Sometimes Nothing Happens

My goal to post at least once a week has, as it was inevitably fated to, failed.  The problem is that this past week was uneventful, almost hilariously so.  I tried to blog a couple times week only to find I didn't have a single thing to say.  However, I should still try to do something in order to get back on track, so I figured I'd talk about some new music I found.  I'll try to think of something interesting soon.

By "new" I mean "new to me", by the way.  Some of these guys have been around a while.

Rebelution
So these guys have been around since 2004, but I just found out about them the other day when I heard this:

I've always liked reggae-esque music like Sublime, 311, Matisyahu, Marley, Rome, etc., especially anything with more of a ska influence.  This whole album has a nice feel to it, and if you get the deluxe version you get two whole extra disks, one with an acoustic version and one with a dub remix.  Give those links some clicks if you want to hear either version of "Sky is the Limit", the song at the top of the paragraph.  For a while I've been drifting away from this kind of music but now I'm getting back into it.  It's mellow, and I can always use a little mellowing out, especially now that I'm trying to make decisions about grad school.  Yeah, I just said grad school.  I'll talk more about that later.

Of Monsters And Men

These guys actually are new, and they're also from Iceland.  They won some kind of major Icelandic band competition in 2010 and released an album in 2011.  One of their songs, "Little Talks", got some radio play in the U.S.  Now said album will be available here in April.  In the meantime there's an EP you can get your hands on, which is how I came across them.  It sounds quite nice.

For a while I refused to listen to anything that sounded like this because it reminded me of what the idie/hipster kids I met at college who told me punk rock was "outdated" and "cliche" listened to.  Punk was my first love, and I didn't like anyone talking mess about it.  I still don't like anyone talking mess about it, but I got over the idea that I have to choose my music based on what group I'm supposedly a part of.  If I want to put Katy Perry, Bad Religion, and Tupac on the same playlist, that's my business.  It seems trivial now, but this was such a big realization for me towards the end of my freshman year.
Side note: notice any similarities between Rebelution and Of Monsters and Men?
Trumpets.

Kristoff Krane
I love this stuff so much I'm actually a little mad I didn't know about it sooner.  Kristoff Krane (Christopher Keller) has only has three solo albums, but he's been in all sorts of little projects for years.  He was also close with Michael "Eyedea" Larsen, of Eyedea and Abilities, which is probably my favorite rap outfit ever.  This isn't just rap, though.  In 2010 Kristoff Krane released two albums, "Hunting for Father" and "Picking Flowers Next to Roadkill", and their content ranges from rapping to singing to a mixture of both.  All of it has such a relaxed, almost folky feel to it.  This is my favorite of what I've heard so far:

Both Kristoff and Eyedea are from Minnesota, which seems funny to me.  Who would've thought there'd be a rap scene in Minnesota?  Who would've thought that if there was one that Ohioans would be listening to it?

AWOLNATION
Last year these guys had a hit called "Sail", and I absolutely hated it.  That scratchy voice screaming "sail!" over and over again grated on my nerves, and for a good minute the song seemed to be everywhere, so it got stuck in my head a lot.  It finally went away and I once again felt peace, but then this song happened and I found myself liking it.

Just recently I got around to hearing more AWOLNATION's debut album "Megalithic Symphony".  Yes, that's a bit of a pretentious album name, and yes, the band name really is in all caps, but you know what?  It's a good album.  It's interesting, and by listening to it as a whole I even managed to gain some appreciation for "Sail".  Not that it's my favorite song out there, but hearing it in the context of the album helped a lot, or maybe I just got used to the style so it didn't bother me so much anymore.  Either way, I've grown to like this band quite a bit.  It only took a year.



I had a minor crisis in that last paragraph when I typed "anymore" because I couldn't remember if "anymore" is actually a word or not.  Apparently I'm not the only one.

The End