So I know Gotye’s album “Like Drawing Blood” isn’t exactly new (it was first released in 2006 in Australia) but seeing as it wasn’t released on iTunes US until December of last year, I figured there is a good chance I’m not the only one who has been missing out.
My first brush with Gotye (real name Wouter “Wally” De Backer of Melbourne Australia) was on Gossip Girl a couple weeks ago when his dreamy track “Hearts A Mess” was featured.
When thinking up ideas for New Music Monday I remembered loving a song from the show and did some investigating to find out what it was. While “Hearts A Mess” is a really fantastic slow-groovy song, it led me to the albums first single “Learnalilgivinanlovin” which blew me away.
“Learnalilgivinanlovin” is a funky pop tune that’s an obvious throwback to ’60s Motown which is probably why I love it so much. He’s either sampling the Ronettes with the drums at the top or channeling them (and the Phil Spector “Wall of Sound”) pretty heavily and purposefully. With a driving guitar riff, blasting horns and stacked vocals this track is huge and so much fun. Gotye’s vocals are strong and energetic as he sings:
“If you’re always trying to get to the top
You don’t get to the bottom of nothing
Then you’re gone before you know it
You’d better stop (stop)
Learn a little giving and loving”
Great sound and great lyrics. No wonder this guy won Best Male Artist at the Australian Recording Industry Music Awards (ARIA). Now I’ve gotta give the rest of the album a thorough listen – don’t worry, I’ll report back.
For this week’s Throwback Thursday we head back to 1972 for the Bill Withers classic “Use Me” off of his album Still Bill. I’m not sure when I first stumbled upon this song but it has been a favorite of mine for years and I never seem to get sick of it.
Outside of the soul and voice of Bill Withers, this track has a funky beat (with a tasty loose high-hat) and what Rolling Stone once called a “pimp-strut organ riff” that keeps your head bobbing.
I remember seeing Alicia Keys and Rob Thomas cover this song live at a VH1 Save the Music event and was impressed with their rendition so I included the clip below as well as a version done by D’Angelo and David Sanborn. Enjoy!
I’ll be honest – I didn’t know the Lil Wayne track “Let the Beat Build” before I saw Nyle’s version, but I’m certain I’m content having only heard the Nyle remix. My biggest beef with hip-hop music these days is that the beats are all recycled and overproduced and very little of it resembles true organic music anymore. Nyle’s live band version of “Let the Beat Build” – complete with vocalists, piano and of course banjo – has all of the raw energy of a stage performance and is totally mesmerizing. Even if you aren’t a fan of hip-hop or rap music, you have to appreciate the production, planning and creative vision that went into this video that was all recorded in one continuous video and audio take.
Here’s an excerpt from Nyle’s blog about how it all started: “The story behind Let the Beat Build is long and crazy. When Tha Carter III dropped, my friend Jo Bellino hit me up with the idea to cover the song with a live band, and do a video. That never really happened, but since I already had written the rhymes and the song was now permanently stuck in my head, I decided to do it anyway. Over the months, the idea just snowballed. I asked my friends at 194 Recordings to join the project and together we applied for a grant help make it happen.”
Visit Nyle’s blog to read and watch more about the making of “Let the Beat Build.”
Samberg and Timberlake strike again with SNL’s latest digital short “Motherlover” that debuted this past Saturday in honor of Mother’s Day. With A-list cameos (I won’t spoil them) and an electronic club beat this is definitely the best song to come out of SNL since “Jizz in My Pants” and before that “Dick In A Box.”
This one is nothing short of ridiculous with lines like: “I’m pushin’ that lady where you came out as a baby”
- complete with pantomimed pregnant belly choreography.
My assessment would be that it’s the music that makes these songs that much more popular (over rap parodies like “I’m on a Boat” or “Like a Boss”), but maybe it’s just the key pairing of Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake that makes a video rise to greatness. Then again – one of my all time favorite Digital Shorts is the Natalie Portman rap so maybe there’s more to it than that…
DJ Richie Hawtin may have just created something revolutionary for the ever-evolving relationship between Twitter and musicians. According to the Miami New Times Blog:
“Richie Hawtin has announced his development of a new Twitter application which allows real-time broadcasting of track IDs during a DJ set. As minimal techno’s mad scientist of sorts, Hawtin has already spent much of his career pioneering new DJ technologies, including important innovations in MIDI and Final Scratch.”
“The Twitter DJ application utilizes feeds from an updated version of Traktor’s standard broadcasting technology to send 30 second updates during Hawtin’s set of what’s currently playing to a designated Twitter account, allowing anyone following the Twitter group to obtain a unique insight into how a DJ builds the atmosphere and dynamics of a set, track by track, and in real time.”
This is pretty incredible stuff. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s possible given the technology that is currently being utilized in sites like blip.fm for Twitter. However, to have it integrated into his DJ-ing software to where it’s automated and he doesn’t even have to do anything additional in his set to publish the feed is awesome and very creative.
To check out DJ Richie Hawtin’s tweeted shows on Twitter visit his page @rhawtin.
This idea could be expanded to allow playlist requests from Twitter followers during the set right from the dance floor. Bands could similarly incorporate this idea, however theirs would have to be a bit more manual (no DJ software to take care of it) – but it’d be easy enough to have an assistant posting the set list live. Tweeting a live set list would be quite a bit simpler than tweeting audio files of your live performance as Moonalice did, but still be worthwhile to a community of fans I would think – who hasn’t gone to a concert and attempted to jot down the set list from memory immediately after returning home?
Another way bands could incorporate Twitter would be to have their fans suggest songs for that night’s set list on the day of the show. Anything that encourages the growth of a band’s community and makes them feel like they have a voice is golden, and that’s what’s so powerful about using Twitter effectively – it makes it so easy to gather input from your fans and respond directly to their wishes. Musicians obviously can’t ALWAYS do what their fans want (we’d get awfully sick of “Free Bird”) but I think even the illusion of direct communication is enough.
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