit, and buy if you like. Remember, support the artists you love by going to shows, buying their material, and spreading the word about their greatness!
Steve Jobs, or at least the well paid marketing people on Jobs’ payroll, have done an excellent job at exposing unique, quality music to the masses. The fame that comes to the artists behind these cultural phenomena, is likely both a blessing and a curse. It’s inevitable that someone will start to throw around the “Sellout” label, and the artists lose the street cred earned by being broke and unsigned. The symbiotic relationship between the artists and Apple works to sell the music, the store to buy the music (iTunes), and the hardware to play the music (iPod). That’s some mighty impressive vertical integration.
The Canadian singer-songwriter has released 4 solo albums since 1999 while also performing as a member of the Broken Social Scene since 2000. Feist found moderate success with her hard work, but when Apple selected her song 1 2 3 4 for one of their iPod commercials her popularity soared, springboarding her the point that Sesame Street asked her to remake her song for the purpose of teaching kids how fun it is to count to 4.
Often the very well paid marketing wonders at Apple beat me to the punch, but with The Ting Tings I can enjoy the satisfaction in knowing that I found them first. I had been enjoying their catchy pop genius for several months when I heard the rumours that they would be the next iPod poster children. Apple choose to use Shut Up and Let Me Go one of the lesser songs by The Ting Tings. I prefer their tunes That’s Not My Name and Great DJ, and strongly suggest you check them you if you like this track.
The Israeli-French singer-songwriter was completely unknown to me before I first saw the commercial for the MacBook Air. Apparently Steve Jobs picked this track himself causing Yael Naïm’s career to skyrocket, making her the first Israeli to get a single in the US Top 10.
“New Soul” is about self-reflection. She says she was inspired to write it after a conversation with a friend about reincarnation. “I thought I was an old soul, and that I knew life, but then starting the real life I figured I am completely new,” Naim says. “I mean, everything was a mess and I did a lot of mistakes. So it was just looking back and say, ‘Okay, let’s start again, it’s okay.’” - Interview with the NPR March 21st, 2008
The wise young soul is currently touring extensively through Europe.
Nickodemus, an experienced young DJ from New York City, joined forces with Quantic, to create this upbeat Latin tune that is perfect for dancing! These two have both been busy since the upbeat commercial brought their sound into the mainstream. Quantic just released a new album, Death of the Revolution and Nickodenmus released Endangered Species Remixed, featuring a remix of every tune off the album Mi Swing Es Tropical was originally released on, Endangered Species. The pair toured together in Columbia, Mexico and the US earlier this year.
I should also make note of the fact that the song, Flathead, featured in my previous post by The Fratellis was also highlighted in one of the colorful, people dancing about iPod commercials.
I couldn’t resist posting this song, even though it doesn’t quite fit with the others being that it has no association with Apple whatsoever. it has been a favourite of mine since I tracked if down after hearing it on one of the early Mazda Zoom Zoom commercials in the late 90s. A remake of the traditional Capoeira song Zum, Zum, Zum Capoeira Mata Um that was featured on the Only The Strong soundtrack, the 1993 film about Capoeira. I’m sure you have all heard parts of this song on the commercials with that cute kid whispering Zoom Zoom, who isn’t really a kid any more. The song is fun and uplifting. By the way… I tried Capoeira once, the pros of the Brazilian dance/fighting style make it look easy, but really, it’s quite hard.
