Music Tuesday: Fresh faces, Burning Man’s musical side and more

Summer’s drawing to a close, but there’s still time to discover a new summer anthem. Perhaps it’s a tune from Cults, the indie-popsters Noisey profiled last week on youtube.com/music. Or perhaps you’ll find your summer song in one of this week’s featured playlists.



Fresh Faces: August

Every month, we feature a handful of newly-signed music partners on YouTube’s homepage. This month, the pickings were so rich we couldn’t narrow it down to just four, so we chose six artists to feature, and they’re an inspiring group that spans the gamut, from a sixteen-year-old emcee from New Jersey who’s sworn off cursing to J Dilla protege and former Slum Village member Elzhi. Add a few jazzy singer-songwriters into the mix and there’s something for everyone.







Burning Man Survival Kit

The annual art festival takes place in Nevada Black Rock Desert this week. And while the event’s official focus is art -- kinetic, sculptural and frequently fire-breathing -- it’s also a premier gathering spot for fans of electronic music. Soundsystems on the “playa” vie with each other, putting on all-night raves that host cutting-edge deejays as well as some of the business’ biggest names. We’ve assembled a playlist of some sounds you might hear if you were there.







James Blake and Bon Iver: Fall Creek Boys Choir

Dubstep’s errant child and indie’s golden son have teamed up for an EP that releases later this year. They’ve dropped the first song from it on YouTube, and it’s a mysterious and spacious experiment in sound...just as we expected.







Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Pigeon John ‘The Bomb.’”

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Music Tuesday: Catching our breath with Zee Avi, Tom Waits and The Decemberists

Whew. Did you catch all that? We’re still trying to recover from five intense days of music mania. That’s right, we relaunched youtube.com/music last Thursday, and throughout the weekend you saw our logo redesigned and a bundle of playlists from folks you might have heard of: Lady Gaga. David Guetta. The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Eminem and Royce Da 5’9. And we had folks like SPIN Magazine, XLR8R and The Needle Drop clueing us in about what music we don’t know about, but should.



In the coming weeks, keep returning to youtube.com/music to discover more new videos, live performances and eye-opening playlists. Not only will our first batch of curators be returning with new features to share, we’ll be adding even more regular features from influential blogs, magazines, video bloggers and others. Keep coming back; we promise you’ll dig it.



Zee Avi curates the YouTube homepage

After featuring a bevy of celebrities over the past week, it’s fitting to come back to a celebrity YouTube helped foster. When Zee Avi posted her first video on YouTube, she had no idea it would make her a star; she just wanted to share a performance with a friend. One album and oodles of views later, she’s back with her second album, ghostbird. Today she shares an extremely lovely acoustic performance of several songs from the new album with us (we’re tripping over the first song, “Anchor,” which she filmed on a rooftop). She also shares some videos that put her in a state of self-described enchantment.







The Decemberists “Calamity Song”

The song is off their most recent album; the video was inspired by a scene in David Foster Wallace’s door-stop of a novel Infinite Jest. It feels to us like a metaphor for bad international decision-making, set on a tennis court with kids playing world leaders. What do you think?







Tom Waits “Bad As Me” Private Listening Party

How do you keep albums private in the digital age? How do you build excitement and mystery in an age devoted to breaking it down? Tom Waits, as always, shows us how.







Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Beirut - O Leaozinho.”

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Music Tuesday: Jeff Bridges and other actors-turned-musicians

We’ve been a little obsessed with the intersection between film and music on youtube.com/music this week -- we kicked off Monday with a playlist of music videos by the acclaimed director Spike Jonze, who just directed Kanye West and Jay-Z’s easy, playful video for “Otis” and is also known for his work on the big screen, most recently for Where The Wild Things Are. And then there’s Jeff Bridges...



The Big Lebowski...Sings

Actors can convince us of a lot of things, but historically speaking, it’s pretty hard to make us believe they’re actually musicians. (Remember William Shatner’s “music” career?) But after his portrayal of a washed-up country singer in Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges got inspired to go back to a recording studio -- which he built on his own land -- and start writing songs again. With the expert support of producer T Bone Burnett, Bridges is proving himself to be more than an actor playing a part. His first single from his new album is catchy, smart and -- best of all -- convincing. Today we feature the man better known as “the dude” sharing a little bit about the music that has influenced and inspired him.







Actors: Wannabe Musicians?

