Your Listening Pleasure
Daft Punk, Ariel Pink and The Gorillaz in this week's YLP.
Daft Punk - Television Rules The Nation/Crescendolls - Even from the music alone, Daft Punk's Alive 2007 spectacle proves why they are consistently hailed as one of the greatest electronic music acts of all time. Through remixing (almost) all of their tracks together into the ultimate DJ set, the duo manages to not only recontextualize their three widely different albums, but vastly improve on many of their lesser tracks. In this case, the group takes a mediocre track from Human After All ("Television Rules The Nation"), sprinkles in elements of a mediocre track off Discovery ("Crescendolls") and makes into a bumping party anthem. They get bonus points for deftly juxtaposing the line "television rules the nation" with the refrain of another Daft Punk classic, "Around the World," for a slight dose of snarky social commentary to go along with the futuristic rumpshaking.
Alive 2007 is out now on Virgin Records.
Ariel Pink - Howlling At The Moon - In "Howling At The Moon," Ariel Pink layers together guitar riffs, keyboard melodies, vocal melodies and beat-boxed drum sounds into a jumbled mess of lo-fi pop goodness. The LA-based musician sounds like what would happen if you gave an 8-track and Casio keyboard to hyperactive 12-year-old raised solely on oldies pop radio, but in the best way possible. However you want to describe him, Ariel Pink demonstrates with "Howling At The Moon" his ability to craft songs are unique yet undeniably familiar.
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Sacred Famous is out now on Paw Tracks Records.
Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc. (Stanton Warriors Remix - Blog-friendly remix duo, Stanton Warriors, offers a new twist on and old favorite. The team captures the spirit of "Feel Good Inc." by keeping most of the elements of the original song in place, while adding a electro-heavy breakbeat, vocoder-filtered vocals and other synthesized sound effects that complement, rather than detract, from the actual song. While it's not as catchy as the original, Stanton Warrior's "Feel Good Inc." remix is still very much worth listening (and dancing) to.
D-Sides is out now on Virgin Records.
Posted by Jason Prechtel on Nov 30, 2007 @ 12:00 am
