Sigur Rós - "Glósóli" and "Sæglópur"

Beautiful music has no need of language, because it is its own language. If ever there were a case study to prove that point, Sigur Rós would be it. Sometimes they sing in Icelandic, but mostly in Vonlenska (or "Hopelandic"), a type of gibberish vaguely resembling Icelandic, but crafted instead to fit the music. I can't tell you how well that idea resonates with me, because in my mind music is what I turn to when words fail, so it only seems fitting that the words would ultimately be subservient to the music. But then, I'm a musician...I'm certain a poet would feel differently.

I've been looking forward to including Sigur Rós on this blog, because there aren't many people I know who are aware of the band. But they're probably aware of bands who have been influenced by them, such as Radiohead and Coldplay (just to name a few). I've chosen two tracks from their album "Takk...", because I think you need both to get a feel for what they're capable of. For "Glósóli" (roughly 'glowing sun' in Icelandic), I've embedded the official video for the song, because I feel that it enhances the experience of hearing it. For "Sæglópur" (roughly 'lost at sea' in Icelandic), I've chosen to instead go with an unofficial video that's mostly a black screen, because in this case, I think the official video takes the focus too far away from the music (you can still view it here afterwards if you like, though). The band is best experienced with headphones, but with Youtube videos, the sound quality is only going to be so good, regardless of the setup.

One other thing: make sure to listen to both in their entirety, because a 30 second snippet won't give you an accurate picture of the songs. Hearing Sigur Rós for the first time can be a bit of a trip, so I sincerely hope you enjoy both of these songs!

Note: Massive props to Craig Ratliff for pointing me to Character Map, without which this post would not have been possible...Crazy Icelandic.

Sara Bareilles - "City"

Sara Bareilles burst onto the scene a few years back with "Love Song", which made its way into a number of commercials. It's a catchy tune, but her slow songs are much better. "City" is one of those songs, and it's from the same album ("Little Voice") that "Love Song" is on. I really like the harmony and instrumentation on this tune, especially how the strings swell into the song at the end of the first chorus. Good stuff. Enjoy!

Bon Iver - "Blindsided"

I'm excited to get to share Bon Iver with you. This song was the first of theirs that I heard, and it was enough to get me hooked. I've been listening to them pretty heavily for the past two months now. Justin Vernon, the lead singer and songwriter, actually has a rather deep speaking voice...his falsetto technique was something of an experiment for him that really took off. Sometimes he uses it, sometimes not, and sometimes - like with this track - you'll hear him singing a falsetto line and double tracking it an octave down. This song is on the album "For Emma, Forever Ago", and overall the album is quite good. It was written over the course of a winter in which Justin holed up by himself in his father's cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin. The name Bon Iver, by the way, is derived from the french bon hiver which means good winter. I'll be sharing more from Bon Iver in the coming months, but for now, I'd like you to sit back and enjoy this one.

Brooke Fraser - "Shadowfeet"

Like several others, I first heard of Brooke Fraser when this song hit the radio. I like the lyrics and I really like the beat when it comes in. It turns out that the entire "Albertine" album is quite good, actually, and well worth a listen if you haven't heard it. Enjoy!

Bill Withers - "Ain't No Sunshine"

Yes, just about everyone has heard this song, but that doesn't change the fact that it's just about perfect. My only complaint is that it's so short; I could use 10 more minutes of Bill Withers singing the same thing over and over. I love his voice, his songwriting, the strings, everything. Enjoy!

Toad The Wet Sprocket - "Windmills"

This is one of my favorite songs from what is hands-down my favorite band. The band took its name from a Monty Python sketch, and by the time I found out about them, they were only 2 years away from breaking up. Glen Phillips, the lead singer, moved on to a moderately successful solo career, and I feel quite certain some of his songs will be showing up in this space. The remaining members formed a band called Lapdog which had a really good debut album "Near Tonight", and a second album "Mayfly" that I was never able to get into. All the members remained good friends, though, and from time to time they did shows or mini-tours as Toad The Wet Sprocket. Apparently, they are now reunited and are in the process of recording a new studio album, so that's pretty awesome.

"Windmills" is one of the best tracks from their album "Dulcinea", which many fans consider to be their finest album. I sincerely hope you enjoy it!

