Eat your heart out, The White Stripes

Ladytron has a new album out, but you already knew this. I mean, I hope you did, I want to remain friends and everything. Velocifero definitely comes from that phase in a young band's life where they're experimenting, trying new things, tweaking their sound. As such it's a little uneven, although it's hard to deny a dance floor rocker like "I'm Not Scared" or the haunting strains of "Predict the Day".

But Ladytron is out to prove that they are still the coolest nerds around. Exhibit A, this hypnotic video for the otherwise indifferent track "Runaway". Resolved: to wear a lot more stripes. Somewhere, Jack White is sobbing quietly in a corner. If only he'd thought of this.

Ladytron-Runaway (Myspace Exclusive)

I've noticed that recently lead singer Helen Marnie seems intent on reclaiming the title of The Hot One. I've always been a Mira Aroyo guy myself (she has a PhD in Molecular Genetics!), but I have to admit that the video for "Ghosts" puts some points up for Helen's team. Plus, you know, spooky rabbits.



(OK I've just figured out what the common thread is here. It's those damn pixie haircuts. They're too freaking irresistible. Helen, call me.)

Muppets are AWESOME!

It's no secret that we've got a soft spot for all things Muppet here at The Girls Music Blog... so in case you've yet to catch these rather dated viral vids please take a moment to enjoy them now. Oh, and make sure to stick around till the end of each video to get your geezer on with Statler & Waldorf!


Habanero by Swedish Chef featuring Beaker & Animal
"Bort... bort, bort, bort, bort!"


Blue Danube Waltz by Gonzo
"Greeting culture lovers and citizens of the world wide web!"


Sam Eagle's Independence Day Tribute
"World Wide Web!
Is there a way to put this just on the American part?"


Ode to Joy by Beaker
"Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep Meep
Meeeeeeeeeep Meep-Meep!"

Faintly Faciinatiing

The Faint's latest studio album offering has been released, not on Saddle Creek, but on their own label Blank.wav. Exciting, yes. But...Faciinatiing, ehh. The Faint wrote, recorded, produced and released the new album on their own, with the inspiration behind their independent attitude coming from bands of their youth. It's more of the same, but thankfully I like the same - just manage your expectations on this one as they work out the kinks for their next release.

Here's what their press statement said:

"Fasciinatiion is an album that draws on many defining facets of The Faint’s sound, while remaining completely different from anything else they’ve put out. A record whose themes include predictions and the future, tabloid culture, the allure of what may never be, childhood lost and more, Fasciinatiion sounds as if it’s been beamed in from a satellite whose sole purpose is observing, and making sense of, the details of every day existence. In certain ways, the album is the most mechanical and precise of the band’s work: Todd’s voice sounds less human than ever before; the bass lines are more mangled, keyboards spiral and squeal out of control; electronic pings and stabs invade the melodies; the lyrical anxiety and disdain of previous albums pervades almost every song on Fasciinatiion. Opener “Get Seduced” is The Faint at their best, the song’s critique of celebrity culture matched with one of the finest choruses they’ve ever written. First single “The Geeks Were Right” draws on the tenets of futurist literature and sliding, siren-call guitars. “Fulcrum and Lever” marries ambient noise with space references, alienation and a stuttering, flexing beat, while “Mirror Error” explores identity and consciousness within its perfect, propulsive electro-pop, its choruses swirling high and taking Todd’s voice up with it. Closer “A Battle Hymn for Children” flinches with nervous rhythms against resentment of the future to be inherited and keyboards that sound like flailing voices (or is it flailing voices that sound like keyboards? On Fasciinatiion, one can never tell)."

Moby Mash-Up

Moby returns to his dance club roots in Last Night, which, according to RCRD LBL_, "is conceptually structured like one of these epic nights out, moving from the building excitement of the early evening to peak-time euphoria to 2 am confusion and the blissful peace of the early morning."

Sounds like they forgot the late night/early morning trip through the Taco Bell drive-thru, but if mix-master Moby can really cram a night-long rave into a 60-minute album, consider me intrigued...

...but it's gonna wreak havoc on the glo-stick market.

A broadway show stuffed into saddle shoes

Janelle Monae is a cyber-soul rock angel from the future. Her debut, Metropolis: The Chase Suite, is a retro meets neuvo concept album based on Fritz Lang's iconic 1927 German expressionist film of the same name. Musically, she explores a dystopian universe full of robots, evil capitalists and oppressed workers as Android No. 57821, also known as Cindi Mayweather, who has comitted the unforgiveable crime of falling in love with a human named Anthony Greendown.

In a bold move designed to thwart piecemeal purchasers, Monae has decided release her material in a series of suites, a group of about five-to-seven songs released every few months. This is the first of four suites in the Metropolis series in which our beloved and beleagured heroine tries to flee from the Star Commission, which has caught wind of her little crush and are searching for her with intentions to kill, hence the subtitle, The Chase.

Ironically, Monae creates this futuristic world of hers by synthesizing past inspirations: the operatic pop and hornlike sharpness of Shirley Bassey, the energetic funk of James Brown and the breezy rock and soul of OutKast.

Bedazzling the Masses

This rhinestone-bedazzled wonderkind, also known as Leslie Hall, has created her own niche online as a ferocious rapper, talented producer and dedicated sweater curator - she was born to bust a jam.

How We Go Out


Willow Don't Cry


Zombie Killers

The world is full with silly love songs...

...but this is not one of them. Upon closer inspection, this single from Aussie-born soul girl (at heart, anyway) Sam Sparro sprinkles disco dust on a song about the existence of god and the meaning of life rather than some silly crush, which make the lyrics all that much more poignant. Check out the slickly produced video, with lyrics printed beneath:

If the fish swam out of the ocean
and grew legs and they started walking
and the apes climbed down from the trees
and grew tall and they started talking

and the stars fell out of the sky
and my tears rolled into the ocean
now I’m looking for a reason why
you even set my world into motion

’cause if you’re not really here
then the stars don’t even matter
now I’m filled to the top with fear
but it’s all just a bunch of matter
’cause if you’re not really here
then i don’t want to be either
i wanna be next to you
black and gold
black and gold
black and gold

i looked up into the gray sky
and see a thousand eyes staring back
and all around these golden beacons
i see nothing but black

i feel a way of something beyond them
i don’t see what i can feel
if vision is the only validation
then most of my life isn’t real

’cause if you’re not really here
then the stars don’t even matter
now I’m filled to the top with fear
but it’s all just a bunch of matter
’cause if you’re not really here
then i don’t want to be either
i wanna be next to you
black and gold
black and gold
black and gold

The rest of the albumn is just as bright and brassy, and socially conscious, it's decidedly funk-ified songs espousing on such popular topics as water shortage, pollution, hunger and famine and the importance of recycling.