I know that this is the second Aimee Mann song, and also the second Coldplay cover, I’ve post this summer, but I don’t care. Aimee Mann is awesome and I don’t care what Judd Apatow thinks about my affection for Coldplay, or how much I love this song in all its myriad versions.
Bonus: favorite version — a live acoustic performance by Chris Martin.
Emote like it’s 1991 and you’re heartbroken all over again.
This is not actually the song I wanted to use for today. The song I wanted to use was the very bluesy “Anybody’s Baby” but embedding has been disabled, so you’ll have to clink the lick and check it out separately. Strongly encouraged!
Fun fact: I once lent Terra $20.
This is something like eleven minutes long, but it is fucking epic. Pretty please listen to the whole thing.
Hem reached my consciousness through, of all things, a Liberty Mutual advertisement. I’m not normally one to find the entreaties of an insurance company particularly compelling, but the music was so moving, so touching, that I had to find out who it was, and I immediately ran out and grabbed as much of their music as I could get my hands on. It turns out that “Rabbit Songs,” the album from which the Liberty Mutual track (“Half Acre”) is taken started out as a project to make an album that, in the words of the band members, “they could love for the rest of their lives” — and I’d say that it’s mission accomplished.
This is due in no small part to the simply remarkable vocal talents of Sally Ellyson, who auditioned for the band by sending in a demo tape of lullabies. You can see how that would work, and why the other band members might be so taken with her voice. If you’ve never heard Hem before, you’ll be hearing them in your head a lot more from now on.
Neko Case, “John Saw That Number”
And I got to see John’s arm and hand in Turkey, so it’s all good. (Try the album version if you’re not that impressed with the live one — but Neko Case is better live.)
Playing for Change, “Gimme Shelter”
I was rendered speechless when I saw this for the first time.