Music in Commercials – Part 4

It has been a few weeks since my last Music in Commercials post. I think it due time for another. This week has a little less continuity than week but I have found some cool ones.

Six Show Combo Review Spectacular!

In the last few weeks I was able to see a whole whack of shows. Instead of blogging about them in a timely fashion I ended up putting it off until I had accumulated six shows to talk about. Before this list grows too big, I am getting down to business and writing up this new post.

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Datarock

The show that is furthest away in my concert time line was the Datarock / Ladytron show. Lucky for me it was one of the most memorable. I was at this show for Datarock. That being said, when they first came on I was a little worried. They weren’t as crazy and fun as I’d hoped and they were playing new stuff which was less good than their one album stuff.

Avid Datarock fans, don’t fret! This was just a minor hiccup. Soon they were

Not only does Scarlett Johansson’s album not suck, it’s actually really good.

In Old English, incubi and succubi (the demons that seduce sleeping mortals) were known as ‘mare,’ and such nightly visitations were known as ‘nightmares.’

So when I say that Scarlett Johansson’s new album of Tom Waits covers Anywhere I Lay My Head sounds like nightmare, I’m not being an asshole — it’s the type of nightmare I’d like to have. The dreamlike instrumentation orchestrated by producer Dave Sitek has a smothering, surreal but inarguably erotic feel to it. Many of the songs have a languid, dark-carnival sensibility that would suit them well for a soundtrack to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

New Fun Finds, Low Expectations, and Tragic Let Downs

This week I was able to see a couple more shows. This week was definitely the lesser of two weeks when compared to last week. The bands I intended to see were a little disappointing but through them I found a couple bands that I would have never found before.

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Anna Ternheim

Anna is a solo, acoustic, indie-folk Swedish singer/songwriter that opened as a “Special Guest” for El Perro Del Mar and Lykke Li. The fact that she was opening was pretty interesting after I checked out the three band’s LastFM pages. She was listed as having 2.4 million listens, while Lykke Li had 650k listens and El Perro Del Mar had 950k listens. Regardless of stats and statistics, she was really good. Her voice sounds better live than it does on her recordings. Also her non-singing Swedish accent is really hot! I was not expecting much from this “Special Guest” but instead of found an awesome new band for my chill-out playlist.

(Clip of “Anna Ternheim – To Be Gone [0:38 min])

Cake’s Vancouver show was great. No lie.

What the hell, why was everyone at the Cake concert, like, 35 years old? I don’t want to get all “kids these days” on you… But seriously: kids these days. When I go to an all ages show for a wicked band that’s been around for about 15 years, I expect to be one of the older people there. But I guess concerts with seats draw a different crowd.

Modern Folk Pop vs Hyper Female Electropop/Hip Hop

In the last week I was able to make it to a couple shows. First was the Laura Veirs / Liam Finn show followed by The Trucks / Northern State a few days later. Both shows were great for completely different reasons. In this post I’ll go over how they stacked up.

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Liam Finn

The first set from the Folk show was Liam Finn. I had never even heard of him before going to the show (I was there for Laura Veirs). I wasn’t expecting much from the opener and actually could of missed him if my pre-show Iced Capp excursion had been a little more interesting.

Los Campesinos vs. The Answering Machine

Musicians rip each other off all the time. Steve Miller lifted the famous “pompatus of love” lyric from a song by The Medallions. The Flaming Lips pay royalties to Yusuf Islam for similarities between Father and Son and Fight Test.

But it’s weird when you find two songs with an identical riff that were released less than a year apart from one another.

Music in Commercials – Part 3

As usual, this week I have scraped up three more commercials. Today’s post is all about commercials that really affected the popularity of the musician or song. The kind of artist that has three times as many listens on one song featured in a commercial than all others combined.

Born Ruffians hate Canada

I’ve never been one for flag waving. Sure I’ll make jokes about Americans, and I’m always quick to point out that I’m from Canada, but the whole blind patriotism thing has never been my bag. I mean, who really cares if Bryan Adams went south?

So when I say that Born Ruffians hate Canada, I’m not criticizing the Toronto band’s flight to the UK for a round of touring, or even their recent signing with England’s Rough Trade Records. I’m talking about how living in Canada will actually make it harder for you to buy their first EP.

Put down the acoustic guitar. It’s time to party.

If you’re like me, you listen to music all the time. Working, studying, commuting, exercising, playing video games… I pretty much have a constant soundtrack. But even if you’re not like me, there’s one time that I’ll bet we both think music is important: while partying.

Music can make or break a party. It can unite enemies, turn friends against one another, or put an entire room of revelers to sleep. With this knowledge, making sure that you have rock solid party songs on your playlist is absolutely crucial.