Ballad of Steven Slater is a fun rock song with a subject ripped from the headlines! It’s about a flight attendant who got fed up, walked off the job dramatically, and became a folk hero. A year later, he gave an interview to the Huffington Post, he was in better shape, and avoiding media. Good luck!
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Romantic comedies have tropes like meet-cutes, and sparks found in a moment of connection. This Was Hardly A Moment is a rock song that takes a look at those tropes and says, “uh, no.” There are songs about love at first sight, and this is like an anti-love song.
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Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom is a dumb, fun, and short punk rock song. Oh, and it’s catchy, too.
The title’s inspired by a weird news item.
Heart of Glass is an awesomely eclectic cover of the 1970’s disco Blondie tune: it features “acoustic guitar, ukulele, mandolin, piano, jazz organ, vibes, panflute, synth vox, drumset, a couple of bean shakers, tone blocks, clapping-and-stomping-in-the-bathroom, kazoo, and at least three vox takes.” It manages to perch just on the edge of falling apart, which is a really fun and interesting place for music. It sounds like a party, though it’s all by one guy.
Don’t Stop Kazooin’ is a gleeful kazoo quartet cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” I love cortex’s happily lofi covers, can you tell? Tomorrow will be different.
You Got It is a raucous bluegrass Roy Orbison cover.
Kids is a lofi cover of a song by MGMT. It’s raucous and fun.
Rewrite is a plucky musically-upbeat rock song, with banjo and guitars. Lyrically, it’s a big dislodged chunk of post-breakup catharsis.
It’s from cortex’s “record an album in a month” challenge, which produced Inchoatery, which has gotten some play here.
Drunk Again is a weightless indie pop tune, vibrophone and ukelele just floating along. It’s about the “feeling no pain” part of drinking and wallowing. It’s another track off his “make an album in a month” project, Inchoatery.
Uh Uh is a dancy little pop rock song from cortex, part of an attempt to make an entire album in a month – which succeeded as Inchoatery. Another track or two may appear here.
Edit: Consider this a Saturday bonus track!
Where Is My Mind is a cool little garage rock cover of the Pixies tune, with a theremin wailing away and rockstar guitars.
Oh Balloon Boy is a raucous lofi pop rock song. The lyrics are from mikepop (first song here!), and the rest from cortex. The song’s based on the balloon boy hoax of October 2009. I feel like I should have some useful tag for music drawn from real-life events. News? Non-fiction, perhaps? “Reality” sounds ridiculous here.
Edit: If you’re wondering where he went, Falcon “Balloon Boy” Heene surfaced earlier this year in a very young metal band.
Affording Good Beheadings is a poppy song in part about ritual suicide, backed by a ukelele and with backup singing also by cortex.
It’s Mefi Music song #4000!
The Bottom Falls Out of the Clouds (demoriffic version) is an acoustic and folk cover of a song from cortex. It’s sort of pretty, and slow, not downbeat exactly, but enjoying a rainy day.
Femme Fatale is cortex’s piano rock / garage rock cover of the Velvet Underground song. It’s his second shot at it; his first take involved a Christopher Walken impression, which also makes a secret appearance in the background here.
Halle Hula is a hula-flavored cover of Hallelujah, just ukelele and singing and *so much* joy.
Catastrophes is folk rock – a cello and a piano backing some earnest and defiant singing by Brian Rozendal.
O Superman is a non-electronic and mostly acoustic cover of the experimental Laurie Anderson song. This is fairly unusual and experimental in its own right.
I’ll Stab You (for Sumru) is a parody of Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” with lyrics about a specific game of Diplomacy. If you haven’t heard of it, Diplomacy is a board war game of intense scheming and two-faced political alliance-building and backstabbing. The game seems smart and challenging and highly recommended, with some really big caveats.
Where was I? Oh yeah. The song is a decent mimickry of an earnest song, with a piano and nice synth strings in the background.
Young Devin Funck was a twelve-year-old boy who tangled with a ten-foot-long alligator, and lived to tell the tale. Astro Zombie wrote poetry, and cortex did his best Johnny Cash.
Take On Me (a cappella cover) is not faithful to the original, but it’s hilarious & really entertaining.
I’ll call those off-kilter covers.
This is an educational song about how (some) snakes are Green and Long and Mean. To be fair, not all snakes are mean; some snakes are very friendly, willing (eager, even) to give full-body hugs.
This concludes the second Music Challenge, snakes.
Edit: Whoops! This was meant for Monday’s post.
Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out is a Great Depression-era folk song by Woody Guthrie.
Dr. Who Goes To (Final Fantasy) Town is a combination of the themes of Dr. Who & Final Fantasy, as played by Pink Floyd.
Bush and Koizumi Visit Graceland mixed news & a love song.
Scooby Doo is a goofy beatboxing song, built around the phrases “Scooby Doo” & “Eric’s, Eric’s, Eric’s mom.”