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Thom Hell - Over You

there was a time when it was me and you

THIS IS JUST SO PRETTY.

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Frank Sinatra - It Can’t Be Wrong

would it be wrong to stay
here in your arms this way
under the starry sky?

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Kishi Bashi - Atticus, in the Desert

(Not quite as into this album as I was into the EP he put out last year, but it’s super listenable.)

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Elizaveta - Odi et Amo

your poems were so clever, i never saw your mask
you gave your heart so freely, i could not even see
it wasn’t you who smiled right back at me

There is hardly a song on Elizaveta’s album “Beatrix Runs” that I am not at least a little bit in love with, but this is the one that sticks out to me above all. Maybe because there is nothing — nothing — that will catch me more quickly than a play on a familiar classical theme (although this is a little different from A+’s Enjoy Yourself or Amies-Ennemies by Nâdiya), and this is a gorgeous twist on Mozart’s 40th symphony — but there’s something so big about this song in of itself than calling it “twist” or a “play” feels diminishing.

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Nine Muses - Ticket

one way one way one way ticket

Remember when Nine Muses were nothing but a joke?  I feel like lately they’re doing their darndest to combat that.

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fun. - Why Am I The One

my life’s become as vapid as a night out in los angeles
and i just want to say in bed

You know, up to now, I always thought The Format was a far better use of Nate Ruess’ vocals than fun. Maybe it was that I thought Dog Problems was so much better (and more energetic!) than Aim and Ignite, or maybe it was just that the Format was more tied up in the memory (of driving around Oregon with my dad) (…you read this blog, every other post is “when I was fourteen…”/”back in middle school…”/”I used to love this song”, I am pretty obviously a nostalgia-driven creature). I don’t know if I can say that after this latest album, to be quite honest. fun. has found their groove.  It’s already obvious this is going to be one of the albums everyone thinks of when they think of 2012, and it absolutely deserves to be.

Miss A - Touch

you touch my heart, baby
(touch touch)

Sometimes I think that JYP, more than any of the other k-pop companies (although not much more than the other big ones) understands that marketing pop music is not just about the song.  I mean, look at this: if you put a girl (or four girls, whatever) on a stage and had her sing this song a cappella it would be nothing, boring, unmemorable.  But they didn’t do that.  They build it up with super slick production (seriously guys I am SO OBSESSED with the background music here, that thing going on in the chorus?!?  IN LOVE!!!), a super weird zombie dance (intensified in the music video by speeding up the girls doing the choreo at half-speed), and a video that is, in the words of a friend, the music video equivalent of one of those weird supernatural covers you see on young adult novels.  Even the hair plays its part in making something of nothing.  It’s weird and creepy.  (I do not know if I’m talking about the use of the hair, “Touch”, or the magic of production.  ALL OF THEM, I GUESS!!!)