In the spirit of Jeff Bridges getting his songwriting on, we thought we’d look at the track record of other actors who tried their hand at the music biz. You might be surprised by how many there are: from Keanu Reeves and Ryan Gosling to Minnie Driver and Zooey Deschanel, a lot of thespians have tried to cross the divide -- with mixed results. Wondering who soars and who falls flat? Only one way to find out: watch!







Fool’s Gold: Wild Window

Back in 2009, the L.A. band Fool’s Gold convinced reluctant indie rockers that they actually could enjoy music that wasn’t in English -- in part because the unholy mongrelism of the band's debut album was just too compelling to ignore. (Perhaps that was due to the incongruousness of a singer crooning in Hebrew over guitar licks that came straight of the Sahara.) The focus has changed on their follow-up Leave No Trace -- vocalist Luke Top sings primarily in English and the once-sprawling collective has become a tight five-piece. But if this charming video is any indication, change is a good thing.







Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Feist - How Come You Never Go There.”

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Music Tuesday: Lollapalooza, old-school hip-hop and supporting East Africa

This week we're recovering from Lollapalooza after three days and in the sun and storms of Chicago, IL. We also travel back to the birth of a genre in honor of one of those that made it great. And finally, we showcase a Bob Marley & The Wailers classic, re-released today in support of Save the Children's East Africa campaign.

You'll find all this and more on youtube.com/music, where each day we serve you up the tastiest morsels from the world of music video.

Lollapalooza 2011
Twenty years ago Perry Farrell founded the traveling circus of a festival that was Lollapalooza. Now with its roots firmly planted in Chicago, the three day extravaganza continues to grow, mixing the biggest names in music with a dizzying array of bright young stars. This year YouTube brought the festival to the world, live streaming 39 great acts from across the weekend including headliners Coldplay, My Morning Jacket and the Foo Fighters. Check out some highlights in the playlist below.



Old-School Hip-Hop
In music, you gotta know your history and appreciate the artists who laid the foundation for today’s tunes. Today is Kurtis Blow’s birthday, which put us in mind of the golden age of hip-hop when rap battles on your front stoop, wheels of steel and gold chains were the rage. To celebrate an era whose influence is still resonating today, we put together a playlist of the best videos of the era from folks like the Fat Boys, RUN-DMC, Slick Rick and the Sugar Hill Gang. The music holds up, and trust us—so does the fashion.



High Tide or Low Tide
A devastating food crisis continues to impact millions of children and their families across East Africa. Today, Save the Children and the Marley family re-release the 1973 song 'High Tide or Low Tide' to raise funds for food, water and medicine. The project is supported by Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Justin Beiber and many others in the entertainment industry, and the video was crafted by Oscar winning director Kevin Macdonald.



Tim Partridge, Music Marketing Manager, recently watched "LisaNova Does Royce da 5'9 Tinie Tempah Foster the People, Ellie Goulding & Mayer Hawthorne."

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Music Tuesday: Lollapalooza Week on YouTube, and more

Can’t make it to Chicago this weekend to check out Lollapalooza on its 20th anniversary? We’ve got you covered. Starting at 11:45am PT this Friday, you’ll be able to watch four festival stages live on youtube.com/lollapalooza. The webcast will run all weekend long and feature a few bands you might have heard of: Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Muse, Damian Marley and Nas, Bright Eyes and many more. See the full list of bands participating in the webcast here.

To celebrate, we’ve been featuring video premieres from some of the biggest names playing the festival/webcast. On Monday, the Foo Fighters unveiled their affecting “Garage Tour” short film, which follows the band as they play intimate shows in people’s garages across the country. (Warning: the first vignette might make you cry.) Today, we feature headliners My Morning Jacket. We’ll have more premieres from bands playing the webcast through the week; keep checking back to youtube.com/music.

My Morning Jacket curation
My Morning Jacket takes to the homepage today with a curation of some of their favorite videos. We’re still over the moon about the amazing clip from a Jim Henson short they chose, which is so beautifully edited it feels like music, even though it’s not. The band also shows a marked predilection for jazz and Marvin Gaye, which is hard to argue with. And in honor of their participation in the Lollapalooza webcast later this week, they premiere their video for “Holdin On To Black Metal” with us today.



Global Ghetto Music
In recent years, we’ve seen urban and electronic music circle the globe and shape-shift everywhere it landed. Miami Bass and old-school hip-hop headed to Brazil and became baile funk; house music headed to South Africa and became kwaito. Dance music trickled down to Angola and became kuduro. A few years ago, M.I.A. grabbed headlines for tapping into this rich vein of global funk. Today we showcase bands who are picking up where she left off, marrying their local sounds to hip-hop and electronic source material.



