Finally Friday Video's Part I

It's never too late (or soon?) to start a tradition. Every friday from now on, I will post a video that marks the start of the weekend. This will be the place for forgotten songs, party songs, fun songs and whatever...but most of all: everyone's guilty pleasure...80's hairmetal!!!

I will kick off this tradition with a pretty good mash up of two awesome party songs. Party Hard by Andrew WK and Fight for your right by the Beastie Boys.

Play it loud Mutha!

Don't crush the Fratellis

My older brother Dennis told me about this Glaswegian band The Fratellis last week. With a bandname like that you would expect some sweet powerpop, so I was rather surprised that this band fits well in the current stream of british poprock hype bands like Arctic Monkeys. Let me tell you this: when a band is hyped in the amount Arctic Monkeys is, I usually lose interest immediately. Must be some kind of internal mechanism...well, maybe I'm just a indie snob.

My first listen to their debut album Costello Music was in this cynical state of mind. Here I go. First song: not really my thing, but not bad...Second song: hmm, the intro starts of kind of arctic monkey-ish (and I know because I know probably 2 AM songs)...wait...40 seconds into this song they grab my attention with a "padapapadadada" singing harmony that just sounds...awesome! Now, I can't stop playing this song...but there's more to like on the album if you like a diverse mix of catchy energetic pop rock'n'roll songs. Not all songs are as good and special as Flathead though. Then again, the band only exists for about a year...

By the way, another aspect about this album is that you repeatedly will say to yourself: damn...this sounds a lot like [insert song] by [insert band], leaving you frustrated, because you can't come up with the band or tune the song sounds like. For instance, the song "Everybody Knows You Cried Tonight" sounds a lot like a Clash song and the song "For the Girl" surprisingly reminds me of a song by The Vandals (annoyingly catchy chorus, singing over guitar solo/riff).

The Fratellis - Flathead
The Fratellis - Everybody Knows You Cried Tonight
The Fratellis - For the Girl

The Fratellis on MySpace

No Trigger

After some indiepop flavoured posts, it's time to satisfy my friends with a knack for something a little more agressive, more energetic, something faster. Let me introduce you to Massachusetts melodic hardcorepunk outfit No Trigger. This five piece band has created a perfect blend of melodic hardcore and sing-a-longable punkrock on their debut full length Canyoneer.

Three bands that come to mind while listening to this band...? Good Riddance, Strike Anywhere, but also Comeback Kid . It's nothing groundbreaking or original, but it's done oh so well!!! Already one of my favourite hardcorepunk albums of this year.

No Trigger - The Honshu Underground
No Trigger - Neon National Park

More songs on the band's MySpace

They're not from Barcelona...

...but from Sweden. Still, they are called I'm from Barcelona. This band consists of 29 (!) men and women and has been a hype for some time now in the blogging world. My blog only started recently, so this is me catching up.

The reason for their succes? The song "We're from Barcelona" will find its way inside your head after just one listen and will probably stay there the next few days. In the mean time, you'll find an urge to play this song again and again, which you don't really understand, because this song is as much a contemporary indiepop classic as it could be a succes on German schlager festivals! Then, you watch the video to the song for the first time and you're not sure why, but there's a smile on your face and you decide to watch it again. You start noticing how great (and one of his kind) this video is. You'll ask your friends if they've seen the video. "Did you see the girls with the large glasses?" "What about the singer...or the guy with the mullet?"



However, this band is not a one trick pony. Their album Let me introduce my friends is full of great (and agreed...some less than great) indiepop songs. I've put one of my favorites of the album up for download and you can listen to some other songs on their MySpace.

I'm from Barcelona - Oversleeping

Whatever happened to Midtown?

Midtown should have had the succes that Fall Out Boy or Panic at the Disco! now have. FOB has some decent songs (PATD! is really not my cup o' tea), but Midtown has written three great poppunk albums with so much potential hits, that you wonder why they're not one of the biggest poppunk bands right now. Well, maybe it's just a case of bad timing!

This weekend however, I found out that Midtown singer Gabe Saporta is having some succes in the states with his solo/sideproject Cobra Starship. His dance/pop/rock song "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" is the leading track from the soundtrack for the horrorcomedy Snakes on a Plane (featuring Samuel L. Jackson). Not surprisingly, according to the actor, the movie is about "motherfuckin' snakes on a motherfuckin' plane".

The first time I listened to this song, I just shook my head. However with the second listen I started noticing how catchy this song is. It's a fun song, nothing less but certainly nothing more. I still prefer any Midtown song over this and I can only hope that they write another album soon! Watch Cobra Starship's video and let me know what you think!