Skip to main content

The Best of the Brits

Coldplay just released a new song, "Paradise", from their forthcoming album, Mylo Xyloto, and it's actually really good.  Leagues better than Every Teardrop is a Waterfall.  Heck, it's better than anything off of Viva la Vida except for "Viva la Vida".  Anyways, that got me thinking about all the great pop music that the Brits have come up with over the past couple years that never made it across the pond.  So, here's a list of a few of the best ones:

The Wanted - All Time Low (Genre: Pop): Boy bands and girl groups might've died in the U.S., but they're still going strong in the UK with acts like Girls Aloud, The Saturdays, JLS, and, god have mercy, Jedward.  (Seriously, if you think American music is bad, just look up Jedward.  They might be cute little kids but I want to strangle both of them at least three times over and punt them to Pluto.)  Anyways, the best song any of them has managed to put out in the past few years is The Wanted's All Time Low.  The best part is the first minute or so, with vocals backed by nothing but a tense string section.

Ed Sheeran - The A Team (Genre: Pop/Rock): An absolutely heartbreaking and brilliant song about being homeless.  Incredibly simple, with just vocals, acoustic guitar, and a bit of strings in the background.  Takes a few listens to sink in, but now I can't get enough of it.  Also, he's fucking awesome live, and he's a redhead if you're into that....

Diana Vickers - Jumping into Rivers (Genre: Pop): Vickers was a finalist on the British X-Factor with a very unique voice.  This song in particular was done with the guy who produced Britney Spears' Everytime, and you can definitely hear the similarities.  Both songs use the same muted, 80's infuenced sound to great effect.  However, unlike the stately and haunting Everytime, this record has a great bounciness and general optimism to it.

Tinie Tempah - Pass Out (Genre: Hip Hop): You might've heard of Tinie Tempah already.  He's had a minor hit with Written in the Stars in the U.S.  That song, however, is rather unremarkable.  Just a bad B.o.B ripoff.  To really understand what's great about the guy, you should listen to this song, which broke him in the UK.  It has a great drum'n'bass influenced beat that's flat out one of the best beats of the past year.  Tinie Tempah's rapping doesn't quite match up, but his flow is rather nimble, and he does come up with a great chorus.

Hurts - Stay (Genre: Pop): Stately, 80's influenced electro pop.  Sounds like Savage Garden trying to remake Tainted Love.  No wonder they're huge in Germany.  This song, in particular, is just great.  It's the best chorus they've ever managed, and it's just so damn fucking epic.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Greatest Song of All Time

The music business has its fair share of complexities, as you would expect from any business with such a long history, and that is, at its core, built upon international law (i.e. copyright). That complexity is almost always hidden from the listening public. However, one piece that is curiously exposed every year when the Grammys come around is the separation between what is a "record" and what is a "song". The second and third most prestigious awards at the Grammys are, respectively, "Song of the Year," and "Record of the Year." What's the difference? Most people, including most musicians, wouldn't be able to tell you. I couldn't either until I took a music industry course in college where someone finally explained it to me: A "song" is melody and lyrics. The best way I have to think if it is, if hear someone play a faithful-to-the-original, acoustic cover, the "song" is what would be the same between the orig...

Fallout

This is an old song that I finally finagled into sounding good. The track uses Neon Indian's Fallout and was inspired by Frank Ocean's Strawberry Swing .  As with that song, I stripped the song of its original vocals and used the title as a starting point to craft a story of my own.  Hope you like it. http://www.mediafire.com/?bqv9d7821m7nn7m (I tried posting to SoundCloud, but the fact that I pretty much used a copyrighted track in its entirety did not make them very happy.) Lyrics: [Verse 1] Falling, falling out of control Away we will go To make love, oh how sweet Warm night, city breeze Not so sweet nothings and furtive stares Not the answer to my prayers, but Stagger, stumble through the door Bet tomorrow that’ll make you sore [Chorus] And we’re falling in and falling out of control And we’re falling in and falling out of control [Verse 2] Turn on the night light, not too bright Just enough to set things right, it Won’t go over w...

Made a Blog, I Made a Blog, Look at Me, I Made a Blog

I spend what can only be described as an obscene amount of time listening to music.  So, to convince myself that all that time hasn't been a complete waste, I've made a blog to share some musical knowledge I've gained over the years.  Thank you for being interested/bored enough to bother reading this, and hopefully, you'll learn a bit and discover some good new music. First, a bit about the blog name so you don't think it's complete retarded.  It's just an amalgamation of two song names, "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis and "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve (both absolutely classic britpop tracks, BTW).  It doesn't really mean anything, but it rolls off the tongue well.  Also, more importantly, it conjures up the lovely image of a melodious, alcoholic explosion of musical joy, and I sorta like that. Now a bit about my general music philosophy, illustrated by one of my favorite musical quote, courtesy of Lil Wayne, off of the song...