Sia - We Are Born

Sia is my favorite. She's adorable. She can sing like an angel. She's quirky. She has great visual style (check out that album cover). She writes fun, pop music with an undertone of earnest emotion. You will love her.

I pretty much like all of the tracks on her new album, but here are my favorites:

Clap Your Hands is a pure pop gem without being saccharine sweet.



You've Changed is a hot dance track. Remixes already abound. The ones with Detroit DJ Lauren Flax are particularly good. (I like the original remix, but I couldn't find a link for it.)

The Fight is an anthem, perfect for singing along, pumping your fist, and jumping around.

Stop Trying is a throwback to 80s pop, a la Katrina and the Waves or Tears for Fears.

Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.

More Fabulous Ladies - Quadron, tUnE-yArDs and V.V. Brown

Quadron is a Danish dance-pop duo that reminds me of Erykah Badu's first album. The songs are slinky, sly, and smooth. The beats are neo-soul/jazz lo-fi affairs. Average Fruit and
Horse are both lovely. Slippin is a catchy doo-wop affair. Jeans is a little funky masterpiece.



tUnE-yArDs is a one-woman sound machine from Northampton, MA named Merrill Garbus. She takes a Beck inspired any sound is a good sound ethic and creates undefinable music that's melodic and unique. I can hear tinges of world-music, twee, and folk influences as well. Although Garbus plays with sounds, by far her greatest instrument is her amazing, unbridled, and unpredictable voice which she often loops over itself even when performing live. There are several tracks I'd recommend: Hatari, Sunlight, News, Jumping Jack, Safety, Want Me To, and Hap-B.



Finally, V.V. Brown is a soul-pop singer from Britain. She's well (perhaps overly) produced and writes songs that are irresistibly easy to sing and dance along to. If you need something sweet and low-cal, then she's for you. Check out Shark in the Water, L.O.V.E, and Everybody.
Here's the official video for Shark in the Water

Feeling blue? Girl pop will make you feel better.

For the next few days, I'm going to post about my favorite female artists from the recent months. Today I'll start with Annie and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Annie's music is pure pop. If she were in the States, she'd be Britney Spears, but since she's Norwegian, I can listen to her and still be moderately cool. I'd recommend My Love Is Better, The Breakfast Song and Loco.



Charlotte Gainsbourg has more of an indie sound. Her vocal style would be at home among the late 90s power pop of Liz Phair or Juliana Hatfield, but the songs are sparely arranged, with current folk rock elements (as might be expected from an album produced and largely written by Beck). I'd recommend Me and Jane Doe and Voyage.

Best of the Rest of October

I have not been the most dependable blogger. I'll try to catch up by listing some of my favorite tracks from September and October with a few brief comments.

In alphabetical by Artist:

Anuhea - Barista - pop jem from Hawaii.

As Tall As Lions - Circles, Sixes and Sevens - Soaring guitar-pop. A little like Death Cab (when they rock out) or Helio Sequence. They sound like they must be from the Northwest.

David Guetta - When Love Takes Over, Sound of Letting Go - Hit the dance floor with these techno thumping anthems.

Jack Peñate - Be The One, Tonight's Today - - really good worldy/folky/dancy/tracks. Reminds me of Vampire Weekend a little bit.

KRS-One and Buckshot - The Way I Live, Clean Up Crew - dope rhymes and old-school beats. KRS-One is one of the all-time great MCs.

Mika - Blue Eyes, Good Gone Girl, Touches You, We Are Golden - If you like Scissor Scistors or similar throwback disco-pop, you'd like this guy.

Miss Li - Bourgeois Shangri-La, Dancing the Whole Way Home - Now that's some good English girl-pop right there. Or at least she sounds English to me. Lily Allen would be proud.

Nickodemus - Sun Children, 2 Sips & Magic - Great trip-hop, jazz, acid-jazz, latin-y stuff.

Phish - Joy - A solid album if you're a Phish fan. If you're not a fan, don't worry about it.

Slavic Soul Party! - Taketron, Baltika, Get It How You Live, Canaan Land - Best Slavic/Mexican/Latin Jazz/New Orleans style-brass band ever! Nothing like it anywhere.



Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (James Iha Remix) - Rockin'.

Yo La Tengo - Here To Fall - Guitar goodness.

Remember that you can listen to most of these tracks all the way through at least once on Lala.com. It's worth getting an account.

Listen to Scarlett Johannson?

Scarlett Johannson is widely regarded as a bombshell. Some also regard her as lacking the skills to act her way out of a bag. I'm more in the former group and less able to care about the latter.

She put out an album a little while back of Tom Waits covers. That mad scientist's abortion, I am definitely not recommending.

I am recommending that you check out two of the songs she does on an album she recorded with Pete Yorn in 2006, but that was released this year : Relator and Blackie's Dead.

They're getting tons of radio play on KCRW. Also, they were on live today, so you can probably hear/see that performance on KCRW's site in the Morning Becomes Eclectic archives.

The tracks are fun, poppy, alt-country-ish and sing-a-long-able. They'll stick in your head. As for your opinion of ScarJo, I'm not sure what this will do one way or the other.