I Want My Music Television: 12/16/13

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Beautiful War - Kings of Leon


I got excited when I saw one site said the new Kings of Leon video features a Friday Night Lights star. Is it Coach Taylor? Riggins? Smash? QB1 or 2? Maybe even Landry? Nope, it turn out to be the guy from the Friday Night Lights movie. Booo. Can we just call the guy the dude from the Tron reboot instead?


Holding on for Life – Broken Bells


Broken Bells recently released a short film for the upcoming album After the Disco (see part 1 and part 2) which recently got pared down for the music video of the first single. Both star Kate Mara who was the subject of a couple internet discussions of the Mara family Power Rankings. How that was even a debate I do not even know? Picking Kate over Rooney would be like picking Tito over Michael.


Over It – The Chrystal Method featuring Dia Frampton


My first thought when I heard Avicii’s Wake Me Up was I really would rather hear an “acoustic” version of the song. Same with the new Chrystal Method song. But where the originally Wake Me Up was still listenenable, the computer burps just run Over It. But it is nice seeing Dia Frampton smack a dude with cake.


Follow Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves


I swear the new Kacey Musgraves music video is just a cuter, more colorful version of The Killer’s All These Things That I've Done.

I Want My Music Videos: 5/20/13

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Brave - Sara Bareilles


Oh Sara Bareilles, I love you and all, but if being brave meas dancing like a fool in public, I would rather be a coward.


Here's to Never Growing Up - Avril Lavigne


I hate to break it to Avril Lavigne, only grown ups sing Radiohead and carry around a boom box.


Blowin' Smoke - Kacey Musgraves


Since Alice from Alice just popped up in the upcoming horrible show with Sean Hayes, I have been thinking about the show lately and I have to say I am a bit disappointed that none of the waitresses in the video said, “Kiss my gritz.” I am also slightly disappointed that McG did not direct this video, because the bridge would have been a great place for Kacey Musgraves to break out into a cheesy dance sequence.


Final Warning - Skylar Grey


And I thought the over sexualized video that Skylar Grey last made was weird, this just took it to another level. This album is going to be one schizophrenic mess, hopefully in a good way.

Woke up on the Wrong Side of Rock Bottom

Noel Gallagher, who wrote all the songs for Oasis, once said the first line of every song is the most important and what he spent the most time working on. By that philosophy, the fist line in the first song off your first album must be the most important in a singer’s career (maybe not so much for Gallagher who started with “I live my life in the city, there’s no easy way out”). Kacey Musgraves came up a line to start off her major label debut album Same Trailer Different Park that really sets the tone for the next forty minutes when she sings on the opening track Silver Lining, “Woke up on the wrong side of rock bottom.” Do you even need to ask after that if this is a country album?

The next couple songs start out with a couple dozies of their own: “Who needs a house up on a hill when you can have one on four wheels?” (My House) and “If you ain’t got two kids by 21 you’re probably gonna die alone.” (Merry Go Round) But she does not stop with writing a good first line, Merry Go Round can be taken as either a biting commentary about small time life or a lament of it depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon Line you live with a chorus that goes, “Momma’s hooked on Mary Kay, bother’s hooked on Mary Jane” and if you guessed that “daddy’s hooked on Mary two doors down” get yourself a cookie.

But the best written song on the album is Follow Your Arrow which also starts off with a very memorable opening line, “If you save yourself from marriage you’re a bore, if you don’t save yourself for marriage you’re a (w)horrible person.” The be who you are anthem (“kiss lots of boys, or kiss lots of girls if that is something you’re in to”) is much catchier and a lot less annoyingly pretentious than the annoying pop songs with the same message of recent years by Lady Gaga or Ke$ha.

Musically, Musgraves comes across like a early female Ryan Adams with more traditional country influences and a much better sense of humor than someone who would stop a concert cold because someone request he play Summer of 69. But where Adams excelled at what he would call “sad bastard” songs (It Is What It Is is the best of these songs on Same Trailer Different Park), Kacey is much more adept at barn burners like on Stupid and Blowin’ Smoke both which could be one of the better songs if they found their way into Miranda Lambert’s catalogue (Musgraves wrote Lambert’s current hit Mama's Broken Heart).

Though Same Trailer Different Park sticks mostly to traditional country, the sleepy Back of the Map is one of the few times Kacey goes for the adult contemporary track that many pop-country acts shoot for these days, and turns out to be one of the best songs on the album. When it comes down to it, Same Trailer Different Park may be the best country album I have listened to since the last American album Johnny Cash released when he was alive.

Song to Download – Stupid

Same Trailer Different Park gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.