Brandon Flowers Breathes New Life Into Forgotten U2 Track

I'm generally against covers of U2 songs (the reasons for which I articulate here), but holy freaking crap. This particular song, from U2's album Pop, is lyrically and structurally beautiful, but I think one could argue that U2's original recording left much to be desired and does not inject into the song the same amount of feeling and conviction as does Mr. Flowers in this performance. The result: through Flowers, the song experiences a kind of rebirth during this performance, and it leaves one hoping that an audio track might be available for purchase someday.

Andrew Bird Playlist

Whistling. Violing plucking. Obscure one-word song titles. Personally, I love it. Check out this collection of live Andrew Bird performances I put together after I heard a few songs from his latest album, Noble Beast.

Two-fer: Alpha Rev

This band kind of reminds me of Coldplay. Below is a music video of the song "New Morning" from the album of the same name and a live performance of "Phoenix Burn"

Arcade Fire on SNL

I can't stop listening to the song "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" ever since I saw Arcade Fire's performance on SNL last Saturday. True, the vocals on the recorded version are much better, the dancing was a bit distracting, and (as one blogger put it), the outfits look like something from a Tron wedding, but even if they seem a bit awkward and nerdy in appearances, these nerds can rock.



And perhaps most impressive is that these nerds can write. The lyric from this song that most haunts me: "Living in the sprawl/ the dead shopping malls rise/ like mountains beyond mountains/ and there's no end in sight,/ I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights!"

Hump Day Blues: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Come on, now. I know you're feeling it. Here's some blues to inject a bit of soul into your week, whether you are one of the lucky few who will be enjoying a four-day weekend, or whether you will be plugging away straight on through without a break.

This track can be found on the album Standing My Ground.

Tuesday Two-fer: The National

One live performance and one music video from The National, featuring songs from their latest album High Violet. Below is a clip of the band performing "Afraid of Everyone" on Letterman:

Next is the music video for "Bloodbuzz Ohio." Most intriguing/perplexing lyric: "I was carried to Ohio on a swarm of bees."

Daily Video: Darker My Love

I'm back! The blog's not dead, I've just been busy with an out-of-state move and I have not had much free time to scour the web for interesting music. I did, however, listen to AccuRadio the other day and discovered the L.A.-based band Darker My Love. They've been compared to the Grateful Dead, and I can also detect a hint of The Rolling Stones when I listen to the tracks on their latest album, Alive As You Are. Here's an acoustic performance of "Backseat" I am really digging:

Daily Video: Jewel performs songs from "Sweet and Wild" on HSN

Honestly, I am not in cahoots with HSN to get you to purchase Jewel's latest album from them. I recently watched an episode of GAC "Origins" where Jewel discusses her album Sweet and Wild and performs acoustic versions of some of the songs (recordings of which are also available on the CD itself). I've always wanted to like Jewel, but I was never terribly impressed by her material up to this point (maybe the melodies were too mellow, or the singing too breathy - I don't really know what it was). So while the clips from "Origins" are not available online, the ones from this HSN special are, and I have included a few of the best ones below. Suffice it to say I was completely blown away by these acoustic performances, and the songs have been swirling around in my brain for the past week or so. I've already purchased this CD - if you decide to do the same, I think you will agree that this is probably her best songwriting so far. And if you purchase it from HSN, I wonder if they might cut me in on a little commission?

Update: my original videos were removed, so I uploaded some new, non-HSN ones. I found a good (though oddly-edited) video of an acoustic performance of "Ten," and I also included the music video for "No Good in Goodbye."

Daily Video: Mumford & Sons

London quartet Mumford & Sons performing "The Cave" in a book store in London. (I wanted to post the clip of their recent performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, but it was removed from YouTube. You can watch the full episode, though, on Hulu.)