It is now the fourth week of winter break, and I have completely run out of things to do. BOOM I come across this video, and I remember Theophilus London, one of those artists who has been around the edges of my musical radar screen for a while. Finally motivated by "Humdrum Town," I gave This Charming Mixtape a listen.
London's varied musical interests are on full display as he puts his flexible flow over a wide array of beats. Most have a heavy electro sound, but songs like "Ain't No Sunshine" and "Crazy Cousins" show that London has been inspired by a truly diverse range of music. He's definitely an artist I'll be watching now.
You can download ThisCharming Mixtapehere, and make sure check out his equally charming blog.
People say that Pheonix was the Vampire Weekend of '09. Well guess what. It's 2010 and we don't have to settle for electro-y, French indie rock anymore; we get the real deal. Vampire Weekend's next album drops just five days from now (January 12).
If the first two legitimately available songs are an indication of what the rest of Contra will sound like, we're in for another catchy, witty treat from the Ivy League rockers. Both "Horchata" and "Cousins" (awesome video, first official single for Contra) stay true to that "Upper West Side Soweto" sound that led to their success back in '08.
The whole album can be streamed from VW's official website.
This mash-up duo seems to be in existence to serve the dance party needs eclectic music bloggers everywhere. The White Panda are brilliant. If you've been into any sort of popular or indie music in the past decade, you will find something on here that you love, and then you will say, "How the shit did they think to put ____ over ____?"
The individual mash-ups featured on this mixtape, cleverly entitled Versus, are available as longer stand-alone tracks on their website, but they work just fine as one smoothly blended, hour-long mixtape. For those of you looking to play host to a dance party (I'm looking at you, every single student at UVa with Off-Grounds housing), play this! It's got everything you hear at a typical frat party (no Tay Swift or Miley though, sorry to be misleading), but it's presented in a fresh enough way you won't have to be halfway into a case of Natty to get into it.
Check it out here, and if my impassioned post didn't convince you to listen to the whole thing, check out these standout tracks "What You Know about Little Secrets" (TI vs. Passion Pit), "Party Where Your Head's At" (Basement Jaxx vs. Tonite Only), and "Army of Yeah" (Wiz Khalifa vs. Umek & Beltek vs. Usher).
In case ya hadn't heard, Johnny Depp is playing the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland. That should be enough background info to prepare you for how bugged out this trailer is, nothing really is though.
It's been a few years since we'd seen Depp breakout the make-up for a properly strange character. I was starting to worry about the guy.
Matt and Kim, Phoenix, Arctic Monkeys, Passion Pit, and Kid Cudi. No, that's not not a list of my favorite music from the past year, it's the options PKG has given the UVa student body to vote on for who they want to play Springfest 2010. Yeah, that's a damn good list.
Let's hope PKG can get any one of these artists here, but in the mean time go vote here, after you've gotten over how awesome each one these artists is. Also, for those of you who have been living under an Indie rock, here's a taste of what each of these artists has to offer.
Matt and Kim - "Daylight" (above). Otherwise known as the song from the Bacardi commercial. I hear they have a few other decent songs as well.
Phoenix - "1901." The entirety of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their most recent album, is excellent. Look for it to appear on a ton of "Best of 2009" lists.
Passion Pit - "Moth's Wings." They've been featured here and on every other music blog more than a few times this year.
Arctic Monekeys - "Brianstorm." It's very tough to pick one favorite from this band. Their first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, became and still is the UK's fastest selling album ever.
Kid Cudi - "Pursuit of Happiness." Cudi is kind of like a big deal. You might have heard "Day n' Nite" just a few times on the radio earlier this year. Plus, we already know, he's awesome live.
