Archive for 'Music Video'
Ernest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 9
“Heads Will Roll” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
How does one solve the problem of modern rock? Where to go? It can’t get any quieter. Any more whispering and moaning and we’ll lock these people in their rooms. It can’t keep sifting the rusty box of punk and hard rock forever. So what do Karen O [...]
Ernest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 10
“99 Problems” by Jay-Z mashed with the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” by Danger Mouse: The original Jay-Z version is cool enough, of course, but Danger Mouse led the mashup revolution with the infamous Grey Album, an amalgam of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the legendary White Album by the Beatles. The results are decidedly mixed, but this [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 11
“The World is Full of Crashing Bores” by Morrissey: He came to prominence in the eighties, enjoyed a fruitful solo career through the nineties, and is still tickling us with his arch, prickly, mournful songs today. He still pulls his shirt off on stage and flings it to the audience, but I notice lately he [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 12
“Squatterz” by Jakk Frost: You can’t buy these albums on iTunes or in stores (the few that still sell albums). I got my copies of his albums from a cab driver who got me home late at night from a party (and I was spiraling around the galaxy at that hour). I had seen the [...]
Full StoryReally, Would it Kill You to Read a %*$(@&*# Book? . . . . the Rap! (Not Safe for Children or Those of Senstive Dispositions!)
Thanks to E-Verser Bill, famous lawman, for sending this in.
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Remember Live Aid? Maybe Hearing Aid, the metal one in the US? Well, how about Swedish Metal Aid . . . .
Have you ever seen so many mullets?
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 13
“Despicable Heroes” by Arch Enemy: Who would imagine such a slender woman could produce such pit-of-hell horrific growls. She’s a Valkyrie! Angela Gossow sounds like a five hundred pound Grizzly Bear, and she puts on a high-energy show with her Swedish melodic death metal outfit. This is not for guys with square glasses and ironic [...]
Full StorySpinal Tap Before There Was Spinal Tap: Enter Black Death, 1977
For more information on this heavy metal band, which is still active, click here.
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 14
14. “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” by Peter Sarstedt: Originally on the soundtrack for Hotel Chevalier, a short film Wes Anderson added before festival screenings of The Darjeeling Limited. For me the story in the song has taken on a life of its own. Frankly, it’s more cinematic and appealing than the movie. [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 15
“Fuck The People” by The Kills: You can surely understand this sentiment, particularly when you’re at the post office just before Christmas. This power duo, Alison Mosshart with guitarist Jamie Hince, is cool, moody, sexy, angry, noirish, punk, and, again, [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 16
16. “I Love the Unknown” by Clem Snide: Eef Barzelay (love that name), the animating force behind the alt-rock/alt-country band Clem Snide, really nailed it with this fine song. It is comic, yearning, and wise. You know what he’s talking about when he sings “they asked him, / ‘hey, where’s this bus going?’ / and [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 17
“In The New Year” by The Walkmen: This five-piece Philadelphia/New York outfit loves the sound of vintage instruments, and so do I. This is a song that really snuck up on me over the past year. Although I haven’t managed to catch one of their shows yet, they’re definitely on my list. The chorus of [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 19
19. “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse: Again, some might think “oh, Ernie, how mainstream,” but I just love this song no matter how many times I hear it. Its self-destructive triumphalism can’t be beat. Rehab? She says “no, no, no” and means it. Her train-wreck of a personal life became rich fodder for tabloids and blogs, but [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 20
20. “She’s a Rejector” by Of Montreal: I’ve found that Of Montreal is a band no one has a half-way opinion on. If you know who they are, or have seen their outrageous, pageant-like live shows, you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. I love ‘em. All the New Yorker-ish pretentiousness about semiotics and aesthetic synthesis [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 23
23. “The Poor House” by The Boxmasters: OK, strange to include a song from Billy Bob Thornton’s band, which has been called capable but little more than competent, but this a perfect song for the recession-era end of the decade. A loveable loser, that fixture of country music, sings earnestly: “I’m working on a plan to [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 21
21. “Strange Overtones” by David Byrne and Brian Eno: Uber-producer Eno brings out the nonchalant nerdiness of Byrne, who simultaneously dates himself—self-consciously of course—and gives us something that sounds very new. The beat is splendid, one of the best I’ve heard in a long time, and Byrne’s vacant, languid, somehow sad delivery is pitch-perfect.
1. “Blood And [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 22
22. “The Great Salt Lake” by Band of Horses: A good friend of mine is a music producer in Seattle, where he runs a record label. I usually see him at Christmas when he’s back in Philadelphia to visit family. The year before Band of Horses broke, he told me to start listening. They’ve been compared [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 24
24. “Walcott” by Vampire Weekend: Wow, these kids really got big fast, selling a half million records (a lot in these post CD days) at home and over a million abroad since 2007. Their bouncy, urbane blend of Afro-pop and indie rock struck a chord with a lot of kids, and it looks like they’re here [...]
Full StoryErnest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 25
25. “What Katie Did” by The Libertines: Yes, Pete makes it onto the list twice in two different bands (so does Craig Finn, in both Lifter Puller and The Hold Steady). If anyone knows anything about Pete it’s that he’s a drug addict and that he used to date Kate Moss. I would often overhear [...]
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Ernest Hilbert’s Top Two Hundred Best Songs of the Decade, Number 9
9. “Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs: How does one solve the problem of modern rock? Where to go? It can’t get any quieter. Any more whispering and moaning and we’ll lock these people in their rooms. It can’t keep sifting the rusty box of punk and hard rock forever. So what do Karen O [...]
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“I’m so sorry for that laddie / He hasn’t got a daddy”: E-Verser Ann Sends in What Must Be the Most Depressing Christmas Song of Them All
“The Little Boy that Santa Claus Forgot” is a little-known ditty written in 1937 by the team of Michael Carr, Tommie Connor and Jimmy Leach. It has been recorded by Vera Lynn (whose version appears in the Pink Floyd movie The Wall), Johnny Adams, Elsie Carlisle[1], Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Billy Cotton, John Farnham, [...]
Full StoryAussie Paul’s Favorite Christmas Song, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby
Paul says: “That was before I had one and I imagined it to be quite magical until i discovered that it was not as much fun as going to the beach which is what we used to do. My grandfather liked Bing as well.”
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