Oh yes, it's back and it's a thing of beauty. The end of month round up, the essential sync for your iPod, the food rations for your ears, iiiiiits the What's Wrong With The Mainstream playlist. Originally put together for Schonberg as a CD and then jumping on to the interweb as a blog, the playlist is designed to be downloaded as a whole, listened to several times and then pick off your favourites to add to your own playlist. Go ahead, cherry pick my beauties...
With all songs directly hosted you should be able to click the play symbol next to each song and listen to them as you download.
Stars
Releasing their fifth album Stars are no stranger to the music world but I'm not ashamed to admit I've only just been introduced to them. On this track the female vocals certainly remind me of Black Kids. The Five Ghosts is out now.
Hugo
Hugo's blues sound isn't new but it's not many artists who can do it this well. We posted his cover of 99 Problems just the other day so I'd show you what he can do when he's writing. Not bad Hugo, not bad.
Anja McCloskey
Tinker on those ivories in the right way and you've got me. Anja is from Haunted Stereo who we wrote about a while back and this is her debut release on her own. I think this is the start of something really good, come on Anja live up to your potential. We just need some nice strings now.
Cha-Cha
Mix the Kooks with The Virgins or Hockey and you've got Cha-Cha. That's either your thing or it isn't...
Steel Train
Somehow I managed to post the wrong track when I wrote about this band. I post a different track by them. I should have actually posted this track that was the one used in the video. It's a Bullet of a pop song - can I get any more lame?
MP3: Bullet - Steel Train
The Whigs
If you bothered downloading the three tracks that The Whigs were giving away then you would agree that it's difficult to separate which one is best. I'm enjoying them all and I'll be ordering it as soon as I've finished this post. You should too.
Jeremy Messersmith
I was drawn to this song for its cover art, not usually the way I discover music but I knew what kind of feel it would have. Folk music singing about graves, not a revelation but disappointing when it's anything else.
William Fitzsimmons
Raised by his two blind parents would probably make your ear more acute than the next man's, this is a remix, I don't normally post remixes but I think this is worthy of your attention. He's got a beautiful sound but this remix definitely adds to it.
Hot Hot Heat
Posted earlier in the month, a freebie from the band. There are two reasons bands give tracks away i) because no one will buy it ii) because they've got a sound they think everyone should hear. I'd put this closer to number ii.
School of Seven Bells
Best song of their new album, always welcome on my iPhone.
Aerial
If The Cribs were from Scandinavia
Bishop Morocco
Having listened to the album after my previous comments, the album is closer to Joy Division than Stone Roses. For me this is the best song on the album.
Jubby Taylor
Sheffield product Jubby Taylor gets his acoustic guitar out and plays a cheery song about life being heavy like the weather. Add a bit of Badly Drawn Boy esq strings and you've got something.
Paper Swords
I've probably not given their album enough chance yet to comment on it. This track stands out but is that because I already knew it. As we all know that can often be the case so all I will say is that I really like this track, I love how the drums kick in after two minutes and it has a gradual build after that, nothing much at first, an instrumental section and then, after another verse the instrumental kicks in again. The instrumental swallows you and it could go on way past its 6 minutes for me. I posted about this on the 16th of June but as I didn't do an end of month playlist for June I'm putting it in this one instead.
Trances Arc
I'm still enjoying this one, I hope you are too.
The Honey Pies
The retro blues start nearly makes me skip this track, jump to 15 seconds in and I remember why I like it. You can tell I'm from the CD / download generation, no time for intros.
The Knocks
This track doesn't really fit with the other tracks on this playlist and so any normal person would drop it but that's not we're about here. I like it, I think you might too. They've got some new stuff out but this is my favourite so far.
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
We've written about this lot before here and they are/were kindly giving this track away for free - it's worth having too.
J Roddy Walston & The Business
Find of the month and Jools Holland will probably wet himself when he hears this. I don't think it will be long before they're invited on Later... The label hope they will "do a Kings of Leon", having listened to the album the only comparison I can see is on track "I Used To Did" although I think they were meaning more success wise than sound. Kings of Leon with a piano? Kind of but not really. You tell me.
Time for a 3D TV
