// Category Archive for: Music

True Blood: Music From The HBO Original Series, Volume 3

By Melissa B.

There are some songs so perfect for TV shows, that when I hear them, I wonder why on earth the producers haven’t picked them to be on the soundtrack. The producers of True Blood have so far not needed my help and have done an amazing job of choosing evocative and intriguing music that enhances the show. The songs on Volume 3, the latest soundtrack release, are in so many cases the perfect True Blood songs.
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Kevin Devine, Between the Concrete and Clouds

By Kai Shuart

Kevin Devine‘s first album on the Razor & Tie label, Between the Concrete and Clouds, is a good album to toast the waning days of summer. It’s full of reverbed electric guitars and jaunty melodies that seem very at home when played in the background of a barbecue, yet with enough melancholy to let listeners know that the bite of autumn air isn’t far off.
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Congratulations To PJ Harvey, Two-Time Mercury Music Prize Winner

By Less Lee Moore

You may have already heard that PJ Harvey has won the UK’s 2011 Mercury Music Prize for her most recent album, Let England Shake, but what you may not know is that she is the first person to win the award twice. Additionally, she was the first female to win the award ten years ago for her outstanding 2001 album Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea.

Watch her performance of “The Words That Maketh Murder” at the Mercury Prize ceremony on September 6.

We reviewed Let England Shake on the Popshifter blog back in February, with J Howell saying that it “will likely stand the test of time as one of the finest, perhaps even one of the most important, records of the early twenty-first century.”

On September 12, 2011, PJ Harvey will release an exclusive iTunes Session which can be pre-ordered on the iTunesStore. The EP features seven recently recorded live tracks along with an interview. It also includes four songs from Let England Shake as well as three of her most widely acclaimed songs from past albums.

iTunes Session track listing:
1. Let England Shake
2. The Words That Maketh Murder
3. The Last Living Rose
4. Written On The Forehead
5. Angelene
6. C’Mon Billy
7. Down By The Water
8 – Interview –

Says Harvey of her win, “I feel surprised and astonished that I’ve won twice and I do feel proud, it’s amazing, I can’t quite take it in but at the same time I feel that making music and words is very important to me and I’ve always tried to make it the best it could possibly be and I hope to continue doing that. I hope to be back here again in another 10 years’ time with another record because it’s very important to me to keep making word that is of relevance, not just to myself but to other people.”

We hope so, too.

You can stream two songs from Let England Shake on Soundcloud: “Written On The Forehead” and “The Words That Maketh Murder.” You can also purchase the album from iTunes and Amazon.

Expo, 40 Sleeps

By Paul Casey

Full disclosure: John Lane and Christian Lipski are friends of mine. They have both written for this website. This is going to be a fair and biased review.

40 Sleeps is Expo‘s third album and follows the summertime joy of 2010’s She Sells Seashells with a mood far more in keeping with their debut, Playtime. “Dreaming of Bears” and its sleepy textures would have been particularly at home on that earlier album. Although things are on the downbeat, 40 Sleeps is not bleak or self-indulgent. The singer may be sad, but like Elvis Costello, is trying his darnedest to Get Happy!!!

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Brand New Video From Iceage, “You’re Blessed”

By Less Lee Moore

Check out the latest video from Iceage, whose album New Brigade we reviewed in June, saying, it “teeters on the thrilling precipice between the purity of the band’s nascent talent and future brilliance.”

Beirut, The Rip Tide

By Chelsea Spear

Zach Condon, the jet-setting mayor of indie pop band Beirut, knows how to set a mood. Before listeners hear so much as a note of his latest album, The Rip Tide, the song titles suggest a travelogue instead of a mere collection of tunes. They are named for locations both exotic and quotidian; the ones that aren’t suggest a skyline broader than that of his Santa Fe home. Which journeys does Condon invite his listeners on with this album?
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Delivered Poetry: Jenny Lewis’s “Rabbit Fur Coat”

By AJ Wood

I’m not much into music. Top 40, R&B, jazz, indie rock, punk: It’s mostly just background sound to driving or typing. I can freely admit that. The trouble is that I’ve always found myself hanging out with, dating, and loving very musical people. Since moving to Portland, OR this has only gotten worse, what with indie music being the lifeblood of this town, like movies are in my home of Los Angeles. Invariably, there is that time in a relationship where I am subjected to a long string of “OMG you HAVE to hear this SONG, it’s so GREAT”s and thanks to YouTube, I’m subjected to just that. For hours.

I’m not saying I’m above such antics: I’ve kept many a fourth date pinned and wriggling to the couch doing dramatic readings of writings I enjoy, or forcing him to listen to spoken word, or—no doubt worst of all—demanding he read something while I watch him read it. I know it: I’m not better, just different.
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The Middle East, I Want That You Are Always Happy

By J Howell

It’s a rare thing when a band comes along whose music is an instant game-changer, the kind of band that’s simultaneously comfortable but complex; easily understandable but somehow nearly indescribable, like an old friend. The Middle East is just that. (Well, was . . . more on that in a moment.)
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Hungry For Love, Part Three: More Music Videos So Bad They’re Good

By Jim R. Clark

This is Part Three in our series on bizarre videos you may have forgotten about or never seen. Don’t forget to check out Parts One and Two.

Yes friends, it’s time for another installment of horribly bad music videos that I have combed the web to find for you. Suffering in obscurity no more, these videos will leave you humming some new tunes. In addition to the usual weird New Wave videos I include in these lists, this edition features a Beatles tribute band from India and a special Goth section at the end! Please enjoy!
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Neil Young’s Music Box, Here We Are In The Years

By Danny R. Phillips

Doing an unauthorized DVD of any artist, let alone on someone as historically cantankerous as Neil Young, can be a real bitch. Little to no music or performance footage from the artist can be used, forcing the filmmakers to turn the film into a history lesson instead of a flat-out celebration. And sadly, that’s exactly what’s happened with Neil Young’s Music Box, Here We Are in the Years.
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