I noticed recently that both The Morning Benders and Janelle Monae released songs called Cold War on their new albums.

Both are great:

Janelle Monae's:

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The Morning Benders:

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So, I started wondering what other songs were out there called Cold War, since it seemed like a potent theme.

Not surprisingly, there were quite a few in the 1980's, so I listened to all I could find, and thought Snobby readers might find them interesting.

First of all, the venerable Devo, who actually just released a new album, from their album Freedom of Choice:

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Then, The Vapors (of Turning Japanese fame), with a pretty damn likable Cold War song:

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And, a kind of lukewarm Styx (of Mr. Roboto fame) version:

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And an intense 2000 dark techno version by Funker Vogt:

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Also wouldn't want to leave out a remix of The Morning Benders version (Called the Winter Remix) that I really like:

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Last, and kinda least, but worth a mention, a rareish 11 minute The Antlers song recently called Cold War (a minor work, but still interesting for completeness):

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What a sweet little song, and weird little video. If you like this, the rest of the "White Magic" album will probably work for you too.

Oh Jens, this is divine!

Jens Lekman, normally writes and sings his own lovely songs (and tells insanely cute stories about how they were written while he sings them).

But he also remixes other people's songs like Au Revoir Simone's song "Shadows".

While he was remixing it, he decided to convert the song from straight 4/4 time, into a more waltz-like 3/4 time.

While he was playing around, he started thinking of all these other songs in 3/4 and 6/8 time, and decided to make one big 28-minute Girl Talk-y-mashup-in-slo-mo of them all as a waltzy summer jam just for us.  Thanks, Jens, it is just lovely.  I love that he adds a significant part of The Morning Benders' Excuses, because I just love that song.

Feel free to listen to it right here:

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And it's also worth listening to the Au Revoir Simone remix itself.

(This post is rated R at least.  Good rap can be kind of nasty.)

Little known, but greatly loved by The Sweet Snob: Yoni Wolf of WHY? in By Torpedo or Crohn's beats Lil' Wayne in slow, easy rap by a mile.  Sure, anyone can rap about being so badass they have it all figured out, but Yoni IS a badass rapper and he's willing to admit he doesn't have it figured out.  He'll be proudly mouthing watermelon every song.

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The one man who finally made it possible for a white guy to actually be respected as a rapper, he had to do it by being the harshest smartest fucker in a while.   It's unbelievable to think he could be so coked up and be so unbelievably cogent

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And if you're a little less sensitive, then it's worth listening to the profound statement of paranoia that is Marshall Mathers.   All the faggot talk gets old for sure, but he's obviously cooled it with that since this album.  But, this is some amazing lyricism.   It's mostly just a razor sharp slice to anyone who steps into his eyesight.  Amazing, bitchy storytelling that's tops but you're like, fuck man, seek help.  Luckily it looks like he did.

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The Beastie Boys are a huge part of white rap history.  As bratty little fuckers in High Plains Drifters:

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and as bratty bodhisattvas in Do It:

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Atmosphere goes on any white boy rap list although I guess he's not exactly a white boy, but pretty close   Every rapper has to brag some, and even a self-hating dude like Sluggo can talk big.  He's gonna be bigger than anything that's ever hit these little kids.  Bigger than guns, bigger than cigarettes.  Good luck with that, Sluggo.

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I'd be amiss if I didn't mention local rapper Macklemore showing us how hard he has to think about it before he hits that:

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I'm ready to call Janelle Monae the Andre 3000 replacement for the new decade, and these two albums the new Speakerboxxx.   Big Boi appears on Janelle's new album, and Janelle of course appears on Big Boi's new album, and the production is so mind-blowing and consistent you could put these two albums together on shuffle and call it a new wonder album.

Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (which you can listen to in its entirety on his myspace page) is a wonder, and an easy sequel to his half of Outkast's Speakerboxxx album.  He finally realized Andre was not going to get his shit together and just went ahead and released a beautiful, smart, sexy, dirty album the continues along the same frame as some of the best of Outkast.

Janelle Monae's album has been out for about a month, and I still get frustrated with how unbelievably talented she is.  She can sing, rap, write, and just generally kick ass with her own weird, robotic style.  I think Tightrope is the most amazing hip-hop/pop song since Hey Ya.  I have been wearing this song OUT and just finally saw the video, which only enraged me more because I was like, "Oh, she's an amazing and unique dancer too?!"

And lesser but also cool is the video for the remix:

So get these two albums and bump them, because there's so many enjoyable songs between the two of them that I want to barf.  I've been waiting for Chico dusty for a year, and didn't realize I was going to get a double album of Big Boi style goodness.

Well, first of all, there's this Tallest Man on Earth cover of Paul Simon's Graceland:

Then there's this track off the upcoming Cee-Lo solo album, which sounds very much like a Gnarls Barkeley track for sure (note that Cee-Lo is the singer of GB).