Edwin McCain - "Working Man"

Edwin is one of my favorite artists, and has probably had a greater influence on my acoustic guitar playing than any other guitarist. While most people know him more as a singer from ballads like "I'll Be" and "I Could Not Ask For More" (which he did before - and in my opinion better than - Sara Evans), he's always been an acoustic guitar player and songwriter to me. That's probably because I got into him with his first studio album "Honor Among Thieves", which was largely acoustic-driven ("I'll Be" was on his next album, "Misguided Roses") and included a duet with Darius Rucker ("Solitude"...sorry I couldn't find the studio version) that got some radio play. In order to play his songs, I was forced to augment my picking and strumming techniques to be able to handle some of the rhythmic elements of his playing. He's also the reason I know how to play an E/G# chord. So thanks, Edwin! He's a much better guitar player than he gets credit for. He can't even be considered an underrated guitar player; because most people think of him as just another singer/songwriter, he's not even rated.

All of that is to say that this probably won't be the last song of his to show up on this blog. It's a fairly simple number about a man and his guitar. Small wonder, then, that I like it so much. Enjoy!

Queensryche - "Real World"

And now, for something completely different. There is plenty to appreciate about Queensrÿche: Geoff Tate's 4-octave vocal range (he's a classically trained opera singer, as was his mother), the intricate arrangements of guitarist Michael Wilton (also a classically trained musician), the umlaut over the 'y' in the band's name that you would probably expect from a progressive metal band (I'm not going to attempt to recreate it in this post, but you can see it in the album cover shown in the video below). Queensrÿche has always possessed a bit of a flair for the orchestral (see also "Silent Lucidity"...better yet, don't see, just listen and ignore the video; it was 1991), and this track is a good example of that. For some reason, I never really explored their music much beyond the "Empire" album; odd, because the album was quite good. This track (sadly enough) wasn't on the "Empire" album, or any studio album of theirs...it appeared on the soundtrack to "Last Action Hero", one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's more - how do I say this - perplexing project choices. But the song is good. Seriously. Just listen.

Update: Of course I had to figure out how to do the umlaut over the 'y'...it was a technical challenge and took all of 3 seconds on Google to find, so I added it to the paragraph above. I still can't figure out how to get it into the post title, though. Blogger doesn't seem to accept html codes in that spot. Oh well.

Citizen Cope - "Lifeline"

There's really not a lot to say about this song...it's just good. I can tell you that Citizen Cope is the stage name of one Clarence Greenwood. I've only listened to a couple of his albums, and they're pretty good, but this is my favorite song of his so far. Enjoy!

Seafood - "Time and Tides"

Weird name for a band, right? Crazy British bands. This song comes from their 2006 album "Paper Crown King", which is a pretty solid release and worth checking out if you like this tune, because the rest of the album is similar in tone. I can't say the same for their 2004 release "As The Cry Flows" which, while cleverly titled, simply isn't very good. So they seemed to be getting better as a band...right before they split up. Such is life, sometimes. This tune takes a little while to develop, but it's worth the wait. Enjoy!

Dave Beegle - "Amazing Grace / Joy Medley"

Can I interest you in a flamenco-trained guitarist (who happens to be a good personal friend of Phil Keaggy) performing a medley of "Amazing Grace" and his own personal take on "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"? Dave Beegle is ridiculously good, and if that guitar that he's playing sounds a bit familiar, it's because it's an Olson guitar. He used to play an Olson that was loaned to him by Phil Keaggy (the tones of which you might have heard on Phil's album "Acoustic Sketches"). I think he owns a few of his own now, but you can't mistake that tone. For the record, it's a very expensive tone...as in a bare minimum of at least $10,000 expensive, and more typically between $15,000 and $40,000. Yeah, I'd like to play an Olson.

I was blessed to see Phil Keaggy and Dave Beegle together in concert up in Boulder, CO back when I was working in Denver. I hadn't heard of Dave before then, but I haven't forgotten him since that performance. He moves seamlessly between flamenco, jazz, classical, and sometimes even rock. His first solo album "A Year Closer" is entirely acoustic, amazing throughout, and well worth a listen. It also contains two different tracks that my wife and I used in our wedding service ("Joy" and "A Simple Prayer", in case you were wondering). It might take you a few minutes to figure out where he's going with this particular performance, but the wait is worth it. Also, for those of you unfamiliar with the technique, he's looping his own playing in a few parts toward the beginning (probably using a Lexicon JamMan, which has been Phil Keaggy's looping tool of choice for years). Enjoy!

Stevie Wonder - "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)"

How about some Stevie Wonder to brighten up your day? I love this song. Now seems like as good of a time as any to note that the point of this blog is to highlight good songs, not necessarily obscure songs. Though it seems to be an increasingly rare occurrence, sometimes a good song does actually get the radio play and attention that it deserves. This happens to be one of them, though that attention was given before I was born. Enjoy!

