Music Tuesdays (feat. Smile Like You Mean It)

For the record, Smile Like You Mean It is not a band, it is a blog run by Caitlin McCabe - or as we call her, C-Mac. After going toe-to-toe in last week's cool commercial throwndown (how dare you pick against us, Grace :), we'll keep it collaborative with some music picks like we've done before.

I had the inspiration for a song to post here when I heard Diane Birch on Conan; that video isn't up so here she is perfoming on Craig Ferguson's show:



Scott had a top 25 mashup link yesterday which was entertaining (check the comments for more good links). Between Scott's link and Birch I thought I had C-Mac beat this time - but I was wrong. Here is the song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros she posted on Smile last week:



I know, right? Blows my pick away. How does she find this stuff?

And that's not all - one of the songs on her original Moody Tuesday Music post was Marina and the Diamonds. I have since become a big fan of Marina, and I really enjoyed her first official single release, Mowgli's Road:



So if you're keeping score, that's C-Mac: 2, Royce: 0. Scott may have a point also, I'm not sure. You tell me.

14 comments:

  1. Despite being crushed by my overall undesireable musical taste, I will say that I enjoy Diane Birch's combo of pop and jazz. I find it very pleasant and listenable.

    The Edward Sharpe song is a great blend of folksy and really touching - the line "home is wherever I'm with you" gets me every time.

    Anyone else got some music to drop like it's hot?

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  2. Hmm - all well done, but I'd give the scores as follows:

    Diane Birch - Nothing But A Miracle: 3/5 Happy Faces

    Edward Sharpe - Home: 3.5/5 Happy Faces

    Both songs are rather catchy, but I feel I'd like Birch more than Sharpe - her voice is very unique, and enchanting in a quirky way. Edward Sharpe and Magnetic Zeroes seems like they would get a bit annoying after a while with all the folksineess.

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  3. And yet you just scored Birch a 3 out of 5 and Sharpe a 3.5 out of 5? One deduction from Diane Birch is that she looks so much like Anne Hathaway that it's kind of distracting.

    By the way I'm a big fan of your new Blogger icon, strong work Scottland

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  4. I scored Birch's "Nothing But a Miracle" a 3 and Sharpe's "Home" a 3.5. The me liking Birch more was a long-term Sharpe's sound will annoy me skew to the whole thing.


    And yes - the simple "happy" search returned a simple, but awesome picture. Thanks go out to whomever posted the pic to the internet in the first place, wherever you are...

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  5. Royce, now why must everything be a competition/score to you? ;)

    I really love Diane Birch's voice. It's smooth and I haven't heard of her before. Chaching, I'll give you a point.

    I always love Caitlin's music choice, sorry, C-mac. We have similar taste. So I dig Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's. Love the whistling, very Peter Bjorn and John also Kill Bill-esque.

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  6. Thanks for the back up Grace! I have a whole bunch of blogs that I troll for cool new music that I spend altogether waaaaay too much time on.
    I like Diane a lot, good find!

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  7. Wow, all of you ahve such a different taste in music than me. I listened to both of C-Mac's songs (nothing special), but Royce, I stopped yours halfway through...so I guess that means C-Mac wins.

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  8. Rise Against is huge for me right now. You have probably heard Ready To Fall and Prayer of the Refugee on the radio, but after buying their CDs and listening to all their songs, here is one I really like, it's a little extra special because it's not on the radio (because isn't that the true joy of buying a CD or album...falling in love with a song that's not a single so it feels special to just you?) AND all of you might like it as well...even if you're not into rock or punk.

    I present Roadside by Rise Against.

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  9. And Ready to Fall and Prayer of the Refugee are definitely my "favorite songs of right now." Enough so that I made sure to find the lyrics and memorize them so that when I sing along, I know the right words.

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  10. Hmmm - ranking the Rise Against songs you just presented, they'd be:

    (3) Ready To Fall - 1 point (never been a fan of the rock/punk scream into the mic genre)

    (2) Prayer of the Refugee - 1.5 points (see above)

    (1) Roadside - 4 points (really digging this song right now; I thing I'm a sucker for the ballads produced from rock bands, assuming the lead has a decent voice, since they're generally sung with great emotion)

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  11. Grace - I know, I know... I even said up top it would be a collaborative effort full of recommendations, and then by the end of the post I was giving myself points and handing a shutout to C-Mac. I think I have a problem.

    C-Mac - do you have like a separate sub-heading in your Favorites for music blogs? I'm finding that's the way to go. I'm atrocious at finding new music, but you putting up suggestions every so often helps me quite a bit.

    I'm the opposite of Scott and I do NOT typically like ballads by rock bands, with some notable exceptions (Nutshell by Alice in Chains is one of my all-time favorites, for instance). Also Rise Against sounds exaaactly the same to me as they did back in the day. And I have never been a fan of punk rock. Sorry.

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  12. Grace was unable to copy the following links into Blogger here, but wanted me to share them with everyone. Says Grace:

    "Some favorites on repeat on my iPod for the moment, not necessarily new, just goodies.

    Boombox-Midnight on the run
    Check it: Boombox play the song, not the video because the video is live and not the best quality.

    Pinback-Loro
    Check it: Pinback Both Pinback and Boombox have a mellow, electric sound but are composed well. Good for late night drives, I say.

    Chairlift-Bruises
    Check it: Chairlift Sort of cutesy, but fun. Belongs in the movie, Juno.

    The Knife-Heartbeats
    You can check this rad commercial from Sony (double whammy) where Heartbeats is the song included: The Knife

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  13. I think Phoenix's Lisztomania is one of my favorite songs of the year.

    But if you like Edward Sharpe, you'll like The Deadly Syndrome even more. I recommend "I Hope I Become a Ghost" and "Wolves in the Garden"

    That 25 top song mashup was awesome, btw.

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  14. Those are some good recommendations, I particularly liked I Hope I Become a Ghost for its irreverence

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