So, this entire blog project is actually an assignment from my Rhetoric of Music Blogs class at the University of Texas. One of my favorite parts of this class was discovering new music through the other students blogs and from our discussion of major music blogs in class. Ever since we watched these videos together as a class, I haven't been able to stop listening to these songs:
"Low Shoulder" by Toro Y Moi
"Bombay" by El Guincho (Not a huge fan of this video--it has some cool shots at least. Mostly I just love the steel drums used in the song.)
"You Da One" cover by Pentatonix acapella group (Watch the two guys on the bottom--the bass and the beatboxer. I was totally transfixed by how much two guys could add to a song without singing any of the lyrics/melody. Wow.)
These are some of the most recent songs I've been obsessively listening to:
"Midnight City" by M83
Love the catchy synth sound that repeats and the 80s influence that's very apparent in the sound and the vocals. I danced to a remix of this in a club a few weekends ago and it was wonderful.
"Helena Beat" by Foster the People
Sadly, I didn't really start to think of them as more than a one-hit wonder until I heard this all over the radio. Since then, I've listened to the full-length album and it's actually packed with hit-worthy songs. This one is still my favorite, though.
"Simple Song" by The Shins
I've never been a big Shins fan until I heard this. My ex-roommate loved them to death but I was more of a Broken Bells fan. But I've heard this being played a lot lately and I fell in love. I looked up the lyrics and they're so sweet and poetic. I played it in my car on repeat one day and each time I heard it it made me happier and happier. Definitely a feel-good song that's fun to sing.
I am a 90s kid. I lived, loved, and laughed with all of the Nickelodeon greats of my era: All That, Doug, Legends of the Hidden Temple, etc. Needless to say, I grew up on 90s music. This genre gets a lot of shit for being really unbelievably bad, but I don't see it that way. Sure, a lot of the lyrics were nonsensical and made people go "wtf?" but, again, like 80s music, it's still FUN music, which makes it great. Sure, I'm biased because every time I hear a popular 90s song I get all nostalgic, but I thought is was awesomely fun then and I think it's awesomely fun now, regardless of the quality. Here are some highlights from my childhood:
"Two Princes" by Spin Doctors
"Every Morning" by Sugar Ray (My favorite song when I was eight.)
"The Way" by Fastball (My favorite song when I was seven. Saw them in concert with Sugar Ray.)
In my original post, I mentioned the "bad" kind of earworm--the songs that you hate but they're so catchy they invade your mind anyway and you can't stop singing it/thinking about it. So here are some of my personal worst earworms.
More recently, "Animal" by Neon Trees. Gross. Nothing about this song sounds unique or cool to me. Just overly-typical, trying to make a hit by being stereotypically catchy kind of thing. It was ALL over the radio and haunted me for months.
"California" by MetroStation
While I really enjoyed dancing and jamming out to the ever-catchy "Shake It" by the same band, this one is so repetitive and cheery in a childish way that it's painful.
And don't forget most of the music by Britney Spears. She can't sing. She just can't. The only songs of hers I like are recent, super dance-y ones where the producers have made the music so cool that it makes up for her terrible, over-produced voice. This one definitely tries to hard. Bad bad lyrics.
"Mickey"
Waaaay too upbeat in a cutsie way for my taste. Sadly, I have danced to this, but only to make fun of how annoying it is.
And last, but DEFINITELY not least, "Barbie Girl." I don't know how many times this got played when I was at some stupid girl's slumber party when I was little, but I'm surprised my ears didn't bleed. I can't stand how chipper it is. Blech.
I'm one of those people that enjoys a good cover, especially if the artist making the cover can find a new way of spinning the original song and making it their own. So here are some of the coolest ones I've found:
"Posession"
Originally by the 90s goddess, Sarah McLachlan, it was remade by one of my all-time favorite rock bands, Evans Blue. I know that any sort of heavier punk/screamo music has faded from its former glory/popularity, but I still love this band and I still listen to their first two albums. Sometimes, I just like heavier music, depending on my mood. But I was really struck by this one cover of theirs. I think it's one of the only recorded covers they've done on an album and I just thought it was so odd that they, a hardcore rock band, would choose to cover her of all people. I didn't even know they knew who she was, let alone that they must have listened to this song of hers at some point, sat down, and said, "Hey, this is pretty good, I think we could make a sweetass cover of it."
"Crossroads"
Originally a country blues song by the legendary Robert Johnson, it has been covered over and over.
Here's a popular one by guitar legend, Eric Clapton.
And here's another, more recent one, by a rising guitar god, John Mayer.