Andy McKee - "Rylynn"

I just couldn't go any longer without posting something by Andy McKee. Like many people, I found out about Andy through his video for "Drifting". That one has over 40 million views, and for good reason. I chose "Rylynn" because I've long considered it to be his best song and - because Andy is clearly one of my guitar heroes - the one I'd most love to be able to play. Though I'd also settle for being able to pull off "For My Father". All of these songs appear on Andy's first album, "Art of Motion", and the entire album is a great listen. The music (not just the virtuosity, but the music itself) is just fantastic. Enjoy!

Hem - "Leave Me Here"

How do I introduce you to Hem? Well, I hand you a copy of their first album "Rabbit Songs" and call it good. But what if I can only choose one song? Tough. Very tough. You've probably already heard "Half Acre" without knowing it, because it was in a few Liberty Mutual commercials, so that seems like a waste (though a solid song choice). I could go with "Idle (The Rabbit Song)", which puts a little more emphasis on the band and has some great string interplay in the final third of the song.

But I really love Sally Ellyson's vocals. I've heard it suggested that one of the reasons her vocals sound so pure is because she was a completely unknown talent at the time Hem found her, so she never had to deal with years of cigarette smoke by playing in dive bars. When people are taking time to speculate about such a thing, you've probably got a pretty good voice. Hem put out an advertisement looking for a singer, and Sally's demo tape showed up with her singing some old lullabyes a capella. It must have been pretty good, because the band chose to use the undoctored version one of those lullabyes ("Lord, Blow Out the Moon Please") as the first track on "Rabbit Songs". Straight from the demo tape to the debut album. Not bad.

I've chosen to use the song "Leave Me Here" as your introduction to the band (that is, if you haven't heard them before) because the instrumentation is great, and representative of the "Rabbit Songs" album. By the way, they recorded this album with the 18-piece Radio Slovak Orchestra...so, there's that. But also, I think this song does as good of a job as any of showcasing Sally's vocals. Great song, great album. Enjoy!

Iron & Wine - "My Lady's House"

How about a nice and mellow song for Wednesday? Iron & Wine is the stage name of one Samuel (not Jim) Beam. His stuff is usually fairly mellow like this. Most people have heard something of his before without realizing it: his remake of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" shows up in a number of places, most notably the Garden State soundtrack. Interestingly enough, most people have also heard at least a clip of The Postal Service's original song without realizing it, because the intro used to run underneath a number of UPS commercials with the "whiteboard guy". I bet they thought they were clever for that. I can imagine the conversation:

Boss: "We need a song for this commercial, any ideas?"
Unpaid intern: "Well, there's a band called The Postal Service"
Boss: "I love it. So clever, and edgy, too. What's that you say...they're not very good?"
Commercial guys: "Don't worry, we can edit out the sucking."
Boss: "Good. Because the pun is critical to our success."
Unpaid intern: "Wait, if you edit out the sucking, who's going to know it's The Postal Service and catch the joke?"
Commercial guys: "Mostly music nerds."
Boss: "Do they ship many packages?"
Commercial guys: "Ummm...sure."

Anyway, if you listen the original and then realize that Sam found enough of something in there to turn into something beautiful, he should probably gain a level of respect in your mind, if nothing else. None of that has anything to do with the song I'm posting today. This song showed up on a little six-song EP called "Woman King" that he put out back in 2005. I love the overall tone of the album, of which this song is fairly representative. So if you like the track, check out the EP as well. Enjoy!

Counting Crows - "Children in Bloom"

Counting Crows holds a special place in my heart. Their first album, "August and Everything After" is in my top 5 albums of all time. That's almost certainly due to the fact that I was 15 when it was released. So I'm a little defensive when someone says they can't stand Counting Crows. More often than not, however, I find that the people who say that just got tired of hearing "Mr. Jones" played hour after hour on the radio and on MTV (back when MTV played music). For the record, "Mr. Jones" is my least favorite track on that album, so I can understand the sentiment. But there is so much more there to appreciate. The guitarists (sometimes two of them, sometimes three), in particular, consistently impress me not with their wizardry (though David Bryson studied under Joe Satriani and could undoubtedly impress on that front) but with their ability to find a space to occupy, and their unique choices that result from that dynamic. There is so much that they do that would never even occur to me to try. I also love that the band routinely (and tastefully) uses a Hammond organ (just check out "Another Horsedreamer's Blues" for an example of that). Now, if you don't like the Counting Crows because of Adam Duritz's vocals, I can understand and respect that; I never really got into Rush for the very same reason...I couldn't deal with Geddy Lee's vocals.

