Karaoke

For over a year now, I've been on a real tear about karaoke. That's about the time I started to think about buying a karaoke machine, which led to my turning my laptop INTO a karaoke machine, and has culminated in my receiving a karaoke video game called Lips for my Xbox. Now, what I learned is that this is no ordinary karaoke game. Yes, it has "Video Killed The Radio Star" and "Hungry Like The Wolf" (which, we learned, one can sing perfectly even if they've never heard it before), and yes I did pay to download "Baby Got Back".

Most importantly, however, it allows you to import songs and then sing OVER them. No on-screen lyrics, and it can only reduce the actual vocals so much, but I don't care because it's awesome. My roommate and I each made a playlist to import. Here's mine (I'll post his later):

1. Ben Lee - "Catch My Disease"
2. Billy Joel - "Only the Good Die Young"
3. Blitzen Trapper - "Furr"
4. Blue Scholars - "Joe Metro"
5. Blue Scholars - "The Ave"
6. The Dandy Warhols - "Bohemian Like You"
7. Danko Jones - "Lovercall"
8. Danko Jones - "First Date"
9. David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust"
10. Death Cab for Cutie - "Crooked Teeth"
11. Dire Straits - "Money for Nothing"
12. Harvey Danger - "Flagpole Sitta"
13. Harvey Danger - "Wine, Women, and Song"
14. Hey Marseilles - "Rio"
15. Pavement - "Cut Your Hair"
16. The Presidents of the United States of America - "Peaches"
17. Queen - "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy"
18. Skee-lo - "I Wish"
19. Stellastarr* - "Freak Out"
20. The Tallest Man on Earth - "King of Spain"
21. XTC - "Statue of Liberty"

Best band around right now

I first heard Hey Marseilles on the late Seattle radio show Too Beautiful to Live (now relegated to the realm of podcasting, or "imaginary radio"), and was immediately drawn in by the fact that they could not fit most of their band into the studio. After grabbing the track Rio off the KEXP Song of the Day Podcast and seeing a couple of their live shows, I picked up their debut CD To Travels & Trunks. It is fantastic - every song is a wonderful mix of the nine members (or so - there are quite a lot) and their various instruments playing both instrumental and lyrically incredible music.

They just released their album as an LP. I think I might buy it again. This is coming from a person who is actively concerned about whether he will have enough money at the end of the year to pay his taxes. Hey Marseilles are very good.

http://www.heymarseilles.com/