Showing posts with label peter bjorn and john. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peter bjorn and john. Show all posts
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Monday Odds and Sods: Super Bowl Mop Up Edition


Well, that's another Super Bowl in the books, and like many, I for one am glad it is over. This de facto unofficial American holiday is generally a mixed bag, but this year's edition turned out to a bigger turd than usual, with a wildly uneven game, lackluster commercials, a wildly over hyped half-time show, and a 35 minute long power outage that quickly became taken as a metaphor for modern America. To be honest, I'd take the whole event as a metaphor for modern America, but I'm here to talk about the music, so I'll try (and probably fail) to leave that alone...
  • I so wanted to Tweet something about the Alicia Keys rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" vis-a-vis Beyonce that would've shamelessly fed into gender stereotypes, but in an effort to keep my liberal karma pure, I refrained. Yes, Alicia Keys sang it live; in fact she sang the hell out of it, and I can't say anything bad about it.

  • The Flaming Lips got their moment in the sun with their Hyundai ad airing at the start of the game. Unfortunately, amidst so many lame ads it looks like it went largely unnoticed by the general public, a shame considering it was one of the more interesting ads of the whole night.

  • Audi used a track from Hanni El Khatib (produced by Dan Auerbach) for their big Super Bowl ad, and while the commercial is largely ludicrous, the song is pretty damn good, so good in fact that I'll be keeping an eye out for this Palestinian American artist.



  •  Peter, Bjorn, and John should not have allowed their song to be used for this odious Budweister Black ad campaign. Wasn't 2 Broke Girls enough for these Swedes? And speaking of 2 Broke Girls, we need to find something better for national treasure Kat Dennings to do. That admittedly spicy Super Bowl ad couldn't have gotten any more blatantly sexist. Shame on us.


  • I had to laugh at the geriatric network CBS unironically using T-Rex's "20th Century Boy" for their commercials for that cliche riddled new Chi McBride cop show.

  • I don't like Fun.'s "We Are Young" in English, so I really didn't like Fun. en Espanol when the song was used in that Taco Bell ad as the soundtrack for senior citizen misdeeds, a concept blatantly stolen from Sigur Ros...


  • Even though she was singing live this time, Beyonce's half time show (complete with Destiny's Child reunion!) was utterly yawn-worthy. Sorry, but that was wildly overblown and terribly boring. Yes it was nice seeing Kelly Rowland, but really America, what are we doing getting excited over that? We can do better.

  • The big winner of the night according to the ad agency people (other than the Baltimore Ravens and Ray Lewis, groan) was this spectacular manipulation of baby boomer emotions from Budweiser, those damn clydesdales, and legendary Fleetwood Mac b-side "Landslide." I love Stevie Nicks and I love the song, but this ad was just too much.


And that's it, until next year's extravaganza of excess, consumption, and shame. May God have mercy on our souls.
Cliff Parks
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Top Five December Album Releases


As the year comes to a close and we all conjure up our increasingly self-aware spouts of Top 50 this and that, the record labels get to follow suit and play along, relishing in end-of-year clout and strategically posing coveted reissues and holiday box set to the Cyber Monday crowd, who are somehow bigger suckers than the Friday lifers. Releasing an album mid-December might not be the most strategic idea in theory, but it takes some courage, and the few artists who are putting out an album in the ensuing weeks deserve some respect, if not a small stroke of promotion. True, we've only gathered five releases to anticipate this month, but that only doubles the potential of each of these albums to become one of your favorites of the year!
5. Young Fathers - Tape One
Hip hop trio Young Fathers have a most interesting history as each bandmember met at the age of 14 in Edinburgh, hailing from different parts of the world. Alloysious Massaquoi was born in Liberia and Kayus Bankhole resided in Nigeria and Maryland before meeting up with 'G' Hastings in the UK. They’ve labeled themselves as a “psychedelic hip hop boy band” and the brand surprisingly fits as the group thrives on trip hop and raggae influence as well as instrumental and vocal experimentation. Yough Fathers’ style of hip hop is certainly off the beaten path, but apparently far enough for Anticon, who stumbled upon their Bandcamp page and subsequently signed the group to re-release their debut record Tape One. 

4. Hortlax Cobra - 1984
Just so you are aware John Eriksson, better known as the drummer for the Swedish indie rock group Peter Bjorn and John has a side project. It’s called Hortlax Cobra and he released his debut album Night Shift under the moniker earlier this year. Come December 18, Eriksson will have released his second collection of original music with 1984 which is essentially a tribute to Val Halen’s seminal record of the same name and the first album Eriksson owned. While it keeps the same song titles, lengths, keys, and tempos of the original 1984, somehow Eriksson has created all original songs via an orchestral and electronic infused soundscape. The record will be released through Ingrid, a label created by Eriksson, Peter Bjorn, Lykke Li, and Miike Snow and probably a few other Swedish artists as well. When asked about the influence of 80’s music on Eriksson in a recent interview he responded, “I get goose bombs every time I hear the Miami Vice theme and for me 1984 is when the magic happened. There is no ‘80s retro trend. It's just a part of the music history and a LinnDrum machine is as classic as a Fender Stratocaster.”

3. Memory Tapes - Grace/Confusion
On December 4 via Carpark, Memory Tapes aka Dayve Hawk will release his follow-up to last year’s excellent full-length Player Piano with the six-track LP entitled Grace/Confusion. In an interview with Hawk by MTV (where the new record is available to stream in-full) the New Jersey native expounds on how the record revels in “longer, messier songs” and tosses out the brevity of “three-minute singles that didn’t seem appropriate.” The lengthiest track on the album is the sprawling and varied “Sheila”, which makes for an epic dance track littered with fluttering piano and synth progressions amid reverb-detonated guitar and bass riffs. Listen to “Sheila” below:



 2. Heathered Pearls - Loyal
"I wanted to find a world that was built on repetition, erosion and melody because making these songs was about recreating soothing environments,” is how Jakub Alexander begins to describe his debut record, Loyal, released under the moniker Heathered Pearls. As co-founder of the electronic label Moodgadget and a veteran DJ, having played parties around Ann Arbor, MI with Matthew Dear and Ryan Elliott, it’s no secret that the Polish-born Brooklynite has an affinity for electronic music. Alexander has presented the 9-track collection as a tribute to his mother, who first introduced him to ambient music ten years ago. “Beach Shelter” is the first single off the new record, and plays to Alexander’s description as it lends repetitive languid coos that hazily bring natural textures into focus. Listen to “Beach Shelter” below:  
1. Majical Cloudz - Turns Turns Turns
Majical Cloudz is the electro-pop project comprised of singer/songwriter Devon Welsh and bandmate Matthew Otto. The Canadian duo formed last year and put out their first track “Dream World”, a short, but catchy pop song featuring Grimes. Their debut EP, Turns Turns Turns, which comes out on December 3, is a four track gem prefacing what looks to be a promising future. The two A-side singles, “What That Was” and the title track, which have been released on the group’s Soundcloud page, are impressively gorgeous as they utilize a down-tempoed wash of breezy synth and sparse percussion rising from Welsh’s hushed vocals. Watch the music video for “Turns Turns Turns” below:

Tom Dennis
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