BUT, even though these are excellent remakes that succeed at giving new life to older songs, nothing, nothing can rival my all time favorite cover: Sara Bareilles singing "Take On Me." The once lively, super upbeat 80s pop hit has been slowed down, almost totally revamped into a chill, almost acoustic version. She is really able to show off her voice in it. If I wasn't paying close attention when listening, I don't think I ever would have realized that these are the same song:
Okay, so my last post covered catchy pop hits of the 80s. While I was searching for songs I wanted to post, I thought of The Police, but knew that I couldn't just pick one song of theirs. I am a HUGE Police fan, and even more than that, a huge Sting fan. My mom and her sister played his music all the time when I was little, so it's one of those things I just picked up because I was around it so often. That and Sheryl Crow.
My very first concert was a Sting concert. I was five and am very proud of the fact that I 1)have seen Sting in concert and 2)started going to concerts as early as age five. True, I only really went to see him sing "Englishman in New York" because that was the one I really liked and I thought the lyrics were "I'm and alien, I'm an evil alien" instead of "legal alien," but I still listen to him to this day. His music still makes me happy and calm. AND as I got older, I realized how literary his music is (he used to be an English teacher before he hit it big). As an English major, I really appreciate that aspect of the lyrics.
So here's my post devoted to Sting and The Police:
"Roxanne"
I think we all know this one. Or at least, most of us still do. Super popular. Super catchy. Oh, and they did an excellent remake of it for Moulin Rouge.
"Don't Stand So Close to Me"
Creepy, but, in typical Sting fashion, it makes a political/social statement about the boundaries between students and teachers and, more generally, children and adults.
"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"
Still remember dancing to this when I was little. This one, more than any other Police song, caught my attention at an early age. The music just sounds so fun and uplifting. Happy song, happy subject about love and the special feelings one person has for another.
"Sister Moon"
The title of this album (... Nothing Like the Sun) is also a line used in this song. It's from Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 which I highly recommend. It's one of my favorites. I really like how jazzy and slow and calm this song is, but the instrumentation will totally get stuck in your head, despite the chillness of the song. Really beautiful lyrics and instrumentation.
"Enlishman In New York"
This was the one I was in love with when I was five, and it's off of the same album as above. Today, the lyrics really make me laugh. It's basically just this really quirky song about what it's like for him to be a British person living in a huge American city and odd little comparisons he notices between cultures. Every once in awhile, though, he uses some sort of interlude where he sprinkles in some very profound words, the most heavily emphasized of which is, "be yourself no matter what they say."
"Mad About You"
This is one of my all-time faves. But it was actually a recent re-discovery. Every once in awhile, I'll hear some random 90s song that I had forgotten I knew, but I will immediately recognize the melody and have this weird "I know I know this song, but I have absolutely no memory of it" moment. It's one of the weirdest feelings. I recently uploaded almost all of Sting's albums to my iPod and was just flipping through them to see what I had. After listening to the lyrics, coupled with the beautiful instrumentation, I was in love. And I still am.
I am a huge fan of 80s music. Seeing as I'm currently twenty-one and was born in 1990, I get weird looks when I tell people this.Yes, I, unlike the airhead girls on an episode of Tosh.0, do actually know the words to Paula Abdul's 80s hit, Straight Up.
The number one complaint I hear when trying to defend 80s music is that "it's terrible." And okay, I will admit to that. But it's also FUN. So many 80s songs are super catchy, whether or not we actually think of them as "good" music. Plus, synth sounds totally came back into style recently. So here are some of the 80s songs that I've always found to be fun and catchy, even as a little kid in the early 90s that heard them on the radio all the time.
"Take On Me" by A-Ha
I love this song and especially love the way they did the music video. Such cool animation. Terrible hair, pretty terrible clothes, but the idea here is pretty timeless--who hasn't dreamed about crossing over into comic book world? AND they totally made a parody of it on Family Guy. Sweet.
"I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz
Okay, this is one of the ones I'll admit is pretty bad. Weird music video. Kind of cheesy lyrics. But that pop-y synth sound is SO COOL. The thing that hooks you here is definitely the weird synth noises. And it's always been one I enjoy singing.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham
I think we can all remember this from watching Zoolander. It's definitely very high-energy and it's hard for me to resist singing and/or dancing whenever I hear it. Somehow, without consciously deciding to do this, I learned all of the words, and I mean ALL of the words, which surprised me when my best friend played it in the car and I just sang all the way through it. It was weird. According to my mom, who was a big music fan in the 80s, this was hugely popular and I can see why. Most people my age still know this song.
