Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The B-52’s “Hot Corner” – The B-52’s early classics were marked not only by the incredibly distinct sound of the band’s vocals, but also the specific, strange guitar style of the late Ricky Wilson. The band’s current guitarist and primary instrumental songwriter Keith Strickland can’t hope to compete with Wilson’s game, and so he pushes the group in another direction. He was the original drummer, and so it’s not too surprising that his approach is more brash and brawny. The results aren’t often in quite the same league as material from their classic period, but when it all clicks, as on “Hot Corner,” it’s absolutely marvelous, and not even just for a bunch of middle-aged people who haven’t made an album in 16 years. Essentially, it’s a pumped-up version of the group’s signature vocal and melodic style: Fred’s goofy, sly sprechstimme contrasted with Kate and Cindy’s bold, full-voiced harmonies. Lyrically, they are on separate pages — Fred’s busy describing the scene at the end of a late night dance party, but Kate is dressed up and ready to shimmy her way to the bus stop, eager to hit the road in pursuit of fun and action. It’s, uh, not exactly heavy stuff, but every moment is a thrill, and when she sings “don’t you know that I want you, baby?,” I just feel so so jealous of whoever she’s addressing. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Long Blondes “Guilt” – In the world of the Long Blondes, infidelity is an entirely inevitable by-product of all romantic and sexual relationships. There’s no trust and no illusions; just a steady belief that people are only loyal when they have no options, and that they will bolt or stray whenever they are offered the opportunity to either trade up or enter a relationship that flatters their ego. This cynicism was apparent on their previous album and run of singles, but it’s grown darker and deeper on “Couples.” Whereas Someone To Drive You Home was mainly comprised of songs in which Kate Jackson offered knowing advice to younger women, the new record finds her more confused and vulnerable, and less aggressive. She’s still a keen observer of human behavior, but her interpretations are skewed by paranoia, pessimism, loneliness, and distrust. In “Guilt,” she’s doing everything she can to break off an affair and remain true to her presumably clueless boyfriend, but every time she yields to temptation, she slips deeper into her delusion of righteousness. Like most everything on the record, the song is slinky and sexy, but also rather melancholy and aloof, which tips the listener off to the crucial subtext of the entire album: Jackson’s characters have become aware of their complicity in their own unhappiness. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

James Rabbit “Red, Blue, Violet” – This is a cheerful song, but it’s very restless. The singer is infatuated with a girl, but deeply frustrated because he can only advance his flirtation in fits and starts, so way too much of his time is spent anticipating the next move, the next step, the next possibility for total disaster. The song is barely even about her — it’s more about finding a way to kill the time when she’s not around. He alternates between a feeling of stasis and moments of sincere — though obsessive — inspiration. There’s a lot of romance and sweetness in Tyler Martin’s words, but the most affecting line is very simple and blunt: “I need to be near you, I need to be near you!” In another context, it’d be a pretty ordinary line, but here, the frustration has less to do with needy co-dependence, and everything to do with despising all the long, boring stretches between the good parts in life. (Click here to buy it from James Rabbit.)

Quando Quango “Love Tempo (Remix)” – The rap at the start is a bit pleading, but within a few seconds, the invitation to dance, make out, go out, whatever, becomes much more, well, inviting. The singer’s job in this song is to spell out his intentions, but the music handles all the expression, and conveys his generosity, sweetness, optimism, and good-natured excitement. There’s a lovely glow to this song that grows brighter as it moves along towards a climax that — lucky for us! — hits a few times over: “Heartbeats, heartbeats, heartbeats…a love tempo!” (Click here to buy it from Dance Tracks Digital.)

Black Francis “The Seus” – It’s such a pleasure to hear Black Francis indulge in his weirder impulses and vocal tics. He never gets up to a full scream in “The Seus,” but he he definitely sounds a bit unhinged in parts, particularly when he interrupts his own hook to shout the title or holler something like “it’s not mine!!!” The clever and amusing thing here is that he’s singing from the perspective of Theseus , but he’s inhabiting the musical form of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In other words, he’s playing the Athenian warrior king as macho, swaggering, horny frat boy with just a touch of sensitivity and pathos when he goes off on a tangent about “going to the city to see my daddy” to prove that he’s a “big man.” It’s very funny, but still effective in conveying this thrilling alpha male arrogance and charisma. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, though — exploring warped masculinity has been Black Francis’ specialty since he was the leader of the Pixies. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Destroyer “The State” –