Toro y Moi “How I Know” video premiere
And last (but by no means least!), we debut a brand-new video from the genre-evading indie/psych/chillwave phenom Toro y Moi (aka Chaz Bundwick). “How I Know” is easily one of the best songs off of Bundwick’s lauded Underneath The Pines, a track that marries his gauzy vocals with damaged Burt Bacharach-esque pop and a palpable sense of longing. Put it together with a video that references movies like Goonies, Poltergeist, Ghostbusters and Victorian ghost stories, and you have pure genius. The video was directed by Jordan Kim, whose wonderful animation work you might know from the hipster kids show Yo Gabba Gabba.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Toro y Moi - How I Know.”

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Music Tuesday: Bjork, Mick Jagger and bidding farewell to Amy Winehouse

The death of Amy Winehouse on Saturday has dominated music headlines. This week on youtube.com/music, we commemorate her talent and mourn her passing, while also turning our gaze to a famous rocker’s birthday and a video premiere.

RIP Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse came into the music world as a singer-songwriter who had the phrasing of a world-class jazz singer and the swagger of a hip-hop star. She left it as a tragedy and cautionary tale. Winehouse was just 27 years old when she died—the same age as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. It’s both auspicious and grim company to keep, and Ms. Winehouse fulfilled both attributes, grabbing the world’s attention with her ferociously good music (which succeeded, in no small part, thanks to the contributions from her borrowed band The Dap-Kings) and then slowly squandering that attention with increasingly addled behavior that was fueled by her multiple addictions.

After the story fades, the music will remain. People may think of the bravado-laden “Rehab” as her signature song, but the flipside of Winehouse’s bravado was intense vulnerability, which you hear in spades on wonderful songs like “Love Is A Losing Game” or the deceptively upbeat “He Can Only Hold Her.” To pay homage to Winehouse, we shied away from her official music videos and looked for live performances that let you experience her towering talent more directly -- as well as her charm and humor.



Happy Birthday, Mick
Rock’s most dynamic frontman turns 68 years old today. We salute the Jagger-meister with a playlist of videos capturing his onstage antics through the years.



Bjork “Crystalline” video premiere
The Icelandic singer has made a career of subverting expectations and pushing boundaries, so it’s no surprise that her upcoming album Biophilia is in fact not an album but an app that’s due out in September. You can chew on that, or you can check out her mystical new video for “Crystalline,” which debuts with us today.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “The DL - Amy Winehouse ‘Valerie’ Live.”

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Music Tuesday: Portugal. The Man and vintage global sounds

Summer music festivals are in full swing here in the States. Music fanatics gathered in Chicago this past weekend to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival, and to celebrate, we rounded up videos from some of the best acts appearing there. Last week we also took a look at parodies of Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers” video. The unofficial head of the Odd Future hip-hop crew is controversial, but it’s clear his aesthetic has pushed a lot of buttons—and the results are hilarious. And if you need a little mindless fun, we threw up a playlist of ‘80s Summer Party songs for your (guilty) pleasure, which leads us into this week’s heavy dose of retro music.

Portugal. The Man’s sci-fi obsession
People label the enigmatically-named Portugal. The Man an indie rock band, but take one listen and you’ll hear these guys are drawing straight from the classic rock songbook, whether it’s The Beatles, Mark Bolan or Led Zeppelin. That grounding in musical history gives a sense of warmth and even inevitability to their songs—this is sweeping music that frequently sounds bigger than its years. The band also happens to be huge film buffs, which translates into a body of videos which range from the epic to the strange, and which are always visually arresting. Today they take to the homepage to celebrate their new album In The Mountain In The Cloud and to share their two major obsessions: kung fu and sci-fi, with a heaping helping of Wu-Tang Clan thrown in for good measure.



Global Retro
A music movement is afoot. The sound is vintage psychedelic, funk and soul recordings from remote corners of the globe. The labels are Analog Africa, Soundway Records, VampiSoul...the list goes on and on. In the past few years crate-digging for undiscovered music from countries like Ghana, Nigera, and Colombia has been raised to the level of an art form—and the gems these label unearth have given music lovers a new cause for celebration. Now the labels are making videos to introduce us to the often psychedelic radness that went on in other countries while the rest of us were listening to The Beatles...or were more likely not even born.