Oh, and every goddamn song on Janelle Monae's unbelievably good new album The ArchAndroid.

Consider the song, Oxford Comma. I don't care if they use outdated African pop as their template, they're cool.

First verse, "Know your boyfriend, unlike other guys."

2nd, "Know your butler, unlike other guys"

and "I met the highest lama, his accent sounded fine to me."

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These guys are okay.  They're erudite and all, but I've met worse demons.

I just got a leaked copy of Caribou's latest album, Swim, after drooling over the first single for a while.  Drool with me:

CARIBOU – Odessa from Caribou on Vimeo.

I love how his gentle singing is merged with the harsh clangs and hoots of the song.  This is some great mixing and a really interesting song.  The rest of the album is pretty damn good so far.  Sadly there's no Caribou from the last two albums on Lala to supplement this with, but I loved their last album Andorra too.

You know, nobody claims to dislike Hendrix.  It's just one of those things.  He's got like, the most fantastic brand goodwill ever.  Not that it does him any good.

But I'm actually one of those rare people: I'm a Hendrix Fan.  I love all of his real albums (only 4), I like most of his posthumous work (almost as much), and I even treasure some of his early recordings with Curtis Knight and other soul dudes.  I do NOT treasure all that much his drunken live recordings with the Doors or whatever.

Anyway, I was pretty excited to hear that they'd somehow dug up even MOAR posthumous recordings and were basically releasing a new album called Valleys of Neptune.

I've been able to give it a few listens and I'm pretty damn happy.  It's a lot of re-recorded versions of songs in the more bluesy style he was starting to get into when he died, and a few unheard originals.

So, I thought I'd do a quick Hendrix tribute post and let you listen to some of my favorites, with a focus on the stuff he never got to release in his lifetime.

First of all, off the new album, I really am liking this great instrumental cover of Sunshine of Your Love:

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And a cool song called Mr. Bad Luck:

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Then, moving back to songs released after his death in many different forms, but arguably the best on the one closest to what he wanted, a big album called First Rays of the New Rising Sun.  This song is one of my favorite tunes ever, ever, ever, mostly due to it's magnificent and rueful lyrics.  It's called My Friend.  I recommend you listen to it several times.

A choice cut of the lyrics:

Now a lady with a pearl handled necktie
Tied to the driver's fence
Breathes in my face,
Bourbon and coke possessed words
"Haven't I seen you somewhere in hell,
Or was it just an accident?"
You know how I felt then, and so:

Before I could ask "was it the East or West side?"
My feet they howled in pain
The wheels of a bandwagon cut very deep,
But not as deep in my mind as the rain
And as they pulled away I could see her words
Stagger and fall on my muddy tent
Well I picked them up, brushed them off,
To see what they say,
And you wouldn't believe:
"Come around to my room, with the tooth in the middle,
And bring along the bottle and a president"

And sometimes it's not so easy,
Especially when your only friend,
Talks, sees, looks and feels like you,
And you do just the same as him

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Also, a little more of a minor work, I also love Belly Button Window, arguably a pro-choicey song?!

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Then, I could sit here and lead you down the primrose path of Jimi's genius albums he released on purpose all day… really you can just listen to the whole albums and you're pretty much in good hands, but I'll just make one pick from each album that you may not have heard.

From his last album, a live album recorded with Buddy Miles: there's so many massive songs on this album, but I'm going to do Power to Love.  I knew this kid when he was 5 who loved this song and called it "The Jellyfish Song" because of these lyrics:

It's so groovy to float around, sometimes even
a jellyfish will agree to that.
I said flotation is groovy and easy,
even a jellyfish will agree to that.
Yeah, but old jelly's been floatin' so long
and so slack, lord, ain't no kinda bone in his jelly back.
Floatin' ev'ry day and ev'ry night is a risk, sometimes
the wind ain't right!

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From his crazy last double album with The Experience, I present the crazy, jazzy, Rainy Day, Dream Away, which I love for his little ad-libs that start the song, including some perhaps real joint-hitting noises:

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From Bold As Love, which truly blew my goddamn mind at age 17, I present Jimi's way-cool story of an alien dropping back to earth to tell people how messed up things are in the future:

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And from Jimi's seminal Are You Experienced? which you'd otherwise think was a greatest-hits album, the groovy space-opera with crazy radio noises, Third Stone From the Sun. Let Jimi land his kinky machine a little closer to you, baby:

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Ok, I'm glad we had this time together, Jimi.

Two doses of the band Liars today. I don't even know what to call them, but I guess you could call them kind of smooth, experimental post-punk or something like that. If you have to.

They just came out with a new album and I love the song and the video (it's a wittle scawwy, if you're sqweamish):

Which reminded me that although I never really got totally into their highly acclaimed last album, there was a song from it I ended up just loving, called Sailing To Byzantium… seriously this song rocks my world:

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