My 5 favorite bands, November 2009

It's time for my every-six-months list of my favorite bands. My indie leanings have taken a turn toward the mainstream over the past few months, with dance and pop music moving much higher on my radar. Here's the current list.

1 MATT & KIM
Grand might be my favorite album of 2009. It's an entire record full of catchy indie pop. I never thought I'd see the day this duo won an MTV Video Music Award, but somehow they did it. Their reign has just begun.
Video: Lessons Learned

2 LADY GAGA
Until recently, I'd enjoyed Lady Gaga's dance hits but didn't see her as much more than another fly by night pop singer. But then I saw her artistic performance at the VMAs. I finally listened to the rest of her album, and it's great. Madonna recently said she saw herself in Lady Gaga, and I agree - she's likely to be a force for years to come. Her new video for "Bad Romance" is simply captivating.
Video: Bad Romance

3 COBRA STARSHIP
The sassy pop band finally hit the mainstream with "Good Girls Go Bad." The rest of their album Hot Mess is excellent as well, even if radio continues to ignore all of their music that doesn't feature Leighton Meester.
Video: Hot Mess

4 SIGUR ROS
Sigur Ros is still probably my favorite band, but when you haven't released any new material in over a year you start to fade a little. Singer Jonsi has a side project going called Jonsi & Alex, a mostly instrumental ethereal kind of thing that makes Sigur Ros seem accessible.
Video: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

5 WEEZER
I bought the blue album not long after it came out, and my Weezer-fanhood has never wavered since, not when they released Maladroit, and not even with their new album Raditude, which features a collaboration with Lil Wayne. Their sound may change, but it's still good stuff.
Video: I Want You To

Others earning consideration: Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, Ghostland Observatory, MGMT

Welcome to the charts, Cobra Starship

I was thrilled to see Cobra Starship break into the top 10 this year with "Good Girls Go Bad." I first heard Cobra Starship a few years back, and from that moment I've been surprised at their lack of mainstream success. To me, their songs have always been much more catchy and fun than those of similar bands like Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, etc. How can you not love a band with song titles like "Pete Wentz is the Only Reason We're Famous"?

It took hooking up with a Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester, for Cobra Starship to finally dent the charts. And now there's no going back.

Hopefully the bandwagon jumpers will dig back into the band's catalog and seek out some of their other good songs. Like...

Video: "Snakes On a Plane" Yes, they sang the theme song on this cult classic.



Video: "Guilty Pleasure" A song title that describes the band perfectly.



Video: "The City is at War" Another synth-pop gem.



Video: "Kiss My Sass" Frontman Gabe Saporta brings sassy back, with help from Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes.

COBRA STARSHIP - Kiss My Sass


Video: "Smile for Paparazzi" A little Latin-flavored number in which Cobra sing about the paparazzi, long before Lady Gaga ever thought to do so.



Video: "Prostitution is the World's Oldest Profession (And I, Dear Madame, Am A Professional)" Just silly. "You can hate me after you pay me!"

Was this really the Warped Tour?

William Beckett of The Academy Is...

CONCERT REVIEW: Warped Tour 2008
July 29, 2008
Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh

I never would've thought that the best band at this year's Warped Tour would be an act I didn't even realize was on the bill.

This morning, I turned on MTV and saw a video by some rapper, with Weird Al as his sidekick. I thought, how odd! Then it finished, and I found out it wasn't Weird Al - it was the rapper known as Shwayze. I'd seen Shwayze's name on the charts, but I had no idea what he looked or sounded like.

Two hours later, we walk into the Warped Tour, and on the big schedule board is Shwayze! I didn't realize he was a part of this tour. And he kicked ass. In a year that boasted Warped's most diverse lineup yet, with everything from the standard emo/punk to synthpop, hip hop, and flat-out mainstream top 40 music, it's fitting that a hip hop act stole the show.


Shwayze

Shwayze, performing along with Cisco Adler, his Weird Al-lookalike sidekick, pumped up the crowd with his rhymes about weed and women. His act was so hilariously stupid that it was brilliant. Just went it appeared he couldn't get any more ridiculous, he sang "All Night," a track with the refrain, "If you got the weed, I got the pipe/ We can get high together all night." It was a decidedly fun way to kick off the afternoon.


Katy Perry

One of the big stories of Warped is the presence of pop sensation Katy Perry, she of the #1 hit "I Kissed a Girl," and she was greeted with one of the day's largest crowds. Unfortunately, she looked like the newbie she is. Her banter consisted of various questions she asked the audience, which typically were so strange they elicited blank stares instead of any sort of cheering. Sample question: "So, are you guys all MySpace friends with each other?"

