Aww...Lookit the cute li'l foxes!

I keep all my music on my external hard drive. I do this for two reasons: first, because it leaves my laptop plenty of unused harddrive space; second, because I have so much music, it’s enough to crush any computing device. Seriously, it doesn’t matter how much music you have, I have a hundred albums more. Literally. Name how many hours of music you have on your hard drive, and I guarantee I have about a bazillion more. Because having the most music makes you the best music enthusiast ever. Take notes, kids. Anyway, the fact that it’s on my external hard drive means that, when I take my laptop elsewhere, I’m forced to leave my music behind. Unless I grab my ipod. But sometimes I forget. And when I forget, I turn to hypemachine. Or some of my favorite blogs. Or youtube. This morning, as I was youtubing some Fleet Foxes with which to knock out a few lines of Seneca, I stumbled upon one of if not the finest cover I’ve heard in a long time.

This cover is of the already-amazing Fleet Foxes song, “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song,” done up by a duo of Swedish someteen-year-old sisters, who go by the nom de rock First Aid Kit. They’ve amassed half a million views on youtube for this cover, and it’s not hard to see why. They’ve done the impossible: they’ve crafted harmonies which are somehow even more beautiful than the original’s bone-chilling perfection. Maybe it’s all the Homer I’ve been reading, but I recognize traces of the divine — you are goddesses, not mortals. You exceed the limits of the mortal realm.

That’s not to say that this only exceeds the original musically. These kids wear flannel, too, but they do it IN A FOREST. And they’re not just Williamsburg hipsters, are they? (More like Fleet Phonies, if you ask me.) (Wait, I take that back — I love you guys unquestioningly.) Also, the girl on the left totally looks like Winnie Cooper, which makes me like her about 8 times more.

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Tiger Mountain Peasant Song – Fleet Foxes (mediafire)

First Aid Kit’s album, Drunken Trees, is pretty awesome, too. I’d recommend buying it.

Related posts:

1. J. Tillman (of Fleet Foxes): "Firstborn"
2. Covers that Reinvent the Wheel (Unnecessarily): "White Winter Hymnal"
3. The Hood Internet Strikes Again!

Synthesize me, captain!

By now, you should know that nothing gets me dancing as hard as some blaring synthesizers. And, if you know me personally, you know that my vocabulary for describing synths basically encompasses the word “chunky.” Synthesized music I like is “chunky;” bad synth stuff is “nowhere near chunky enough.” “American Boy” — chunky to the max. “Lights & Music” — double chunk. “Sleepyhead” — chunkytown. And if there’s one band that knows how to chunk up the volume, it’s the Twelves.

Loyal Animal Showsters will remember when, back in 2 BHM (before Hype Machine), I posted a delectable Twelves remix of one of my all-time favorite songs, “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You.” Well, kids, the goodies don’t stop there. We’ve got a bonanza of bangers for you to kickstart your party, and get everybody on the same chunky page as you. Be forewarned: these remixes will all make you think the original songs suck in comparison. And, if you’re Drew, you’ll say, “they totally made that Fleet Foxes song listenable!” Drew’s a moron. That song was brilliant before this. And now it’s different and brilliant. Hell, these are all brilliant:

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Take On Me (The Twelves remix) – A-Ha (megaupload)

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Hurricane Jane (The Twelves Remix) – Black Kids (megaupload)

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The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (The Twelves Jam/Remix) – The Flaming Lips (megaupload)

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White Winter Hymnal (The Twelves Remix) – Fleet Foxes (megaupload)

Buy some Twelves music. You know you want to.

Related posts:

1. A Cover Worth Covering: First Aid Kit Finish Fleet Foxes
2. The Hood Internet Strikes Again!
3. Covers that Reinvent the Wheel (Unnecessarily): "White Winter Hymnal"

Just think, I could totally be forcing you to listen to William Basinski's Disintegration Loops, but I'm not because I know that not everyone likes hour-long minimalist songs.

