Sound Sentiments

Sound Sentiments is a cool company I came across on Twitter.

It offers traditional (i.e. physical) greeting cards that have an original mp3 song download in each card.

+More about SoundSentiments.com

Songs about Actresses

The Oscars on Sunday night got me thinking about the intersection between music and acting.

Not actors-turned-singers (or singers-turned-actors), but rather songs written about actresses…such as:

“Better Love” by Steel Train — about Scarlett Johansson:

“Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” by Counting Crows — about Monica Potter:

“Natasha” by Rufus Wainwright — about Natasha Lyonne:

Meta Songs

So many songs reference other songs, bands, or albums. Other songs are about music itself.

Here are some good “meta songs” off the top of my head…what other ‘songs about songs’ do you know and like?

“Gimme Sympathy” by Metric (“the Beatles or the Rolling Stones”):

“Blonde on Blonde” by Nada Surf:

“Pink Wig To My Salieri” by The Jealous Girlfriends:

“Popstars” by Rooney:

“Ben Lee” by The Ataris:

“Let It Rain” by Tilly & The Wall:

Rdio Playlist

Are you on Rdio?

I like Rdio better than Spotify because you don’t need to download & install any software with Rdio.

Head over to Rdio to listen to After The Show’s Rdio playlist.

Defensive Modernism

Defensive Modernism in art and architecture is a reaction against the chaotic, frightening aspects associated with a modern, urban milieu (ex: Art Nouveau).

Defensive Modernist art has a tendency to reject the uncertainty of modern times, favoring a more halcyon past time.

The four songs below deal with Defensive Modernist themes:

“My Apartment” by Ben Kweller:

“Modern Day Love Song” by Bethany Sharayah:

“End of An Era” by The Like:

“Execution Of All Things” by Rilo Kiley:

Is It A Cover?

Most covers stay pretty true to the original song. It’s easy to recognize them as covers just by listening.

Some covers, though, are completely unrecognizable from their original songs, like Julia Stone’s cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease and 67 Special’s cover of “Scar” by Missy Higgins:

“You’re The One That I Want”:

“Scar”:

But sometimes figuring out what qualifies as a cover can be harder. What about when a singer plays his song with a different band? Is it simply the same song and not a cover, or is it a totally new composition, or a semi-cover?

Two good examples of this murky cover definition are when Jenny Lewis played a song from her solo album with Rilo Kiley. The vocals were the same, but the music was different, and when Nina from Girl in a Coma played her song “Smart” with Joseph from Deadbeat Darling, turning the song into a duet:

“Rise Up With Fists”:

“Smart”:

There’s a fine line — An artist should make a cover her own, injecting her own fingerprint onto it, but if a cover is so drastically different from the original that it loses/ignores the melody, that’s not satisfying for the listener.

Outsider Art: Mrs. Miller

What are other examples of outsider art besides The Shaggs?

Mrs. Miller was a housewife who sold lots of records in the 1960s because of how bad a singer she was. The original William Hung of American Idol fame:

Mrs. Miller’s cover of “A Hard Day’s Night” — the singing is completely out of time with the music, as you’ll hear:

Outsider Art: The Shaggs

Outsider art describes artwork created by artists who live outside the boundaries of official culture. Outsider artists have limited or no contact with mainstream art institutions.

Specifically, outsider music refers to songs by musicians who don’t belong to the commercial music industry. These songs often ignore standard compositional conventions (either deliberately or because the musician is untrained).

The Shaggs, formed in 1968 in rural New Hampshire, are an example of outsider music. The band was comprised of three sisters whose father, Austin Wiggin, believed that his daughters were called to create a band.

The Shaggs’ music can be pretty difficult to listen to, especially because the drums are not in time with the guitar and everything is out-of-tune:

Hotel/Motel Songs

Here are some songs with hotels or motels in their titles. What other good “hotel/motel” songs do you know?

“Dorchester Hotel” by The Sounds:

“Gramercy Park Hotel” by Ben Lee:

“Chelsea Hotel ’78″ by Alejandro Escovedo:

“Motel Blues” by Big Star (cover):

Some more: “Hotel California” by The Eagles…”Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley

The Story Behind Band Names

What’s behind a band’s name?

Interviewers often ask bands “what does your name mean?” — here are some band names that reference other bands, songs, movies, pop culture, and history.

-Say Anything is named after the 1989 movie Say Anything…

-School of Seven Bells refers to a mythical school that taught pickpockets in South America called School of Seven Bells.

-Phantom Planet refers to the 1961 science fiction movie The Phantom Planet:

-Sun Kil Moon is named after a Korean boxer named Sung Kil Moon.

-Uh Huh Her is the name of PJ Harvey’s sixth album (and a song on that album):

-Dum Dum Girls is named after an Iggy Pop song called “Dum Dum Boys” and an album by The Vaselines called Dum Dum.

-Girl In A Coma is named after The Smiths’ song “Girlfriend In A Coma”:

-Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. refers to the stock car racer Dale Earnhardt Jr.

-Franz Ferdinand refers to Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of the Austrian-Hungarian empire whose assassination sparked World War I.

-Rooney is named after Ed Rooney, the principal in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

-Tilly and the Wall refers to a book for children called Tillie and The Wall by Leo Lionni.