July 2010
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Time of the Season
The alpha version of the Loudcrowd website launched almost two years ago, in August of 2008. We’re very proud of it, this online community for people who love music and want to do more than just listen. Our users have sent millions of dances and listened to thousands of tracks while discovering the best new music from around the world. In the meantime our other games, Music Pets and Super...
May 2010
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PICK OF THE WEEK: Bloodbuzz Ohio - The National
I don’t think I can accurately describe how excited I am now that a new National album is out in the world and in my filthy little hands. It’s been too long since Boxer came along and blew my mind. Unfortunately the album was ruined for me as I went on a 20 hour road trip forgetting every CD except Boxer. Somewhere around hour fifteen,...
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PICK OF THE WEEK: Kiss that Grrrl - Kate Nash
I really wanted to pick some really avant garde and insanely complicated song this week so that everyone on the internet would think I was cool. The only problem was that Kate Nash had to come along and release a perfect pop song. Instead of sitting down and listening to the latest noise-jazz meets space-punk release, I found myself listening to...
April 2010
4 posts
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DOUBLE PICK OF THE WEEK:
Laura Palmer’s Prom - You Say Party! We Say Die! + Twin Peaks - Surfer Blood
One night when I was ten years old I was sick with the flu and couldn’t sleep. I went into the den and tried to fall asleep to the TV. Except that my channel flipping lead to David Lynch’s “what the heck” masterpiece Twin Peaks. As I watched a backwards-talking...
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Top Five Driving Songs of All Time
Music and cars have had a long, torrid love affair and considering how much time I spend in my car, I thought I would share with you my completely unscientific and completely opinionated list of the Five Greatest Driving Songs of All Time.
5. Cars with the Boom - L’Trimm
Debate this decision if you like, but are you really going to stand there and tell...
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Pick of the Week: Skin and Bones - Flashy Python
Call it fate, or destiny, or whatever you want, but if it wasn’t for being a broke college student three years ago, I never would have stumbled upon Flashy Python, the newish band from members of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dr. Dog and The Teeth.
You see, three years ago I was broke. But I also wanted to pick up some new music so I went to the...
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Pick of the Week: Tora Tora Tora - Pretty & Nice
Guys, I have a secret for all of you. Are you ready for it? Summer is almost here! I know, I know. Spring just started, but when you get out of work and the sun is still shining, it’s the world announcing “Summer is near, so take off those coats. Go grab some frisbees and sandwiches. Then meet me at the beach and we’ll have a...
March 2010
3 posts
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Pick of the Week: Maneater/Rich Girl/Heard It On The Radio - The Bird and The Bee
There was no way I could only pick one song this week. I mean, The Bird and the Bee released an entire album of Hall & Oates covers and I managed to pick only three. I consider that a massive showing of restraint.
And don’t lie to me, and certainly do not lie to yourself. When you heard that The Bird and...
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Pick of the Week: The Wrestle - Frightened Rabbit
Up until two years ago, I knew three things about Scotland. They were Sean Connery, the Lochness monster and that a mass mooning is sound military strategy. But then Midnight Organ Fight came out and thanks to Frightened Rabbit, I learned one more thing about the country: it is a breeding ground for amazing and earnest rock n’ roll....
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Pick of the Week: When I Go - Slow Club
My eighth grade self would hate me. In eighth grade I only listened to bands like Minor Threat and spent a lot of time trying to perfect Sharpie drawings of the Dead Kennedys “DK” symbol on my desk. Now I find myself listening to “When I Go” by the cute and folksy duo Slow Club. I can just imagine younger-me stumbling upon...
February 2010
3 posts
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Pick of the Week: Under Control - Good Shoes
I want to give a hearty thanks to Good Shoes for releasing the first single of 2010 meant to embarrass me. For the London based quartet, “Under Control” is just another tight and riff heavy post-punk jam that’s insanely catchy. It also happens to be about sex. The melody is so in-your-ears delicious that you’ll be forced to sing...
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Pick of the Week: You Must Be Out of Your Mind - The Magnetic Fields
It’s a really great time to be depressed and wallow in self pity. With the Eastern seaboard buried under two feet of snow, it’s the perfect time to get in bed, pull the blankets up and stare at the ceiling while mulling over every wrong decision you’ve ever made. Luckily, The Magnetic Fields have come out with...
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Pick of the Week: Robot - The Futureheads
Sometimes I feel like I’m a robot. I wake up, go to work, come home, make macaroni and cheese, and repeat. And just as robots use motor oil and Tesla coils to recharge their energy cells, I use Saturdays and root beer.