Hello Animal Show readers / Hype Machine users. Tis I, Marquis Meowmers IV. While taking a work break from a paper I’m writing (entitled “Hyper-reality, Animation, and Irony”), I StumbedUpon a nice little website that will probably be sued into oblivion by the end of the year. 8tracks.com is an online mixtape service, similar to the now recontexualized (due to legal issues) muxtape.com. All you do is sign up, log in, and start mix-taping.

Now, I know you probably aren’t asking yourself,  “Why the hell does this deserve a post?” but I’ll tell you anyways. I’ve been wanting to do a series of posts that tackle musical topics that are larger than a single artist or remix or mash-up. I’ve wanted to make posts like “the best albums of 1988″ and “Shoegazing: a beginners guide” and “My favorite tracks by Fucked Up” and “D.I.T.C – Rest In Peace Big L”. However, it’s nice to have a very wide array songs available for that sort of stuff, and this is an easier and way more legal way to share tracks than uploading to Boxstr. If nothing else, I will probably have a mixtape every week or so documenting my 10 favorite songs of the week (my musical tastes change to reflect whatever Pitchfork is promoting).

So, without further ado, mixtape 1: Marquis Meowmers IV’s Best of 2008 MixTape.

This MixTape encompasses my favorite track from each of my top 15 albums of 2008. Complicated enough? I thought so. Here’s to new trends. Additionally, if you’re a regular reader get stoked! Within the next two weeks, we will have an exclusive surprise here on The Animal Show!

No related posts.

This is the album art for "Vacillando Territory Blues," J. Tillman's most recent album, out now.

For a while now, I’ve been trying to get rid of February the only way I know how: by ignoring it. I’ve been referring to this month as “Animalshowuary,” much to the annoyance of my friends, professors, and secretary, and it’s worked pretty well. But every now and then we must embrace the misery of the month in order to properly overcome it. I know that I for one haven’t experienced enough February melancholy yet, and I definitely need to get it out of my system. I can’t have February incidentally ruining any of the good months. Luckily, I found just the aid I need: a beautiful and plaintive music video from J. Tillman, of Fleet Foxes.

This music video is, to me, what all music videos for indie artists ought to be: a simple (and slightly home-made feeling) reflection of the music in film. Especially for folk-ish artists, this shouldn’t involve shots of the musicians or silly plots. It should just be some nice images, strung together to enhance the music instead of draw attention away from it. The following is “Firstborn,” the single (do albums still really have singles?) from J. Tillman’s Vacillando Territory Blues, which is a fantastic album. Enjoy, reflect, get really sad and refuse to do any work for 6 or so hours:

FOR SOME REASON, PITCHFORK.TV ISN’T ALLOWING ME TO EMBED THE VIDEO, SO YOU’LL HAVE TO WATCH IT THERE. My apologies for making you visit that awful, band-stealing site.

Vacillando Territory Blues is out now. Buy it.

Related posts:

1. A Cover Worth Covering: First Aid Kit Finish Fleet Foxes
2. The Animal Show Rocks You Into 2009: Part IV
3. The Animal Show Hates February Almost as Much as You Do.

This is an image which accurately reflects the nature of the following cover.

Based on yesterday’s post, we’ve seen that folkified versions of rock/alternative/indie songs work extremely well, but what happens when a rock/electronic/alternative/indie band takes on a folk song? Unspeakable horrors, I’m afraid.

In all actuality, this cover of Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” isn’t really that reprehensible; it’s more funny than awful. Imagine vocoders and bass beats taking on bearded hipsters. Epic battle, right? Give it a listen, and then tell me if you think I should never post novelty songs again. Or, if you think this song represents a legitimate artistic endeavor, I dare you to make a compelling argument for it. Double-dog dare, at that.

White Winter Hymnal – Fleet Foxes

White Winter Hymnal – Ruby Isle

Better covers will follow in the coming days/weeks/years. (Is saying “years” overly optimistic about my attention span?)

Related posts:

1. Covers that Reinvent the Wheel: "Spit on a Stranger"
2. Covers that Reinvent the Wheel: "Free Man In Paris"
3. Covers (and remixes) that reinvent the double axle hemi truck

Only 8 days left to wear these!

