Mark’s blog

Radiohead's acoustic cover of Portishead's "The Rip"

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:25:18 -0500

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood cover Portishead's song "The Rip"

The above video is from Radiohead's blog.

Here is the original song by Portishead.

I love it when an artist I really like is a fan of another artist I really like (or something like that).

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Fragile Amnesia

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:33:15 -0500

My friend, Cristen, is fluent in Portuguese and plays the guitar. She loves the song, "Fragile", by Sting. Sting did a Portuguese version ("Fragil") of the song, too, and that is the one that Cristen is singing here ...

Fragile (cover of Sting song)

Cristen

I have had the song, Amnesia, by Control Machete in my head a lot lately. It's a very relaxing, hypnotic song. It is a cover of a Jose Jose song by the same name, and it is featured on a tribute album to Jose Jose called "Un Tributo".

Here is the song ...

08 Amnesia (Control Machete)

José José

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Prince trying to control a song that is not his ...

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:30:02 -0500

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/30/music.radiohead.prince.ap/index.html

The above article is about how Prince performed Radiohead's song, "Creep", at the Coachella music festival. Some fans put videos of the performance on YouTube. Prince's people complained and got the videos taken off of YouTube, but the song is not his. Radiohead has no problem with the song being on YouTube so there is no copyright violation going on. The article will explain it better than me, but it just goes to show how dumb artists look when they try to protect their music way too much. It makes me think of how annoying Metallica was when the band members were complaining about their music being on Napster back in the day.

Here is the song, Creep, by Radiohead. I was in love with the song when I first saw the video for it way back in the early 90s. I think I watched the video on MTV's great show, 120 Minutes. It would be nice if a show like that one was still around.

Radiohead - Creep

02 Creep

Radiohead

Here is the video ...

Radiohead - Creep

Here is a cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" by Tori Amos (I may have posted this before) ...

Karma Police (Radiohead)

Tori Amos

Here is Radiohead's version ...

Radiohead - Karma Police

In other news, Madonna's "Give It 2 Me" video is out and about on the internet now. Here it is on YouTube, but don't be surprised if this video gets taken down since it has already has been taken down numerous times ...

Madonna - Give It 2 Me

The quality of that video is awful, but I am sure a high-quality version will be uploaded to YouTube sometime soon. I am not crazy about the video, but it's not that bad. People probably wonder why Pharrell Williams is all over the video, but the "Hard Candy" album is almost more his than Madonna's. I think he produced the majority of it, and his voice can be heard throughout the album (along with the voices of Justin Timberlake, Timabaland, and Kanye West).

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Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:35:34 -0500

I was listening to Madonna's album, Hard Candy (I know, I need to move to another album ... I promise I listen to a million other things at the same time), and I noticed how the song, "Incredible", has the line, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", which has been a famous line in music history.

I think the line originated in Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Yellow Taxi" ...

Big Yellow Taxi

Joni Mitchell

This song kind of reminds me of "Playing Your Song" by Hole.

Then, the line was used as the title of Janet Jackson's song, "Got 'Til It's Gone", and Joni's song was sampled, too ...

04 Got 'Til It's Gone

Janet Jackson Feat. Q-Tip & Joni Mitchell

Here is Madonna's song which puts the line in one of the verses ...

07 Incredible

Madonna

In other news, I watched the Woody Allen movie, "Scoop", on HBO today. It stars Scarlett Johansson (2 t's and 2 s's) and Hugh Jackman. It came out in 2006, and Woody Allen's other Scarlett Johansson London-based movie about murder, "Match Point", came out in 2005. The movies are not alike at all, though. Scoop is more of a comedy, and "Match Point" is pretty serious. They do both explore class in London, though. Here are the trailers ...

Trailer for Match Point

Trailer for Scoop

The last couple of Sundays I have gone to a club/bar in Austin called Elysium with some friends for their 80s music night. The music is usually very good, and the crowd is very eclectic. Here are my two favorite songs they play ...

Real Life - Send Me An Angel (this is the 1989 version, I think)

Send Me An Angel

Real Life

The original 1983 version of "Send Me An Angel" did not feature as much clapping in the background so it is less fun to dance to. Here is the video for the original version ...

Real Life - Send Me An Angel (original 1983 version)

The other song is also from 1983, and it is "Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling ...

Major Tom (Coming Home)

Peter Schilling

Here is the video for the song ...

Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Coming Home)

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Stardust

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:08:02 -0500

I'm surprised that I have never posted this song before. Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" is one of my favorite songs ever, and it was mentioned in the Stephen King/Peter Straub novel, "Black House" (which was a sequel to "The Talisman", which King also wrote with Peter Straub), and I looked it up after reading about it. It's a very calm, laid-back oldie, but it has tons of charm and class. Here is some info on Hoagy Carmichael. There are tons of covers of this song.

