Matt posted this playlist of his favorite Valentine’s Day type songs, with this intro:
So it’s that time of year again. You either love it or you hate it. I put together a playlist of my favorite (sort of) love songs. None of them have anything to do with roses or heart shaped chocolates or cheesy cards or anything like that. So even if you’re a Valentine’s Day hater, at least you’ll have some killer songs to listen to. Right?
And don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a free trip to Napa by sharing my video for “Restless Heart” on Facebook and Twitter: atlr.ec/XCoUF1
I somehow missed that Matt posted a playlist earlier this month. Instead of posting his favorites from last year, he’s put up 10 of his favorite older songs. Worth a listen!
Here are Matt’s favorite songs of 2011,in no particular order.
(Some of them are my favorites too – can you guess which ones? lol)
Helplessness Blues – Fleet Foxes
Losers – The Belle Brigade
The Valley – Okkervil River
White Fences – Needtobreathe
Holocene – Bon Iver
Come Talk To Me – Bon Iver
Holdin’ On To Black Metal – My Morning Jacket
Lost In My Mind – The Head and The Heart
Down In The Valley – The Head and The Heart
So American – Portugal. The Man
Time Spent In Los Angeles – Dawes
Blue Eyes – Middle Brother
Lucky Now – Ryan Adams
No One Listens To The Band Anymore – The Damnwells
Born Alone-Wilco
I love the musical journey. Sometimes you travel it alone and discover uncharted territory. Sometimes you end up learning you love overly popular artists you used to reject, by way of some weird unexpected connections. Sometimes you find your friends are already at the destination you have just landed upon. Sometimes you make friends once you get there. But I love it when a friend leads me to a new discovery, or helps me see a familiar artist through the eyes of a fan. The world of music is vast.
I had in my collection a few M. Ward songs and a lot of She & Him (M. Ward’s project with Zooey Deschanel). I would say I have traveled through the outskirts of M. Ward. When Matt listed him as an artist he likes, I filled out the album Hold Time and really listened, and wow, did I like what I heard. So thank you, Matt. I’m going to include a song I discovered I love in the playlist, plus one song by She & Him. But it turns out there are no boundaries on M. Ward’s musical territory and I needed a guidebook to help focus my efforts. Thanks again to Matt for giving me a hand with the landmarks. Six of the songs on the playlist are among his favorites: Chinese Translation, Requiem, Magic Trick, Vincent O’Brien, Outta My Head, and Helicopter. The other 2 are mine. See if you can hear something of Matt in the songs here. For me, the similarity is simple and visceral…. I find myself smiling like an idiot listening to this music.
If you like what you hear, check out M. Ward’s official site for more and more and more.
From what I gather, Band of Horses isn’t on a par with Bob Dylan in the Music Matt Likes hierarchy, but they’re still a band that he likes enough to pre-order and wait with anticipation as the album streams to his IPod. In fact, last week when Infinite Arms was released, Matt tweeted: “Downloading my iTunes pre-order of the new Band of Horses record. Can’t wait to listen!” I’m sure he loved it too; it’s a terrific album. You can get their song Laredo for free at Amazon right now.
Band of Horses hails from Seattle originally and are now based in South Carolina. That just about wraps up their sound as well, as it is an epic mix of indie and pop-powered tunes, with harmonies reminiscent of their new neighbors NeedToBreathe.
Watch for a new song called “Life On Earth” on the upcoming Eclipse soundtrack.
Infinite Arms – live. This is a song off their new release, Infinite Arms.
The Funeral – official video. This is off their 2006 Everything All the Time. Another really good album.
Is There a Ghost – official video. This is off their 2007 Cease To Begin.
EOS: What music might we be surprised that you listen to?
MATT: I don’t really have many “guilty pleasure” type CDs because I’m somewhat of a music snob. I guess the only albums that may be a little surprising would be Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 3″, The Spongebob Squarepants movie Soundtrack (which has some great songs on it), and “The Grand Illusion” by Styx.
(Actually only one of those is kind of surprising.)
