Ellie Goulding - "By The End Of The Night"

Happy Friday! This calls for a euphoric electro-pop track from Ellie Goulding. 

Alok, Sigala, & Ellie Goulding - "All By Myself"

Killer collaboration between Alok, Sigala, and Ellie Goulding that features a prominent sample of Depeche Mode's classic "Enjoy The Silence." This should keep dance floor's packed. 

Ellie Goulding - "Easy Lover (Four Tet Remix)"

Last month, Ellie Goulding released her new single "Easy Lover (ft. Big Sean)" which is a decent pop track. She handed over the reins to Four Tet for a remix and he definitely amps up the BPMs and turns it into something insistent and killer. 

Jam of the Day: Major Lazer ft. Ellie Goulding and Tarrus Riley - "Powerful"

Amazing track from Major Lazer featuring vocals from Ellie Goulding and Tarrus Riley.

Video: Calvin Harris ft. Ellie Goulding - "Outside"

Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding deal with imploding relationships in this clip for their track "Outside," off of Harris' latest record Motion.

Non-Sequiturs

Such a hot Daddy.

Lovely fur.

Sexy smile and hot chest.

Awww, so cute.

Love the peek of fur.

Drool.

Woof.

Sleepy bear belly.

Damn.

Beard is almost too much, but he is so damn hot.

Must. Rub. Belly.

Yum.

Nice body.

Grrrr.

Woof Daddy.

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Love the chest and belly combo.

That is some serious fur.

Whatcha thinking about?

Nice gutters.

A little further please.

Someone is shy.

Woof.

Those eyes.

Ginger beef.

I'd stare/rub/molest that belly all day long.

Sexy ax man.

Sexy.

What's in those shorts, Daddy?

Daddy jock.

Cutie bear wearing my tank top.

Ginger rower.

Bear duo.

Sexy Daddy.  Probably one of the sexiest, in my opinion.

Damn, hot nips.

Sometimes I come up with weird insults in my head that I think would make good band names. The latest was Bitchy Twat. Granted, the name would have very limited appeal. It has a catchy ring to it though.

One of the worst band names I have seen in recent memory is Diarrhea Planet.

I'm guessing the new season of Project Runway is hitting all time rating lows, as no one I know is even watching and/or commenting on it.

I will admit to having Lazy Bear envy.

I love this.

There will always be Starbucks detractors, but I think their Cafe Verona coffee is so darn tasty.

I rarely ever post anything serious on Facebook.

And I hate when people take what I say seriously on Facebook; though it amuses me when people get all philosophical about certain things that to me mean nothing at all.

The Delta SkyMiles Gold Card from American Express should be called the Pyrite Card, as it is essentially worthless.

I am not ready for school to start back, which ultimately means that I will have to endure 5 months of mindless chatter about football.

I agree.

Three people from FB I met at Bear Week have messaged me and said they wished they had met me in Provincetown. Hmmmm. I guess I don't leave a lasting impression.

The Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me is a really diverse album (sometimes to its detriment) which for the most part I really enjoy. But for the life of me, I cannot listen to "The Kiss," "Like Cockatoos," or "Icing Sugar." They just grate on my nerves.

I watched a live stream of The Cure's Lollapalooza set and they sounded great and did a wonderful 2 hour set of most of their hits. Robert Smith looked horrible though; like an geriatric drag queen.

Trent Reznor, however, is looking like a buff god.

I bet they would be tasty.

If you are a good friend of mine, there is almost nothing I won't do for you. But if I have just met you, and your first interactions with me is to ask me for a huge favor, then it is likely I will view your attempted friendship with me with high skepticism.

Long story as to why, but I had to catch a flight to Charlotte from Atlanta, and what should have been a short 35 minute flight turned into a epic 2 hour one full of mechanical issues, planes not getting out of the way, minor children screaming at the top of their lungs, and Jesus freaks pontificating the whole way. I was never so glad to get off a plane in my life.

I need a translator for some of my friends.

LOL.

Paleo-shmaleo.

If you don't like the fact that I am a huge music buff and that I post mostly music related things, then you are more than welcome to depart my life post haste.

