Belgian-AustralianWally De Backer found the winning formula with his 3rd album under the Gotye moniker. ‘Making Mirrors‘ saw the multi-instrumentalist bring his unique Sting-meets-Ceelo sampling appeal to a greater audience no doubt led by the success of lead single ‘Somebody That I Used To Know.
Cougar regular Emily, who also wrote this gushing review, added ‘Making Mirrors’ to her year end list describing it as “an enticing combination of Motown sensibilities, haunting vocals, and upbeat energies, all crafted through samples and warped instrumentation. Definitely my favourite new artist, or at least new to me.”
Just last week we featured Teddybears and their single Cho Cha which in turn featured the amazing talent of Mr Cee Lo Green.
Ever since deciding that his vocals finally deserved recognition after years of guest performances and low key releases Cee Lo has wowed audiences with is various projects.
Here is the latest single from his fortunate album ‘The Lady Killer‘ which has proven to be one of the most successful albums of 2011. Good to see Jaleel White making an appearance in this video.
Swedish eccentrics Teddybears return with this groovy new single from their sixth studio album (second in America) ‘Devil’s Music‘. Like their past efforts this latest album is a mixed bag of genres and features a fitting array of guest vocalists.
Appropriately, the track ‘Cho Cha‘ showcases the vocal skills of Cee Lo Green as well as the B52‘s and fittingly demonic video.
As has become customary here is the annual Valentine’s Day post featuring some of my favourite love themed songs. Whether you have been in a relationship for a long time or have just found a special someone stick these on for 15 minutes or so today.
Bright Eyes’ ‘The First Day Of Our Life‘
Conor Oberst delivers near enough the perfect love song managing to be heartfelt and honest without sounding contrived. My friend described it as ‘one of those songs that if you’d want in the soundtrack to your life if there was one‘. I couldnt put it better myself.
Band Of Horses – ‘No One’s Gonna Love You‘
Back in the summer Cee Lo Green‘s delivered his imperious take of ‘No One’s Gonna Love You‘ but for Valentine’s Day I feel the original is perhaps more appropriate for this day. Band Of Horses‘ wide-eyed declaration of affection shoots unashamedly for the heart and should warm even the biggest cynic.
Beck – ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes‘
Having featured not one but two Michel Gondry helmed videos this weekend it is quite fitting that the final selection is a track taken from the soundtrack of his ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind‘ masterpiece. The truth is I have been planning to use this song for a while; Beck‘s splendid interpretation of The Korgis ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometimes‘ is guaranteed to give you goosebumps.
It is safe to say Band of Horses have had a great 2010. On top of seeing a brilliant cover of their anthem ‘No One’s Gonna Love You’ released by Cee Lo Green, and repaying the favour by recording his ‘Georgia’, the band brought out their 3rd studio album ‘Infinite Arms’.
The band took the opportunity to write and record the tracks that would make ‘Infinite Arms’ in multiple locations across the East and West coasts of America and this inherent freedom seeps through to the recordings. Whilst this approach could have led several lesser bands to lose their focus the South Carolina outfit have never sounded this tight.
‘Infinite Arms’ is unequivocally a Band Of Horses album but it also represents their most impressive set of songs to date taking them from indie scene darlings to international contenders.
We’ve seen her “camp with the plebs” at Bestival as well as cover anyone from Cee-Lo to Coldplay so it has become a bit of a tradition on Weekend Videos to feature Eliza Doolittle.
Here she is joined by Nick Harrison and her usual band to cover André 3000 and Kelis‘ ‘Millionaire‘ From her 2003 ‘Tasty‘ album.
Cougar Microbes caught up with the members of Maps & Atlases munching on a vegetarian platter hours before they were due on stage at Cargo. We discussed sweaty clothes, Cee Lo Green and scary songs:
- Cougar Microbes – So to start off; what time did you guys get out of bed this morning?
- Maps & Atlases – We got up at 8:30.
- CM - 8:30? Was that out of choice or where you dragged out of bed?
- M&A – Well we had to get down to London from Manchester so it was kind of like we dragged ourselves out of bed.
- CM – How do you guys kill time on the road? Do you play games?
- M&A – We had a couple of fun games. We used to have games, now we just don’t talk (laughs). Fortunately there’s lots of scenery to take in.