In the January interview of CosmoGirl, Matt says that he loves Bon Iver. And he’s not alone. NPR named the song Skinny Love one of the 50 most important recordings of the past decade. Bon Iver is Justin Vernon’s project, and to date consists mainly of a single album: For Emma, Forever Ago. Vernon wrote and recorded this album in the back woods of Wisconsin, in a remote cabin, alone. The album has, rightfully, received wide-spread critical acclaim since it was released in 2008. And the recent inclusion of the song Roslyn on the New Moon soundtrack (a collaboration with St. Vincent) ensures that Bon Iver will know popular success as well.
By the way – another future band in the Music Matt Likes shows up in the NPR list above. Who do you suppose it might be?
You may need to create a lala account to listen to this list. It’s free to create the account and it’s free to listen to each song once through. Thereafter, you’ll need to add the files to your own lala account for 10 cents a piece, after which you can listen to this player indefinitely.
Interviewers tend to ask Matt what music he loves, who inspires him, how he’d describe his music. Inevitably, Matt will mention Bob Dylan. He recently told me “Bob Dylan is my favorite songwriter.”
He elaborated a little on the Dylan influence on his music with yousingiwrite :
To describe my sound, my influences . . . I love Bob Dylan. I think a lot of influence comes from older folk stuff and also newer things. I try to write songs that have their roots in classic, older artists like that and try to do something new and relevant with that also.
I confess, I’m a little daunted by the prospect of even writing about Bob Dylan, I can’t imagine the confidence it takes to want to write like Dylan. He is one of the seminal artists in American folk and a powerful inflluence on rock, especially the “singer/songwriter” off-shoot (whatever that genre means.) His lyrics are well-recognized as some of the best ever composed.
In an interview with reviewsic.com, Matt was asked to name three albums he had been listening to lately. His response included Ryan Adams, Phoenix and …
Elliott Smith is someone I’ve been getting into a lot lately, I just bought his album XO.
I’ll confess that this pleased me inordinantly, not just because I love Elliott Smith to an unhealthy extent, but also because I think that any songwriter would do well to listen to what Elliott accomplished with his music. I often recall this awesome comment he made about his relationship to music: “I think that repetition in rock music or any music at all really kind of got to me when I first started to write. I wondered why every part of the song wasn’t the most exciting part of the song.” fotolog.com
Elliott’s music weaves together a delicate layering of acoustic pop melodies with dark, vulnerable lyrics. The resulting combination produces a poignancy that is even harder to bear in many ways than the angstiest of grunge music. In his songs, Elliott stoically shines a light through his attic, exposing the ugliness to us without hesitation. And yet his songs are filled with beauty and an occasional glimmer of dark humor. As one of his friends said, “He had a very keen sense of humor and a kind heart, but he was also a complete bad ass….” MTV
Matt, I hope you’re still listening to Elliott… Thanks for giving me an excuse to plug his music.
You may need to create a lala account to listen to this list. It’s free to create the account and it’s free to listen to each song once through. Thereafter, you’ll need to add the files to your own lala account for 10 cents a piece, after which you can listen to this player indefinitely.
The name Wilco pops up in nearly every article about Matt Hires that I come across. I wasn’t sure if that was lazy journalism, using the wikipedia as a source, or if they were all on to something. And then I came across this interview in which he says right out “Wilco is one of my favorite bands.” (Great interview by the way, complete with video. Check it out if you haven’t watched it.)
Wilco formed in 1994, with members of the defunct Uncle Tupelo. The members of the band change with frequency, which may explain in part the diversity in their 7 album oeuvre. They’ve received attention for their work with Billy Bragg (recording Woody Guthrie’s unpublished works) as well as with their acclaimed 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
I don’t even know how you classify Wilco into a genre, so I’m not going to try. Take a listen and see what you come up with.
You may need to create a lala account to listen to this list. It’s free to create the account and it’s free to listen to each song once through. Thereafter, you’ll need to add the files to your own lala account for 10 cents a piece, after which you can listen to this player indefinitely.
