Phrazes for the young.

The Strokes - The now legendary band which in late 1990's and early 2000's shook the world and defined a whole genre. The band which led the garage rock revival and inspired bands such as Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and, unfortunately, The Kooks.

They (The Strokes) have so far released three albums (Is this it, Room on Fire and First Impressions of Earth) and are currently working on the fourth one. Since the release of the last album, the members have been involved in different side projects, such as guitarist Albert Hammond Jr's solo project, bassist Nikolai Fraiture's Nickel Eye and drummer Fab Moretti's band Little Joy. All these bands are really, really, really good, but the thing is; The lead singer/writer of most The Strokes-songs Julian Casablancas is set to realease his debut album Phrazes for the young this fall, and I can't really describe how excited I am about this fact. No full song have been released yet, but short clips in previews and interviews promise something really good and worth waiting for. And now this. I'm flabbergasted. I'm actually stunned. This might be the best album of 2009. I'll stay in touch in this matter.

"Jules"

Just a recommendation...

Check this out!

The revenge of the covers.

This is just a short follow-up to yesterdays post. To prove that all covers ain't good, here's an example of a a great band killing a great song. I present to you: Smashing Pumpkins covering Joy Division's song Transmission. I can't even watch the whole video...

Covers.

Covers. Hate it or love it. Since dawn of man (read: music), people have been playing, interpreting, reinventing, stealing and raping songs written by other people. It's in our spines. It's a part of our reptile behavior. In one way, covering other people songs is connected to one of the few really great lightbulb-jokes there is;

- How many guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb?
- Dunno.
- Twelve. One to change it, eleven to say that they could have done it better.

Isn't that just great? We all want to be the best, and it seems like one way to prove it is trying to improve other peoples songs.

In this question, I really don't know where to stand. I guess that I've developed a sort of love-hate towards covers over the years. On one hand, I associate covers with after ski and really, really bad band names ("The Grabbarna", "Ajrån Mejden"). But on the other hand, I've heard cover versions of songs that actually are better than the original. One of Jimi Hendrix's greatest hits, All along the watchtower, was originally written and played by Bob Dylan, who after hearing the cover version of it refused to ever play it again. On the Swedish band The Knife's second album Deep Cuts, a song named Heartbeats is included. Later on, the same song was covered by, the also Swedish, artist José González, which gave him an international breakthrough thanks to playtime in the O.C. and the use of the song in the phenomenal commercial for Sony Bravia, seen in the link above. In the 1960's (oh, the sweet 60's) there were barely any bands who didn't have songs like Money (originally recorded by Barrett Strong) or Roll over Beethoven (originally recorded by Chuck Berry) on their set lists, some versions better than others, and I don't know anyone who's concerned about this matter. Strange.


When it comes to me, I enjoy covers where the artist takes a song and totally reinvents it to fit with their own vision. There are only a handful examples of this sort of mutation that is worth looking up, but here beneath follows my Top 5 list of epic covers (Hearbeats and All along the watchtower excluded) followed by short comments:

1. Life on Mars - Seu Jorge (this song is featured in the great film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, where a man from time to time plays acoustic covers of classic David Bowie-songs translated to Portuguese (wow, that is a strange sentence). All of the interpretations are beautiful, but this one is just outstanding.)
2. Flesh Failures - Lightspeed Champion (Unfortunately, I couldn't find this song on Youtube, but I deeply recommend you to find it and listen to it (I believe it's on Spotify). Lightspeed Champion is one of my absolute favourite artists who released his debut album Falling off the lavender bridge last year. He was also a member of epic punk/metal/indie/rap/electro/whatever/rock-band Test Icicles, which makes this cover so cool. This hyped artist who's been on the cover of NME and who's been a guest on Never mind the buzzcocks (hilarious episode) decides to cover a song from the musical Hair. Flabbergasting.)
3. Hey Joe - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Darn it! Why can't I find the songs I want to share? Anyway, this is also a really good and very original cover of the classic American song Hey Joe, made famous by Jimi Hendrix (he just comes back round again and again) and his bnad in the 1960's. The song is now a rock standard, but what Nick Cave does with it unbelievable. Find it. Hear it.)
4. Redemption song - Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer (This song is originally written by Bob Marley, who in my opinion is one of the most overrated artists of all time. I really don't like the original version of this song, but when Johnny Cash sings this song, accompanied by Joe Strummer from The Clash, it sounds like the last words of a broken man, which fits perfect.)
5. The man who sold the world - Nirvana (Another Bowie song. I'm not a big fan of Nirvana. Sure, they've done some really good songs, but in general I would call them at most average. But there is one exception, and that is the live album Unplugged. The sound is really smooth and the voice of Kurt Cobain is as harsh as it ever was. The whole record is very, very good, but the cover of The man who sold the world is pure perfection.)

I hope this helped you sorting things out.

Not great men.

So, here it is. The first "real" post. Luckily, the subject for this one is already set. It's written in the stars, so I have nothing to worry about. Yesterday I attended a concert played by the band Gang of Four. Gang of Four is a Brittish post-punk group formed in Leeds back in '77 (switching 19 to an apostrophe feels so good). They stayed fully active till 1984, and have since then re-emerged twice in the 90s, and the reunited in 2004 with the original line-up. In 2006 though, they replaced both the drummer and bass player with new blood. Their debut album, Entertainment! ranked at #490 in Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time-list. Anyway, I was lucky enough to catch this amazing band live yesterday, and even though their lead singer Jon King (if you have a spare minute or two, please Google his name and see who his namesake is) was to high to even comprehend where he was, it might have been this years best concert so far. The incredible bass play from their albums was taken to a whole new level thanks to the magic power of distortion, Jon King still has a great voice (which I personally think is really similar to the voice of Television, Tom Verlaine) and the power that is connected to the band was still there. In many cases, reunions are just really, really bad (The Who, Sex pistols), but as previously mentioned: Gang of Four has still got it.


Jon King says fuck technology.

For new listeners I would recommend the song Natural's not in it to start with. It has a great main riff and is probably one of their best songs.

I surrender.

Oh no, oh no. I never thought that it actually would come to the point of me writing a blog. For years and years I condemned blogs as a place where 14 year old girls could write about their everyday life, who they met, what they wore and why they wore it. Unfortunately, most blogs actually follow this stereotype, but some people have realised that a blog doesn't have to be about yourself in that manner, and I have given myself permission to count myself in to the second group. So here it is: One Mississippi - a blog completely dedicated to (in my opinion) good music. As long as I feel like doing it, I will post reviews, tips, lists and links that I find necessary to share, and hopefully it will help you, whatever you may need help to do.