Joe Clausell “Hammock House”
Continuing in the vintage vein: New York dance music DJ Joe Claussell was recently given unlimited access to the vaults of the classic salsa label Fania Records. Fania was home to the titans of New York salsa, from Celia Cruz to Hector Lavoe. Faced with such riches, Claussell dug deep, remixing a melange of Latin soul and salsa cuts for his new album. We’re psyched to premiere a new, extended video that features the DJ in his native habitat, playing music that still defines the city that never sleeps.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Tinariwen - TENERE TAQQIM TOSSAM.”

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Music Tuesday: The Needle Drop, fresh faces and more

It’s been a busy few weeks on youtube.com/music. We celebrated the July 4 weekend in the U.S. with a playlist of music to BBQ by and took a look at the women of Americana. Last Tuesday we were wooed by indie rockers YACHT, who made a completely adorable video introducing their curation of the YouTube homepage. We also paid homage to the Latin Alternative Music Conference, a gathering for Latino buzz bands that took place in NYC last week. Then it was on to a haunting new genre of music, and a look at the latest in live performances on YouTube.

Introducing The Needle Drop
This week we debut a new monthly series from Anthony Fantano, the DJ and music critic otherwise known by his channel name, The Needle Drop. Anthony quickly became one of our favorite music reviewers on YouTube for his witty and perhaps nerdy insights into a broad range of music. Sure, he skews indie, but as he admits himself, that’s only when he’s not reviewing major label releases, hip-hop or metal. His serious engagement with the music is matched only by his entertaining screen personality, and this week he begins a monthly round-up for us of his favorite releases, complete with music videos and reviews.



Fresh Faces: July
Oodles of under-the-radar musicians find a home for their work on YouTube, and every month we feature four of them on the homepage. Today we profile four very different artists who bring strong, distinct perspectives to their work. Shankar Tucker is a young clarinetist who got obsessed by Indian classical music, with awesome results. Jayanti’s now-burgeoning career got started when a friend took a video of her singing a song at dinner one night. LaTosha Brown is a crazily talented singer who actually stopped performing eight years ago and now heads the Gulf Coast Fund, a social justice philanthropy organization. (San Francisco micro-label Porto Franco Records caught one arresting video of her singing recently, and we decided it deserved a feature.) And we just liked Faded Paper Figures’ style.



Kurt Vile “Baby’s Arms”
Vile’s deceptively simple song gets its power from its stripped-down aesthetic, and it’s bolstered by an extraordinarily lo-fi video which was shot entirely on a smartphone. This is the kind of one-two punch you have to love.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “SBTRKT - Wildfire.”

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Music Tuesday: Mystery bands, Buddy Holly and more

Things have been popping on youtube.com/music over the last week. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s son Seun just released a new album, and in honor of the potent genre his dad created, we put together a playlist of Afrobeat essentials. We also joined the world in celebrating pride week last weekend with a clutch of anthemic songs new and old. And we turned our attention to England, where the Glastonbury music festival raged. We remembered Glastos past and heard from a young band named Viva Brother, who played the festival for the first time and guided us through the experience. Oh yeah, and pop star/actress Selena Gomez debuted her new album (with commentary) on Sunday. On to this week!

Mystery bands
With the release of Shabazz Palaces’s full-length debut Black Up this week (which you can listen to in its entirety here), we found ourselves thinking about disguises, and all the bands over the years who’ve used them. Shabazz Palaces offers an avant-garde take on hip-hop; the group is helmed by Ishmael Butler of Digable Planets, but he hid behind the moniker Palaceer Lazaro for several years and still refuses to name his collaborators. Butler isn’t the first to cloak his musical experiments in a veil of mystery. This week, we present some artists who have used anonymity to fuel their boundary-pushing work, starting with San Francisco provocateurs The Residents and moving through the leftfield R&B of The Weeknd (who seem to be linked with Drake), the pop culture pastiche act Nike7UP, British oddities Hype Williams and more.



Buddy Holly raves on
Buddy Holly forever altered the course of rock’n’roll with his astonishing 25 hit songs—all of which he penned and recorded before he died in a plane crash at the age of 22. Don McLean famously sang that the day the plane crashed was “the day the music died,” and it was hard not to agree with him. But nothing proves Holly’s music lives on like Rave On Buddy Holly, a tribute album that features everybody from CeeLo Green to Patti Smith covering his songs. We check out a few tracks from the album as well as other tributes to the rock’n’roll pioneer.