That’s why I love “Robot” by The Futureheads. With jagged, punchy guitars I get to stomp around the apartment...
January 2010
4 posts
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Pick of the Week: These Old Shoes - Deer Tick
My twenty minute commute took over an hour the other night. It was one of those nights when all I needed was to be back at home. I was starving, tired, stressed and I knew if I could just get to my apartment, there would be frozen pizza and pajamas waiting for me, begging to embrace me in their loving arms. But no, I was ass deep in traffic and every...
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Mea Culpa
There are times when I’m a really bad music fan and I want to apologize for that. Sometimes I’m lazy and don’t want to give difficult, less catchy releases time to win me over. Sometimes when a band I like goes in a new direction, I don’t want to go with them. And then there are those “friends” (who are actually jerks) that recommend albums that I...
December 2009
6 posts
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Wait. The Rakes Broke Up?: A Monologue
Hold on a second, just—just wait a minute. You’re telling me that the Rakes broke up? Over a month ago? And just when were you planning on letting me know?
You thought I knew? Yeah, right. You just didn’t want to be the one to break it to me. You let me walk around like an idiot thinking the Rakes were still together. How could you do this...
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Pick of the Week: Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End) - The Darkness
When I think of Christmas, I think of three things: family, presents and mind-melting guitar solos. Despite what your totally square grandparents think, Bing Crosby never had a mind-melting guitar solo on any of his Christmas albums. Luckily though, the Darkness left us this one golden Christmas nugget in their short...
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PICK OF THE WEEK: Bumble Bee - Heavy Trash
You probably don’t know this about me, but I love bumble bees. There is something that I find so wonderful about this animal that even though it has a stinger, it’s funny enough to be named “bumble.” While people are terrified of other members of the bee family like the yellow jacket, everyone loves a bumble bee! They’re the...
Win a hot axe for to shred with courtesy of the...
Do you want to rock as hard as the Bravery? Even if you think you can’t— it’s good to want things! But maybe if you could win a really cool guitar that’s been played by Sam Endicott from the Bravery, it would be like that movie where Lil Bow Wow finds Michael Jordan’s shoes and with them he becomes an amazing basketball player and then at the end he learns he...
November 2009
10 posts
To celebrate LADY GAGA’S forthcoming confessional album FAME MONSTER, SuperDance asks: When have you been your most tragically fabulous?
Share your best/worst moments of drama and exhibition by posting on our Facebook wall — right here! Best entries will be selected to win a copy of FAME MONSTER as well as live on forever in our SuperDance Hall of Infamy. (Accompanying pictures or...
This is the Very Best Blog Post of 2009
Oh no. Here we go again. It’s time for everyone and their mother to start making their best of 2009 lists. I really don’t know how people do it. I have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast, much less what my favorite albums were that came out this past year. It certainly doesn’t help that I spent half of 2009 catching up on the...
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Pick of the Week: No Static - Bottin
If you are anything like me you probably spent most of last month in dark theaters watching B Grade Italian Horror films. If you’re also like me you’ve always wished someone would combine the on-screen chills with the 1970s rhythm of an European discotheque. Each time I dreamed this combo up, I assumed I had eaten too many movie theater hot dogs...
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Be There or Be Square: John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives
This past week I went to see Lucero play at the Echoplex. While their Southern Springsteen flavored rock was great, I was really blown away by their opener: John Paul Keith and the One Four Fives. John Paul Keith et al hail from Memphis, TN and they jumped onstage and tore it up. They may not be breaking new ground with their...
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So, Yeah!
To celebrate the launch this week on the Facebook Super Dance application of our “rockstar81” channel (which consists vaguely of what folks in suits term “modern rock”) we’ve included songs by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, from Brooklyn, NY. We think these kids might go someplace.
As if the games themselves and their attendant flirty social activity weren’t...
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(Maybe You Can) WIN A WEEZER SNUGGIE!!!
The rock band Weezer has always been ground-breaking. They also have demonstrated damn good taste from the get-go. And unlike most “funny” (or worse yet, “intelligent”) rock bands, they’re ironic, but not so obviously that they might as well be skywriters. For instance, take a look at the Spike Jonze-directed video for...
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OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
When told that we’d have the opportunity to include some new and excellent songs from the album Sunshower by the NYC-based band Jupiter One, I was naturally psyched. I like how diverse their music is, and hope their current tour with Regina Spektor brings them oodles more adoring fans.
But my eyes quickly glazed over with a visit from that familiar demon, nostalgia. What...
October 2009
19 posts
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Hey, A Place to Bury Strangers! You owe me money!