Hoagy Carmichael - Stardust

Stardust

Hoagy Carmichael

The above photo comes from NASA's image gallery.

Here is Nat King Cole's version of the song, which is good, but not as good as the one above (in my opinion) ...

Nat King Cole - Stardust

Here is Harry Cool's (I think that is the right name) version ...

Harry Cool's version of Stardust

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When I'm tired, I turn to Tori ...

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:41:10 -0600

Tori Amos will always be my favorite singer/musician/songwriter/artist (or whatever you want to call her). Her music has carried me through less-than-pleasant times in my life. Today I was really tired because I stayed up too late last night working on a short presentation for my job, and I got up really early this morning to finish it. Therefore, I am totally drained right now. It's funny how I will wake up tomorrow and be rejuvenated just because of 8 measly hours of sleep. I love the process of sleep and its effects.

Anyway, I had a few Tori songs in my head that I have not posted here before, and here they are ...

Tori Amos - Hurt/Caught A Lite Sneeze (in concert)

02 Hurt-Caught A Lite Sneeze

Tori Amos

The "Hurt" part that Tori sings right before "Caught A Lite Sneeze" is based on the song, "Hurt", by Nine Inch Nails.

Tori Amos - Famous Blue Raincoat (cover)

06 Famous Blue Raincoat

Tori Amos

"Famous Blue Raincoat" is a Leonard Cohen song.

Tori Amos - Ain't No Sunshine (cover)

01 Ain't No Sunshine

Tori Amos

"Ain't No Sunshine" was originally done by Bill Withers in 1971.

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Chrissy Sandman

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:21:06 -0600

I've posted one video from her before, but I thought I would post another since she does a lot of good covers of songs I like.

Here is her cover of Feist's "My Moon My Man" ...

Chrissy Sandman's cover of Feist's "My Moon My Man"

She has a lot of Regina Spektor covers (she also has original songs), too, on YouTube, and she has a page on MySpace.

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Ruefer's cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:27:14 -0500

This was on the M.I.A. Fans message board, of course.

It is a cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes by this guy named Jacob M. Ruefer. It's pretty cool.

Here is a link to the blog post about this.

You can download the cover here, or you can go to Jacob's MySpace to download it.

Paper Planes (Cover)

Jacob M. Ruefer

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Inspired by The Simpsons ...

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:49:08 -0500

I was watching a bit of The Simpsons tonight, and it was an episode where Bart and Lisa cause the power plant to shut down so the lights will turn off, and everyone can experience night again. They played Don McLean's "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" as the characters watched a meteor shower in the night sky. It reminded me of Tori Amos' cover of this song, which I have always liked ...

Tori Amos - Vincent (Starry Starry Night) - a cover of Don McLean's song that Tori did in Austin, TX at The Backyard on April 26, 2003.

Vincent (Starry Starry Night) - Live

Tori Amos

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Benny Benassi

nobody@vox.com(Mark) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:19:08 -0500

I have been wanting to listen to my Benny Benassi(Hypnotica) CD lately. My favorite song on the album is "Love Is Gonna Save Us". The song is romantic and sad at the same time, and it has this part that I call the "wind" part that is just perfect. For some reason, I thought the song would fit with the movie, "Edward Scissorhands".

05 Love Is Gonna Save Us

Benny Benassi

My second favorite song on the album is probably "Time", and I thought a scene from the 1980 Christopher Reeve movie, " Somewhere in Time", could best sum up the concept of time(his best movie besides the first Superman).

09 Time

Benny Benassi

While I was searching for my Benny Benassi CD, I came across one of my Tarkan CDs, and I thought, "Oh, I need to revisit Tarkan". Therefore, to be completely random, here are my three favorite songs from Turkey's own Tarkan(from his self-titled album) ...

Tarkan - Simarik

11 Simarik

Tarkan

Tarkan - Ölürüm Sana

02 Ölürüm Sana

Tarkan

and Tarkan - Sikidim (Hepsi Senin Mi?)

04 Sikidim (Hepsi Senin Mi?)

Tarkan

Finally, here is a short clip of what XR2 is supposed to sound like on M.I.A.'s next album, Kala. I don't know how correct this is, but the quality sounds better than all the other versions that I have of XR2 ...

10 XR2

M.I.A.

That is the fake cover of Kala that some fan made, and I got it from http://miafans.co.uk, of course.

Here is an image of M.I.A. on the cover of URB that I also got from that message board ...

M.I.A. on cover of June 2007 issue of URB Magazine

Oh wait, I thought of one more thing ...

I really hope Rob Zombie's version of Halloween(probably my favorite movie ... ever ... ok, one of many I guess) turns out to be good.

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