Dear the Person Who Played Drums On “The State” By Destroyer,

I don’t mean to freak you out by getting all fanboyish, but for real, you’re totally awesome and I think you totally pushed “The State” to the next level. I mean, it would’ve been pretty swell without you, but I think it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t be my favorite song on Trouble In Dreams. Maybe “Leopard of Honor” or “Foam Hands” would take the top spot? Who knows. You probably made those songs better too, but I don’t have the album credits. I know nothing about you, it’s kinda embarrassing! Maybe you’re one of those classy drummers with the loose jazzy wrists; perhaps you’re a skinny indie rock boy with wiry arms; it could be that you’re one of those generic rock dudes who float from band to band for something to do, and you make intense faces as you beat the hell out of your snares. For some reason it is a little hard to imagine that Destroyer has a lady drummer, so I guess I can rule that out? (It would be cool if Destroyer had a lady drummer, though. No offense to you if you are indeed a man.)

Anyway, these are the things I know about you:

1) You give “The State” this feeling of shifting weight, which in effect makes the song sound like a drunken giant stumbling around and falling over and getting back up again.

2) You make Dan Bejar sound nervous, as though he’s constantly peering over his shoulder as if your snare hits are going to come after him.

3) Your snare hits are coming after him!

4) You give the song so much depth — you make it feel as though we’re falling through physical space in every dynamic shift.

5) This is especially true of the song’s climax from 2:17 to 2:40, which has the feeling of hitting the top of the roller coaster, and then zooming down the ramp.

So, yeah, you’re terrific. Thanks for everything! Keep on rockin’!

Sincerely yours,

Matthew

(Click here to buy it from Merge.)

Elsewhere: Pulp’s “Common People” presented as an Archie comic!

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: The Slits came by for a five-song session, and I talked to Faith about Madonna and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Alphabeat “Fascination” – Alphabeat’s music has got very little to do with the real world. They are fantasists, and on their album, they’ve built a familiar and incredibly inviting alternate universe built from the scraps of teen movies, young adult novels, WB/CW tv shows, and several generations of pop hits. They’re the Josh Schwartzs of Euro pop; the creators of fully aware, exquisitely crafted escapist fluff that gains its power from its sincere appreciation of the idealized artifice and simplified narratives of pop storytelling. Alphabeat pretty much spell it out for you in the lyrics of “Fascination”: “Passion is our passion,” “We love this exaltation,” “We live on fascination.” In other words, they believe in magic, and they’re going to do everything they can to nudge their fantasies into reality. At the very least, they’ve made a nearly perfect album of songs that sound like a bright, colorful world of humor, beauty, extreme joy and drama, and the sort of sadness that can be reversed in the span of a single montage sequence. (Click here to buy it via Alphabeat.)

In Flagranti “Grand Central Shuttle” – If you’re not familiar, the Grand Central shuttle goes back and forth between Grand Central terminal and Times Square all day. (Well, actually, it doesn’t run late night, but you get the idea.) It looks and feels like a regular subway train, but it’s just hitting those same two stations over and over. It’s a fitting title for this song, which seems trapped in a similar loop of movement. More so, it seems to indicate an emotional snag that keeps a person from progressing beyond two points — a dull, eternal present, and a vaguely traumatic recent past. Every time we seem to get to some sort of resolution, we’re right back to the start. (Click here to buy it from Turntablelab.)

Trabant “I Love You Why?” – Outside of a particular strain of pop music, does anyone on earth actually pronounce “c’mon” as “sh’mon”? Maybe we should, and it ought to have a slightly different meaning. “Sh’mon” is more desperate, and considerably less assertive than a simple “c’mon.” It’s very appropriate for this song, which lingers in a lurching, incomplete groove that hovers around the general territory of sexiness, but can’t quite make contact. It’s all about the frustration of being sooooooooooo close, but not being able to make it happen, and not knowing who to blame. Maybe it’s her, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s everything. You’re definitely clueless, you don’t know how to read the signs, and you’re just stuck in a holding pattern. Why? (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Wild Beasts “Assembly” – Hayden Thorpe has one of the most bewildering voices in contemporary music, in part because he himself sounds utterly bewildered each time he opens his mouth. He comes across like a person who has somehow crossed over into a better, more romantic version of the world in which even the grime and the guts and the gore have a whimsy and charm that seem out of place, and out of time. Thorpe sounds particularly enthused on “Assembly,” a jaunty little romp that indulges in silly slapstick while painting a portrait of an eccentric stumbling through a decaying, decadent society. As with nearly all of their songs to date, the band hit upon a delicate, magical balance of elegance and shabbiness, especially as Thorpe’s voice wavers between masculine and feminine extremes like an old-timey hobo convinced that he’s Maria Callas. (Click here to buy it via the Wild Beasts official site.)

