You might think depressing songs are reserved for the iPods of angsty teens, but they play among us everyday, even if you don’t realize it. They’re lurking on the TV and radio, waiting for you to stop and go “hold up? What did they just say?” Here are some of the worst offenders that trick us into dancing until we have that “what the what?” moment.
(Note: If I was a complete sadist, this would just be a list of ten songs by The Smiths and by the end you would be a weeping mass laying on the floor but I think andPOP enjoys having readers so…)
1. Pumped Up Kicks – Foster The People
This was the chillest song from last summer, and definitely has to be the most popular song to ever feature whistling. I mean what’s not to like? It’s clearly about cool kids who have fun wearing nice sneakers, right? Lol jk it’s about a school shooting. The lyrics are as follows: “all the other kids with the pumped up kicks / better run, better run / faster than my bullets” and the song is from the perspective of a kid named Robert who finds his dad’s gun. I think we may have been better off just whistling along idly.
2. Small Bump – Ed Sheeran
Aww how cute, Ed Sheeran is singing a song to his future child. Plot twist: the child is dead. This songs starts off as a really cute message from a young, would-be dad to their unborn baby. He goes through all the lessons that the baby will learn during its life, and how it will look as it grows. Once we get to the end of the song however, we realise that Ed/the dad is singing about the child he would have had, had it made it to term. Ouch. Right in “the feels” with this one, Ed.
3. Girls Just Want To Have Fun – Glee Cast
This one is a bit of a reversal: It uses the very upbeat original lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and makes them depressing as hell. Finn sings this song to Santana because she’s being bullied after he forcibly outs her (or something along those lines… I watch Glee, but just barely). Glee’s cover puts a more melancholy spin on the 80s classic, and makes me feel that sometimes girls yearn for fun because it’s something that they just can’t have right now.
4. Valerie (ft. Amy Winehouse) – Mark Ronson
This song has an amazing jazzy and upbeat tempo that will have you looking for the nearest person that you can learn to Charleston with. But the narrator is actually pining for the troubled Valerie who has outstanding fines and a recent stint in prison. He’s actually physically pining for her (“since I’ve come on home, well my body’s been a mess”) and it’s a bit sad because you get the sense that Valerie kind of messed him up. The fact that it’s sung so amazingly by Amy Winehouse makes it even sadder because parts of it seem like it could be about her life.
5) Little Lion Man – Mumford & Sons Read more…
Recreating your favourite music video or movie in stop motion using LEGO seems pretty time consuming — one of those painstakingly tedious tasks you easily become addicted to. And it’s all worth it.
ParanickFilmz recreated the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises using Batman-themed Lego characters. The detail put into the settings (particularly the football field and cities) is impressive. They even master miniature explosions to during the action sequences. The video quickly started trending today with tons of kudos for their “f*cking commitment.”
The video is right up their with my other faves, the stratos jump and Foster The People’s “Houdini.”
Watch it here
Seventeen-year-old Dylan Woodley takes stop motion to a whole new level with his Lego-fied version of Foster the People’s “Houdini” music video. Woodley is from Insomnia Animation and re-created the video entirely with Lego bricks over several hundred hours.
In Woodley’s version the tuxedoed SWAT team who engineer robot versions of the band members to perform become chirpy trumpet players. The sequences are pretty seamless and well detailed. We can tell this guy is going places!
Well this is a pretty unexpected cover. Usher performed Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” on BBC Radio 1 as part of his “Live Lounge Special.”
I was expecting him to change the arrangement a bit — put some sort of soulful spin on it — but he sticks pretty well to the originally vibe. He even pulled out an electric guitar and denim vest to tap into his inner rock child. He’s getting a bit of flack for it but I love when artists cross genres. What do you think of it?
Watch it here:
Metric – Youth Without Youth
I’ve been a Metric fan since I was 14 so I’ve been waiting anxiously these past three years for some new Metric music and FINALLY “Youth Without Youth” is here to cure my Metric withdrawal! The first single off their upcoming album Synthetica is a great guitar driven track. It’s faster and louder than most of Metric’s other music and it’s nice to hear lead singer Emily Haines using her voice to its full potential. I could see this being a serious song to jam out to during one of their upcoming concerts. You can pick up Synthetica on June 12.
Santigold – Proud Mary
I had the good fortune of seeing Santigold at Coachella and this woman has some serious talent. In her cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s famous “Proud Mary,” Santi White adds her own flavour to the jam. Instead of a straight up cover of the song, she adds some synth, African beats, and belts the song in her own robotic style. I’m loving this new take on a classic track.