Anyway, the song: this is probably my favorite cut from their sophomore album "Recovering the Satellites". Unsurprisingly, it was never released as a single. I just checked Wikipedia for the singles that charted from this album: "Angels of the Silences", "A Long December", "Daylight Fading", and "Have You Seen Me Lately". I'm not sure you could have picked a worse four...I'll never understand A&R folks. My four would have been "Children in Bloom", "Recovering the Satellites", "Another Horsedreamer's Blues", and "Goodnight Elizabeth". I'd also push for "Miller's Angels", but I'd lose because of the length of the song. I have no idea what this song is actually about, and that's kind of the way I like it. It evokes my own set of visions and memories when I hear it, and I think that's how music should be: personal. I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

p.s. - Please try to ignore the picture of the band all leather-clad and looking like the photographer caught them enjoying a dimebag. Please.

Colin Hay - "Don't Wait Up"

Does the name ring a bell for you? No? How about Men at Work? Well, it turns out that a good songwriter is a good songwriter, regardless of the decade. And Colin's voice has simply gotten cooler with age. I highly recommend the album that this track shows up on, Going Somewhere. In addition to today's song, it also includes some other gems, such as "Beautiful World", "Waiting for My Real Life to Begin", and "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You". Because I'm a guitarist, I'm a sucker for songs with nothing more than a singer and his/her guitar (a fact that will undoubtedly influence to some degree the songs that I post here), and this one certainly fits the bill. Enjoy!

Mat Kearney - "What's a Boy to Do"

I really enjoy most of Mat Kearney's music. The only exceptions tend to be his brief ventures into rapping. While this song didn't get much radio play (or any, to my knowledge), I think it's one of his best. It's a haunting song about a boy's search for what it means to be a man. I've remarked to a few people before that this is one that probably wouldn't have impacted me as much before I had children, but now that I do, I find it devastating. Not too shabby for a song with only three chords (IV-VI-V). Enjoy!

Elbow - "Mirrorball"

There are so many good songs by Elbow that it was really hard for me to choose just one. I could have just as easily gone with "Grounds for Divorce", "Any Day Now", or "One Day Like This". However, the real choice came down to "Mirrorball" or "Switching Off". I love both songs, but "Mirrorball" has better overall instrumentation, and I think does a better job of pointing towards lead singer Guy Garvey's primary vocal influence: Peter Gabriel. It's fairly noticeable throughout, but in my opinion, it's unmistakable in the final refrain "...down to you dear". If you happen to like the song, you should check out the orchestral session performed at Abbey Road studios. Enjoy!

The Raconteurs - "Level (Live)" and "Bang, Bang (Live)"

So it looks like we have a double-dose today. I was originally just going to post the live version of "Level" for a couple of reasons: 1) it's far better than the version on the album and 2) it does a pretty good job of demonstrating the primary quality I enjoy about Jack White's playing/singing...namely, his barely controlled energy. I love the song, and I like the atmosphere of the video and getting to see the band communicate with one another. They're tight enough that it's mostly quick glances when necessary at all. But in my opinion, the better example of all of these points has always been The Raconteurs cover of Sonny Bono's "Bang, Bang" (originally performed by Cher, then by Nancy Sinatra). My problem was that hands down, the best version of this I've ever seen was their performance on Austin City Limits, and that didn't used to be on Youtube. Well I checked this morning, and someone finally got it out there. So please enjoy both of these.

The Avett Brothers - "Murder in the City"

The Avett Brothers are a fairly eclectic group, moving easily from soft and heartfelt (like this song, "I and Love and You", and "January Wedding") to hilarious ("Yardsale") to full-on romps ("Talk on Indolence"). However, what I really appreciate about this group is the ability of the two brothers to harmonize, a feature that tends to mark bands featuring siblings. Take it in, and enjoy!

The Mercy Street Band - "Heart of Grace"

Because the first song posted should be something special, I opted for a project with which I was involved.  Is it shilling a bit?  Probably, but the cause couldn't be more worthy: the song was recorded for the sole purpose of raising funds to help cover the costs of a heart transplant for a 3-year old girl (Leah Grace Parker, who is the daughter of some good friends of mine, Ross and Katie Parker).  You can download the song from iTunes or Amazon.com by visiting The Mercy Street Band's Website and choosing your preferred download outlet from there.  You can also find links to Leah's COTA (Children's Organ Transplant Association) page there, and discover a little more about this wonderful family's plight.  Should you be so inclined, you can also donate directly to her COTA fund on that site.  I hope you enjoy the song!