Geographically Speaking

Alright, I wasn't going to write about these guys but I'm really digging the sound. When one listens to a song for the first time and is already singing along by the end of it, you know that band is worth a listen. 

I honestly don't have a ton of information on the band Geographer, but they hail from San Fransisco and have a great synthy/real percussion sound. The band released a 7" last year and has followed up this year with Animal Shapes: a six song EP that has an awesome sound. I'm really into it. Lead singer Mike Deni has a fantastic voice and uses it to the peak of ability on this album. I'll be really excited if this band gets big - they definitely deserve it. Check out their MySpace and check out the single Kites below.

http://www.myspace.com/geographermusic

Geographer - Kites

(Image from music.is-amazing.com/mp3 streamed from strangerdance.com)

Not about pickles or babies

Well hello again. I got some pretty good feedback from my first post last week and it got me really excited to get back on here and throw some more music in your face. Let me start off with a disclaimer to my last post; I put up the video for Travie McCoy's Billionaire and talked about the album a little bit. Well, in the time since then, I've had a chance to listen to the whole thing, with slightly disappointing results. While I'm not saying that it's anything bad, it's just not exactly what I was expecting out of him. There are a few hits on there however that I'm sure you'll hear coming on the radio in the future, and it is definitely still worth a listen.

On to bigger and better things. Flo Rida (God, I love/hate that name...I can't decide) has recently come out with a song that will probably end up being as popular as Applebottom Jeans was a few years ago. Teaming up with David Guetta, the guy who hopped on with Akon to do Sexy Chick, he made this catchy song.

Next, I don't think that One Republic is really anyone's favorite band, but they tend to pop out a hit every now and then that makes people pay attention to them for a while. Off the most recent album, Waking Up, Secrets is the second single that has made it big. It has the typical One Republic feel; slow string instruments in the start, with a really catchy chorus. All-in-all, a pretty good song...although the video makes no sense.

I'm SUPERRRRR excited about this next song. This girl has QUICKLY begun battling Taylor Swift to be my future wife. Essentially the female Adam Young (Owl City), Valerie Poxleitner makes up the electronica band Lights...in fact, she legally changed her name to Lights. I heard the song Savior in the car today and automatically fell in love with her voice. Then I get home and look up the video...AND SHE'S SMOKING HOTTTTTT!!!!!! I'm going to marry this girl.

I'll leave you on that note...I will be looking up more from her in the very near future.

Hyper

So, admittedly it doesn't take much for me to blog about a song, but it generally has to be something I'm actually into and that I feel like other people should listen to because, ya know, it'll broaden musical horizons or something like that. Anyway, generally when I drive home from work it seems like awfully uninteresting music is on; so I usually relegate myself to the dance music channel hoping for a good remix of a song. Well, it's not often that totally random songs have awesome remixes but lately there's been one circulating that I've been pretty down with. Hyper Crush is a dance-y electro group from Los Angeles who have been working the dance scene since 2006. They Actually opened for Lady Gaga on here European tour. Lately, Hyper Crush has been blowing up on the dance channels due to a remix of their -already pretty good- single Keep Up. the Keep Up (Tony Arxadon Mix) has been circulating all over and I gotta say, I really enjoy it. It's one of those great drive-at-night-with-the-windows-down songs. Plus, I can definitely see a club going crazy for this song. Anyway, I'm going to leave you with the music video for Keep Up, but also with a download link/stream from GetHypedOnThis




Hyper Crush - Keep Up (Tony Arzadon Mix)

Out of the Ordinary

So, I don't usually update this site about anything but music, but I'm all about helping out when I can; so this morning I received a message from a friend I figured Attempts At Hip should be involved. So, what is it? Well let's find out.

 Baby Pickel is an organization devoted to helping single parents. By their figures there are 10,404,000 families lead by a single Mother and 2,501,000 by single Fathers. And that's a ton! Baby Pickel provides affordable clothing for children and their lead product is called the "Pickel Jar" which is a mason jar filled with whatever a new-born, or young, child needs. Now, I'm pretty terrified of babies, but this organization partners with the Alpha Pregnancy Center to provide free pregnancy tests, parenting classes, material aide and more; they truly are a great cause. Anyway, Check them out here at Baby Pickel.  Anyway, I'll step off my soapbox here..check out Baby Pickel if you get a chance. New music to come!

The M's

 So I am exhausted, but that just means it's time that I need to update you on the music I've heard lately. I've been traveling the past four days so I've missed some updating time, but I've got a couple great songs from two of my favorite bands tonight.

First is Mute Math. I love this band. Like, I will go far out of my way to hear this band. I heard this song a couple months ago when the band released a live version of it but didn't post it because I wasn't too into it. I'm still not totally sold on it - they have other way better songs in my opinion - but it's different for them and one song they wrote before most of their music that is currently popular, or even recorded. The band just never found a place for this song to fit. So, without further ado, I give you The Fight by Mute Math. (I don't know how long this song will stay online, if it doesn't I'll get it back, don't fret)

Mute Math - The Fight

Next, another one of my favorite bands. While you may judge me for it a little bit (or a lotta bit), I enjoy Maroon 5 a lot. I admit it. I've been pretty excited to hear what they've been up to since I heard new music was coming and finally caught the single today entitled Misery. Because this is hilarious, I'm going to leave you with a fan video of the song which I really hope the band picks up and runs with.