Breakbot “Fantasy Jacques Renault Remix”
With “Fantasy,” the French producer Breakbot turned out a song that could have come off of Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” circa 1979. But really it’s the video that had us at hello: a mash-up of roller-skating videos from the 1970s and ‘80s that practically screams “summer.”



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Bon Iver - Bon Iver ALBUM REVIEW.”

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Music Tuesday: Other Music, Terra Naomi and Pete Rock

Summer is finally underway in the northern hemisphere, and while new releases may be slowing down, youtube.com/music is getting busy. Neo-soul songstress Jill Scott graced us with a playlist of her inspirations over the weekend, the ever-charming Alicia Keys celebrates the ten-year anniversary of Songs In A Minor with an invitation to the YouTube community and the music world mourned the loss of Clarence Clemons, the gentle giant who played saxophone with Bruce Springsteen for more than thirty years. Meanwhile, everybody from Bon Iver to Pitbull are releasing new albums today. Later this week we’ll feature a contest, another video premiere and some very special coverage from England’s Glastonbury music festival; be sure to check out youtube.com/music over the weekend for updates.

Other Music recommends...music!
When we started inviting independent record stores to curate playlists of their favorite music, we had no idea that so many of you would be watching. More than 500k views later, Amoeba Music’s playlist is still turning people on to good music, so this month we head to the East Coast to see what’s popping at Other Music, the New York record store known as a home to all things indie, experimental and adventurous. They came up with a creative collection of videos which we’re featuring on the homepage today.



Terra Naomi
One of YouTube’s early music stars, Terra Naomi set the template for many who followed. Her song “Say It’s Possible” featured one of the first crowdsourced music videos; five years later, she’s releasing a new album and a new crowdsourced video, which she’s premiering with us today. The video is directed by Alex Albrecht and made in conjunction with iPhone app Hipstamatic and pulls images from over 10,000 entries from around the world. She also shares a playlist of some of her favorite cover songs of all time.



Smif-n-Wessun & Pete Rock premiere the album Monumental
Smif-n-Wessun (later known as Cocoa Brovaz after a legal dispute over their name) helped define hardcore hip-hop lyricism with a string of successful, critically-lauded albums back in the 1990s. Pete Rock has been in the game just as long, an emcee and producer who helped define jazz-hop alongside acts like A Tribe Called Quest. He went on to become one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s go-to producers, crafting tracks for everyone from Raekwon to Ghostface Killah. Monumental proves the duo’s tag-team rap style is still on lock, while Pete Rock’s production never misses the mark — and often recalls his late, great colleague, the venerated J Dilla. Check it out now, one week before release date.



Sarah Bardeen recently watched “Breakbot - ‘Fantasy’ (Jacques Renault remix).”

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Music Tuesday: Eminem’s live Q&A, new jazz and dubstep meets G-Funk

It’s a quiet week on the new release front, but on the video front, things are popping. Perhaps the biggest debut was Katy Perry’s new video. The pop vixen performs as her alter-ego Kathy Beth Terry, and the video features none other than Rebecca Black and other familiar faces. If that doesn’t float your boat, check out what else is happening on youtube.com/music today.

Eminem’s favorite collaborations
How many EPs generate this much buzz? Eminem and fellow Detroit rapper Royce da 5'9 go way back -- the duo met in 1997 and immediately clicked. They formed Bad Meets Evil and recorded a few songs, but then Emimen got signed to a major label and, well, you know the rest. Though Royce appeared on The Slim Shady LP, various beefs led the friends to fall out until a mutual friend’s death reunited them a few years ago. Now they’re back in the studio, and Royce’s skillful rhymes seem to have invigorated Eminem: he sounds looser and more playful than you’ve heard him in years. You can see their chemistry in the video, which emphasizes the lyricism and wordplay with painted graphics. Today, Eminem picks his favorite collaborative videos to celebrate the release. It’s a Dre-heavy mix, naturally, but he also showcases an EPMD classic and the Junior Mafia evergreen “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” Also, Royce and the famously publicity-averse Mr. Mathers take to his YouTube channel this afternoon at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT to answer your questions live.



New jazz, now
This week, we extract some fresh jazz tidbits for the curious. Top of our list? Ambrose Akinmusire, a young trumpeter out of Oakland, Ca. who has been making waves among jazz fans for his fluid compositions and compelling tone. We’ve also got Norah Jones singing a lovely rendition of “Come Rain or Come Shine” with Wynton Marsalis and a short piece on the new album from the sultry Brazilian vocalist Eliane Elias.



