hold on to your kite.

School has been getting extra busy this week and it's only Monday so my posts might be a little less frequent coming up. But I'll try to keep up. I have a lot on my plate though. I mean I saw Madeleine Albright speak on the conflicts in Libya and Egypt tonight so it's not like I'm doing things that are totally unpleasant. She was pretty awesome by the way, so well spoken and biting at the same time.

Anyways I'm just going to share a version of "Naive" which was originally by The Kooks but is covered here by Lily Allen. I love Lily Allen, or her music at least, and think she is talented and kind of a more tongue in cheek version of Amy Winehouse. I have nothing against The Kooks, I saw them my sophomore year and The Morning Benders (who I think at this point is a much better band) opened for them, and I like their version, but I think Allen's acoustic version is a better fit. 

My favorite Lily Allen song is actually a Mark Ronson song which she sings called "Oh My God", which is itself a cover of a Kaiser Chiefs song. I hate the music video (animation and humans is such a weird concept that I just can't get over), but love the song. I know of it because of St. Trinian's, a film about a raucous group of prep school girls being bad asses. You should check it out if only because it has Colin Firth in it. (And Gemma Arterton, and Juno Temple, and Rupert Everett, and Talulah Riley, and Russell Brand before he became annoying omnipresent.)

call it impulsive, call it compulsive, call it insane.

I grew up in the 90s/00s so the music of that era holds a certain place in my heart. It doesn't even really matter if the music sucks, I love it anyway. So when a contemporary artist takes a song that I was so familiar with and completely turns it on its side, it can be hit or miss. Consider "Too Little Too Late" by Daniel Rossen a hit.

Now I have never really been that into Grizzly Bear, I am picky about my eerie, atmospheric music, and nothing I had heard really wowed me. Somehow, though, I stumbled upon (not StumbleUpon) a version of the aforementioned JoJo song by one of the members of Grizzly Bear and I can't stop listening to it. It is so different from the original in a totally imaginative way and I can't get over how much soul is injected into the lyrics just by them being sung a different way.

(And yes, the title of this post is a reference to The Barenaked Ladies. I loved them as a kid and they seem like all I've been listening to lately. And this song of course. And my Salsa Explosion! cd. Yeah, I know I'm cool.)

aston.

So Aston is this group of Australian musicians who have recently or are just about to graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and they are awesome. They do classical covers of pop songs that are so creative and inspiring it makes me wish I didn't quit my piano lessons. (But not enough for me to start again. Definitely not that much.) It is also really cool to see how much work went into something that was initially just a side project and grew into something more. It makes me reconsider that bubble wrap project...

Anyways, I struggled a little to decide exactly which song I wanted to post here. The arrangement and video for "Viva La Vida" are beautiful, but it seems like too obvious of a song choice for a classical cover band. And then I thought that maybe I would do "Only Girl (In The World)" because it also quite lovely. But I have decided on "Rude Boy" because it is such an unexpected song choice and Aston's version is actually rousing for classical music. (Not that there is anything wrong with classical music at all, it can just be a little stodgy at times.)

telephone + more