The Doves

It's Spring Break for me.  I decided I would write about the Doves today.  They are a band from the U.K. that a friend introduced me to a few years back. (Thanks Chris Neeson!)  These guys make music I really love.  I suppose this music could be called Brit Pop - it certainly is catchy stuff - but I also think it has a lot of elements from all over the place which makes categorizing the Doves pretty difficult.  There are elements of electronica, jazz, and samba in some of the songs listed here which I believe supports my point.  I am also very impressed with how well produced the Dove's albums are.  When I say produced, I hope I am using the word correctly, what I mean is the way the recordings are engineered to move from speaker to speaker or the sound is engineered to go from lo-fi to very clear hi-fi to enhance a particular part of a song, for example.  There are a lot of nuances in these songs that really catch my ear and I think make the songs more compelling.  Given the catchy nature of these songs I am surprised that the Doves have not caught on more.  They have had some songs featured on soundtracks recently ("There goes the fear" - 500 Days of summer and "Down by the River" - Scrubs Soundtrack) hopefully this helps the Doves get some more exposure.

Enjoy!

***Update v1: For some reason the music player for the Doves is skipping the first two songs (which I think are two of the best) so please make sure you hit the previous track button to hear "Black & White Town" and "Snowden".

Neko Case

Perhaps the biggest challenge for me in writing new entries for this blog is what artist I want to write about.  I have a playlist on my computer that I keep expanding with potential artists for my blog. 

As I have been listening to my "potential songs list" I have noticed that I have been favoring some songs and artists.  These past few days I have been drawn to songs by Neko Case.  I have been promoting Neko Case to people quite a bit in the past few years and so I apologize to those of you who are hearing about her for the umpteenth time. 

 

For those that have not heard about Neko Case – I think she is one of the best female artists I have ever heard.  To me her voice is not only beautiful but also distinctive - it strikes me as powerful and sweet at the same time.  I am not aware of many singers that are so confident in their voice.  Neko seems to know the range and qualities of her voice and plays to those strengths in her songs.

You will certainly notice a decidedly folk and/or country tone to Neko’s music.  You may also notice that some of her lyrics have what some might consider a dark tone.  In fact some music critics have termed her music country-noir or alt-country due to the less-than-sunny themes of some of her songs.  (Not all of Neko’s songs are dark, for example her song “Magpie to the Morning” is something of a lullaby).  I will also say that trying to decipher the meaning of some of her lyrics seems to be a fool’s errand.  All of this said, no matter the song, one of the things that I find to be universal in Neko’s music is her ability to evoke vivid images through her songs. 

Last but not least, I realize that folk/country music may not be everyone’s cup of tea but give these songs a chance – I think it will be worth the effort.  Enjoy!