CHLLNGR “Ask For”
This is the first single off of CHLLNGR’s upcoming release Haven. Who is CHLLNGR? The Danish producer has been quietly remixing everybody from M.I.A. to The XX, but that’s not why we love him. First, the creepy video is a win: shot in a forest outside of Copenhagen, nothing much happens, yet you keep watching in rapt anticipation. Something might happen. Equally awesome is the song’s G-funk synthesizer line, which erupts straight out of the West Coast circa 1992 and collides with dubstep’s unsteady bass (currently London’s biggest export). It’s a subtle and smart combination, and it has us looking forward to more from this producer from the north country.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue.”

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Music Tuesday: Battles, Vetiver and the power of CANADA

This week, Coldplay returns with a brand new song, Duncan Sheik covers ‘80s classics, Youssou N’Dour celebrates reggae, Branford Marsalis keeps jazz vital and country star Randy Travis celebrates 25 years in music. But we first turn our attention to a math-rock supergroup some had written off after they lost their lead singer -- until their new album landed on critics’ laps, four years after their lauded debut.

Battles curate the YouTube homepage
Battles’ 2007 debut Mirrored still amazes with its precise shards of sound and wholly formed aesthetic. It integrated electronics and rock instrumentation into such a seamless whole that some hailed the band as the future of rock — and avant-garde vocalist Tyondai Braxton as its voice-manipulating headman. Braxton’s departure from the band left doubt about their future, but four years after their lauded debut, they’re back: sans Braxton, but full of sonic innovation and a bevy of guest vocalists. Gloss Drop is an engrossing listen, and it gains in texture with contributions from Gary Numan (yes, the man behind the ‘80s classic “Cars”), Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, Chilean producer and vocalist Matias Aguayo and Yamantaka Eye of Japanese rockers the Boredoms. Battles bring their heady, wonky, original aesthetic to the homepage today, choosing their favorite videos and debuting a new version of their video for “Ice Cream.”



The Power of CANADA
Battles are likely to gain fans on the strength of their new video, and they have the amusingly-named Spanish video director collective CANADA to thank for that. The team features three directors: Luis Cervero, Nicolas Mendez and Lope Serrrano. After spending years as the go-to videographers for Spain’s indie rock artists, CANADA gained a massive following from their provocative video for El Guincho’s “Bombay.” El Guincho has a growing U.S. fan-base, and his global ghetto pop/electronic sound mashed perfectly with the directors’ aesthetic: bawdy (which has earned their videos more than a few age restrictions), comic and flooded with images that often find their power in rapid-fire juxtaposition. Their videos poke fun but also celebrate everything from bad ‘70s flicks and European art films to Carl Sagan. They seem to have an endless storehouse of images at their fingertips, and their editing borders on revelatory. We share some of their best work today on youtube.com/music.



Vetiver “Wonder Why?”
They’re transplanted San Franciscans (native to North Carolina), friends of freak folk luminaries Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, and willing slaves to harmony and twang. Vetiver make the kind of urban roots music that feeds people looking for organic, unprocessed music in our highly digitized age. Check out the brand-new video from their upcoming album, premiered on youtube.com/music today. It takes a city’s inanimate landscape and brings it to life; watch as sandwich carts mouth the words to the song and buildings blink their windows in time.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “J Rocc - Stay Fresh.”

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Music Tuesday: Death Cab for Cutie, Cibo Matto and more

What’s happening on youtube.com/music? If you’re a fan of one of indie rock’s most influential bands, a lot. Check out our picks for what's happening in music this week.

Death Cab for Cutie curation
Death Cab for Cutie’s intelligent, heart-restrained-by-head songs have always vibrated with barely-contained desire. They’re also innovative video-makers -- earlier this year they released a pretty stunning one-take video for “You Are A Tourist.” They followed it up by asking Shepard Fairey to tag L.A. with the lyrics to “Home Is A Fire.” So we were pretty psyched when Ben Gibbard and Nick Harmer agreed to sit down and choose some of their favorite videos for us on the eve of the release of their new album Codes and Keys. Like the band itself, their videos are diverse, thoughtful, surprising and sometimes cute: you’ll find indie rock videos, sure, but also French bulldogs, exploding volcanoes, and a starry sky. Prepare to swoon.



