But I feel alive and I feel it in me,
Up and up i keep on climbing,
Higher and higher and higher.
- Passion Pit

Apparently the 80’s are back with a passion. A Passion Pit maybe? This band has apparently been blowing up the blogs recently. Their debut album, Manners, dropped on Tuesday and I’ve been jumping between it and the new White Rabbits ever since, but you already knew that.

A lot of people are going to listen to Passion Pit and say that it’s not for them. I know not everyone likes dancey music and the lead singer’s voice doesn’t necessarily open them many doors with the general public. But if you do like indie dance rock, then this might just be for you. I know, great recommendation, right?

Lyrically, they’re similar to Saves The Day, a band I listened to a lot in college. Saves The Day was notorious for writing some pretty disturbing lyrics and singing them to poppy songs to get people who didn’t know any better to sing along. While Passion Pit doesn’t take it quite as far as Save The Day, there are definitely moments where you say, “What did they just sing?”

Taking a step back, where have all of these indie dance rock bands come from? I think it’s pretty easy to credit (blame?) Postal Service for most of these bands that we’re seeing today. They were the entry into indie music for a lot of people for good reason. I think of indie music as a ladder of accessibility. You start out with the first rung bands that are easy to listen to and slowly figure out that maybe some of the weirder stuff is pretty interesting as you climb.

But anyway, that’s about all the time I have today. Check out Little Secrets.

Gimme sympathy.
After all of this is gone,
Who would you rather be,
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?
Seriously, you’re gonna make mistakes,
You’re young.
Come on baby play me something like,
Here comes the sun.
- Metric

Bonus Friday post! Conversation between Erin and me on Tuesday morning.

Erin: Hey, I need more upbeat music, but you have too much music and I can’t find anything upbeat that I like.

Nick: You could listen to the new Metric album I’m downloading right now. It was supposed to come out last week, but apparently somebody messed up and the actual release date was today.

<Nick starts playing the first track>

Erin: This doesn’t sound upbeat.

Nick: This is totally upbeat.

Metric: I tremble.

Erin: What was that?

Nick: Upbeat lyrics, that’s what.

Metric: They’re gonna eat me alive.

Erin: Yeah, this isn’t upbeat at all.

Nick: Give it a chance.

Metric: If I stumble, they’re gonna eat me alive.

Erin: Find me something else.

Nick: Fine…

Metric: Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer…?

Though nothing will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be heroes, for ever and ever
What d’you say?
- David Bowie

On Tuesday, I mentioned The Current’s album of the week: War Child presents Heroes. Turns out that it wasn’t the only charitable album to come out recently. The second is called Dark Was The Night and it was produced by Red Hot, an AIDS awareness foundation. I thought I’d take a little time today to give a short review the two albums.

War Child presents Heroes

First, the charity:

“War Child was founded upon a fundamental goal: to advance the cause of peace through investing hope in the lives of children caught up in the horrors of war.”

The concept behind the album is not necessarily new, but pretty cool anyway. All of the songs on the album are covers, but the original artist got to pick the artist that they would most like to remake their song.

Because of this, there are some fairly big artists playing on this album. From Beck to TV on the Radio; The Hold Steady to Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Franz Ferdinand. I highly recommend this album.

Dark Was The Night

“Red Hot was founded on the premise that even without a cure, AIDS remains a preventable disease and music is a great vehicle to raise money and awareness for it.”

This double album collects 31 tracks from today’s biggest indie acts. Produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, the album contains both covers and original material from such bands as Feist, Ben Gibbard, Bon Iver, The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Andrew Bird, and The New Pornographers to name a few. Seriously, I editted myself in the list of bands above.

Pitchfork gave the album an 8.6 saying if nothing else it ends up being a bit long – The Decemberists have an 8-minute song, which is topped by Sufjan Stevens’ 10-minute bout with awesomeness. I would definitely recommend both albums.

Today’s song comes from the Dark Was The Night compilation. It’s a duet between Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Feist. Check out Train Song.

I’m all out of love,
I’m so lost without you…
- Air Supply

Only two days until Air Supply plays the Rochester Mayo Civic Center! I’d go, but it’s on Sunday night and I have an early meeting on Monday. Really, that’s the only thing keeping me from loving me some air supply. Seriously. No, not really.

I’ve heard that they’ve already descended on my little town and are resting in a local hotel. Resting is probably the appropriate word. Who’s picturing old guys sitting low in hotel room chairs blasting soft rock right now?

Sorry if I’ve bummed you out about not being able to see Air Supply on Sunday. I didn’t really have much else to talk about. I could rant about how iTunes has become beyond bloatware and is currently taking my computer hostage, but that’s probably better suited for another day.