I know, I know, dear readers. You’ve been so very patient these past 24 hours waiting for this, and I appreciate it. Well, now you can stop sending me hate emails, and feast your eyes and ears on this cornucopia of musical goodness. Just in time for Christmas Eve.

Did you know making year-end lists is hard? I really hadn’t counted on there being so much writing involved in blogging. I thought it was all about writing funny things over people’s faces in MS Paint. Dagg, yo. Anyway, I wrote many many words, and I hope you read at least one out of every 5. That’s really what I’m going for.

Catch the list after the break.

• 10) MGMT – Oracular Spectacular: Technically a 2007 release, I’m including this because the physical release was 2008. And because I don’t care to split hairs. I liked this album a lot, but not as much as some people (deep, right?). Mainly, I was turned off by the album art. What the hell, guys? Do you think you’re cooler than me? I can paint my face, too. Anyway, there are some sweet tracks on here, which have inspired some even sweeter remixes. Check em both out.

MGMT – Electric Feel

• 9) Esau Mwamwaya – The Very Best Mixtape: I do a lot of reading the internets for music. Presumably, you do too, unless you’re my dad, in which case, Hi, Father. Anyway, in September, the entirety of the information superhighway was blowing up with news of this dude, Esau Mwamwaya (pronounce his name just by reading it so fast that noone can tell the difference). He was totally bringing afro-pop into the world-wide-web generation, man. He sang Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa! Totes out-Africa’d Vampy Weekend! And then he released this super-sweet mixtape for free, and I was all like, dang, bro, this is sum hawt shitt. You’ll prolly be like that, too.

Esau Mwamwaya – Funa Funa

• 8 ) Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours: The word “Colours” snagged me, although this album has the dubious distinction of being the only one on this list I purchased at Pitchfork’s recommendation. To be fair, I bought it because I was going to Pitchforkfest (which I cannot recommend highly enough), and they were one of the bands on the lineup I hadn’t heard of. I was not disappointed. My major criticism of Pitchfork is their love for music more cacophonic than melodic. Cut Copy is none of that. If anything, they err on the side of Eurotrash pop beats, which is fine by me. All in all, this is an album which delivers the jams without compromising intelligence.

Cut Copy – Feel the Love

• 7) She & Him – Volume One: Zooey Deschanel is a mystery to me. Mainly because I have no idea how to pronounce her name. I’ve been told it’s supposed to be like Zoe, but I will continue to call her “Zoo-ee” until she personally corrects me. I find that exoticism makes her all the more attractive. She has one of those instantly recognizable voices, and the songs on Volume One could have been written forty years ago. And I mean that in the best way possible. She’s a cutey patootie. I’m waiting for Volume Two.

She & Him – This is Not a Test

• 6) Okkervil River – The Stand Ins: I had a poster of the cover art from The Stage Names up on my wall last year, and I told my roommate at the time that I thought it would be hard to find creepier album art. Then Okkervil River stepped it up, to make something even more disturbing. Then put them together. Yummy. This was completely a sequel to The Stage Names, which was, at one point, going to be a double album. Stage Names was probably my favorite album of 2007, so I was understandably very excited about Stand Ins, and it really didn’t disappoint. It didn’t have as many amazing individual songs as Stage Names, but it flows perfectly and makes me all the more excited about the prospect of new Okkervil material. Of course, now if they don’t release another album in 12 months I’ll probably be disappointed.

Okkervil River – Bruce Wayne Campbell on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979

• 5) E-603 – Something for Everyone: If Girl Talk and Diplo had a lovechild, I would be very confused. But I’d be a lot more interested if, instead of Girl Talk, E-603 and Diplo had a lovechild. Because I think E-603 is legitimately better than Girl Talk. And not just because he looks like this or dresses like this, or writes things like this. Having seen both perform this year, I can say that E-603 puts on a better show. Period. Whereas Girl Talk plays through his hits, prolonging some samples and occasionally venturing into new material for a few seconds, E-603’s show is completely different every time. I kept looking for my favorite samples from the album, and being impressed and surprised when the ones I heard were even better. His debut album is all the mash-up I need. And it’s available for free on his website. Download it now.