Cibo Matto reunites
Everybody’s favorite quirky Japanese alterna-pop duo, Cibo Matto grabbed a devoted following back in the ‘90s for their deceptively simple, sly and silly songs. They weren’t rockstars, but they were cool and goofy and hard to ignore. They recently announced they’re getting back together for a tour and a new album. Here’s why you care:



Lavalier "Santa Claus Ain't Comin'"
When even Nylon Magazine is trying to remind us that there’s music being made outside of Brooklyn, it feels a bit perverse to hype yet another Brooklyn band. But Lavalier -- a slightly psychedelic, slightly melancholic indie band -- have something else going for them: their new video from the art collective Everything Is Terrible. The collective scours junk sales and thrift stores for discarded VHS tapes and turns them into hilarious videos. They hit the jackpot with this one, sending up ‘80s culture by using detritus from the decade itself. This is cultural archeology at its best -- and the song’s not bad, either.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Go - Santogold & Karen O."

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Music Tuesday: Under-the-radar artists, music from everyday objects and Making Friendz

While Lady Gaga tears up the charts (and makes her entire album available on YouTube), we’re dedicating this week to the under-the-radar artists who pump creative juices into YouTube’s veins. We’ve got a treasure trove of talent, starting with Diego Stocco, the Italian inventor/composer/multi-instrumentalist who can make an instrument out of discarded pianos and a song out of a bonsai tree. Jeff Pianki is a young singer-songwriter who wins hearts the old-fashioned way: with sweet lyrics and catchy melodies. Sanders Bohlke, the folk artist from Mississippi, has videos as easygoing as his music. And finally, Yasuhito Watanabe is a Japanese singer-songwriter brimming with crossover potential. Check them all out on youtube.com/music today.



Music from Everyday Objects
Can you make music out of a blow dryer? A bicycle? A bonsai tree? It turns out that a lot more artists think so than you might expect. Diego Stocco’s inventive pursuit of new sources for sound got us curious about who else is corralling everyday objects to make music on YouTube. And what we found is delightful: music made from wine glasses, a bottle opener, an old Soviet camera, a refrigerator door, Game Boys and much more.




Making Friendz “Situtation” video premiere
Making Friendz is Tami Hart, the former folk musician-turned-party girl who claims to be ripping off her buddies No Age, found herself a member of the tranny/dance collective MEN earlier this year, and is now gearing up for a new release on June 21. The first single is a big, noisy party song that’s equal parts New Pornographers and Valley Girl-era sass. And it’s perfectly matched by a crazy video from the directing team Wildwoodils. It’s all gross-out, 1980s Nickolodeon humor -- and very worth your time.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Unidentified suspects triptych by Isaac Cordel.”

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Music Tuesday: Danger Mouse’s Rome project, an introduction to videosongs and more

This week on youtube.com/music, we’re thinking about film and music. The two art forms have a love affair dating back to the 1890s, when piano players were hired to cover up the clattering noise of the film projector. Over the years that relationship has transformed; we now think of film and music as inseparable. This week, we profile two innovative and very different projects that are putting video and music on equal artistic footing -- and we bring you one album premiere!

Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi curate the homepage
You know Danger Mouse. Maybe you’ve heard his Grey Album, which artfully mashed up Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album to near-universal acclaim. Maybe you know him as one-half of super-duo Gnarls Barkley. Or perhaps you dig Broken Bells? His restless creativity has found a lot of outlets over the years, but when he teamed up with Italian composer Daniele Luppi for his latest project, the focus quickly turned cinematic. The duo share a love of Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks, and with the help of Jack White and Norah Jones, they turned that love into a spacious, absorbing and slightly mysterious album. Then they took it a step further, inviting director Chris Milk to create a groundbreaking and beautiful interactive web video. (Type ro.me into a Chrome browser to see what they’ve done.) Luppi and the Mouse curate YouTube’s homepage today with their favorite Chris Milk films.



VideoSongs: creativity gone wild
If Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi have inspired boundary-pushing video experiments, “videosong” makers are actually dissolving the boundaries between song and video. The videosong has two rules: first, what you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). Second, if you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds). The duo Pomplamoose are now well-known for their charming experiments in this realm, but an entire world of creators has popped up around the form. Whether they’re incorporating skate park videos as percussion instruments or adeptly covering Radiohead, this rapidly burgeoning scene is ground zero for music/video innovation on YouTube. Check it out now!



SMOD album premiere
You probably haven’t heard of SMOD, but here’s why you care about them: Manu Chao produced their album, and one member is the son of Mali’s pioneering blind musical duo Amadou & Mariam. So if you like African pop with a bit of hip-hop in its jaws, this album is for you. Sunny pop, ringing guitars, harmonizing singers...just a little bit of summer, before summer officially starts.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Diego Stocco - Music from a Bonsai.”