The imperfections make you human.

I have been trying to grow my beard out, but I am thinking it looks best and is easier to take care of when it is kept at a normal length.

Yes, my sense of humor is twisted.

Taking life advice from Earnest Hemingway is a bad idea.

Spain is definitely my next out of country destination.

A panini is really just a high-fallutin quesadilla.

Your cute for the day.

Lyrics Rattling Around My Brain

"There's some gold
In my bones
That I told you about.
So I'm pulling out my teeth and
Burying them deep under ground.
There's some lights
In your eyes
That I follow about.
But they're dimming quick,
and you're getting sick, so now I wander out alone.
All my love
Is circling the drain now.
All my love
Won't bring you back to me.
Oh my God
I'm wasting away.
Pulled flowers at my feet
Lost in the wind.
There's a ghost
In the sky and in
All my fields of stars.
So I'm following the wind and
Singing all my hymns in the dark.
And when I shake your shadow from the trees.
Theres a color in your eyes that
Nobody knows but me.
All my love
Is circling the drain now.
All my love
Won't bring you back to me.
Oh my God
I'm wasting away.
Pulled flowers at my feet
Lost in the wind."

Houses
"The Beauty Surrounds"

"Breathe your smoke into my lungs
In the back of the car with you I stare into the sun
Still not too old to die young
The lovers hold on to everything
And others hold on to anything

I chased your love around a figure 8
I need you more than I can take
You promised forever and a day
And then you take it all away
(And then you take it all away)

Place a kiss on my cheekbone
Then you vanish me
I'm buried in the snow
But something tells me I'm not alone
But lovers hold on to everything
And others hold on to anything

I chased your love around a figure 8
I need you more than I can take
You promised forever and a day
And then you take it all away

So, Lovers hold on to everything
And others hold to anything
So, Lovers hold on to everything
And others hold to anything."

Ellie Goulding
"Figure 8"

Appealing Things

Cold Bud Light
The Cure's set at Lollapalooza
Banks
"Hold On, We're Going Home"
Los Bravos' margaritas

Annoying Things

Talkers
Loud, drunk women in gay bars
Drivers in Atlanta when it rains
Friends not being able to make it to Folsom

Album Review: Calvin Harris - 18 Months

Calvin Harris
18 Months
Rating: Meh

Let's just cut to the chase here. Calvin Harris is a really good DJ/producer who is very of the moment, and knows what is popular and how to make it work. His new album 18 Months is basically the culmination of the last two years for him, a victory lap if you will, and is likely to be a smash hit. Taken apart, and viewed individually, there are a lot of great singles on here that will crowd dance floors, sell records, and bum rush radio programmers. But as a whole, this record is a completely and utter mess. Harris focuses too much on what popular singer to collaborate with and less on the actual tracks, making the majority of 18 Months very similar sounding and completely unadventurous, and also linking these tracks with the laziest and most pointless instrumentals every committed to tape. It is definitely a record to pick apart piecemeal and glean the best tracks from all the chaff.

The good news first, 18 Months has some great singles on it. Aside from pointlessly including the Rihanna track "We Found Love" which has been out forever, the record has a fun, dubstep influenced track with Dutch DJ/prodcuer Nicky Romero, "Iron,"



the furiously building electro workout "I Need Your Love" with Ellie Goulding,



dreamy synth workout "Sweet Nothing" which finally finds a way to put Florence Welch's voice to good use,



and a deliriously ebullient house jam "Thinking About You" with singer Ayah Marar.



But when you figure out that Harris basically follows the same pattern throughout each track, the overload of similar beats and synth hooks gets overwhelming. It becomes a simple formula of (popular singer of the day) + (press presets) = watch money roll into the bank. The tracks that blur together in this pattern are "Bounce" with Kelis, "We'll Be Coming Back" featuring Example, and "Let's Go" with Ne-Yo; each one could have been interchanged with each other and there wouldn't be much of a noticeable difference.