E-603 – Crystal Friend

• 4) Santogold – S/T: If I said this was due to my embarrassing affection for Gossip Girl, I wouldn’t be giving Santi enough credit. But I can’t say it didn’t help. If you’ve never heard the blood-curdling “Ah-ah-ah-ahhh”s of “Creator,” you’re missing out. I’m not afraid to say I like Santogold more than M.I.A., and her collaborations have been sick. Though I have too much of a conscience to post her album (you should buy it. Now.), she did release a mixtape with Diplo, one of my favorite DJs of the year, which is nasty (and an honorable mention on this list). Catch it.

Santogold – Creator

• 3) TV on the Radio – Dear Science: 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain has been one of my favorite albums of the past couple years. It showed TV on the Radio’s stepping in stride, perfecting their formula for hard-hitting electro-rock. I would have been all right with a straight sequel to that (a la The Stand Ins), but Tunde and the boys rocked my world with a deep and troubled album that still rocks. I feel it’s hard to write about it in a way that gives it enough credit. Just listen.

TV on the Radio – Halfway Home

• 2) Fleet Foxes – Sun Giant EP/ S/T LP: Pitchfork packaged this as their number one, the LP I bought came with the EP in it, and both were released in ’08. I’ll follow Subpop’s lead and do the same. Enough has probably been written about Fleet Foxes, but I’ll say this: the album continued to surprise me. It stood the test of time, of overplay, of overblogging, and still came out a surprisingly strong effort. I’m a big fan of indie-folk, and this seems to be the perfection of it. The most amazing thing about Fleet Foxes to me is how note-for-note they could replicate their harmonies live. Listening to them, you’d assume that overdub after overdub had gone into the recording, but those chords in White Winter Hymnal really just are a few guys singing together. Beautiful.

Fleet Foxes – Drops in the River (From the Sun Giant EP)

• 1) Vampire Weekend – S/T: It’s a little disappointing to me how quickly the tide of public approval can turn against an artist. Overexposure really is deadly (and I suppose I’m not doing much to remedy that..), and Vampire Weekend suffered more than any other band in 2008. They deserved all of the hype, though. They brought simple youthful joy to music for upper-middle-class hipster kids. They exposed the too-cool-for-school to pure, unadulterated fun. And that’s no easy task – I saw them in concert in July, and, during “A-Punk,” they attempted to get audience participation in the form of a few well-placed “ohs.” Ezra Koenig, before teaching us, looked out at the audience (which had been standing still for the entirety of the 4 songs leading up to the moment) and asked, “do you guys do this? Are you into this?” Not really, but Vampire Weekend helped them try.

Vampire Weekend – M79

Related posts:

1. My Top 5 Songs of 2008
2. A Cover Worth Covering: First Aid Kit Finish Fleet Foxes
3. Music for a Thursday: "The President's Dead"

OMFG, HIPSTER DJS??

The Hood Internet is responsible for many of my favorite A+B mashups, and they’ve just dropped a doozy of a pairing: Beyonce + Fleet Foxes.

In terms of pure musical grace, this isn’t their finest work, but it’s still a fun listen.

Catch it and some of my other favorites from their material after the break!

The Hood Internet:

Single Foxes (Put Some Wood on It) – Fleet Foxes vs. Beyonce I’m still not sure how I feel about that title.

Superbowl Jesus – Kanye West / The 1985 Chicago Bears vs. Wilco I don’t think I’m exposed to the super bowl shuffle frequently enough. Thanx, Hood Internetz!

Simple X-Plosion – Diverse feat Lyrics Born vs. Andrew Bird Is it just me, or does Andrew Bird lend himself to being sampled in hip-hop songs perfectly? Plus, the pairing of him with a rapper with intelligent and literate flow like Diverse is a match made in heaven.

Shut Up, American Boy – Estelle feat Kanye West vs. the Ting Tings Notice now that 2 of my top 5 songs of 2008 are represented here. Those Hood Internet kids know what I like.

Related posts:

1. Revenge of the Hood Internet: the First Animal Collective Mash-up I like.
2. The Phantom Hood Internet
3. Kanyeezy for Diversity, and Me for Controversy