“Happy Halloween” – The Blanks
We love The Blanks. We have known the guys for several years and we know them as straight up mad musical geniuses. If you need proof of their musicality and comedicality , you can check out our exclusive video interview with this band of merry men.
Their original homage to Halloween, through the aptly titled “Happy Halloween”, is hil-ari-ous. Pumpkins rule!
Buy “Happy Halloween”
“Monster” – Kanye West
Let’s keep the Halloween theme going with this track about monsters. Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, And Bon Iver join Kanye West on this ghoulish hard hitting track. I must admit, something about Nicki Minaj captivates me. She makes me laugh and freaks me out all at the same time. “Monster Mash” of 2010?
Buy “Monster”
“Dead Man’s Party” – Oingo Boingo
We go back to the 80′s to unearth this little gem. With Halloween this week it is only fitting we break out some New Wave music, right? Plus, the track was recently featured on NBC’s Chuck, so that totally reminded me of how awesome the song is. If you can’t get out to the Buy Mart, you can click below for the digital shopping equivalent.
Buy “Dead Man’s Party”
I’m in the middle of reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink,” which is a badass physcho-improvement book about the advantages of making snap judgments, and on a morning when I’m wondering who to write about for Throwback Thursday I’m introduced to an artist named Kenna.
In Gladwell’s book he spends an entire chapter talking about Kenna’s struggle to reach a mass audience—how being an African-born, American-raised musician balancing between hip-hop, electronica, new wave, and even a little bit of throwback synthesized ‘80s delightfulness makes him almost impossible to categorize and therefore impossible to play on the radio. The kick, however, is that people who know about great music love everything about the guy, even if the Top-40 focus groups didn’t immediately dig his sound. That’s what got Fresh Scouts interested because, let’s face it, a lot of the musicians we feature on this site have had many of the same problems.
So I dug right into Kenna the minute I was in front of a computer and was impressed with the three or four songs that first popped up onto YouTube. It was pretty clear why he wasn’t plastered all over pop radio, but the two songs I listened to—“Freetime” and “Hell Bent,” both from 2001—were fantastic compositions. Wildly different from each other, these two tracks were also wildly different from everything else I’d ever heard, and it got me looking for more.
That led me to the remix of his more recent single, “Say Goodbye to Love,” featuring Lupe Fiasco and nominated for a Grammy last year, which I heard and immediately thought, “How is this any different from anything The Neptunes have ever put out?” I thought, “If Pharrell wrote this song it’d at least be on a radio promo somewhere. At best, it’d be a hit.” Then I dug a little deeper and found out that Chad Hugo of—who else?—The Neptunes had been producing Kenna’s stuff since the first album and said to myself, “Oh.” I was right, dammit. Which confused me even more. Everything Pharrell touches seems to turn to gold, so why not this cat, who everybody with a musical brain seems to love?
It’s not commercial, that’s why. Plain and simple. But those of us with the musical brains I speak of know that there’s plenty of great music out there that would make Casey Kasem roll over in his grave (note—Casey Kasem isn’t technically dead, but if he were…). Kenna is hip-hop and techno and new wave and tons of other stuff, but most off all he’s really talented. And clearly Malcolm Gladwell, whose opinion I trust greatly, thinks he’s worthwhile, too. Do like Gladwell suggests in “Blink”—don’t think about it, just buy the album. Some of our best decisions are made on our instincts, and right now, our instincts are telling us, “Check out Kenna.” We better do what they say.
Here’s that hot remix to “Say Goodbye to Love”:
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Maybe you like Norah Jones’s smooth, smoky timbre but just can’t listen to more than three of her tracks without slipping into a coma of relaxation.
I’ve got an answer for that.
Maybe you really dig Imogen Heap, but while some of her songs really land musically, others just come off as being really, really out there.
I’ve got an answer for that, too.
Maybe you’ve grown accustomed to listening to Fresh Scouts when we tell you about artists you should be listening to. Maybe you’re one of the people who already has all the answers. If that’s true, maybe you should be writing for us.
But I’m all maybe’d out, and today’s featured throwback, Welsh singer-songwriter Jem, is a hell of lot more than maybe. She’s hip-hop. She’s trance. She’s electronica.
She’s most definitely.
Her 2004 album “Finally Woken” featured the huge European single of the same name, but it was “24” that first put me on. “They” was the first official single of the album, and all three of the tracks use a crafty mix of sampling, soft vocals, and up-tempo beats to make the compositions all come together. Really the entire album struck me as being pretty unique and innovative at the time, and listening to it six years it still holds up.
She’s put out another album since then, 2008’s “Down to Earth,” and has had songs appear on the “Eragon,” “Sex and the City,” and “Down to Earth” soundtracks, as well as plenty of TV cameos—everything from “The O.C.” to “Grey’s Anatomy” to “Desperate Housewives.”
So Jem has stayed busy since I lost track of her a few years ago, but it looks like the new stuff is along the same lines of what I fell in love with on the first album. And you know, maybe you’re not into Jem. Maybe she just doesn’t do it for you. If that’s the case, maybe—just maybe—it’s time for you to leave…
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I was once convinced by a childhood friend that cotton candy was actually made of cotton. I clearly was not the star pupil in my class. I share that story with you to illustrate the point that I often take things for face value. Case in point…Hockey. I must admit that when I first heard that there was a band named Hockey, I expected a joyous album full of air horns and crunching ice. I had my fingers crossed in the hopes that I would be serenaded by The Hanson Brothers of Slap Shot fame. Well, none of those things came true. That means that I must continue my search for an album full of hockey sounds. And on that journey I am thrilled to bring with me the music of the band, Hockey.
If you love New Wave Indie Rock music that comes from Portland, Oregon than I have a band for you. The band is Hockey and the music is as fresh newly Zambonied ice. 2009 proved to be a breakthrough year for the guys as they lit up the stage at the Glastonbury and Bonnaroo music festivals. They had tracks featured in a television commercial and in two video games. To top it off, they had a rockin’ performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. If they play their cards rights in 2010, they might just win the Stanley Cup. And when I say “win the Stanley Cup”, I mean “sell a lot of records”.
If you want to stay out of the penalty box, I recommend you pick up Mind Chaos. Score yourself a hat trick with the tracks “Work”, “Song Away” and “Four Holy Photos”. Consider yourself the star of the game if you give “Too Fake” multiple spins. Hockey succeeds in constructing an album that is fun and danceable. The tracks fit exceptionally well together and showcase the many musical interests of the group. I am really excited to see where Mind Chaos takes the band because they have something good here. Now I just wait patiently for the guys to release a B-Side with my hockey sounds. I will no doubt enjoy that present while I eat my cotton candy.
Hockey’s studio performance of “Too Fake”
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Fans of Hockey might also enjoy the music of fun.
