We’re admittedly late on this one, but we have a perfectly good explanation. Well, we’re not sure how good an explanation it is, but it’s the truth – we couldn’t get the video to play.
Damn thing landed in our inbox in late June, but it kept stalling. And since there were 100 more ‘drop what you’re doing and watch/listen to this at once’ emails behind it, we moved on. (After taking last week off, there are now 200 of those emails waiting for us.) It’s that Yahoo player. Once the thing finally made its way to YouTube (ahem, excuse us, Vevo), it played just fine.
So here we are, late but still early enough to post this puppy before it crashes the Top 40. Damn, that bass line is the most awesomely sleazy thing we’ve heard in years. Like “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” with a libido. Let’s get right, okay?
We will admit that it may seem odd for the “guy’s portal to the web,” as we once fashioned ourselves, to highlight a video by a group as unabashedly gay as the Scissor Sisters, but we’d prefer to look at it this way: real men have the guts to admit they like bands like the Scissor Sisters. Since, you know, they’re fucking awesome.
Singer Jake Shears never pretended to be anything but the openly gay man that he is, but with the band’s new album Night Work, Shears has let it all hang out in ways that would make the band’s first two albums blush. They even recruited master thespian (and gay icon) Sir Ian McKellen to do a spoken word bit on the excellent album closer “Invisible Light,” and in the process created a track that would bring Frankie Goes to Hollywood to its knees. Their new single, “Any Which Way,” is much more indicative of the album’s sound than the first single “Fire with Fire,” which found the band trying to out-Killer the Killers. (That’s not what anyone wants from the Scissor Sisters, guys. Play to your strengths.) With a big ol’ funk bass line and Shears’ trademark falsetto, the song is vintage new disco, in the best way possible. Plus, in the break, female singer Ana Matronic (she’s straight, by the way) tells someone to take her in front of her parents. Kinky.
So yes, this video is really, really fabulous, if you know what we mean, but as well-adjusted straight men, the band’s overt sexuality does not threaten us in the slightest. Plus, it’s a gorgeous clip, regardless of how many shirtless men are in it. And above all else, remember this: your girlfriend will probably love it, so show her how open-minded you are by playing this when she comes over. You just never know what may come your way when you do something with her in mind. Just a thought.
Happy Friday, everyone. If you’re reading this within 72 hours of when it posts, then we’re standing somewhere in Chicago’s Grant Park, caked in dust from the softball fields the south stage bands are playing on. We’ll give you one guess which band we’re most excited to see. (Note: There is no official video for this song, so we settled for this Rock Band recording because it’s the most visually interesting YouTube clip of the song available.)
Oh, and for the people who made this clip, if you’re looking for a new singer, drop us a line. Ciao.
One our favorite songs from 2008, this L.A. band freaked the shit out of us when we saw what they looked like, but one spin of the first single from their Cheat the Gallows album was enough to make us say, “We’re in.” Like some demented extension of Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk after the band grew bored with Queen and moved on to Pink Floyd, “Money, It’s Pure Evil” is one of the most epic three-minute rock songs ever recorded, and there is even a part of the solol (first notes in the second half) that we could swear were taken straight from a Floyd, or at the very least David Gilmour, solo, but damned if we can figure out which one. As first we thought it was from “Comfortably Numb,” but nope. Then we thought it might be from “Time,” but nope. Either way, it’s positively Gilmourian, and there are few guitarists we hold in higher esteem than Sir Dave. Tune up your air guitars and even your air violins – they’re about to be put to use.
As for the video, well, it’s suitably creepy to go with the band’s serial killer look. Two girls are offered the chance to presumably sell their souls for money, and the one who agrees becomes famous but ends up looking like the Black Dahlia, which is a pretty shitty trade, if you ask us. That movie was terrible.
Seth Meyers may have joked that MySpace is the abandoned amusement park of the Internet, but let it not be said that it no longer has something to offer. As a social networking site, yes, Facebook has wiped the floor with them, but it’s still a great outlet for bands, especially if you’re at anything like us and like being able to check out a band’s material without handing over some private information for the privilege. Download our new song! All you have to do is fork over your email address. That practice just gives us the willies.
And then sometimes, something really awesome happens, like the unsolicited friend request from a really good band that you never would have heard about otherwise. Case in point: Ex Norwegian, a Miami trio that lives in this magical place where ’90s power pop is still going strong and nu metal and emo never happened. They sent us a friend request, and we asked if we could hear more. The kindly sent us their first album Standby. We liked. We posted a song from it in our download column Me, Myself and iPod. A little bit later, they sent us a link to download their recently completed new album Sketch.
Damn, it’s even better than their first album. Sweet.
Here’s the video for opening track and first single “Jet Lag.” We love the way it opens with a clear nod to grunge rock (that opening bass line and guitar chord is none more Alice in Chains), then gives way to a sky-high chorus that Sloan would be proud to call their own. If you like this, there is plenty more where it came from on Sketch, so do something you probably haven’t done in a couple years and hit a MySpace page, namely theirs. You won’t regret it.