Be Your Own Pet “Becky” – Teenage girls break up their friendships every day, but somehow, it’s always the end of the world. Nevertheless, even though that sort of thing is very commonplace and fraught with ridiculous drama, the topic seems to be rather under-represented in pop songs. Be Your Own Pet run with the scenario, and play it for laughs by emphasizing the mundane details of high school life, and pushing the situation to a silly extreme by having the story play out as a bloody revenge fantasy. Jemina Pearl absolutely nails the tone — on one hand, she’s mocking this sort of overblown manufactured drama, and on the other, she is totally respecting the anger and the bitterness, and letting out some candy-colored bile. Her vocal performance is the center of the piece, but the song is made by the backing vocals of her male band mates, who shout the name “Becky” with a funny mix of anguish and frustrated rage. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: I recently convinced Andrew W.K. to write and record a new song based on a batshit insane bit of tape from the McLaughlin Group. It is extremely catchy and absurd, and you can download the track and listen to the segment in which Andrew presents the song to Faith right here.

Cadence Weapon “Tattoos and What They Really Feel Like” – “Am I talking about something else? Well, I usually am.” No kidding, Rollie. The song starts out sounding like it’s going to be all about tattoos, but really, that’s just a MacGuffin — this is really about emotional exhibitionism, and a desire to hold on to ephemeral pain. The guy spills his guts to his tattoo artist (“you’re a cheaper shrink and you put something on me”) even though he knows it’s an empty verbal exchange, and he’s just unloading on a stranger who isn’t equipped to do much more than put some kind of reminder drawn from his personal iconography on his flesh. It doesn’t take too long before Rollie says exactly what’s on his mind: He can’t get over some girl who doesn’t like him, and he’s simultaneously excited and repulsed by his desire to win over people who have rejected him. Maybe it’s the thrill of the chase, maybe it’s a narcissistic need for drama, maybe it’s a manifestation of self-loathing. It’s probably all of the above, and at the end, he knows it, and he sounds sick to his stomach. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Elmo Delmo” – There’s something in Stephen Malkmus’ voice that keeps him from sounding morose, depressed, or even angry. His songs approach those feelings, but there’s something about his personality and the very sound of his voice that downsizes negative emotions or dilutes them, leaving just an insidious trace of fear, doubt, and longing. He sounds as if he can shrug off anything, and for all I know, he can. I’m not sure if I’d cast Malkmus as an optimist, per se, but he seems entirely incapable of approaching the worst in life without levity and perspective. This may be the root of why I identify with his music so completely — the subtle emotional gray scale of Malkmus’ body of work comes closer to feeling like my baseline state than any other music that I know.

Malkmus’ unflappable, well-adjusted everyman persona is exactly what makes “Elmo Delmo” one of the scariest pieces of music that he’s ever written. The song starts off sounding rather epic and heroic, with language and dynamic shifts that emphasize a sense of courage and strength, even when he’s talking about a purple puma and a meta grotto. That takes a turn after a few verses, when we finally get a sense of what he’s up against: “I’m one with the grid / it turns me into a double form / I risk dissociation at every turnpike.” Immediately after that reveal, the bottom drops out, and an extended instrumental passage takes us on a guided tour of the darker corners of our hero’s mind.

And then it begins: Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. Elmo Delmo. It’s total gibberish, but it burns a hole in his skull, and the mindless repetition beats his brain to pulp. It’s the onset of madness, the break from reality. Elmo Delmo is a cute, cuddly abyss. The worst traps seem innocuous at first. In the end, he rebels. He pulls against the tide, and swears to seize his life from Elmo Delmo, and the song goes out on a fight, but there’s no resolution, just this ambiguous cliffhanger. (Click here to buy it from Buy Early Get Now. You’re kind of a fool if you buy this record any other way.)

