Jon Auer

Most people know Jon Auer as a part of The Posies or even Big Star. What kind of seems to have slipped through, is the fact that Jon has released a gorgeous album of his own in 2006. The most amazing song on "Song from the year of our demise" - at least in my opinion - is "Six Feet Under", a painfully beautiful break-up song. So don't get mad and I won't cry / And don't expect a long goodbye / I'll call you when we're six feet under ground

There's not a video or such for this song, so you'll have to do it with this very nice live performance:

Personal Eurovision 2008 Top 3

It's over already, this year's Eurovision Song Contest. As usual, the show's patient viewers and listeners had to put up with lots of utter crap, but - also as usual - a few songs did manage to convince. My personal top 3 looked like this:

1. Laka - Pokusaj (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
2. Sébastien Tellier - Divine (France)
3. Jelena Tomasevic - Oro (Serbia)

Enjoy the videos for these three great songs, and feel free to share your own Eurosong 2008 favourites!

Laka - "Pokusaj"


Sébastien Tellier - "Divine"


Jelena Tomasevic - "Oro"

FrYars

Ben Garrett - better known as FrYars, with a big Y just like KanYe (yes, he's got a big Y as well!) - is only 19 years old and is actually a pretty timid guy, but that doesn't stop him from making some of the most innovative tunes that have been heard recently. He loves David Bowie and Serge Gainsbourg, but sounds more like an interesting crossbreed between Jarvis Cocker, Lloyd Cole and Patrick Wolf. Don't hesitate to check out his two EP's ('The Ides' and 'The Perfidy') or one of his gigs. This nice Londoner is a man for the future!

FrYars - "Olive Eyes"


FrYars - "The Ides"

Delays

I thought their debut album 'Faded Seaside Glamour' was okay, but it was the non-album single 'Lost in a Melody' and the second album 'You See Colours' that turned me into probably one of the biggest Delays fans around.

Delays are four pretty boys (don't want to be superficial, but it has to be said) from Southampton who make irristible indie pop, famous for its catchy mix of keyboards, guitars and falsetto yet raw vocals provided by lead singer Greg Gilbert. They have just released their third studio album 'Everything's the Rush', which as could be expected contains lots of fresh supertunes!

Delays - "Hooray" (the new and very exiting single!)


Delays - "Love Made Visible" (also taken from the new album as well as from the Love Made Visible EP)


Delays - "Valentine" (one of my favourites on the previous album)


I can go on for ages... This is what pop music should be like!

Jamie Lidell

...needs to be mentioned again, because I love him quite a lot.


I've never felt a lot like forcing people into liking music, but I can't deny it'd seriously be worried if you wouldn't be into Jamie Lidell. The man has got a superb voice, amazing songs and live shows that simply blow you away. Soul and funk combined with electronics...it can sound completely non-authentic and awful, but Mr. Lidell proves it can also sound like one of the best things you've ever heard. Both his new album 'Jim' and its predecessor 'Multiply' are absolutely must-haves!

Jamie Lidell - "A little bit of feel good"


Jamie Lidell - "Another Day"


Jamie Lidell - "Multiply"

A soundtrack for great weather

As said above... The songs in today's post are some of my personal favourites to listen to when the sun is shining, the smell of fresh-mown grass and sun lotion is in the air, and evenings are filled with friends, music and way too much red wine.

Interpol - "Evil" (not everyone tends to see this as a summery song, but I definitely do, I think mostly because of the very sultry guitar riffs)


U2 - Beautiful Day (I always play this song when the sun finally permanently makes it through the clouds - Bono's voice timbre adds so much to the atmosphere of this song, it's one of my ultimate favourites)


Jamie Lidell - "What's The Use?" (he'll definitely appear again in the blog sometime very very soon, but - awaiting that glorious moment - the amazing Mr. Lidell deserves to be mentioned in this post as well, because of his ultimate summer tune 'What's The Use?')


Stereophonics - "Dakota" (whereas Interpol's "Evil" imo demonstrates the ultimate summer-like guitar riffs, this song owns the most summery synths ever)


The Beatles - "Here comes the sun" (no explanation needed, I reckon - love to George!)


The Beatles - "You've got to hide your love away" (one of my favourite Beatles songs, John's voice is so gorgeous in it - I like to sing along to this song whilst leaning out of my bedroom window)

Black Kids

Black Kids are an American band consisting of five members, of which only two are actually - somewhat - black. Doesn't really matter anyway, since all we can think of anymore is their extremely lovable debut single 'I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you'. What immediately strikes the listener is the huge resemblance to The Cure. Black Kids exceed in melancholic lyrics, vocals and synths, just like Robert Smith and his companions do. Still they have a very modern sound of their own, which makes it never boring to listen to their music.

Black Kids - "I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you"


Great songs attract many followers. The most famous Black Kids cover so far is a version of "I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you" by Kate Nash. I don't like it as much as the original, but I appreciate the fact she's trying to 'innovate' the song in her style.

MGMT

Number 9 in BBC's Sound of 2008, but number 1 to their many fans: MGMT!
A couple of years ago, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden started out as a little known band called The Management, but now they're one of the biggest hypes around. Contrary to many other hypes, though, they dó make great, fascinating and fresh-sounding music. From psychedelica to disco, from glamrock to indie pop...MGMT is THE soundtrack to this spring!

MGMT - "Kids"


MGMT - "Time to pretend" (live at David Letterman) -- wearing capes!