SotD: "Hyperballad " - Dirty Projectors (2008)

In between 2007's concept-cover album Rise Above and 2009's unbelievably complete Bitte Orca, Brooklyn's most forward thinking band Dirty Projectors made many adjustments. They traded a female vocalist, added a permanent drummer and bassist, and signed to Domino. They also recorded a few key band-in-trasistion tracks in 2008, which showcase band leader and singer Dave Longstreth's push to be less art and more pop. Two of those songs were collaborations with indie icon and Talking Heads leader David Byrne, and the other a cover of Bjork's "Hyperballad."

Released on Stereogum's 10th anniversary tribute to Bjork's seminal Post, it is the first DP song to feature Angel Deradoorian in place of Susanna Waiche. Angel's tight, rising harmony with bandmate Amber Coffman fill out the chorus, giving the listener a much needed counterweight to Longstreth's nasally, unsteady lead. That balance, along with some explosive but minimal drumming, became the centerpiece for Bitte Orca. And really, that's why this song is so interesting. Its growing pains for a band already way ahead of the pack, who (partly due to the exposure from this song) would share the stage with Bjork at a small record store a year later (pictured above). A year later there is also a cover of "Stillness is the Move" by Beyonce's sister, and NYMag naming "Stillness" the #1 song that defined the Brooklyn sound. Here's to growing pains.

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

SotD: "Vibrationz" - Javelin (2009)

Javelin are a couple of electro-pop nerds who recently relocated from Providence to Brooklyn. They traded in their laptops for old school drum machines and samplers, and created something beautiful, groovy, and...well...just listen to it...

SotD: "Little Bit" - Lykke Li (2008)

In this age of electronic clutter, one of the amazing things that can still happen is overnight success. In fact, its more common than ever. And now you don't even have to have years of hardnosed, underground touring to make it a possibility! Just ask Lykke Li, the swedish indie rockers performing "Little Bit" here. The song may sound familiar, it's in that Victoria Secret commercial and saw heavy rotation in the blogosphere in 2008. And thats all it takes, one song, one connection (Bjorn from PB & J who produced her record) and then you too can be an indie star and hang out with Kanye...and be on American Idol...wait, is that indie?

SotD: "Smokestack Lightning" - Howlin' Wolf (1956)

In one of my "Music History" courses in college, a professor asked us to compare this song to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Both are considered essential to Rock music, both with genre defining singers, who also happened to have completely self destructive personalities. But what struck me more than anything was the choice of Howlin' Wolf. Why not Muddy or Sonny Boy Williamson? Or a original delta bluesman like Robert Johnson or Charlie Patton? Then I realized, for ever band in the 90s that tried to sound like Nirvana, there was a band in the 60s that tried to sound like Howlin' Wolf. Except instead of Puddle of Mudd they were The Rolling Stones.

SotD: "How Does It Make You Feel?" - Air (2001)

Between their 1999 soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides and the 2001 album 10,000 Hz Legend, the band Air was making a strong push to the forefront of the burgeoning indie-electro movement. They had the same producer as Radiohead, their video's were as creepily memorable as Bjork's, and to top it all off, they were from France! When's the last time you heard a great band from France? But of course they slowly dismantled their own mythology by putting out the same record time and again, letting themselves fall behind the curve.

SotD: "Cissy Strut" - The Meters (1969)

In the mid-60s, "funk" was just another word for describing body odor. A nicer way. As in "man, you smell funky" instead of "man, you smell like shit." Not that funk didn't exist. Looking back there is no dispute about who invented funk, just listen to the horn stabs and backbeat on James Brown's 1965 hit "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." Brown was way ahead of his time, blending soul, R&B, Jazz, and first wave Ska to create the earliest form of funk. However, one vital ingredient was missing from his formula, the guitar.

The guitar (usually with a wah-wah pedal) would end up being an essential piece to the funk sound that defined the 1970s, and that was in no small part a result of The Meters self-titled 1969 release, and specifically this breakthrough track. Sure others (Sly, Shuggie) had guitars in their band, but they never used them like the Meters. Then theres that back-breaking hi-hat. Or the rhythmic B3 organ. It's all here, forty years later.

SotD: "As I Went Out One Morning" - Mira Billotte (2007)

Roger McGuinn joked about the Dylan inspired/mindfuck of the century film I'm Not There, "So, it took seven people to play Dylan?" And its true, seven actors (male, female, young, old, black, white) were used in the Todd Haynes directed film as metaphors for the many lives Dylan has lived in his musical career. The two disc soundtrack, made up entirely of Dylan covers, finds even more Dylan impersonators. There's Stephen Malkmus getting real nasally on "Ballad of a Thin Man," and Cat Power doing her best "awww, mammma" on "Stuck Inside Mobile..." But for me the standout cover of the album is this version of "As I Went Out One Morning" by Brooklyn native and Magic White bandleader Mira Billotte.

Like the others, she does her best to stretch her syllables like taffy and husks up her voice, but where the others sound like they're imitating, Mira is actually creating her own song. Her and her tightly knit band (just bass, drums, and acoustic guitar) give the song a dry toughness not found on the original version, due in part to Mira's confessional style of delivery -a strong contrast to Dylan's half-drunken groans and meandering harmonica. And, strangely enough, this song seems to make more sense sung by a woman!

I offer'd her my hand,
She took me by the arm.
I knew that very instant,
She meant to do me harm.