Today’s song comes from a band whose album came out on January 20th, and was kind of lost in the shuffle because of it. They’re called The Boxer Rebellion and they’re out of England. They’ve got a very The Fray feel about some of their songs, but not in a bad way. You know, like with The Fray. Check out Evacuate.

Chips! Chips! Chips! Chips!
- Crystal Castles

Chips is close enough to blips, I think. I thought that I’d write up a list of random things I saw as important enough to think about, but not dedicate to a full post.

First, Franz Nicolay has released a solo album. You may recognize Franz as the Rocky Rococo impersonating keyboardist from The Hold Steady. It’s currently streaming on Spinner.

Speaking of Spinner, they’ve opened up the new year with an updated look. Even better news, their Full CD Listening Party now works with firefox 3! Now, if I could only get hotmail to stop telling me to upgrade my browser…

Pitchfork might as well give the new Animal Collective album top marks of the year already. That’s right, we’re jumping topics like mad today! They’ve given the new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 9.6 out of 10. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve seen a non-reissue get a score that high.

Last but definitely not least, we have Microsoft’s new experiment called Songsmith. What’s Songsmith, you ask? It’s an intelligent program that adds accompaniment to any music that you sing. From watching the video, two things seem apparent:

1. Major chords with your voice making up the root note are prevalent.
2. The guy whose band wants him to write something other than a love song might want to first learn how to sing and then worry about his song writing skills.

If I owned a computer mic, there’s a decent chance that you would be being serenaded by a new version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, but unfortunately, I do not. You’ll just have to listen to what this guy came up with. Thanks for the link, Dana.

Today’s song comes from Franz Nicolay. Check out Cofessions of an Ineffective Casanova.

The Get Up Kids have officially reunited! Perhaps for this weekend only, but it’s at least a start. The funny part about all of this is that I had heard rumors of it ahead of time. We’ll just say I’ve got an in and a recording studio. Anyway, for any of you in the Kansas area, they’re playing one show on Sunday at Kansas City’s Record Bar.

To add to my inner 18 year old’s angst, Jimmy Eat World is playing a Clarity-only tour. For those of you unaware, Clarity is the album prior to the Self-Titled/Bleed American and I consider it the best that Jimmy has to offer.

A phone on the table,
A man on your side,
Someone that you think that you can trust,
Is just another way to die.
- Alicia Keys and Jack White

I’m not much for going to the movies. The A.V. Club had an interview with Kristen Bell yesterday where she questioned why movies have become more polarized lately. It’s either an action movie or a chick flick. Erin and I can’t necessarily agree on a movie to see, so we don’t go see movies.

Where am I going with this? Well, the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace is opening this weekend, and I kind of like the theme song. I could potentially write a post about James Bond theme songs, but I really don’t know enough about them to write about. Instead, I’ll talk about how I don’t like soundtracks.

The problem is that I’m an album person and soundtracks naturally have a lack of cohesion. They’re there to add ambiance to a movie. On top of that, you’re not going to hear an entire song in a movie, you’re just going to hear a clip.

Since I referenced it to a friend the other day, I’m going to bring up the soundtrack from Donnie Darko. It’s probably one of the soundtracks that I actually like. Like I said, I’m a sucker for the 80’s, and when you combine the 80’s with a slow-mo sequence… well, I’m pretty sure that’s how Erin got me to marry her.

The funny thing about this post? It’s really just an excuse to play the new theme from James Bond. Check out Another Way To Die.

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful.
- Christmas Carol

Sorry about throwing Christmas in your face to begin November. I’m on the hook to come up with some sort of Christmas list sooner rather than later.

It was in the 70’s on Monday and Tuesday this week. Erin and I were talking about how I was going to climb up on the roof to put up Christmas lights, but between the early setting sun due to daylight savings time, we decided to hold off until the weekend. Now, I wake up and there’s snow on the ground.

So what’s this have to do with music? Snow comes from the Atmosphere, just like tight rhymes. I’ve had this designated as an Atmosphere Friday since we haven’t heard much from the Minneapolis rapper lately. Check out You.

I’m a big fan of the web comic, Questionable Content. It’s kind of soap opera-ey, but some of the music jokes hit a little close to home, if you know what I mean. In the notes for today’s comic, he mentioned going out to see a band called Tragedy, which he described as “…quite literally the greatest heavy metal Bee Gees cover band in the Northeastern United States.”

I went to check out their website, and I have to agree. This stuff is awesome! They have songs streaming. I totally recommend it.

Happy happy birthday,
From all of us to you,
We wish it was our birthday,
so we could party too, Hey!
- Applebee’s Birthday Song

Howdy. Once again, it’s my birthday, and once again I will be playing my birthday song. Enjoy!