For me the perfect summer mix are songs that are about: sun, swimming, cars, the beach, traveling, etc. Also, old pop songs (anything that sounds like it could have been recorded by The Beach Boys). Every year I make a summer playlist to send to all my friends, this year is no different. You can listen to it on Spotify or if you want to download it and make a cd for your car click HERE. 

The Avett Brothers announced their new album today via Facebook. It's called The Carpenter, and I couldn't be more excited. It comes out September 11. 

2012 is the 50th anniversary of the Beach Boys a group that everyone knows for their fun in the sun songs about surfing, cars and girls. They were also one of the greatest pop groups in history and penned and performed some of the most beautiful, trippy and haunting songs ever. Here is a little playlist of some of my favorite Beach Boys songs for you to enjoy. Happy Summer!

It's summer again... after the cold long winter and the cold long spring (here in Rexburg ID) it's great to see and feel the sun shining and the skies blue and clear. This song done by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti(originally by 60's band The Rockin' Ramrods) doesn't paint such a happy picture. And that's alright. Hope you enjoy this one. ps: not trying to be depressive, i just like this song

I feel lately like I'm going through this huge change in my life where I keep saying to myself, "things just aren't as great as they were in the good ol' days." These whippersnappers today listen to "noise" and have iPhone apps that wipe for them and wear saggy knickers.

Ergo, I'll create a best of music list from a decade ago. This list will amaze you for one of two reasons: that these albums still find airplay on your drive to work or you can't believe it's been ten years since you picked that one up and listened to it in your first car.

Against Me! - Reinventing Axl Rose
Ben Kweller - Sha Sha
Box Car Racer - s/t
Bright Eyes - Lifted, or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Bright Eyes and Britt Daniel - Home Volume IV
Damien Rice - O
Desaparacidos - Read Music, Speak Spanish
Finch - What It Is to Burn
Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
The Starting Line - Say It Like You Mean It
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot


I have a feeling 2012 won't touch 2002. 

*This post has nothing to do with oranges and everything to do with one apple in particular.

FIONA. That girl is crazy. I haven't stopped listening to her album in a week. Well, I didn't listen to it today. I listened to THURSDAY! all day long. Promise to not get upset when I say that I have never listened to Fiona Apple before. Maybe I'm too young? Whatever the reason, it's in the past now. This is the future, and the future is Fiona Apple.

The album begins with "Every Single Night," which I love for its sparseness and beauty. I get real-life chills over the way she shouts "brain." It's like a brain stampede. She's like a combination of Bjork and Billie Holiday but very her. My favorite songs on the album are "Valentine," "Every Single Night," "Periphery," and "Hot Knife."

Oh, brother. "Hot Knife" is surely one of the most perfect songs I have heard in my years on this planet. It's the most wild, angelic end to an album. It's got a rhythm that comes from her and not a machine. It is still difficult to fathom how she came up with it on her own. It sounds like a collaboration with someone else but on her own. I will leave you all (or y'all, as they say in this place) with this song and let your ears be happy.

 
(Buy the album.)

Edit (READ): I wanted to know about “Hot Knife,” the album’s last track. They both smiled. Though, like all her songs, it had come in a moment of total dissociation, its roots were probably in a Bach concert she’d seen in New York, and the Supremes song “Where Did Our Love Go?,” the place where two lines of music “crack together,” which had always given her “huge satisfaction.” Charley — whose genius as a producer, it seemed, was to fade away — had given her the mallets to softly strike the rhythm on the timpani. He’d said, “You need to say something on the piano,” so she made a waving, malevolent line in the background. And then there were the voices: hers and, later, in an incredible melodic round, her sister Maude’s. There was no looping or Auto-Tune; for hours they’d stood at the same microphone, weaving their voices in what she called “the most intimate moment of our lives together.”