Also, Harris throws in a host of bizarre instrumental pieces that have no real rhyme or reason other than to fill out space on the record. Opening with the strange "Green Valley" which is nothing more that synth whooshes underneath a vocal sample repeated ad nauseum, thumping Daft Punk retread "Mansion," and lazy funk workout "School." Even where Harris tries to expand his sound, the results are murky at best. Long form instrumental "Awooga" becomes awash in air raid siren keyboards that might sound great while rolling your ass off, but are just annoying on their own, and his collaboration with Dillon Francis and Dizzee Rascal, "Here 2 China," suffers the same fate of being more irritating than ingratiating.



I wanted to like this record because I think Harris is very talented, but he is just spinning his wheels here with 18 Months. It feels calculated to launch off the success of the Rihanna track, but provides few if any surprises. Harris has a distinctive voice of his own, which I wished he had used more often. By hiding behind his collaborators, he ends up becoming just another anonymous knob twiddler.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.

Album Review: Ellie Goulding - Halcyon

Ellie Goulding
Halcyon
Rating: Meh

With her 2010 debut album Lights, English singer Ellie Goulding found herself winning a Brits Critic Choice award and topping a BBC new artist poll with a polite mix of Dido-esque electro-balladry. While it was a pleasant collection of pop tracks, overall it suffered from a lack of a distinct personality, though Goulding's raspy voice has enough pull to keep interest for awhile. The approach for Goulding's second album Halcyon seems to want to capitalize on her prior success without straying too far from the already established template. The most glaring problem with the album is still that Goulding doesn't know what she wants to be as a singer. Shuttling from Florence + The Machine ethereal goth-rock to blazing electro-dubstep bangers to more Dido-esque pop lite all the way to more soul baring singer-songwriter tracks, Halcyon is frustratingly schizophrenic to the point of irritation.

It is telling that the most distinctive track on the album is "I Need Your Love" featuring Calvin Harris, and is only distinctive owing to the fact it sounds like a Calvin Harris track.



Which is overreaching problem of the record that Goulding is mostly consigned to the background of her own tracks. She becomes just another diva vocalist on the dubstep-influenced track "Figure 8,"



opener "Don't Say A Word" clouds her behind over the top orchestrations,



and the otherwise interesting electro track "Anything Could Happen" buries Goulding's voice in too many effects.



Where her producers allow her to just be herself is where the record truly succeeds and which oddly are on the more minimal, singer-songwriter tracks. Stunning ballad "I Know You Care" forces Goulding's voice front and center in the mix and is a haunting song of love lost,



confessional "Dead In The Water" is a gorgeous showcase for her voice,



and her dubstep inflected cover of Active Child's "Hanging On" finally allows her voice to command over the dense electronics.



But overall, despite these glimpses of who Goulding really is, Halcyon just never seems to lift off the ground. Her backseat approach limits the album's appeal because she just becomes another vocalist at the whim of a producer. Only in those rare moments where her voice rises above all the swirling instrumentation does it show how good Goulding's voice can be, unencumbered by all the studio trickery. As it stands, however, Halcyon is just another in a series of disappointing record releases where the vocalist is made to be secondary to the production.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.

Jam of the Day: Ellie Goulding - "Figure 8"

Nice dubstep-influenced track from her new album.

Videos of the Week

Here is the latest roundup of videos that make me holla!



Apparently Titus Andronicus puts on a really wild live show. I am going to try and catch them if I can.



A horror movie about a telekinetic car tire. Really.



The Strokes performed this song on the Jimmy Fallon Show. Love it.



Though this song and type of music is not my usual cup of tea, I do think they have the best band name.



Katy B has such a fantastic voice.



The first single from the new Bibio album is fantastic. The album is not really gelling with me yet, so I am giving it some time.



More of the amazing Katy B singing with Magnetic Man.



Dubstep/singer-songwriter Jamie Woon performing a cover of Adele's song "Someone Like You."



The Drums' album has stayed in heavy rotation for the longest time.



While I don't really care much for her album as a whole, I do like this remix from Bassnectar.



Love the new album from Tinie Tempah.



Ariel Pink is a complete freak, and his live shows are apparently crazy. Looking forward to seeing if it is sublime or tragic.



HEALTH's albums are punishingly loud. Will hopefully be a highlight of Coachella for me.