For the past few years Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche has been sharing covers of his favorite songs of the year with Stereogum. While his previous selections — like Animal Collective’s “Bluish” and Owen Pallett’s “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” — have skewed more indie, this year his song of choice is a bit more surprising: Beyoncé’s “Countdown.”
“Obviously, a significant part of this song’s appeal and ecstatic energy comes from the dizzying vocal performance and the mind-blowingly cool production work — elements and talents useless to even attempt replicating (especially not in my father in-law’s basement),” he writes. “But as long as there’s a song underneath, there’s a way.” Listen to his paired down version of “Countdown” here, and let us know what you think in the comments.
As big fans of The Who, we are happy to report that their songs still packed an amazing punch at last night’s benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. To put this into perspective, it has been nearly four decades since their first hit single, “I Can’t Explain” — performed last night by The Postelles, who absolutely nailed it. From Roger Daltrey’s frenzied stage antics to the falsetto backup vocals, it felt like what we imagine a Who concert was like in the ’60s.
In fact, most of the night felt like an incredible time warp, beginning with the Overture from Tommy performed by the fresh faced kids of the Music Unites Youth Choir and led by bandleader extraordinaire Steven Bernstein while playing his slide trumpet like an electric guitar.
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Today at Flavorpill, we remembered a decade of Bill O’Reilly’s hip-hop feuds. We flipped for these rare in utero images of animals and we feared this mighty duck penis. We couldn’t believe that Amy Winehouse was arrested for assault while attending a kiddie-filled performance of Cinderella. We liked this seasonal parody of Lonely Island’s “On A Boat.” We made some rather strong eggnog. We wondered who the target demographic is for Michael Jackson’s doctor’s upcoming reality TV show. We thought that Playboy should actually consider this fictional rebranding. We downloaded Sondre Lerche’s Animal Collective cover. And finally, we drooled while watching Gizmodo play with the Google Nexus.
Happy holidays, guys. We’ll be posting a few things tomorrow, but going radio silent on Friday. If you find yourselves bored in the meantime, head over to our indie band stereotypes post and pick a fight with someone in the comments. It’s not exactly in the spirit of the season, but it is oddly cathartic.
The August drought of album releases is coming to a close. This week’s Viva la Mix is about the death of summer and the rebirth of new albums come September. So give your fingers a little warm-up stretch and get ready to “Right Click, Save Link As,” because after the jump we present 14 essential downloads from our latest Viva Radio show that we consider required listening at Flavorpill HQ. Enjoy! Read More »