The Kills “Cheap and Cheerful” – At first blush, the Kills seem like rock-oriented “fashion people,” which is basically a more elite version of what Mike Barthel calls “rock people.” If you never cared about them, this may be the reason why — their music is devoid of tweeness, and their detached, debauched persona can be off-putting if you’re the type of person who has trouble connecting with glamor or irony. But here’s the thing: While there will never be a shortage of skinny, good looking people going for the “sexy fucked-up rock star” look, very few of them will ever make compelling music that both dissects that image and lives inside it in the present tense. To an extent, the Kills have already accomplished that on their previous two records, but their new album Midnight Boom is where it really comes together, and the aesthetic and emotional tensions at the heart of their work escalates dramatically.

All of the songs on Midnight Boom are at the intersection of nostalgia and invention. Every track is informed by the nagging feeling that everything in your reality is wrong, and not quite good enough, and that at some point, things were much more exciting and romantic, but you missed it, and therefore must fabricate your own version of it in your own time. The songs aren’t about living out a fantasy, they’re about trying to force your life into one. It’s about recognizing the way fiction often sets the parameters for reality, and attempting to take advantage of it in order to escape a life of endless quotidian boredom. It’s the struggle between perception and fantasy, and living with the awareness that even after reinventing yourself, the world isn’t going to change all that much with you. Reality can be tampered with, but it won’t ever fully bend to your will.

More than anything, the Kills are aiming for a state of extreme romance, and so the songs that charge headlong into relationship drama (“Last Day Of Magic”) or indulge in excessive nostalgia (“What New York Used To Be”) are the most desperate and urgent. In those songs, and a few others, the dynamics become queasy and uncomfortable, and simulate the feeling of the mind moving faster than the body can handle, or vice versa. Much of this comes down to Jamie Hince’s skill for crafting tracks that emphasize visceral sensation, and are full of synthetic effects that make standard guitar moves sound just a bit unreal. His tones echo the general theme of fabrication — guitar parts are meant to evoke the sound of, say, scuzzy punk circa the early ’80s, but there’s no attempt to hide the digital patina, or take the listener out of this moment in time. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Cloudland Canyon “Krautwerk” – Really, they couldn’t have called this anything else. It’s as if they had been arguing in their practice space about whether they wanted to play a cover of Neu!’s “Hallogallo” or Can’s “Halleluhwah,” and compromised by figuring out a way to play them both at the same time, with a few nods to Kraftwerk and Faust along the way. Question: What is it about this type of music that always sounds totally rad, even when it’s a straight-up genre exercise and there’s not much more to it than aping the sound of records from 30+ years ago? Is it an issue of exoticism and relative scarcity? It’s not as if I’d be so pleased if I just heard some random band jamming on generic blues riffs. (Click here to buy it from Kranky.)

Todd Barry “Fridge, Audience Member’s Tab, Best Celebrity Sighting” – Barry’s dry, low key delivery is ideally suited to this sort of gag, in which he takes a pretty standard stand-up joke — “Hey, you know what totally mundane thing fills me with irrational anger?” — and flips it into an unbelievable scenario that highlights the ridiculousness of unreasonable pet peeves. Bonus: This mp3 answers the question “What magazine would the bass player of the Spin Doctors read on a park bench?” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: Yesterday I talked with Faith about “Mt. Rapmore” and Journey’s new lead singer.

Lykke Li “I’m Good. I’m Gone.” – Lykke Li is on her grind. She wants you to know this, so she wrote this song, which tells you just how hard she works for your adulation, and to err, make butter for her piece of bun. (In Sweden, butter is very expensive, and families are known to split buns between up to six people.) The track has a steadiness and intensity that says “hey, I’m working hard over here, pal,” but it shifts into a chorus that floats above the mechanical thwack of the groove to evoke a sense of sense of cool confidence and a feeling of distance and perspective. It’s not a moment of relaxation and reward, but rather a few seconds to envision the desired outcome of her work, and of her life. She holds that image in her mind, walks around inside it for a bit, and then gets right back to work. (Click here to buy it from Lykke Li’s official site.)

Pacific “Sunset Blvd.” – Optimism is easy when you feel as though you have opportunities. Then it just seems to fall into place somehow — as Pacific sing, it’s a natural high when you just get it right. And why is it right? Why do you feel so alive? Because you really don’t care at all whether or not you fail, but you’re in it to win it. “Sunset Blvd.” sounds just like this weird emotional balancing act in which the most joyful sensations are felt, but are kept in check by reason, maturity, and patience. (Click here to buy it via Pacific’s official site.)