"Dance Hall Days" by Wang-Chung
This is one that I specifically remember hearing on the radio when I was riding in the car as a kid. I couldn't make out any of the lyrics, as kids often can't, but I thought the beat and rhythm made the song very dance-y and fun.
And of course, because I already mentioned it in the beginning of this post, "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul.
Typical "girl-shows-off-dance-moves-and-cool-wardrobe" kind of thing. But it will get stuck in your head after hearing the slightest bit so beware. I remember liking this one as a kid before I connected the girl in the video with the woman on American Idol that fights with Simon Cowell. Now, it wouldn't be my first choice if I was in an 80s mood, but I'd still listen to it.
Oh, and anything by Madonna for sure, even though "Lucky Star" is a super annoyingly addictive kind of earworm and I never want to hear that song for fear it will lodge itself in my brain and I won't be able to get it out.
Okay, so it's not SXSW's fault that my experience was pretty lame. That one is on my puny, inefficient immune system. I spent three nights volunteering as a stage crew member for the IFC Crossroads House venue. I really liked my venue-the stage manager explained that it was "more highbrow" than some of the others so we would get a lot of bigger acts. ...Okay, I really spent two nights volunteering now that I think about it. By the third day I was supposed to volunteer, I was feeling very sick. By that Saturday (my one full day off where I would get to go see any show I wanted with my pass) I came down with the worst fever I've had in years. It was terrible. I had to force myself to sleep all day because the pain was too much to handle when I was awake. So, upon reflection, my volunteer experience would have been better if 1) more friends/people I knew had volunteered so I had more people to see shows with and 2) if I hadn't fricken' gotten sick and wasted my pass. The only acts I really got to see (besides the Sleigh Bells show Tuesday night) were the ones in my venue. We got out too late and had to be there too early to go see shows on the days we worked. I'm now determined to do SXSW the "right" way-just suck it up and pay for a wristband so I can go see whatever I want, whenever I want. However, I was still able to find some great acts just from watching the shows in my venues. Here are my favorite bands/songs from SouthBy:
"Lay Your Cards Out" by Polica.
LOVE this band. The ethereal quality to her vocals. The vocals themselves. The facts that it's only a singer, a bassist, and two drummers with no lead guitarist. This music video. Plus, I am totally head over heels in love with the lead singer. She is gorgeous and can totally rock a pixie cut.
"Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon
These guys had a fun stage presence. They wore flecks of multicolored facepaint and had a good energy to them.
"July" by Youth Lagoon
They were funny and super nice. Really laidback feel to their performance. Just two guys in ratty flannel shirts jamming on a soundboard and a mini-keyboard. Pretty minimalistic, in a way.
"Stuck in My ID" by Reptar
My brother has been a fan of them for awhile, and after seeing them, I'm disappointed I didn't discover them sooner. These guys seem very low-key but also very strange. Their outfits were either weird or too casual (the keyboardist was up there in gym shorts, a tshirt, sweatbands, and addidas sneakers with mismatched socks). They were by far the best performance I saw during SouthBy. So high energy and their music is addictive. So much fun. The entire venue was dancing.
Song: Mr. Saxobeat
Artist: Alexandra Stan
Earworm Elements: repetition, high-energy, synth, beat, melody, saxophone
Genre: Eurodance, dance, europop, trance
Sounds Like: Stereo Love
Link: http://www.alexandrastan.ro/
At last. I've finally figured out the name/artist of a particular song that I've been insatiably curious about but unable to catch the name of for weeks. In honor of identifying it and subsequently being able to listen to it as many times as humanly possible, this post goes out to this song's genre--European dance music.
The song that my ears can't get enough of is called Mr. Saxobeat by Romanian artist Alexandra Stan. I've been hearing this one around for awhile--on the radio, around town, in stores. The other day it came on while I was shopping at the Gap. Needing to know what this incredibly catchy song was, I pulled out my phone and Shazamed it. Thirty seconds later, instant gratification.
It was released in 2011 and uses house, and trance elements as part of its catchy, eurodance spell. It didn't take long to gain mass popularity--it topped the charts in Romania for eight weeks, then swept through every major European country, and finally beyond to Canada, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.
Like most of the Western hemisphere, I've been hooked. I've listened to this song at least ten times in the past 24 hours, and at least six times just this morning. Even though it fits perfectly into the category of formulaic euro-pop, I'm still impressed with this song because it's one of the most addictive I've heard in awhile. See what I mean for yourselves:
Catchy, huh? It accomplishes exactly what it was created to do: be so incredibly irresistible that it becomes a smash hit. It definitely draws listeners in with its high-energy style--it makes you need to get up and move.
