I don’t listen to much general pop- let alone dance pop- but Kim Petras is cuter than a basket of kittens, her voice is lovely and she amazingly launched her own career at the age of 15 by uploading to the internet videos she made of herself singing. The videos caught the attention of a producer in her native Germany and the two teamed up to release her first commercial single last fall. Her debut commercial album is forthcoming.
Petras has made the news some in the States because she was …

The headline is not a plea for salvation but rather my favorite song off of Metric’s newish album Fantasies. The surreal accompanying video is courtesy of Decco Dawson.

Patton Oswalt in the return of Late Night Work Break

The first time I ever heard Andrew Bird’s solo work was in an Onion AV Club review of the album Mysterious Production of Eggs.  It was the song “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head” and it was like nothing I had ever heard before.  I listened to that one song repeatedly.  I made my then-fiance  listen to it.  I bought the cd and became enthralled.  This is a cd that one can listen to over and over again and hear something new in the songs every time.  And all …

I adore Lily Allen. She’s cheeky- an attribute which earns anyone 100 points in my book- and seems to lack an editing mechanism between her brain and her mouth. To which I can relate. Her first album Alright, Still floored me when I heard it. Without paying attention to what the lyrics are saying, it sounds like a record from a 1960s Lesley Gore-ish ingenue. But then the lyrics kicked in, full of wit and double entendre (and the occasional outright vulgarity) and I fell in love. (Liberal use of profanity under the cut. NSFW?)

I was a tomboy growing up and the one thing I desperately wanted was a skateboard. My family, for whatever reason (money, thought I’d break my neck, wanted me to wear skirts and stop playing tackle football with the boys), would not get me one. Finally, one of my male cousins gave me one of his old ones. My family couldn’t really take it away from me once he’d slipped it in under the radar. (Cont..)

I have recently become obsessed with Cold War Kids, a band from Calilfornia that’s been around for a while and had occasional radio play. I’ve been trying to describe their sound to people, and I keep saying that they’re like the White Stripes, kinda, at least musically-the songs are rhythm, driven, without a strong melody, and often with discordant notes that mash with the dysfunctional, discordant world painted by the lyrics.

I’m surprised that Acallidryas hasn’t done a LNWB on Jonathan Coulton yet, considering she was the one that introduced me to his music outside of the Portal theme song. 
Re: Your Brains is one of the best sing-along, bar songs I’ve ever heard. That it involves zombies just puts it on a higher level of artistic merit than many of us will ever reach. Bask in the glow. 

Your Still Alive fix under the cut: 
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The XYZ Affair is named after a bad diplomatic episode between the U.S. and France in the very late 1700s that led to a bit of a war. Their video for the song “All My Friends” features former Nickelodeon television superstars Marc Summers (of Double Dare), Danny Cooksey (Budnick from Salute Your Shorts), Micheal Maronna (Big Pete) and Jason Zimbler (Ferguson from Clarissa Explains it All). 
Incongruous? Yes. Awesome? Also yes. 

What’s Christmas without a little Brian Setzer? Why, it’d hardly be Christmas at all, and that’s the truly odd part about it. Back in the early 80’s, never in my wildest Stray-Cats-pompadour dreams did I think that Setzer would turn into a holiday icon. Yet here he is, in all his greaser glory:

Yep. Now it’s Christmas, dammit.