Foster the People – Houdini Read more…
The members of Foster the People are resurrected just time for a concert in their new video for “Houdini.” After a freak stage accident all three members die right before their performance, much to the dismay of their production team. Luckily a SWAT team of tuxedoed men arrive just in time to save the show, led by a real-life Houdini who can make the guys perform at the snap of his fingers.
Houdini’s minions change into black and green body suits and try to “Weekend at Bernies” the musicians by moving them like marionettes. With the snap of Houdini’s fingers the guys become wicked dancers. We soon learn they’re actually cyborgs and with a quick reboot they’re good to go.
The newly supercharged performers kill it that night at the concert and the audience doesn’t even notice they’re machines created by their money hungry managers. The video is a lot different from the modest visuals we saw for “Pumped Up Kicks.” Let us know what you think below!
My heart is melting. This morning Taylor Swift and Zac Efron went on the Ellen Show and unleashed their general cuteness on the world. The duo skirted around rumors that they are dating, but they clearly should be.
Swift has been teaching Efron how to play the guitar and they revamped Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks” just for the morning show host. They sounded pretty good and even changed up the lyrics.
Swift and Efron were there to promote their new movie The Lorax. Although the whole act was clearly choreographed their chemistry seems pretty natural.
While Swift shared a story about her Valentine’s Day “singles” party with her friends, Efron said he had dinner with a special friend. He was pretty cryptic about who this special someone is but I don’t think it’s Taylor. But the rumor is certainly good promotion for their movie…
Pumped Up Kicks
Are they a couple?
Sadly, Kanye is not on this year’s WTF Grammy list, which has us wondering, is he taming down or saving his energy for something doubly shocking? Only time will tell. In the meantime, there were plenty of bewildering/confusing/awkward moments to tide us over.
1) No one knows who Bon Iver is. Really? This is like last year’s who the f**k is Arcade Fire moment. Bon Iver won best new artist, though he’s not exactly new on the scene. A new Twitter account has been created in recognition, called Who Is Bonnie Bear?
2) Nicki Minaj’s Grammy ensemble made her usual skin-bearing outfits look conservative. Minaj channeled her religious side, donning a red Versace Catholic-inspired robe. She had a Pope look-a-like escort her and later performed an exorcism on herself — not sure how her date felt about that part. We’re comparing this to Lady Gaga’s egg moment of last year.
3) The most ironic moment of the night goes to the Foo Fighter’s walking off the stage to LMFAO’s “Party Rock” after winning best rock performance. Grohl shouted “long live rock ‘n’ roll” as the electro pop song negated their point.
4) Coldplay got slack for his cracking voice. We all thought Adele was the one to worry about, what with her throat surgery and all, but apparently Chris Martin and Rihanna’s performance was not a favourite. Strangely, a Chipotle commercial aired right after the performance, featuring Coldplay’s music, prompting many to say the commercial represented an actual Coldplay performance. I don’t see the big deal! I don’t think his voice was that bad. Just me? Okay.
5) The Beach Boys reunion underwhelmed audiences. I hate to say it, but it kind of felt like a performance for a Florida retirement home. The California boys shared the stage with Maroon 5 and Foster the People. Foster the People has my vote as best of the three, though the band looked scared out of their minds.
2011 was an awesome year for Foster The People. However, the guys are not sitting around and losing the momentum. They are already planning the next album.
“There’s definitely musical elements that we’ve talked about,” frontman Mark Foster told MTV News. “You know, really leaning on the percussive nature of what our live show has turned into this year, and bringing that more out into the second record — just kind of experimenting, doing some different, weird studio tricks; just having fun with it. But you never really know until you get under the hood, so we’ll see what happens when we start.”
An artist that goes by the name of Mashup-Germany has compiled a wonderful mashup of the most popular songs of 2011.
From Taio Cruz’s “Hangover” to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” to Rihanna’s “We Found Love” this DJ mixes the best with nothing but the best. It’s an incredible song to play at your next Christmas or New Year’s Eve party!
What are you waiting for? Polish off your dancing shoes and listen to this song over and over again.
The fun video was produced by PANOS T. Check it out below.
Since Pumped Up Kicks was such a huge hit for these California indie rockers, Foster The People try to top themselves off with their artsy vid for Call It What You Want.
It’s the quirkiest we’ve seen of these boys. The video has drummer Mark Pontius playing drums in a bathtub, models in bear costumes and a singing plate of bacon and eggs. It doesn’t make any sense but that’s why we like it. Music videos don’t always need an intense storyline with cheesy acting. We want explosions, human heads in fishbowls and a paintball execution for no reason whatsoever.
What Call It What You Want below.
Hear us out on this – a band is basically a musical orgy of sounds………. So what do we mean? Well bands are influenced by other musicians styles, which allows them to form their own sound. So we asked Foster The People who was in their band’s music orgy. Some very interesting and unexpected answers.
