Keeping It Fresh

Today I have some darker music for you. This is by one of my favorite bands of all time- Thirty Seconds to Mars. This is a band that has consistently delivered incredible music even in the wake of evolving their sound. I won't lie, I am mildly in love with Jared Leto. I mean the man is extremely gifted and versatile. From producing music to creating music videos to being one of the most low key-brilliant actors of our generation, Jared Leto is a man who expresses things so well. This song is one of my favorites by the band. It doesn't use the conventional band instruments as much as it does use synths and keyboards and strings. This is a song that is weirdly gut wrenching and pulls at your heart. But not in a sad and romantic. This is more of a personal battle, a fight with yourself, and that anguish is what we really get to feel and hear in this song. And we get that feeling the most from Jared Leto's vocals. In this song, we get a more raw version of his vocals, a sound t...

Today I have some awesome music for you from the electronic duo known as Vicetone. One of the characteristics of Vicetone that I love is that they are masters at producing and remixing. Not to say other DJ's cannot. But Vicetone has this incredible creativity woven into their music that I cannot shake. This song is probably my absolute favorite example of their creativity.Vicetone decides to feature an incredibly important man, one who will go down in history because of the amazing things he accomplished. Ladies and gentleman, today I am bringing you a song that has taken a President speech and made it musical verses. As odd as that may seem, Vicetone makes it work really well. To open the song, they have inserted the beginning of one of Obama's speeches. The intro is a little bit longer, but this particular part of Obama's speech sets the song up and the title incredibly well. Vicetone then softly brings in the main rhythmic melody of the song. It flanks Obama's speech...

Today I have music for you by one of my favorite music projects out of London by the name Graffiti6. I have posted quite a bit of music by them in the past, and I think for good reason. Graffiti6 is one of those  low key  bands that a few people know about, and even fewer know how far their influence really goes. Graffiti6 is comprised of two musicians, Jamie Scott and Tommy Danvers. What many people don't know about these two is that they are  unofficially  members of the boy band One Direction. Jamie Scott is the guy responsible for writing a lot of One Direction's big hits and romantic ballads. He really is the sixth member of One Direction, or should I say  fifth  member now? Either way, we already have a taste of Jamie Scott's lyrical talent, and see even more of it with his work with Graffiti6. The thing about Graffiti6 that I love so much is how soulful the band sounds. A lot of the musicality of the song has this offbeat pop sound, with some funk th...

Today I have some music for you by an artist who has consistently been able to make me stop whatever it is I may have been doing, and just listen. Hunter Hayes is an artist who doesn't fall shy of the mark when it comes to writing and composing good music. He is one of the most talented artists that I have heard, and especially for his youth. Every song is an inside view  into  the talented world he seems to be a part of. Hunter Hayes is an extremely gifted guitarist along with being a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. As a country artist, we don't always get that stereotypical country vibe from his music. In fact this song is far from it. I have to say, out of every song I have heard by Hunter Hayes, this is downright my absolute favorite. For starters, the song tends to take on more of a blusey sound. From the beginning of the song, we are privy to Hunter Hayes' guitar versatility. He eases into the strumming to lead us into the first verse. The guitar does...

Today I have a different kind of song for you. Covers have become an incredibly huge phenomenon in  the music world, and more and more we are seeing cover artists who are gaining just as much, and sometimes, even more coverage than other popular artists. So when it comes to cover artists, I really enjoy how each person takes their own spin of the song. And Postmodern Jukebox took one of the most popular songs of the last few years and created a cover that is astonishingly good. We all know Beyonce, we all know what her music is like, and we have heard some interesting renditions of her music. However, this is a cover unlike I have ever heard. Normally, Beyonce covers are done in that same R&B style of feature something more acoustic. But this is definitely not that. Welcome to the world of modern swing music! That is right, Postmodern Jukebox took one of the biggest songs of modern times and spun it to have that classic swing and jazz song. Who would have though that hip h...

Today I have music for you by a band known as Small Black. This song is a cool and chill song that really takes on the idea of trance and psychedelic music. There is something about this song that really captures your attention. I don't really know what that one thing is and it is so hard to discern when there are lots of amazing things happening in this song. For starters, there is a great correlation of the indie feel this song has with the idea of synthpop. I think the two styles melded very well together and made something entirely new. While still maintaining elements of the indie and synthpop feel, this song took a turn towards more chill style and dream style music. And that, that is one of the greatest things about music. You can start with two totally different things and end up with a new sound and idea. This song has very interesting vocal work. It is almost like a lower quality of recording because the vocals are so far removed from the rest of the music. There is an et...

Today I have a really smooth song for you by the artist Raye. She is definitely more of an underground artist, but I like that she is able to maintain that low key status for the sake of her music. Because let me tell you, her sound is really good. Raye is that weird transition from being melodic dubstep and R&B. Which is a strange combo, but somehow the two work really well together. When I hear this song, I am not immediately pulled into the R&B mindset, and I am not immediately drawn towards the electronic music ear. It is a nice tug from both ends, telling me that the song is really well balanced between the two. In a way, the feeling I get when I listen to this song is how I feel about a lot of songs by The 1975. They both have that ambient kind of sound, but Raye takes a little bit more of a sensual route. I mean I cannot deny that there is a dash of sexiness in this song, from the way she uses her breathier vocals and R&B style combined with the sl...