Finally, though this band doesn't have a name starting with "M", I've been meaning to update about this song for a week or two now. The Constellations are a band out of good 'ol Atlanta, Georgia and have a super catchy single out entitled Felicia. The song has some good humored crude lyrics that I love and this one will definitely get stuck in your head. I immediately thought of the classic Mambo #5 after hearing this one! Plus, I'm always down for a video full of pin-up-esque girls. Definitely. Maybe Katy Perry should work with these guys; just a suggestion. I really hope The Constellations are not a "one-hit wonder", because I think they've got some talent. So embedded from Ourstage.com here's their video for Felicia.

Anyway, leave your opinions in the comments! We'd love to hear from you!


Also, let me say I'm very excited to have Corey bringing us the news on Pop and Hip Hop. Also, Our other writers Paul and Tyce should be updating soon. We'll be viable again!

Triple Digits!

First off, let me start by introducing myself; I will be your new Pop/Hip-hop correspondent. I do a lot of driving and haven't had a chance to hook up my iPod (Blackberry) cord in my car. So I listen to a lot of radio. Believe it or not, you can find some decent music through that outlet...rarely, but it happens.

Second, and more importantly, this is our 100th post! Toss confetti, blow your vuvuzelas and kiss your loved ones. Now, on to the important things.

When Jack let me know that he wanted me to start writing for this, I actually felt incredibly privileged. Even though it's still somewhat of a fledgeling blog, Attempts at Hip has quite the decent following. I hope that you followers will enjoy my segments just as much as Jack and Paul's. I had to think a lot about what I would write about for my inaugural post. Travie McCoy has been on the top of my list of artists since his days running Gym Class Heroes. His first solo album, Lazarus, just came out a few weeks ago, along with the official video for the single Billionaire.

Get used to seeing more of him from me. Bruno Mars has also been added to my list of artists to watch. He's already got an EP out, with a studio album rumored to be released sometime later in the year.

Most of you know that before Lil Wayne got shipped off to jail, he made a pretty awful rock album. For some reason, I was going back and listening to a few songs from it recently and came across one that got my attention. This is Knockout with Nicki Minaj.

Mike Posner is one of these rising stars who looks like he might be off to something pretty big, especially at such a young age; he just graduated from Duke University. Most people have heard his song out now called Cooler than Me...if not, here it is.

His first album called 35 Minutes to Takeoff is scheduled to come out on August 3rd. Hopefully some more good songs will come along with it.

Finally, another young upcomer, The Ready Set; a one-man (kid?) project by 20 year old, Jordan Witzigreuter. I actually heard the song Love Like Woe on the way home from work today, and even in a dreary, Florida-5:00-thunderstorm drive, this kinda pepped me up. Some of his other songs didn't quite do it for me, but it's pretty damn good for the most part.

That's all I'll leave you with for tonight, hopefully you'll enjoy my posts as much as the others.

A Trend

So Foals new album Total Life Forever is out. I read an article the other day saying that in the past few months a lot of bands have been releasing albums that show how they have "grown up" and among the bands talked about was Foals; and I couldn't agree more. Along with Foals I feel like Cartel's new album could fall into this category and probably Tokyo Police Club as well, though they kept their trademark sound.
Foals has a their second video and single out from Total Life Forever and the track is Miami. I've posted the rather bizarre video below, but then again it is Foals so even though I feel like the video got switched with some Daddy Yankee video, I'm sure it's profound in its own way.

Anyway, when I was in middle school a radio station I used to listen to would do this daily contest where they would link up three songs from random bands, tell you nothing about them and then have you figure out what the connections between the three songs were. Well I won't leave you in the dark about the connection of these three songs that I'm about to post. All of these songs are about Miami; and they're all from very different bands. Apparently there's something special about Miami.



Interesting. Also, GO USA!

Absent Killer?

So Brandon Flowers, the lead man for The Killers let out his first sing from his solo debut album Flamingo a couple of days ago. The single apparently got leaked to a radio station who played it which made the record company none too happy, so the single has been pulled off most online sites..but it is still up on YouTube for the time being..give it a listen. Really, it just sounds like The Killers..just no Killers are present aside from the murderer himself, Flowers. Word has it that Flamingo will drop in September, but there's no official info on really...anything about that album. Give this a listen...Tell us what you think in the replies!

[Image via PMA]

Wednesday Videos

Firstly, I've stopped working currently because Neon Trees has a video covering Justin Beiber's Baby and it makes the song sound amazing. Neon Trees has sounded great lately but this song actually shows that they're really talented in my opinion - they actually made this song worthwhile.


Four Years Strong has a new video for It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now. I can't embed it but check it out here:
http://grafwall.indiestar.tv/2010/06/music-video-four-year-strong-it-must.html


Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg's new video for California Gurls came out today and amid all the hype about how "awesome" the video was supposed to be it ends up being kind of...well I'll let you decide. Let me just reiterate: Katy Perry is gorgeous.

