The Best of Myspace Music
The image above is the myspace icon for Toy Fight and was not taken by myself unfortunately, although I admire it.
Okay-another new thing I’m going to start doing for every Sunday is the best of myspace. Now, I get by with a little help from my friends because I know people who have great taste who tell me about bands and send me myspace links. In addition to this, I am also sent quite a few requests from bands to check out their stuff. (There’s something to be said for choosing the right bands to love as well. If you spend the time, add great bands as friends, you tend to get better requests.) I tend to be obsessed about music (nah, really?) so if I love a band or musician, I tend to listen to all of their top band or music related friends as well. Pretty soon, I’ve spent an hour or two just on myspace without realizing it. Even though I’m distressed that myspace is now owned by Rupert Murdoch (who I imagine is the type of kid who bought and put hotels up on Boardwalk and Park Place just as soon as he could), my friend Gina is right when she talks about how myspace has really brought the music community together.
So, without asking you to trudge through the mediocre, I will bring you the best of all of the requests and bands on myspace I have discovered every Sunday. You can’t ask for more of a loving guidance than that when it comes to the vast internet mecca, can you?
Oh and if you are a band reading this or just want to send me a myspace link for a band you love, send me a message
Top five for roughly the last week:
1. Toy Fight
From France and it “sounds like” songs. (That’s definitely something I won’t argue with) Toy Fight is gentle and a bit magical to me. Friends with the very fabulous Orouni, one of their top friends is also Tim Buckley so they proved their good taste right there. Nice male/female harmonies and piano pieces as a part of the music. My favorite song on their myspace page at this moment is “Victim’s Hairdo.” Lyrics in English.
2. Le Husky
From Montréal and with French lyrics…I mean, what more could a girl like me possibly want? Le Husky is sort of disjointed postmodern French dance music for me. I realized very quickly after I had played each of their myspace songs five times that I needed to order their ep. “Dans L’bois” is my current favorite right now and I find them addictive.
3. Malajube
I wouldn’t know about this band or Hylozoists if not for my friend Thierry, who I must say has impeccable taste. Also from Montréal, the idea that they are a “progressive emo jam band” must be a joke. As with Le Husky, they sing in French although they seem to have much stronger crescendos. (Just listen to “Fille a Plumes”)
Also from Montréal, Malajube sings in French and has pivotal Canadian band The Dears as friends.
4. Viarosa
I love it when bands request my friendship by sending me messages about how they noticed I like such and such a band and thought they might like them. It gives me a really good reference point to start with. Viarosa commented about how I liked 16 Horsepower and thought I might like them and I took to them immediately. Hailing from London, their cited influences are everywhere from Nick Cave to Johnny Cash to Leonard Cohen but at times they have a real dreamy element to them, which reminds me just a touch of Dead Can Dance
5. Hylozoists
Hialing from Toronto, Canada, if the Hylozolists were an art exhibit, they’d be a painting you could touch and taste. This seems like a full sensory instrumental band and man how I love the glockenspeil.