Basia Bulat “Before I Knew” (Single Version) – The version of “Before I Knew” on Basia Bulat’s debut album is extremely brief and disarmingly intimate, a tiny, gorgeous sketch of a person looking back on their first love with equal measures of embarrassment, regret, and nostalgia. This full-band take is nearly triple its length, and leans heavier on the nostalgia. Maybe it’s the perkiness of the rhythm, maybe it’s the context of additional lyrics that pull the song into the present tense, maybe it’s the way the recording has a vague Christmas-y sound to it, but even when Bulat is singing “I always find a way to fall apart,” she sounds totally at peace with her reckless romanticism. (Click here to buy the album from Beggars.)

The Magnetic Fields @ The Town Hall, 2/22/2008
California Girls / I Don’t Believe You / All My Little Words / Come Back To San Francisco / Old Fools / Xavier Says / Walking My Gargoyle / Too Drunk To Dream / Til The Bitter End / The Night You Can’t Remember / I Thought You Were My Boyfriend / Water Torture // Lovers From The Moon / I Wish I Had An Evil Twin / Give Me Back My Dreams / Grand Canyon / Papa Was A Rodeo / Drive On, Driver / The Nun’s Litany / The Tiny Goat / Smoke And Mirrors / Zombie Boy /// Three-Way / Take Ecstasy With Me / The Book Of Love

Despite the loud sound of their most recent album, the Magnetic Fields remain an extraordinarily mannered live act. Their concerts are seated recitals, and are almost completely devoid of rock show conventions. Though some may grumble about a lack of power and physicality, I think this plays to the strengths of Stephin Merritt’s songs, and his ensemble. In this context, the audience have no choice but to focus all of their attention on the nuances of the melodies and the lyrics. Even without the sharp between-song banter (mainly provided by the lovely Claudia Gonson), the emphasis was consistently placed on the wit of Merritt’s words, and so the feeling of the show was closer to that of a musical revue or a comedy performance than any sort of indie rock or singer-songwriter gig.

The Magnetic Fields “The Nun’s Litany (Live on Fair Game, 2/20/2008)” – Two days earlier, Stephin Merritt performed a short session for Fair Game, which will air later this week. This isn’t exactly how the song sounded in concert — here, he’s accompanied only by his ukulele, and in the show he played a bouzouki and was assisted by at least two other players — but the important thing is that he’s singing the song, and not Shirley Simms, though she sang on several other tunes. The humor becomes more obvious — it’s pretty hilarious to imagine the small, Eeyore-ish Merritt as a Playboy bunny — but the sadness of the song is deepened. Whereas Simms’ version comes across as a tongue-in-cheek interior monologue of a desperate single girl, Merritt’s take sounds like a gay man who longs for the options of that desperate single girl, wishing that it could be so easy to attract the attention of handsome men. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Excepter “Any And Every” – Half euphoria, half nightmare. It sounds like you’re walking through an extremely loud and crowded dance club with severe vertigo. You can barely tell where your feet are, the sounds blur so that it sounds less like music, and more like shapes of sound swirling around your head, and nudging your movement. You might feel paranoid if you didn’t feel so passive. The beat holds you down like an enormous thumb, your brain feels like a squished cherry tomato at the bottom of a shopping bag. (Your face feels like the shopping bag.) (Click here for the official Excepter site.)

The Ting Tings “Great DJ” – The best thing about this song is the way it seems like this knowingly futile attempt to hold perfect, ephemeral moments in the mind, to just live in them for a couple seconds longer, at the very least. It’s there in the way the indie guitar chords just sorta hang in the air, and the dry, quasi-mechanical repetition in the chorus — the drums the drums the drums the drums the drums the drums. In a way, it’s about that failure, that acknowledgment that the human mind is a terribly flawed recording instrument, but also respecting/loving the way nostalgia can transform a somewhat mundane evening into something far more magical. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Meanwhile, on Fair Game: Here’s that full Yelle segment with the other song!

Duffy “Mercy” – Things to listen for:

1. Duffy’s instruction to “hit the beat and take it to the verse now” only five seconds into the song. I like to think that without her direction, the keyboard player would have vamped on that part indefinitely, and the rest of the band would have just sorta stood around with slack jaws.

2. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” repeated in the general direction of Amy Winehouse, with a bit of a knowing smirk.

3. That sure sounds like a farfisa organ on the chorus! Farfisa is always welcome, but it sounds particularly good in contrast with the colder, more modern rhythmic keyboard part from the start of the song.

4. A bit of giggling at the 1:27 mark — it’s either a direct response to the notion that someone would be so foolish to have someone on the side whilst dating Duffy, or some girl just being a bit silly in the studio.

