The Bacon Review

An annual Top 31 countdown of the best albums of the year

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September 20, 2013 by Royal Stuart

I’m still kinda floored that Franz Ferdinand are back and they sound GOOD.

This video, for their song “Evil Eye,” is an awesome true-to-the-form B-movie short. Prepare for comical gore, which may or may not be NSFW in your world. Still, great song.

Their latest album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, came out earlier this year.

September 20, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, franz ferdinand
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September 20, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Yet another new awesome song from TV on the Radio (yes, their “website” is currently nothing more than the number “2” on a white field), who haven’t formally announced any new-album plans. This video, for the song “Mercy,” documents the crazy, stop-motion trip of a rock-alien of some sort. Mmmhmm.

September 20, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, TV on the Radio
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September 19, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Josh Tillman is squeezing everything he can out of last year’s Father John Misty album, Fear Fun. “I’m Writing A Novel” is a nice little country-rock tune, but this video doesn’t have the same great qualities all previous FJM videos have had. This is more of a tour journal-like video, but that’s just fine. I can watch Josh prance around jokingly over and over again with the best of them.

September 19, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, father john misty
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September 19, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Foxygen, from Los Angeles, are bringing back psychedelic rock & roll in a big way. Here’s “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic” in a fantastically blissed-out acid trip video.

Their debut album, of the same name, came out earlier this year.

Far out, man.

September 19, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, foxygen
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September 15, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Every once in a while, a pure pop song hooks me and I find myself drawn back to the song over and over again. This song, by Copenhagen’s Oh Land, does just that. Oh Land is the nom de plume of Nanna Øland Fabricius, and she’s been performing in this particular guise since 2008.

I have a limited pop music vocabulary, but of what I do know, this seems to be even more deliberately kooky than, say Lady GaGa. I like the tune, as well. Oh Land’s third album, Wish Bone, comes out September 24.

September 15, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, oh land
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September 14, 2013 by Royal Stuart

This is mind blowing. I consider the medley from Abbey Road to be the single most phenomenal passage of music in all of recorded time. And I say that without hyperbole.

Here we have, through some fancy use of technology, the isolated vocals for the entire passage (except for a lone tambourine and piano that somehow crept in during “Mean Mr. Mustard”)

It’s amazing how much the music makes these famously disjointed parts feel of a family. Stripped down like this, the disparate nature of the song bits is painfully obvious.

Jaw, floor.

/via kotkke.org

September 14, 2013 /Royal Stuart
listened, the beatles
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September 13, 2013 by Royal Stuart

NPR All Songs Considered’s Bob Boilen says:

The Tiny Desk has moved, and OK Go has helped make it so.

Earlier this year, we needed to figure out the best possible way to move my Tiny Desk from NPR’s old headquarters to our new facility just north of the U.S. Capitol. We wanted to go out with a bang and arrive at our new space in style, so our thoughts naturally turned to a catchy pop band we love: OK Go, whose unforgettable videos have been viewed tens of millions of times on YouTube.

Bandleader Damian Kulash used to be an engineer at an NPR member station in Chicago, so we figured he’d be up for helping us execute a simple idea: Have OK Go start performing a Tiny Desk Concert at our old location, continue playing the same song while the furniture and shelving is loaded onto a truck, and finish the performance at our new home. In addition to cameos by many of our NPR colleagues — Ari Shapiro, Audie Cornish, David Greene, Guy Raz, Scott Simon, Alix Spiegel, Susan Stamberg and more — this required a few ingredients:

  • Number of video takes: 223
  • Percent used in final version: 50
  • Number of raw audio channels: 2,007
  • Percent used in final version: 50
  • Number of microphones: 5
  • Number of hard-boiled eggs consumed: 8, mostly by bassist Tim Nordwind
  • Number of seconds Carl Kasell spent in the elevator with OK Go: 98
  • Number of times Ari Shapiro played the tubular bells: 15
  • Number of pounds the tubular bells weighed: 300
  • Number of times the shelves were taken down and put back up: 6
  • Number of days it took to shoot: 2
  • Number of cameras: 1

OK Go played “All Is Not Lost” from Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, with words tweaked by the All Songs Considered team. And so begins a new era for the Tiny Desk, after 277 concerts (counting this one) in our old home.