Anyone who even sort of knows me knows that I share a special kinship with Rivers Cuomo. Do I consider him a brother? A friend? An older, much more talented doppelgänger? I really don't know how to explain the relationship* I have with him.

Most of us were introduced to Rivers as the singer of Weezer. That's where I first met him, back in 1995. One day my older brother brought home Weezer's self-titled first album, more often known as the Blue Album, and I have loved Weezer -- for better or worse (and some longtime Weezer fans will argue that there has been more worse than better) -- ever since.

Many fans met the release of Weezer's third album in 2001, the Green Album, with much disappointment, a disappointment that has only increased with each subsequent release. While there are songs on every Weezer album I love, even an unconditional Weezer lover like myself will admit that Weezer has failed to recapture the complete magic of their first two albums, Blue (1994) and Pinkerton (1996).

Fans like me have sought redemption from Weezer over the years. I don't think Weezer can redeem themselves. I do think, however, that Rivers Cuomo can redeem Weezer.

== == == == ==

In December 2007, Rivers released a solo album called Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. (Aside: Since it was released so close to Christmas, my brother Matt and I bought copies for ourselves, listened to the record a few times, and then wrapped them and stuck them under the tree as Christmas gifts for each other.) This is a pretty unconventional solo album, however, since, as the album title indicates, it's comprised of home recordings, some of which were demoed in hopes of becoming new Weezer songs.

While it's always fun to hear demos of beloved songs, it was the tracks that didn't end up as Weezer songs that I my often cheated-by-Weezer heart ached to hear. One of these tracks is called "Lover in the Snow."

I'll admit that I didn't like this song at first: I found the lyrics a bit weird -- Rivers used lines like "out on the eve, deep in the shady glen" to give the song a fantastical element -- and some of the dissonant chords made me uneasy. And to be honest, the premise of the song -- spying on your girlfriend while she makes love to your friend on a snowy day -- well, that is a bit creepy.

And yet, it's that creepiness that recalls a Rivers that old school Weezer fans know and love. This is the Rivers of "El Scorcho," the Rivers that would sneak into a girl's room and read her diary. Sure, it's unhealthy behavior, but it's also somewhat relatable. I'd be lying if I said I have never creeped a girl's Facebook profile, Twitter feed, or Instagram photos. Sometimes you like what you find there -- in the case of "El Scorcho," Rivers discovers his soul mate -- and sometimes you find your soul mate rolling around in the snow with one of your best buds.

Initially, I found the instrumentation of "Lover in the Snow" a bit odd. It features a dirty electric guitar with no drums or bass, which is not an arrangement I'm used to hearing. The bare rhythm section -- consisting only of hand claps and a simple tambourine -- gives the song a certain innocence, while the crunchy guitar offers a contrasting, Pinkerton-esque grit. It's an unconventional arrangement that absolutely works, as the minimalist accompaniment allows the nuanced pain in Rivers' voice to shine through and leaves just enough room for the overdubbed "Come on, come on" harmonies.

It's easy to see why this song didn't end up on any Weezer records. There's really nothing else like it in the Weezer catalog. (Although, if someone broke into Rivers' home in the middle of the night (heaven forbid) and put a gun to his head (which I would not condone) and made him include this song on a Weezer record, I like to think he'd choose Pinkerton.)

== == == == ==

While one song or one record won't have the power to redeem the string of disappointing albums that Weezer have released since the start of the new millennium, I can't help but remain hopeful that Rivers has something up his sleeve that, in the end, will make everything OK. In 2008, Rivers released Alone II, and in late 2010, the band issued a deluxe edition of Pinkerton, which included two unreleased Pinkerton-era tracks that I had not heard, "Getting Up and Leaving" and "Tragic Girl." Just before Christmas 2011, Rivers released The Pinkerton Diaries, a 237 page book detailing Rivers' Pinkerton years, 1994-1997. With the The Pinkerton Diaries, Rivers released the third installment of the Alone series, a 26 track disc featuring demos from the Blue and Pinkerton eras and beyond.

