On Music Worth Checking Out

We'll start with a recent Travelers Insurance commercial whose music I liked and looked up. Here's the commercial first:



And the song, Worries by Langhorne Slim


Okay, Tom Waits isn't for everyone. I first heard about him when Jon Stewart gushed about him during an interview with him on The Daily Show. Then he started singing (last song below) and I was blown away by how inexplicably bad it sounded. This is probably how you will react. Shame on us both. Waits is an incredible musician, composer, song writer, story-teller, and even singer. He uses a rough voice and does a lot of spoken word, but man, when he really sings, he's like an old-school blues/jazz singer. He's amazing and it's no wonder critics love him so much. Here are some of my favorite songs of his.

Tom Waits - Hoist That Rag - Man, this song gets me psyched.


Tom Waits - Clap Hands - I feel like it's impossible not to bob your head and tap your foot to many of Waits' songs, like this one.


Tom Waits - Jockey Full of Bourbon - Hey little bird, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children are alone.


Tom Waits - Time


Tom Waits - Rain Dogs - A rain dog is a dog that wanders away from home and, when it rains, loses the scent and path back home, and so is left to wander for the rest of his days. This song reminds me of the sentiment shared by Bob Marley in No Woman, No Cry.


Tom Waits - Day After Tomorrow (lyrics)
This is the performance from The Daily Show, uncut, and with no Daily Show symbols or Jon Stewart. Close your eyes, or right click on the lyrics and open them in another tab, and listen to this song. It's one of the best songs about war I've ever heard. Waits wrote it for Joan Baez, but made his own version as well.


P.O.S. is an artist you need to check out if you like good rap but lament how bad the rap on the radio is these days. He's from the Midwest (Twin Cities), raps about everything from Bush and activism to being a father and the mistakes he's made...and he has great music that he makes himself, as far as I know.
P.O.S. - Stand Up


P.O.S. - Audition Mantra - I like complex beats and I like when the people who make them construct/deconstruct them in this way.


P.O.S. - Bush League Psyche-Out Stuff


Grishma introduced me to Greg Laswell, whom she got to know through Greys Anatomy (which has some really good artists on it, and I'm glad it exposes people to music they wouldn't ordinarily listen to...but, taken together, it's a really melodramatic, heavy-handed mix, which makes me think that that's what the show is like...unsubtle and overwrought). He seems to exhibit most of the characteristics I mentioned parenthetically above, to write lyrics that seem more profound than they are and to make music that can be very repetitious and pop-y (in the bad way)...kinda like The Fray, essentially. But when he's good, he's very good, as he is when he seems to be singing inside your head in his guttural, sleepy, slow almost-drawl (that's the best description I could give) and when his music is a bit eerie and haunting, kinda like a lot of the music Eisley made. Here are my four favorite songs of his from what I've heard:

Greg Laswell - Comes and Goes (In Waves):


Greg Laswell - Days Go On and On (I love how desperate he sounds, his wail, and how the whole mood/music shift upward after the first chorus and those subsequent mirrored interludes following the choruses. This song makes me feel bad for feeling so indifferent toward a lot of his other songs).


Greg Laswell - Sing, Theresa Says (original music video) I pretty much love everything about this song...the female backing vocals, the way he seems to be singing in my ear/head, the strings/static with which it starts, the lyrics...I even dig the video.


Greg Laswell - Come Undone (As with that last song, he starts the song by telling someone to sleep while he does what he will...just something I noticed. I love the ebb and flow of this song. That electrical guitar noise crescendo-abrupt-decrescendo before the second verse [and reappearing later] reminds me of something like DNTEL...how some artists can use even loud noise without losing the loping, mellow feel of the song.


I feel guilty about posting more songs from one Matt Hires (another Grishma-Greys recommendation) album than from two of Greg's. Greg's highs are much greater than Matt's, and the guilt I experience with Matt's songs are from the faint aftertaste I associate with catchy pop fluff. Still, the songs are instantly memorable. After just a couple listens, seemingly, I feel like the lyrics are quite familiar.

Matt Hires - Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song - I like how his voice seems to waver (on purpose) like Langhorne Slim's. And I'm a sucker for songs that seem to be sung to someone and are meta in that they're sung about singing them to someone.


Matt Hires - Turn the Page - I like the feel of the song, how he seems resigned in his singing, and how that fits with the imagery of the Earth on her knees.


Matt Hires - You Are the One - And I'm a sucker for his chorus here.


Matt Hires - Out of the Dark - Okay, so I picked out six songs to share of Matt's but only ended up sharing four. I felt like I only thought of sharing the other two (State Lines and Listen To Me Now) because they were so catchy. I'm a sucker for this chorus as well. It's like a poor man's knockoff of Death Cab's I Will Follow You Into the Dark. A very poor man's.


I listened to Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank album recently with wiser ears than when I first heard it. I don't know how I could miss such wonderful music and lyrics before.

Modest Mouse - Dashboard - This song is good for the music much more than the lyrics, but the singing is great all the same. The video's great fun too. As for the music, I especially like how everything drops out at about the 2:17 mark, but there's that driving beat with the drums pushing things forward.


Modest Mouse - Missed the Boat - I love the clever and somewhat bittersweet lyrics and the video is a sweet accompaniment.


Modest - People as Places as People - I really like these lyrics too. Surely, Obama was thinking about this song when he said that "We're the people we've been waiting for." Good taste in music, man.


Modest Mouse - March Into the Sea - This reminds me of the Modest Mouse I got to know from their previous album (I haven't listened to their other albums yet). It's raw, emphatic, but full of ups and downs all the same.


Modest Mouse - Florida - Ditto for this...and James Mercer of The Shins lends vocals! I could add and comment on the other songs from the album as well, but I'll leave just these as highlights.


Pinback - B - Somehow, I never heard this Pinback song until just now. I love that recurring musical part, especially the way they use that one piano note. This isn't the official video, btw:


I think that'll do for now.

Oh no it won't. This doesn't really count as new music, but check out Thru You. Here's a great example and a very clever one too. Not sure if the link will work for you since it's not working for me. But anyway what these videos consist of is a song comprised of excerpts from music found on You Tube.