the Highlights (week TWO)

On tonight's show, you're going to hear some great songs coming off of full. blown. ALBUMS!!! (I know, it's totally rockin.) Here's the best of the best:

1. Bridging the Distance: a compilation of covers by bands from Portland, OR. It's chalk full of great stuff and the money is raised to support p:ear (which supplies mentorships to youths and homeless alike). Read more about it here.

What you'll hear on the show:
A Billy Idol cover (done beautifully), a cover of "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin, a cover of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come", and a Heart cover. All beautiful.

2. The Late, Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered
A compilation album that comes with a full disc of covers done by great musicians like Death Cab For Cubie, The Flaming Lips, M. Ward, and T.V. on the Radio.

What you'll hear on the show:
T.V. On the Radio doing "Walking the Cow"

3. Architecture in Helsinki's own response to their own album In Case We Die called We Died, They Remixed. In short, a great title with some pretty great remixes. I'm a fairly big fan of Architecture, and the full CD is almost just as satisfying as their original stuff.

What you'll hear on the show:
2 remixes of "Do the Whirlwind": one by Hot Chip, one by Yacht, and a "Maybe You Can Owe Me" remix by Qua

4. Another great indie-pop band creating a remix/cover album for themselves and giving it a good name: Stars' Do You Trust Your Friends?. The name's pretty fitting because the Montreal-based Arts & Crafts label is just about the friendliest (and sweetest, and cutest, and prettiest) label out there. Remixes and covers are done by The Dears, Minotaur Shock, Jason Collett, Montag, Final Fantasy, and Metric among others.

What you'll hear on the show:
Covers/remixes by Final Fantasy and Montag

5. Dump's horribly named Prince cover album: That Skinny Motherfucker with the High Voice
A solo project of Yo La Tengo's bassist James McNew where he covers only Prince songs. I was about to rant about how his choice in naming his band and his album suck, until I read this Wikipedia trivia:

The title That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice? comes from the Prince song Bob George (from The Black Album) in which Prince assumes the identity of a cursing, gun-wielding alter ego who murders a woman and dismisses himself as "that skinny motherfucker with the high voice".

Pretty cool. We like Prince. Mainly because Brad Neely quotes him twice and also because I named my blog after Neely's references. I swear it has nothing to do with how catchy fun dancy his songs are.

What you'll hear on the show:
Covers of Raspberry Beret and 1999 (look for the pocket full of horses line in 1999!)