5. 1:35 mark — “Yes, I do!” You have me, Duffy. I’m sold. This is one of those magic moments that make a song sound real and alive, like a person that you could know and love.

6. Suddenly she’s overlapping: A quiet, coy quasi-rap laid over the top of her most insistent vocal for maximum contrast. It comes up to the edge of not quite working, but somehow she pulls it off. If it was possible to drop a few dollars into the tip jar of whoever it was that mixed this track, I’d totally do it.

7. Oh, hey, by the way, there’s some strings in this thing. Better yet, they sound like a strings setting on a keyboard, which actually suits the balance of warm and cool textures than something that came across more “live.”

(Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Yelle @ The Knitting Factory 2/19/2008
Tristesse/Joie / Mal Poli / 85A / Dans Ta Vrai Vie / Je Veux Te Voir / Jogging / A Cause Des Garcons / Mon Meilleur Ami // Je Veux Te Voir (heavy “rock” version)

1. You might be thinking, “oh, I bet she probably just sang and danced around to some music on a laptop.” Well, she did sing, and she did dance, and there was a laptop on stage, but this was very much a full-on, athletic concert, complete with live keyboards and a kick-ass drummer. There was no fucking around, just 50+ minutes of bubblegum pop crossed with quasi-rock French dance music. It was rather intense.

(Photo courtesy of Trent Wolbe.)
2. Also intense: The audience. Despite being packed into a tiny, oversold room, the crowd flipped out to almost every song, but most especially “Je Veux Te Voir.” Seriously, I have been in many audiences, but only a few shows match this room’s level of collective enthusiasm. If you were on the floor, and you were losing your shit during this set, I just want to say that I love you. And I envy you — I was stuck in the balcony.

3. Yelle is a joy to behold. She’s one of those performers who makes it all look so easy, as if any skinny, pretty girl with a Chicks On Speed frock and an album’s worth of ridiculously catchy dance pop songs can get on stage, shake it up, make some rock faces, do a bit of air guitar, and pull it off. If only the world was overcrowded with people like her, my job would be so much easier.

Yelle “Tristesse/Joie” (Acoustic version for Fair Game, 2/19/2008) – Speaking of, Yelle recorded a session for Fair Game only a few hours before this show. It was a mellow, acoustic performance — in other words, the radical opposite of the relentlessly up-tempo dance show at the Knitting Factory. “Tristesse/Joie” has an entirely different character in this arrangement — if the album version is like a collision between two distinct strains of modern French pop music, this take owes more to the Francophone pop of the ’60s and ’70s. It lacks that glorious, euphoric kick at the end, but makes up for it with a lovely, muted melancholy. The Yelle segment is set to air on the show on Thursday — a different song with be making it into the broadcast, but I’ll let it be a surprise. Please tune in, or get the podcast. (Click here to buy Pop-Up from Amazon.)

The Ruby Suns “There Are Birds” –
MCP: this is the other one I think I’m doing for tomorrow
RZLY: listening
RZLY: i dig
MCP: what is your impression?
RZLY: airy and drony are words that come to mind
RZLY: but that’s ’cause all words i think of to describe music end in “y”
RZLY: reminds me of broadcast
MCP: if this song is a person, how would you describe that person?
RZLY: a little depressed, but honest and earnest
MCP: who would this person date, what is her love life like?
RZLY: probably a lot of different people, each for a very short period of time. wants commitment but can’t quite get it. too complicated
MCP: (I ask cos I kinda have an idea)
MCP: see, I had the other idea
MCP: to me, this song is like a person who has been in a relationship with one person for a really long time and just wants a bit of space, some privacy, some tiny bit of time when she’s herself, and not part of a unit
MCP: (did you just describe yrself btw?)
RZLY: haha. umm… maybe.
RZLY: god i project a fucking lot
RZLY: but the person i pictured was a lot prettier and sadder than me
MCP: okay, so…RZLY = not as hot, but more chipper than the girl in the song
(Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

Avenue D & Phiiliip “Totally In Love” – Avenue D spent the better part of this decade trading in raunch, but here they are, sounding more like smitten schoolgirls than over-the-top porn starlets. Nevertheless, even when they were playing faux-naïf, they couldn’t help but to push things to the extreme: This is so incredibly cutesy and twee that it borders on the ridiculous. That said, the girls convey a very genuine crushed-out affection in the song that cuts through the song’s thick, syrupy irony. (Click here to buy it from Avenue D.)