- CM - And the great weather?
M&A – Of course your great weather!
CM – What have been your favourite venues on this UK tour?
M&A – We really liked the venue from last night, Manchester Deaf Institute was really cool, and Glasgow just looked awesome as a city.
CM – Any absolutely shocking venues?
M&A- Actually, kind of funny you bring that up… they were mostly good.
CM – We like to name and shame
M&A – All our shows have been good experiences…. but it got so packed at our Brighton show and it got extremely hot, the air conditioning wasn’t working… people were passing out, literally. We nearly passed out. It was pretty bad.
The clothes we have from that show are still wet.
CM – Are there any tracks in the set you are sick of playing?
M&A – Not yet but probably by the end of this tour (laughs).
CM – And what’s your favourite?
M&A – You know, I think ‘Pigeon’ is a fun one to play it’s got all these things that could go wrong so it is just scary enough to be exciting every time. Its high energy but it has a good root to it. It’s pretty easy to mess it up but it is so great to play.
CM – Are you guys able to write on the road?
M&A – I guess writing lyrics can happen any time, but we don’t necessarily as you would imagine. I guess sometimes we will have a 2 minute jam on the side of the soundcheck but for the most part when you are playing live you don’t wanna be pissing off the sound guys.
CM – Whats more important for you, the lyrics or the melody?
M&A – Hopefully there is a balance between both. I think the lyrics are important to give a sense to the songs you are singing but without the melody tying it together its not really worth anything. I guess if i had to chose one Lyrics would be slightly more important.
I mean look at Cake, who are a fantastic band, and notice how they emphasise the lyrics whilst he almost talks over it.
CM – and says ‘Oh no’ a lot of times…
M&A – Exactly!
CM – You guys have toured with Ra Ra Riot, mewithoutyou and Minus the Bear, who would you like to tour with again
M&A – We did a few shows with Rar Ra Riot and those were fun and we did some with Foals which we also enjoyed. Really any of those tours we’d love to do again.
I’d like to do Frightened Rabbit again. There aren’t too many bands that we’ve toured with that we disliked.
CM – What is the most flattering thing you’ve read or heard about yourselves?
M&A – I really like some of the comparisons we get all the time. we are one of these bands that always gets oddball comparisons. People are like “yeah you sound like Talking Heads and… Prince” and I’m just thinking yeah, I guess thats pretty awesome. We’ll take that.
The other day Dave was compared to Cee Lo which made us laugh.
CM – Which other bands are doing stuff that you like at the moment?
M&A – I like Phantogram a lot, Wild Beasts came out a while ago but that was an awesome album, a band that is coming out soon called Gypsyblood will be pretty awesome.
CM – When was the last time you queued up and paid for a show?
M&A - I just got tickets to Dismemberment Plan in Chicago, hopefully I wont have to queue. I got tickets for a Thermals show last year and didn’t really have to wait in line for very long. Not because I’m a rockstar or anything, just that I got there at the right time.
CM – Are there any covers you are planning to record or have recorded?
M&A – We are always trying to think of an awesome cover we could play.
CM – You could do Cee Lo?
M&A – Now that’s an awesome idea… We were actually working on a couple of songs earlier in the tour like an Echo & The Bunnymen track.
CM – Final question, if you have to bring an artist back from the dead and swap them with a living artist who would it be and why?
M&A – We’d probably wanna bring someone back whose career has been cut short like Buddy Holly or someone like that. Someone who was unfortunate to die but fortunate for their career to go that way.
I say we bring back Buddy Holly. Swap them with someone like Puddle of Mudd. In fact you don’t even have to bring anyone back, just take that band away.
As a blogger I am obliged to occasionally deal in strenous links; and having featured two bands from Georgia earlier in the week I thought Band Of Horses‘ take on Cee-Lo Green‘s ‘Georgia‘ was a good track to post.
Having previously featured Cee-Lo Green covering Band Of Horses ‘No One’s Gonna Love You‘ I think this full band version repays the favour nicely.
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Belgian-Australian Wally De Backer found the winning formula with his 3rd album under the Gotye moniker. ‘Making Mirrors‘ saw the multi-instrumentalist bring his unique Sting-meets-Ceelo sampling appeal to a greater audience no doubt led by the success of lead single ‘Somebody That I Used To Know.