Katy Perry - New Music - More Music Videos

Finally, Passion Pit has released a video for Sleepyhead, I, personally, don't like live compilation videos at all..I know your fans like you and I'm sure you could have had an interesting idea for a video but whatever, at least this one is well done.

Stop Motion Motions

OK Go has a new video out. Definitely doesn't disappoint in their traditional awesome low budget video format:

It's Science

Not a long update, but just found this awesome video back from March from We Are Scientists for the song Rules Don't Stop off the album Barbara. The album is awesome, check out the song/video below

A Crate Full of Music

Well hello there everyone and Happy Tuesday. There was a ton of new music to be released today and I'm here to catch you up on some of the highlights; mainly through YouTube videos. Why? Because I'm feeling lazy, yet informative.

Firstly, Lil Jon dropped his first album in 5ish years entitled Crunk Rock. The album has been in development forever and contains an all-star cast in the crunk rock world. The album has been getting mixed reviews so far. It seems like Throw it Up Pt 2 (Remix) may be the single..but I'm not actually sure. Wait, apparently I'm wrong - a song called Ms. Chocolate is the newest single. R Kelly and Mario are a part of the song and I mean, c'mon how can you not love R Kelly. Anyway, Here's the video for Ms. Chocolate, the other song Throw it Up can be heard after the page break (click read more at the bottom).


Man, I could have sworn I updated about the new Against Me! when it leaked a couple months ago but apparently I never did; my mistake. Well, Against Me!'s new album White Crosses is out today and there are some really strong tracks and some not so strong songs. All in all, I like it. The first single for the new album is a retroish sounding catchier, poppy-er song entitled I Was A Teenage Anarchist and I'm pretty sure I pissed off my house by playing this song ultra loud on repeat. In my opinion it's a great song. Here's the video for which, sadly, I think is one of the worst videos I've seen in a long time.

Well, here's a song that's not in a YouTube video. Hot Hot Heat's new album finally has dropped and it's growing on me. It's got a unique new sound but certainly keep the boys old feel. It's an exciting listen and I have a feeling this album Future Breeds is really going to have some influence on the indie genre. Here's the single Goddess on the Prairie that Spin featured last week
Hot Hot Heat - Goddess on the Prairie

Next is The Drums. I haven't properly given The Drums, out of Brooklyn, a very good listen but I've heard a tiny bit and I can't say that I dislike it. The sound is kind of that somewhat popular '80sish synthy pop indie and it's pretty good. The self titled The Drums drops today and here's the video for Forever & Ever Amen off the album


Keeping that New York theme going, good 'ol Ratatat has a new album entitled LP4 out today. Here's the single and cover art

Ratatat - Party With Children
I love birds.

Also, the new Tokyo Police Club is out! I'm super excited for this album and for now just going to post the video for Breakneck Speed, one of the new songs. I think we may have an album review of this one coming..

Tokyo Police Club - Breakneck Speed

TOKYO POLICE CLUB | MySpace Music Videos
ps, MySpace sucks.

That's all for now, more to come this week for sure on the other big new releases. Lil Jon's other video and a little more info after the page jump!

>> For a great list of today's releases check out http://blog.kexp.org/blog/2010/06/08/out-this-week-68/. The two mp3's on my page are linked through their comprehensive list.
>> Deertick and Blitzen Trapper reviews are on their way, get to the edge of your seat boys and girls!

Baby Sound

Lady Gaga's new Video can be seen here

http://www.ladygaga.com/alejandro/video/

I post this simply because people are freaking out about it..and it is actually an interesting watch.

Mashup

So this is going to be a very quick update, but DJ Earworm has been getting recognized as a great mashup artist and the new summer mashup has just been dropped and it's pretty great. What a lot of work..check out this video! Too bad Justin Bieber is the back beat...Bieber, you're the bane of my existence.

I Like Genre Crossing

And in the sense of this title, I love it when Genre's cross..especially when it's well done. In searching the interwebs for music I just came across and awesome B.o.B. cover of MGMT's Kids. This really sounds great! Here's the link to Pretty Much Amazing where I ran into it, but click below to listen to the song on this page:

B.o.B. - Kids (MGMT Cover)


And this isn't super new, but Katy Perry did a great cover of MGMT's Electric Feel a while ago and took it pretty seriously to create a great sounding acoustic song. I meant to post this a while ago but it completely slipped my mind. To make life easy, here's a YouTube video of the song:

A Tiny Bit Different

So, I've been known to post a little hip hop here and there and I've just spent a 12 hour car ride with a couple friends in which we listened to nothing but. So, on that note I'm pretty up to date on the new tracks out right now. And, I got a chance to actually listen to T.I.'s new mixtape aptly entitled "Fuck A Mixtape". Firstly, there's a pretty good single (a couple singles coming out), but one called Yeah You Know stands out. I've had no time to write up anything on the new music the past couple days but I didn't want to forget to post about this so with that said here's a stream from

Hiphopmusicdotcom.com with the song. Let me know what you think in the comments..and listen for the little rock influences in the song..definitely a new era of hip hop on the way it seems