Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009
Pod Picks for August 13, 2009
Oil up your MP3 player for the dog days of August as we recommend the following sizzling tracks for downloading - legally, of course - to rock away the heat.
"Crying Lightning" by Artic Monkeys - For its third full-length since swinging out of the Sheffield suburbs back in 2006, Alex Turner's troupe sought out a pretty unlikely handler - Queens of the Stone Age mainstay (and one-third of the newest rock 'n' roll supergroup Crooked Vultures) Josh Homme. Rather brazenly, Homme suggested that this cartload of hyperactive, hyper-British lads relocate to his hometown - the arid, unforgiving Joshua Tree National Park - to make the record. For months, the press wondered if a band called the Arctic Monkeys could even survive the desert, not to mention Homme's signature stoner sound. And while Homme's slower pace is indeed all over this noir rocker, lyrically, its ingenious imagery and oblique rhyme scheme is textbook Turner.
"Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" by She & Him - True, almost any of The Smiths' songs could be used to soundtrack a breakup movie - "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now," "I Want The One I Can't Have"... "Girlfriend In A Coma." And granted, this particular one has been used by Hollywood several times before - "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Pretty In Pink," "Never Been Kissed." What makes this cover a welcome addition though is really quite simple - two words, Zooey Deschanel. The "She" to M. Ward's "Him," Deschanel's delivery gives warmth and legitimate pathos to Morrissey's cold and distant croon. In the movie "500 Days Of Summer," it is Deschanel's character that calls it off with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's. Listening to her crumble here however, you'd never know it.
"Autumn Beds" by Modest Mouse - More akin to the hushed and intimate affairs of front man Isaac Brock's Ugly Casanova side project, the second track to leak from the "No One's First And You're Next" EP definitely finds the band in a kinder, more gentle mood. And given its preponderance of banjos and vocal harmony at the octave, this very well could have been one of the much-talked about leftovers from the 2004 blockbuster "Good News For People Who Love Bad News." Whereas that album was incredibly divisive among older fans, even they would be hard-pressed to find any fault with this tune's simple, almost rustic arrangement. And whereas I'm still not exactly sure why "we won't be sleeping in our autumn beds," as with most of Brock's beatnik musings, it just doesn't seem to matter.
