If you haven’t already been caught up, in a wave of psychedelic electronic rock that’s capturing people with a storm of naked drummers, ginormous cats, acid trips, a sea of zebra’s and warriors wearing pinnies (you know those bright coloured jerseys from gym class never seemed to fit you). Oh and I forgot to mention the guy surfing through space, all of this is just from their first hit’s video “Time To Pretend” which I’ll show you here because I think it will inspire you, to do acid, and then eat zebras with your bare hands. They disabled embed video so I’ll just hit you with a link Time To Pretend Video.  

The music that MGMT has been producing is just spectacular, as their album is entitled Oracular Spectacular.  In North America it feels like there’s a certain set of boundaries for artists to make hits, but over in the UK there are tons of artists pushing the envelope and collaborating with different genres making unique sounds and success with them.  I admire MGMT for their unique sound and their success with their first album, so far they’re doing well and who knows maybe North America will start to embrace more of this type of music, *cough* electronica *cough* yeah that’s right electronic music’s coming in whether you like it or not.  Thanks to Ed Banger Records and the various artists involved, most notably though is Kanye’s sample of Daft Punk’s hit “Harder Better Faster Stronger” and now his new hit which took some time to reach us here in North America after reaching the top of the charts in the U.K., ”American Boy” featuring the oh so lovely Estelle.  Just with those two songs I’ve noticed people beginning to accept electronica even in it’s raw form, as in straight up electronica no hip hop or rock involved, which I think is awesome because it just means we’re going to get so much more new sounds.  MGMT has been called a buzz band but, I’ve got a feeling if they can keep it up with the right sound and if electronica continues the way it’s going, we might have a new classic band on our hands.  Only predictions at this point.

Their new hit known as “Electric Feel” has definitely been played over a couple hundred times on my ipod, as soon as I hear the first note I’m already shaking my tail, not to mention the lyrics just put me in a good mood I swear this song is zen to me.  Shock me like an electric eel, if you haven’t heard the song yet you need to do what you feel now and grab some loud speakers sit in you favorite spot and blast the hell out of them, here I’ll even get you started with step one; 
Electric Feel - MGMT
and while you’re at it grab this one too
Time To Pretend - MGMT

Now this post wouldn’t be complete without everybody’s favorite, the song that brings childhood memories of being in the playground whipping pebbles into crowds of girls or playing tag on top of the jungle gym which happened to be fairly dangerous considering all the injuries that were received, nevertheless good memories.  The song entitled Kids, yet another spectacular song from the so-called ‘buzz band’ MGMT, here you go;

Kids - MGMT

Weezer recently released their new album the Red Album, with their hit Pork and Beans.  The song is alright a typical Weezer song, but the video they released is just wicked.

The search for better sound quality for my more than extensive library of tunes is never ending, I’ve tried everything from plugins for itunes to equalizer programs and sound enhancers.  Earlier today though a friend of mine Joel had messaged me with excitement over a new format he had discovered (new to him atleast) which is known as FLAC.  I had seen this around before but I’ve never really looked into it, until today of course where I googled it and within minutes I was learning about this free audio codec, for those who don’t understand what that is just know that it’s what an Mp3 is, a way to compress audio.  Now what makes FLAC different from our beloved Mp3, well when audio is compressed into an Mp3 it loses some of the sound quality, but when audio is compressed into a FLAC it loses no sound quality which means you hear it the way it’s supposed to be heard.

With technology advancing and storage space expanding double every time we turn our heads, the FLAC format is going to become ideal for music, who wouldn’t want to hear their favorite song more crisp and full of flavor for their starving ears.  Now as unreal as this sounds already, there are some cons, the size of each song becomes very big I’m talking from 5mb to 25mb, but that’s just where our expanded storage comes into play.  Another issue is the support from iTunes, FLAC files cannot be played in iTunes, which totally sucks but Apple just wouldn’t support it.  Solution to that problem? Apple Lossless format, apparently not as good as FLAC but it’s good enough if you are an iTunes lover. 

If better sound quality is what you fancy, here’s how to go about it:

If you’re on Windows, there’s a few ways to get your Mp3’s to FLAC, I’m just going to point out one which is to use Winamp the full version.

If you’re on Mac like me, you can either use MacFLAC which I tried and I didn’t find it very helpful, or Roxio Toast Titanium which is what I used and I found it very easy to use and I had some of my songs converted to FLAC in no time.  Now because on a Mac you’re given iTunes you’ll have to use another player unless you are converting them into Apple Lossless (which Toast Titanium does for you).  I’d suggest using VLC Player, if you don’t already have VLC than you’re missing out because a lot of times videos won’t work with Quicktime (way too many times).

An interesting band I came across today while I was doing my usual look through good ol’ Hype Machine, is Vampire Weekend, they definitely caught my ear with their single Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa with it’s islandly type feel it brings.  They were recently featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live where they played a set, 

I personally just like a few songs by them, only having hearing them a few hours ago I’ve become fond of ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’, ‘Campus’, ‘The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance’, ‘Oxford Comma’ and ‘Walcott’.  I think I read somewhere somebody called the type of music ‘goofy indie’, I have to agree with who ever it was who said it.

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Vampire Weekend

The Kids Don\’t Stand A Chance - Vampire Weekend

Campus - Vampire Weekend

Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend

Walcott - Vampire Weekend

My friend Andrew introduced me to this band not too long ago, it was actually right when the weather in Toronto started to warm up.  They’ve got a catchy sound with their positive rhythm’s and upbeat songs like Stuck For The Summer which was the first song I heard and probably the one most of you will enjoy. Two Hour’s Traffic video for Stuck for the Summer: 

NightHawks

Here’s the mp3’s for download:

Stuck For The Summer - Two Hours Traffic

Night Hawks - Two Hours Traffic

Better Sorry Than Safe - Two Hours Traffic