The Carl Kasell bit is my favorite part.

September 13, 2013 /Royal Stuart /Source
watched, npr, all songs considered, ok go
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September 12, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Here’s a nice electronic-plus-stringed-instruments song by Iceland’s múm. The band has always seemed to float around my radar, never landing squarely in it until now.

Their new album, Smilewound — their seventh — came out back in June.

September 12, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, múm
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September 11, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Fun song and video from Scottish darlings Belle and Sebastian, from their rarities and b-sides album, The Third Eye Centre, that came out earlier this year. This particular song, “Your Cover’s Blown” was remixed by Miaoux Miaoux, also from Scotland.

September 11, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, belle and sebastian, miaoux miaoux
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September 10, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Looks like TV on the Radio (HOW DO THEY NOT HAVE THEIR OWN ACTUAL WEBSITE?!) have a new album coming, but it‘s still not clear when. “Million Miles” will be on it, though.

September 10, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, tv on the radio
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September 09, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Sleigh Bells are back, with the title track of their forthcoming third album, Bitter Rivals, due October 8.

September 09, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, sleigh bells
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September 08, 2013 by Royal Stuart

I love this slow version of Mazzy Star’s 1993 hit “Fade Into You,” created by Tim Carmody from Kottke.org. He slowed the song down by 18.921%, dropping the pitch and tempo, making it even slower, and sounding like it’s sung by a man. He slowed down many other songs as well, all because of the slow version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” that was circulating around in early August.

Turns out Mazzy Star has a new album coming out on September 24, called Seasons of Your Day.

September 08, 2013 /Royal Stuart /Source
listened, mazzy star, tim carmody
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September 07, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Another video from The National from this year’s Trouble Will Find Me. This time, the band is getting wasted on camera and apparently injuring themselves.

September 07, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, the national
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September 06, 2013 by Royal Stuart

I love this song. I love the setting. I love the crowd murmur that dies down as the song goes on. And apparently I love Basia Bulat, although this is the first song I’ve ever heard of hers. The recorded version of “It Can’t Be You” can be found on Bulat’s new album, Tall Tall Shadow, which comes out October 1. This will be the third album for the Toronto-based singer/songwriter.

September 06, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, basia bulat
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September 05, 2013 by Royal Stuart

One of my favorites from this past weekend (Bumbershoot 2013) was seeing Superchunk play the KEXP Music Lounge.

Here’s a video for “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo” from the band’s new album I Hate Music. A nice little post-punk ditty.

September 05, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, superchunk
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August 26, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Here’s a catchy little tune from an English band called Sky Larkin. The song is called “Loom,” and the band’s upcoming third album, Motto, out September 16.

August 26, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, sky larkin
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August 25, 2013 by Royal Stuart

Keyboard headdress. That’s about all the words I can muster around this mind-bending video from Ra Ra Riot. Their album, Beta Love, is out now.

August 25, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, ra ra riot
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August 24, 2013 by Royal Stuart

I’ve only touched the tip of the Explosions in the Sky iceberg, but I’m fairly certain the music in this video is from a completely different planet entirely. The song is called “Send Off” and it’s from Explosions in the Sky’s original motion picture soundtrack for the movie “Prince Avalanche.” With this song and video, I both want to see the movie and listen to the soundtrack.

August 24, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, explosions in the sky, david wingo
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August 23, 2013 by Royal Stuart

By now, you’re undoubtedly one of the 5.2+ million people who’ve already watched this Mumford & Sons video. Maybe even more than once (ahem). So let’s just say we’re putting it here for posterity.

I’m decidedly in the not-a-fan category when it comes to Mumford, but this video went a long way in getting me close to falling over that fence. “Hopeless Wanderer” is from the band’s most recent album, Babel.

August 23, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, mumford and sons
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August 19, 2013 by Royal Stuart

If Chvrches’ forthcoming debut album The Bones of What You Believe (due out Sept. 23) is simply the sum of their previous EP Recover and this new song, “The Mother We Share,” I think I’d still be overjoyed.

This album is gonna blow your socks off.

August 19, 2013 /Royal Stuart
watched, chvrches
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