Posted by Mia | 0 Comments

Track Listing – April 26

I had a great time in studio with Travis from The Auricle! We talked about film studies, art history, and lots more, and played some absolutely wonderful music. Check out his work at theauricle.bandcamp.com/, and follow him on Twitter here!

Posted by Mia | 0 Comments

3 Songs: “Cheesecake Brownie” Edition

There are some guilty pleasures that I’ll cop to without shame. I’ve seen every episode of American Dad, for instance. Or—here’s a good one—somewhere in my CD files, I still own the ska-filled soundtrack to the Digimon Movie. With the digi-rap. I’m not even kidding.

But there are also guilty pleasures I actually feel guilty about. I call these cheesecake brownies, because while you know they’re awful in every conceivable way, you just can’t say no. And because I apparently do not worry about ruining my reputation as a credible music snob, here are three of my truly guilty pleasure songs.

We Are Young
Once upon a time I actually owned 3OH!3’s first album, mostly because a guy I had a crush on liked them and I was 20 and that’s what 20-year-olds do. The two dudebros behind 3OH!3 are almost pathologically stupid—for proof, just look at how many times they’ve collaborated with Ke$ha, never mind the fact that their biggest hit is both sexist and ableist—but “We Are Young,” the first single from their sophomore release, has just the right drum beat to appeal to the part of me that still thinks like a dance choreographer. That’s actually a common theme in a lot of my guilty pleasures, including the next one:

Safety Dance (Glee Version)
Oh, gawd, I KNOW. I know. Believe me. I’m a music critic, a pop culture scholar, and have been a member of actual choirs since the tenth grade; I know Glee is fucking ridiculous. But the first season was a legitimately fun little exercise in jukebox musicals, and I downloaded the songs from each week’s show just like everyone else. While I eventually abandoned the majority of those homogenized kidz-bop covers, the Kevin McHale-helmed version of The Safety Dance remained. I love the original—who doesn’t?—but the Glee take on it is snappier, less minimalistic, and just a little bit quicker in tempo, and conveys a truly joyful sense of energy. I still plan to choreograph a dance piece to this version, and I don’t care what anyone says; it may be Glee, but they did this one right.

Rockin’ the Suburbs (Over the Hedge version)
The original Rockin’ the Suburbs is a scathing and on-point criticism of privileged white guys, because Ben Folds is actually a pretty talented lyricist. It calls out the hypocrisy of the misery bemoaned by the upper-middle class, who have so much more going for them but are always the first (and loudest) to complain when things don’t go their way. Then Folds rewrote it, and several of his other songs, for a shitty Dreamworks movie that starred William Shatner.

The new version of Rockin’ the Suburbs is just as homogenized as you’d expect; instead of blistering social commentary on privilege (ya’ll don’t know what it’s like / being male, middle class and white) it’s far cutesier in precisely that Dreamworks way, where it’s not offensively stupid but can’t possibly be intelligent (Don’t freak about the smoke alarm / Mom left the TV dinner on).

Then, at around 2:15, something magical happens. Because that’s when The Shatner Himself appears on the track, and segues into an absolutely brilliant monologue that perfectly captures the passive-aggressiveness of suburban neighbourhood life. For over a minute and a half we get to listen to Captain Kirk talk about house plans, mowing the lawn, and anger management classes, and it’s just fucking amazing, I can’t even. It’s worth every second of pop blandness that surrounds it.

Posted by Mia | 0 Comments

3 Songs: “We Came From the Internet” Edition

I, like most people, get a lot of my music from the internet. This was especially true before I became a radio host; nowadays I’m able to access an overwhelming amount of fantastic new albums thanks to CFUV’s library, but before that my music discovery process usually involved an internet radio site and the Shuffle button. The quality of suggestions varied depending on the sites; Grooveshark, Last.FM, and 8Tracks are all okay, but usually not much more than that. I maintain that Spotify has the best radio algorithm out of every possible service, but it’s tough to access in Canada.

The point is that I’ve found a lot of music via our beloved series of tubes. Here’s three of them.

Nebulullaby – Sean Lennon and Charlotte Muhl
This song comes from a collaboration project by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his hitRECord site. I joined up hoping to work with some people and instead ended up incredibly intimidated. But I found this gorgeous, gorgeous song, with its equally twee music video, and I’ve loved it ever since. How can you not? The astronomy subject alone is outstanding, but the fact that the video references Georges Melies just catapults it into favourite song territory.

Anna Sun – WALK THE MOON
One of my first Spotify finds. It’s a peppy, fun little song that’s completely pretentious, but in the best way. It was available on the Suicide Kitteh karaoke listings when I went to Seattle, so you know it’s Hipster certified. And I say that with all the love in the world.

Walter Reed – Michael Penn
In my first year of university I used a music streaming/discovery service that had a minimalist interface and pink lettering. I have no recollection of what it’s called—-it’s not Hype Machine, it’s not Last.fm, it’s not I really don’t know—but I remember that my username was ‘Elphaba’ and that I discovered this song there. It was one of the first I put exclusively on my brand-new iPod, and was never burned to a mix CD. It’s not the most memorable of songs, necessarily, but I like the flow of the melody.

Posted by Mia | 0 Comments

Track Listing – April 19th

Not much to say this week. It was a rough one, emotionally, but I liked the music a lot!

Posted by Mia | 0 Comments

Show Listing – April 12

It’s delayed, but now it’s here! This is the show listing for last weekend, when I had Matt and Shane from The Fast Romantics join me for a chat. It was a fantastic time and they’re a talented bunch! Track list after the jump. For more info on the band, go check them out at fastromantics.com