Category: Songs (Page 28 of 96)

Seen Your Video: Silversun Pickups, “Little Lover’s So Polite”

All actors should make their directorial debut with a music video. It’s a good place to get your feet wet and learn good timing, among other things. And besides, if it’s good enough for Michael Bay and McG, it’s good enough for anyone else. Actually, McG probably should have stuck with making music videos, but that’s a subject for another column.

“Little Lover’s So Polite,” the latest single from the unstoppable Silversun Pickups, has one Joaquin Phoenix behind the camera, and while the video is cute, I have no doubt that the label would have scrapped it had it not been directed by an Oscar nominee. The band plays the song from the back of a pickup truck (bad dum bum) while driving through downtown Los Angeles at night, with a parallel story of a young boy meeting up with a young girl, and running until they fly. The problem is that Phoenix has drummer Christopher Guanlao wildly overacting, pounding his drums to a rather gentle drum track. It is also clear that the band is getting a police escort to shoot the video – when the police aren’t visible in the shot, their flashing lights are – which ruins the illusion. Yes, we know that you need to get permits to shoot videos on public streets. We just don’t like seeing reminders of it in the video itself. Unless, of course, that’s the point of the video, like U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

Not that any of this will stop the song from being a hit. It’s the fourth single from a 2006 album. That’s old school promotion, right there. God, isn’t it sweet.

Embedding is disabled, but you can watch the video here.

Steal This Song: Black Crowes, “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution”

Those Black Crowes are a quirky bunch. They refuse to send review copies of the new album Warpaint to the press to prevent the album from leaking (though that didn’t stop Maxim from running an “educated guess preview” review of the album anyway), yet they have an open door policy when it comes to taping shows. Now, with the album safely in stores, the band has granted the use of their latest single, “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution,” for free download on blogs. They went from “No one can hear it” to “Everyone can have it for free” in 4.8 seconds flat. Huh.

I will be the first to admit that I am not the foremost spokesperson for the Black Crowes on staff, so I don’t really know how this fits in with the material from their previous album, Lions. I can tell you this, though: this is as good a Faces impression as you’re likely to find. Pretty damn good, if you ask me. So what if it “didn’t leave the band much room for growth,” as Maxim hilariously presumed. It’s only rock and roll, but I like it. Yes, I do.

Black Crowes – Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution.mp3

Less Talk, More Music: Paul Shaffer on “Late Night with David Letterman”

Paul Shaffer might play the part of the oft-befuddled but always fawning bandleader to perfection on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” but the guy’s a musical legend. He spent 1975 to 1980 as the musical director of “Saturday Night Live” band, did the same duty for The Blues Brothers, is regularly called upon to provide backing for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, and, of course, played Artie Fufkin in “This is Spinal Tap.” He’s also a songwriter (he co-wrote “It’s Raining Men,” you know) and, on rare occasions, he’s even stepped out and been a recording artist in his own right. In 1990, Shaffer released an all-star collaborative effort entitled Coast to Coast, where he attempted to take listeners on a cross-country musical expedition which blended different musical genres, often within a single song. The album’s first single was a little ditty called “When the Radio Is On,” and when Shaffer premiered the track on “Late Night with David Letterman,” I was watching in awe as the breathtaking harmonies washed over me.

The first couple of minutes of this clip are strictly Shaffer introducing his crew for the song, so if you want to skip ahead to the 2:26 mark, I’ll save you the time by providing you with the roll call: Will Smith (then still known solely as The Fresh Prince), Daddy O (Stetsasonic), Jay Siegel (The Tokens), Johnny Maestro (The Crests, The Brooklyn Bridge), songwriter Ellie Greenwich, actress Carol Kane (filling in for Carole King, ho, ho), and the King of the New York Streets himself, Mr. Dion DiMucci.

As Shaffer describes it, “It’s doo-wop, it’s hip-hop, it’s a nutty thing.” Me, I’m not saying the song’s perfection, mostly because Shaffer shouts his vocal contributions, but the overall enthusiasm is downright contagious…which, I suspect, is why I still have Coast to Coast in my record collection.

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