Four Songs to Listen to Forthwith - 07/25/10

Cee-Lo Green is the face of modern contemporary soul. He has a instantly recognizable unique voice, flawless crafted delivery and insatiable productivity. He has contributed to dozens and dozens of collaborations. By finding time for himself, he has treated us to look deeper inside his emotions, instead of helping others to express themselves. He’s been the face of Gnarls Barkley providing glorious hits like “Crazy. The song “What Part of Forever” made a trip around other music blogs because of its inclusion in the new Twilight soundtrack (squeezed in a little before the end of the credits). Ignore all the preteens and middle age moms listening for a second and enjoy the song... except the best video I found was a twilight tribute... I'm gonna switch to his appearance on Lopez.
Imagine eternity doesn’t seem that hard
They say nothing lasts forever
We'll have to prove them wrong

Mark Kozelek is a talented, true-to-self singer songwriter. His music takes time to listen to, figuratively and literally, his songs often go 6 minutes plus. He doesn’t force himself onto with hooks, choruses and melodies. He’s harmonious and haunting. The songs on his latest album, Admiral Fell Promises, are very simply mostly consisting of him and his guitar. The vocals have a slight echo to add greater ambience. The song “You Are My Sun” I find especially appealing because of it’s incredible steady hand when the track changes so much, the music moves around and his volume changes. It creates a powerful buildup to the center of the song where he feels that now he can play with the song more and is free to leave breaks in the verse. And hey, check this out, since at the time of this writing I couldn’t find anyone else’s take on the lyrics, here’s what I hear for the first lines of the song. Let me know what you think!
You are my life, Dark City
You fill the lost of the day
You are my love, radiant and pretty overseas
You find ways of bringing hope on lonely nights

I don’t have a good system for picking the last two songs of this blog, I just sort of wing. Sometimes I look through other old blogs, sometimes I examine old playlists, or maybe I just scroll through my tens of thousands of songs hoping for something jump out at me. This time I was looking through old playlists. I saw two old favorites in separate lists, Elefant – Misfit and the next song you’ll read about in a minute. I was looking up some info on the songs, apparently this band had a song highlight a season finale of Scrubs and the next song was picked for the end of the series. Totally coincidence. It’s also a coincidence that Elefant broke up last month :( Oh well, they were a solid indie rock band out of New York City. Here’s a great song that’s catchy and relaxed. “Tell me your name, tell me your story, cause I’m into it. Running through life, like a misfit.” It’s so hip. Get the single version of this song, the video version here seems a bit off.

There are some songs that can really surprise when they show music is capable of. Peter Gabrial did a cover a song by The Magnetic Fields in 1998 called “The Book of Love” it is an amazing piece of art. Gabrial sings in a way that it seems like he’s sang this thousands of times and still finds ways to make it better. He's like your grandfather telling you for the umpteenth time how he met your grandma. It’s a humble song about something very powerful. Here’s a wonderful tribute video to this song. My favorite line, well…
The book of love has music in it
In fact that’s where music comes from