I'm beyond hoping that Weezer will release anything comparable to the greatness of their first two records. However, if Rivers continues to let us glimpse into his veritable trove of unreleased demos and scrapped songs, I can be OK with that.

* No, I don't personally know Rivers. I'm speaking figuratively here. (Although sometimes I do feel I know him, or that he knows me.)

P.S. For those of you who aren't on Spotify, you can find a YouTube video of "Lover in the Snow" here.

I used to think that I didn't have any guilty pleasures when it came to music. When people asked me who my guilty pleasure band was, I could honestly say I didn't have one. Over the past few weeks I've realized that I have one.
Let's go back to the year 2005. It was my first year of college. I was introduced to one of my favorite bands, The Format. I listened to their first album non-stop for weeks. I bought a T-shirt.
2006 rolled around and they released their second album, Dog Problems. This album, oh man, this album changed the way I will listen to music forever. It still is my all time favorite album. I can listen to it today and enjoy it just as much as I did in 2006. My sister, all my friends, we all fell in love with the album. We all hurried to Best Buy to buy our own copies. I sat in my room for hours listening to it and reading the lyrics. I saw them live four times. I took my brother to his first show to see them. After that it was his favorite band.
Then in 2008 it all came crashing down like the Hindenburg. They broke up. With no explanation really, just a tiny blog post. I was devastated. My brother cried. No more music from Nate Ruess and Sam Means would ever be released.
But then just a few months after the break up I read that Nate was starting a new band called fun. (lower case with a period at the end, fun.) They released some pretty good demos. I even saw them live. Their first album 'Aim and Ignite' was released in 2009. I liked it a lot. It's a good album, but I didn't love it. I listened to it a lot the summer it came out, but never really came back to it.
This is where the guilty pleasure part comes in. . .
2012, earlier this year, I found out they would be releasing their second album, Some Nights. I wasn't too excited. I heard their single, which is pretty good, but really catchy. So catchy it was on Glee (throw up). They streamed their album on their website and I hated it. I vowed never to listen to it again. The single (which, if you noticed I still haven't mentioned by name) became the number one song in America, and the party anthem for douche bags every where.
I was done with fun. forever (haha, it rhymed unintentionally), until I heard them on All Songs Considered. My music critic hero (whom I've all ready mentioned), Bob Boilen talked about how much he loved the album. I gave it another listen. I liked about four songs, but still couldn't get past the artificial beats and auto-tune on the other six songs.
Two weeks ago I saw that Bonnaroo was streaming fun.'s set live on Youtube. I watched it. . . I liked it? Yeah,  I liked it. I put the album on again. I liked it. I still don't love it, but I can appreciate it for what it is.
I still have a hard time with the fake beats and auto-tune and I'm constantly looking for better acoustic versions on Youtube to convert to mp3's.
Is it a guilty pleasure? I don't even know anymore especially after writing this blog post and making it public to our many followers (we currently have zero followers). I guess I just can't give up on Nate Ruess. Damn you, Nate Ruess and your beautifully unique voice. I guess there's something to be said for being loyal after all these years, even if this new album is inspired by Kanye West.

*Note:
I'm sorry to everyone I made fun of for liking the album. I apologize to anyone who listened to my angry rants about how much it sucked.

Fiona Apple gets my weird as hell award this week. Her new video for 'Every Single Night' is weird, but very cool. And as cool as the video is, the song is even better.
Someone please tell me what's going on this video because I have no idea.

My favorite music podcast and also my favorite place to find new music is NPR's All Songs Considered. The creator and Ryan Ward look alike, Bob Boilen, is my music critic hero. I trust his opinion on music more than my wife (sorry sweetheart). I look forward to every podcast.

Me (Zach Gibson), Ryan Ward, & Jeff Poole have created this music/pop culture blog. Maybe there will be stuff people will like on here.