i said woof, be mine
August 28, 2008
Nellie McKay’s Dog Song is the most ridiculously absolutely bestest sweetest funniest song, for all those out there who ever had a dog that died. Or who ever had a dog for that matter.
Watch her belt out her tribute to Carmello.
Nellie Mckay – Dog Song (click)
*swing
grab some virgins
August 27, 2008
The Virgins are 4 young men. 4 young men are virgins.
This is the soundtrack to your TV ad. You cannot possibility NOT bop your head to this song. Unless of course, you’re in a train/bus/moving vehicle jammed packed with other sane people. It’s abit poppy, don’t scorn now you elitist so called ‘indie’ folk, but suitable for a low mid week Wednesday.
The Virgins were featured in Nylon’s July Music Issue.
Nylon: If there’s nobody in the audience, do you play?
Erik Ratensperger (Drummer): Yeah, of course.
Donald Cumming (Singer): In fact, if you’re a new band, you should be grateful there’s nobody in the audience, because it’s an extra rehearsal for you. You should take an empty venue with thanks!
anddddddd.. their songs were featured on Gossip Girl, which Season TWOOOOO starts SEPTEMBER 1st!!! (FIVE MORE DAYS) Don’t forget to catch that.
XOXO, Swing
The Virgins – Rich Girl (click)
ready to be heartbroken
August 25, 2008
They’re coming, they’re coming. They’re coming to singapore. Are you getting tickets? I’m still in a twee picnic pop mood, as you can tell by my song choice. I’ve been shirking duties and skipping classes, which only means that I’m still seeing pink clouds in my holiday mind. All I want to do is skip forever in the perfection of an mtv, through wide angle lenses and on beaches with playful bandmates.
Someday Swing and I will put up a list of our mtv-favourites. For now, here’s camera obscura, offering you their hands to hold as they skip on in a paddle pop wonderland, where I am.
*crush
hello, halo, heylo
August 20, 2008
How sweet to be in love with the man you make music with, and be photographed in faded polaroids and on grassy hills and et cetera.
Chupee is the kind of song that I have lots of: the ukulele intro and clap-beat, the walking-under-trees simplicity. But their airy harmony and cute french-english lyrics “the beavers are so cute/ the tree gave me a fruit” makes it that more endearing. A pop breather in-between all the intense music, because sometimes life is just about beavers and fruit.
*crush
it feels like this: cajun dance party
August 19, 2008
Their band name sounds like a generic compilation cd you can buy in Popular bookstore. Their music is not quite. It’s the kind of happy unsappy music you can walk swiftly to the bus stop to, but it’s still mellow enough for lie-down picnics. These guys played at the recent Tokyo and Osaka Summer Sonic Festivals, can you feel yourself turning into an Envious Eve like me?
No Joanna could be whiny, but there’s the driving muted guitar riff that runs like fast scenery through a bus window. We all know how important soundtracks are to bus scenes in movies, with the protagonist looking out from the top deck but not really looking at anything. This is such a soundtrack.
*crush
because we separate
August 13, 2008
I know many people do not like Radiohead and may not even have much of an impression of them. I think they were a little too early for those in my generation, burning the underground tracks whilst we still thought Britney was cool and Stephen Gately was straight.
Reckoner is my current fav from their In Rainbows album. The intro is reminiscent of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, with clashing steady beats for performers to make carefully calculated movements to. The lyrics don’t really matter to me this time, with thom yorke’s voice in an endless call, I think I am one of the leaves that float around Pocahontas in colours of the wind.
I listen to Reckoner the whole evening. It plays in the background as I carefully calculate my plans for the next hectic week.
Searched all night for a suitable photo for maximum visual impact, and I must say, this one of thom yorke is my fav so far.
An award will be given for the best caption!!
*swing
jump in circles
August 12, 2008
I first saw MGMT in a fashion magazine. And so i was drawn to their electric-eccentric boho clothes and hair.
This song has been in my head all day, even through my 4 pm nap, sprawled face down on the library plush seats and too tired to care about my image. I was jumping around the house in circles to this song yesterday, tripping myself out simply because the house was empty enough to do that.
I’ve been loving MGMT because I’m the half of Merrymen who has a thing for high male voices. And psychedelic spacey sound effects set to dance beats. Before I watched the video I saw purple and silver star crescendos in this, all eyes batting and huge stage lights, rows and rows aflash. And their video is pretty similar to that. They look like they’d be funny friends to have.
The lyrics are pretty depressing but if you didn’t understand English you’d be fooled into making this your prep song for happy days out, like I did. And I still do, it’s denial.
on greener grasses
August 10, 2008
This song makes you want to stay in your bed and cry. I told Swing I was sad, and she said, “Must be that Ingrid.”
And it was that Ingrid, with vocals and guitar so pensive that it sounds like somebody trying hard not to cry, swallowing word ends, cold.
So which would you rather do: give up your imperfect Someone for greener grasses, or give up greener grasses for your imperfect Someone?
*crush, with *swing in third person
Men with Accents
August 5, 2008
Do you remember discovering Oasis? Oasis is a very special band to the Merry Men. Well, the man who discovered Oasis has discovered Glasvegas from Scotland.
I’ve been put off traditional guitar rock bands for a long time. But finally here is a lead singer who blasts himself into the microphone and writes good songs and looks like he doesn’t care about anything except the music. They just stand there and sing it as it is, with no silly adolescent lyrics or whines. I’m getting their album. I’ve always had a soft spot for thick British accents and brutish vibes.
*crush
Where Wise Men Never Go
August 5, 2008
Marie Antoinette (2006) in its frothy frivolous loveliness
Pairing an 18th-century anti-heroine with 80s tribal-infused pop isn’t the most obvious solution for a soundtrack. But there is a frothiness to Bow Wow Wow’s African-drum songs that goes with Kirsten Dunst’s fluffy hair and voluminous skirts. Or maybe Sophia Coppola saw similarities between her stylised Marie Antoinette and the little fox lead singer of Bow Wow Wow:
“Fools Rush In” feels the way I do when I eat sugar after 9 pm. In the movie, Marie is riding back in a pumpkin-like carriage at daybreak, after meeting a swoonsome lad at a masked ball. The said swoonsome lad is very unlike her own mouse of a husband. I remember the colours, all blue and grey and white.
Yes it’s like a festival and a circus, and I don’t think I’d like it as much as I do if not for the odd pairing with the movie. It finds its way into my classtime doodles.
Fools Rush In – Bow Wow Wow (click!)
*crush
making the world a merrier place 