I blew out the speakers in my car last week. Although I’ve never had any top of the line equipment, at least it got the job done. Now every time I want to listen to music in my car I get to hear what at best sounds like radio static and at worst the sound of someone eating saltines into a microphone. I can no longer rely on some soothing...
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Now that the weather has begun to really cool down it looks like we’re at everyone’s favorite time of the year: the time when every single person in the entire world is sick. Despite my best efforts to eat my fruits and veggies, wash my hands regularly and not to touch anything in a public restroom, my finely tuned machine succumbed this past week. As I laid in bed coughing my guts up,...
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Pick of the Week: Tranz-Kunt-Inental
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Last week, Passion Pit came to Los Angeles, selling out the Henry Fonda Theatre. While I’m sure I don’t need to extol the virtues of Passion Pit to any of you readers, I would be committing a crime if I didn’t pass along the newest band that sent shivers down my spine.
That band would be Tranz-Kunt-Inental. They are made up of...
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All Blissed Out
I’ve been revisiting this record from eleven years ago called Wave Field by Portugese musician Rafael Toral. It’s very warm ambient drone music really informed by the rock and roll music. It sounds good either as background chirpy-chirp stuff or as fully immersive loud heaviness.
Resounding frequencies overlap and gyrate, wiggling their way inside your body. The...
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I Hate Ryan Gosling
Ryan Gosling is a jerk. Seriously. First, he was born beautiful. Then he goes and stars in The Notebook making every woman on earth fall in love with him. Naturally, he becomes a darling of the critics after starring in Half Nelson. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he set his sights on world domination with the release of the self-titled debut LP from his band Dead...
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The Devil Makes Americana Exciting!
The Devil Makes Three came to Amoeba Records earlier this week to perform a free live set and I was left in awe. The band came out a little after seven, then played a set of blistering blues and bluegrass tunes about drinking, demons, and wild women. The band is covered in tattoos and they infuse their brand of Americana with the energy of a punk gig. The...
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New Loudness Tuesday!!!
So, it’s the second day of the work week which means that we have just added three new tunes to the playlist. This week we have killer new tracks from three great indie rock-type acts:
Portland, OR-based thinking person’s dance-pop act The Blow, who were aided and abetted once upon a time by Jona from YACHT; The Lights, a group from Seattle who have now...
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Songs for Shlocktober
October is finally here! And that means scary movies, mischief nights and listening to the same three pop songs on repeat. I don’t know how it happened, but in the last 25 years there hasn’t been a new song added to the fearsome party trio that is “Time Warp,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Thriller.” Nick Cave couldn’t do it,...
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An Interview With HOCKEY
Hockey, a band whose name was the result of a joke, recently released their debut LP, Mind Chaos, through Capitol Records. Based in Portland, OR, their sound has been compared more often to New York and London based new wave bands than their northwestern counterparts. Mind Chaos is an album with slinky guitars, ’80s synths, and huge dance beats, but attempts to have...
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Sherburne’s Kitchen Sink Mixer
Holy moley, Philip Sherburne’s mix for the Krakow-based Unsound Festival — which starts next week — is phenomenal. You might think it’d be easy to throw a jillion different genres together to create something that’s interesting, but it’s hard as hell, really. Believe me, I’ve tried and failed more than I’d care...
If you never checked our ‘Happy Snacks’ playlist featuring A-Trak, check it out in the game today. If you have already checked it out, you can of course still check it out. I guess what I’m saying is that… you should check it out! But maybe you aren’t so into fun, or grooviness, or sexiness? In which case you should come back tomorrow for our Mormon Tabernacle Choir...
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Pick of the Week: 1, 2, 3, Partyy! by Mission of Burma Finally, I’ve found my personal party jam of 2009. And it’s even one that I can be proud of. Before Mission of Burma released “1, 2, 3, Partyy!”, it was looking like Miley’s “Party in the USA” was going to be it. And it’s hard to maintain my street cred when I use a Miley song to get jazzed...
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New Loudness Time
It’s a fine Tuesday in October — the first one of the month — which means that we’ve got some really rad new songs hitting the site today. These three songs will help shake the leaves off of the trees and get this season started. They will rattle your skull. They will help you attain enlightenment. Also, they will cure that persistent acne problem of...
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Pick of the Week: The Drums, Summertime! EP When I first heard of The Drums as “Robert Smith meets surf,” I thought to myself, could it be? Is there a band out there writing the music that exists only in my dreams? Is there finally a band making the music that I always wanted to make, but couldn’t because of my lack of quality songwriting skills? Then I got worried. I thought,...