It is super-reminiscent of the 2010 summer smash hit, Stereo Love, byEdward Maya featuring Vika Jigulina, another prime example of a Romanian artist intentionally crafting earworm material.
They're both trance-y, catchy, europop and both predominantly feature instruments not commonly found in pop, dance, or techno genres (the saxophone in Saxobeat and the accordion in Stereo Love).
Major earworm points to the eurodance subgenre--they know exactly what it takes to make a song catchy as hell, whether listeners think it's quality music or not.
Again, I have to credit 101X for the discovery of this song/band. As I was driving into Houston over Christmas break, this came on the radio and I instantly noted that "Carrie" makes for awesome driving music. It definitely made the ride back way more fun and entertaining, if only for just three minutes and fifty-one seconds of my time.
But after it ended, I needed to hear it again. And again, and again, and again. I couldn't get home soon enough--I had no means of looking it up from my car and I wasn't about to go hunting for a wireless Internet network.
Because this group is a local Austin band, they were not well-known enough for Shazam to work. Super frustrating. Thankfully, browsing 101X website when I got home led me straight to it, I immediately went into earwormed mode, and before the end of the night I had listened to it at least ten times. And then I listened to it ten(ish) times again the next day, hopelessly addicted and ensnared by its catchiness.
I had to go see them in concert. I wouldn't be fully taking advantage of my position as an Austinite living close to downtown if I passed up the opportunity.
There is no better group than this to exemplify earworms. This particular band, or duo, rather, hails from Australia and, as far as I can tell, is not scheduled to tour in the U.S. any time soon. Unfortunate. I first encountered their song "Shooting Star" in a club somewhere--I don't remember when specifically, but when I heard it again after looking them up on iTunes, I instantly recognized the addictive, looping beat that cycles through the song just enough to tantalize you and always leave you wanting more. Because of this quality, I have yet to tire of this song, even though I must have listened to it upwards of fifty times in the first month I heard it.
Another prime earworm example would be "Fun Punch," an instrumental track not included on their album. This song is pure awesome--super high-energy, catchy-as-fuck guitar riff on a loop. Plus, the official music video parodies the early Power Rangers TV show, a nostalgic element that any 90s kid can appreciate.
The song that got me hooked on them, however, is "Not Over," which I happened to hear on 101X while driving around Austin one day. A little bit of Shazaming and Internet browsing led me right to them.
Since then, I've purchased their entire first album, plus "Fun Punch," which required a little more digging to find on iTunes. The rest of their songs do not disappoint; catchy bits from almost every song took turns endlessly looping in my head for days after first listening to the complete album. All of their work is fun, undeniably catchy, and totally worth checking out.
You have to hear that song. That really catchy song that you recently discovered somehow. Maybe on the radio, Pandora, a music blog, whatever. You didn't really think much of it, but now you're humming broken pieces. And all you really remember is that one line, that one line that is all you can think about now. It's just playing on a loop over and over and you don't even know the words but it keeps playing anyway and now you really just wish it would stop because it's driving you crazy! Rrrrgh!
You can't stop. It worked its way deep into your brain and now it won't get out of your head.
You've just been earwormed.
That's what it's called. A song that gets stuck in your head. It happens all the time. To everyone. And we all seem to have a love/hate relationship with this phenomenon. Maybe you really like the song that's earwormed you, maybe you like it less after it won't leave you alone. Maybe you even hated the song to begin with. Unfortunately, disgust for a song will not protect you and may result in earworms of the worst kind.
Case in point:
In this blog, I will examine earworms old and new, taking a closer look at exactly why they're so damn catchy. Certain traits that are generally present in an earworm-type song (or "earworm elements") include, but are not limited to: repetition, high-energy, synth, weird/intriguing sounds and a general catchiness of melody, riffs, hooks, lyrics, bass, and beat.
To start off, here are a few songs that I find appropriate because of their earworm-pun titles. Ironically, but not completely coincidentally, these songs are, themselves, earworms. Try listening without it getting to you. I dare you.
"Please Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna
Okay, I have to admit--I really liked this one.
"Can't Get You Out Of My Head" by Kylie Minogue
Never big on this one, but it has some cool elements.
It's definitely earwormed me several times though.
"Over and Over" by Kelly, ft. Tim McGraw
Terrible, terrible, I know. But still counts as an earworm.
The kind you really don't want.
