Just last week, I wrote about The Roots and John Legend teaming up for a new album called Wake Up Everybody. I also embedded a song from The Roots new album How I Got Over called The Fire, which features John Legend.
Now, that song has a video. Questlove tweeted out this message earlier today:
if ever i needed the power of 1.3 million RTs and you claim you love The Roots its NOW http://youtu.be/n94URvpQOAc #HIGO (WATCH THE VIDEO!)
How about I do him one better? Since The Roots’ new album is the leader in the clubhouse for my favorite album of 2010, I’ll embed the video below.
So, in a previous “Big In…” episode, I posted a video by Germany’s currently reigning Idol-equivalent champion Mehrzad Marashi and the same show’s most successful alumnus Mark Medlock, doing a pretty horrible dance song together… on a boat. Not to be outdone is one Jessy Matador, the 27-year-old Zairian-French singer-and-dancer who represented France in this year’s Eurovision song competition with “Allez! Ola! Olé!” and gave the country its best showing in years. (France last won the competition in 1977. The last time it placed as a runner-up was in 1991.) The song may only have placed 12th in the Eurovision competition but it’s currently shaking its ass at the top of the French pop chart, and it’s formed a gigantic conga line all over Europe going Top 20 in Germany, and Top 10 in Belgium, Norway (who as 2009’s Eurovision winners hosted this year’s competition) and Finland (suck on that, Dark Metal). It even nicked the U.S. club charts.
And why not? Its infectious Afro-Carribean beats feel both instantly familiar and alluringly exotic – it’s a song in search of a Bacardi ad campaign, basically. When Jessy Matador calls out “Tout le monde!”, he means, “Everybody!”. But the literal translation of the French is “All the world!” and that applies here too. The song’s got a chorus that blithely defies language barriers by defying language itself. Allez Ola Ole? A two-year-old from Mongolia could sing along to it! The first time I heard this, I just thought it was a goofy song (the video doesn’t help that impression – see about 3:08 in the video for the dorkiest temper tantrum ever) that I figured I’d forget before I had time to close the internet browser. But its infuriatingly simple hooks have proven as relentless as Jaws, and I’ll be damned if I’ve gone a day the last couple weeks without going back to it at least once before heading out on my morning commute.
According to the lyrics of his latest song, Hrishikesh Hirway, the main man behind indie pop band The One A.M. Radio, isn’t getting much sleep these days. But the chipperness (and consequent awesomeness) of his music has apparently increased in direct proportion to his insomnia. The group’s latest single “Credible Threats” is a modestly upbeat little ditty with adorably wordy verses and a playful, chutes and ladders melody, backed by pretty, ripply guitar parts and anchored by a buzzy retro synth drone. The cumulative effect is vintage Belle & Sebastian as filtered through Devo, the fatalism and urgency of the lyric just barely masked by Hirway’s softly witty, matter-of-fact, slightly detached, but ultimately vulnerable delivery. With its dorky bum-ba-dum breakdown and krautrocky instrumental coda (replete with singalong “oohs” over flying saucer synths), “Credible Threats” is just a funny sounding (but not necessarily funny funny) song about a guy who stays up at night cataloguing all the ways an unspecified “they” say he might die. That Hirway’s an emphatically mild-mannered American living in an hysterically angry America, with a “funny” name and what Sheriff Arpaio might deem a “terrorist complexion”, or at least “illegal” colored skin only underlines his probably-not-for-nothing, paranoia-tinged anxiety. I mean, here’s a guy who’s been watching himself some serious news lately. And then there’s this great couplet at the bridge:
Tom Brokaw’s talking about a dirty bomb
I got another call from my poor Mom.
The song comes with this cute little video by director Andrew Huang. (Dig that choreography!) And James Cameron will be thrilled to know that Huang also did a 3-D version of the video which you can watch here. OR: Better yet, why not get yourself a copy of the 7″ single of the song directly from the band? (I just ordered mine.) In addition to the supercool colored vinyl, you’ll get downloads of the three mp3 tracks as well as the 3-D video, along with your very own set of 3-D glasses with which to watch it. All that for a mere $5.00 ($7.50 with shipping). But it’s only available in a limited edition of 500. So if you like it, you should put a credit card number on it. Like now.