St. Vincent is the stage name of singer-songwriter Annie Erin Clark, who was born in Oklahoma, raised in Dallas and is currently based out of New York City. She has been a member of both the Polyphonic Spree (another band I know very little about) and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band.
Today’s track, ‘Cruel,’ is the first single from her third full-length album, Strange Mercy, and it features a rather unsettling video.
Continuing last week’s focus on some of the memorable music videos of 2011, I arrive at ‘Kaputt’ by Destroyer. Or is it ‘Destroyer’ by Kaputt? This one is completely new to me.
Destroyer is a band fronted by Canadian Daniel Bejar, who initially started the project as a solo act and has invited a revolving door of musicians to collaborate with him over the past 15 years. He has released 10 full-length albums and a number of EPs.
And my second Random Weekend selection is… ‘Temptation’ from Billy Joel’s 1986 album, The Bridge.
Well, it could have been worse. It could have been ‘This is the Time.’
The Bridge is an interesting album in that it features some of Joel’s most ambitious, complex work (songs such as ‘Big Man on Mulberry Street,’ ‘Running On Ice’ and ‘Code of Silence’) but also some of his worst forays into MOR sap.
I’ve gone through seven different weekend series over the past two and a half years. Starting in May of 2009, I’ve featured (in order) Motown, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Ron Sexsmith, Brad Paisley and Paul Simon.
Faced with the need for a new weekend theme, my first thought was that I’d have to go with a woman. With the exception of about half of the Motown tracks, I’ve gone through 250+ weekend songs by men.
This video should be better than it is. The idea — to parody a movie trailer for a biopic about a rock star — is ripe with possibilities (Walk Hard did some fun things with this idea at feature length).
And the assembled cast, including Paul Rudd, Bill Hader and half the correspondent team from The Daily Show, is certainly up to the task.