Perry tried her hardest but was unable to create any enthusiasm as the crowd waited impatiently for her chart-topping hit. Finally, after an embarrassing "telephone call" roleplay skit, she played the song and everyone went nuts. But it was too little, too late.

Emo-pop's superstars were all here - Cobra Starship, The Academy Is..., Gym Class Heroes, Motion City Soundtrack. Cobra was the best of the bunch, their sassy pop songs especially winning over the teenage girls in attendance. From the opener, "The City is at War," to their well-known movie theme "Snakes on a Plane," to the sing-along closer "Guilty Pleasure," frontman Gabe Saporta danced his way around the stage and proved that pop music can have a home at Warped.


Cobra Starship

The other three acts weren't at their best. The Academy Is... didn't hit their stride until their final ten minutes, with the rocking "We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands" and "Checkmarks." Motion City Soundtrack was solid as usual, but it's disturbing how their keyboards always get lost in the mix when they perform - the synths are what make them unique in this genre, but you wouldn't know it to see them live. And Gym Class Heroes just didn't excite me - Travis McCoy did too much talking and not enough performing. Plus, when the hooks from your two biggest hits have to be played on tape because the guy who sang them isn't even in your band ("Cupid's Chokehold" and "Clothes Off!" both feature choruses sung by Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump), that tends to make your show seem lame.


Gym Class Heroes

The day's other standout act was Say Anything, the L.A. rock band featuring emo's poet laureate, Max Bemis. The band released an acclaimed double-album last year, ambitiously titled In Defense of the Genre, which is required listening for any would-be emo bashers. Today they tore through the the best tracks from it, including the standout "Shiksa (Girlfriend)."

Even though not all of Warped's featured acts brought their A-game, the tour deserves credit for the variety of its lineup, and hopefully the fans' positive reaction is a sign that diversity will continue into next year.


Motion City Soundtrack

Your makeup stains my pillow case, like I'll never be the same

CONCERT REVIEW: FALL OUT BOY, +44, THE ACADEMY IS..., PAUL WALL, COBRA STARSHIP
Post-Gazette Pavilion, Pittsburgh: May 22, 2007

The emo-heavy Honda Civic Tour swung through town last night, and being the intrepid pop music blogger that I am, I had to be front and center (actually, front and slightly to the right) to witness it.

Cobra Starship, best known for recording the theme to Snakes on a Plane, opened the show and really impressed me. Frontman Gabe Saporta has quite the stage presence, bandmate Victoria Asher rocked the keytar (I loves me some keytar), and their songs were cool - catchy and slightly more dance-y than the typical emo fare.

We skipped Paul Wall, because who the hell wants to see Paul Wall? The Academy Is... were good, not much different than the last time I saw them. The high point was their performance of their new single "We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands."

The band I was really looking forward to was +44, the group composed of two-thirds of the former Blink-182. They did an admirable job even though nobody knew any of their songs except the finisher, "When Your Heart Stops Beating," and the one Blink number they threw in, "The Rock Show." Mark Hoppus didn't crack jokes the way he used to in Blink, which was a disappointment, but it's understandable that he wants the new band to move in a new direction.


As for Fall Out Boy, I'm a little perplexed on how to write a review, because it was exactly by the book, 100% what I expected. After following standard concert procedure by opening with track 1 from their new album, they had the obligatory acoustic ballad by the singer, the obligatory drum solo, the obligatory song where the band members go out in the crowd, the obligatory confetti and fire going off, the obligatory crowd sing-alongs, and the obligatory left-field cover (Michael Jackson's "Beat It").

The only thing at all that deviated from protocol was playing their biggest hit (a fiercely energetic "Sugar, We're Going Down") three songs into the set and closing with "Saturday," a song from one of their early, non-blockbuster albums. But that's what they've done for some time now, so even that isn't a surprise.

This isn't to say their performance was bad; in fact, it was the perfect show for this audience. The new songs were particular highlights ("Golden," "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," "I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off".) For many of the young fans in attendance, this was their first concert. Fall Out Boy gave them a textbook example of how to play a rock show - Rock Concerts 101.

My only regret is that the batteries in my camera started dying after Cobra Starship so I could only take a handful of pics the rest of the way. It's rare that I'm that close to the stage, and I was unable to take advantage of it. Lesson learned - that will not happen again!