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Music Tuesday: Raphael Saadiq, Jane’s Addiction, PJ Harvey and more

Live music, soul music, war music...this week, we bring you a little bit of everything. Let’s dive in!

Raphael Saadiq’s old soul
Before Amy Winehouse, before Sharon Jones, before a whole slew of singers realized there were still jewels to be mined from classic soul and R&B, Raphael Saadiq got it. The guy had been one third of Tony! Toni! Tone! in the 1990s, but in the years since, he’s reinvented himself, transforming from silky crooner into vintage soul man...and sought-after producer. His new album drops today, and to celebrate, he shares the sounds of kindred spirits, be they The Black Keys, the White Stripes or everybody in between.



Jane’s Addiction...live
We're bringing Jane's Addiction to Google I/O tonight, but no need to hunt for sold-out tickets. You can watch the band perform live tonight at 8 p.m. PT on youtube.com/googledevelopers. And while you're waiting, why not enjoy a few videos hand-picked for you by none other than Perry Ferrell and Dave Navarro? Their introductory video proves their rapport remains strong after all these years.



PJ Harvey “Let England Shake”
Polly Jean Harvey needs no introduction. The woman single-handedly resuscitated rock in the 1990s for a lot of fans; she’s fierce and uncompromising and she never stands still as an artist. Case in point: her new album. “Let England Shake” is a wide-ranging meditation on violence and war, and in commissioning a series of videos for the new album, she certainly isn’t blazing new ground -- we’ve recently profiled album-length films from R.E.M. and TV On The Radio -- but as always, nobody does it quite like PJ. Find out why.



Steve Earle “NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert”
Some may know him for his roles on HBO series like The Wire and Treme, but in fact, Steve Earle is the great unsung troubadour of this generation, a songwriter of uncommon humanity and grit. This live performance in NPR’s offices captures his wit, his irreverence, but most of all his talent.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Steve Earle: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert.”

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Music Tuesday: A quick trip to Mexico, the Beastie Boys and more

Cinco de Mayo is rapidly approaching, so we figured now was a good time to turn our gaze southwards. We wanted to get an idea of what’s happening with music in Mexico -- once you elbow past the wandering mariachi bands. (But if you’re really dying to hear a new release, the Beastie Boys will oblige.) Then we head even further south to find out what happens when South American hipsters are set loose with cameras. And lastly, take a minute to enjoy our video pick of the week. Repeatedly, if need be.

Get Schooled By The Mexican Institute of Sound
Camilo Lara, aka The Mexican Institute of Sound, is one busy dude. He’s buddies with the Beastie Boys (check out Ad Rock’s remix of his song “Alocatel”), he’s become an underground sensation on both sides of the border (rocking Coachella in 2009) -- and he works at a major label by day. And, oh yeah, he’s helped make cumbia cool again. Is there anything the indefatigable Lara can’t do? This week, he shows us the Mexico he loves -- not the land of men sleeping under sombreros, but the teaming streets and thriving music scene of Mexico City. Check out his utterly fresh playlist: we guarantee you’ll be shouting “cumbia!” within five minutes, or your money back.



Freak Folk, Latin American Style
In keeping with this week’s Latin theme, we have to give big ups to Yatoka, the Chilean hipsters who seem to be redefining how Latin music reaches the world. This ain’t your parents’ Chile: freak folksters, hip-hop groups, and everybody in between gets in front of the camera for a series of easy, intimate outdoor performances. (Yes, LaBlogotheque fans may experience some deja vu.) There’s no easier way to find your next favorite singer-songwriter: we think Pascuala Ilabaca might just be ours.



Grouper “Alien Observer”
And now for the weird. Nobody defines the weird more delicately than Portland’s Liz Harris, aka Grouper, whose dark and deceptively simple music seems to grab at big things under the surface. We could talk about drones and guitars and psychedelic vocal overlays, but you really should just experience it for yourself. Her “Alien Observer” video is an odd and impressionistic work, and whenever you think it’s going in a conventional direction, something derails it -- to our great relief. Haunting stuff.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Pascuala Ilabaca - Lamenta la Canela.avi.”

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Music Tuesday: R.E.M. video premiere, Blitz the Ambassador’s new album and more

It’s Tuesday, and music fans, we’ve got a feast for you. We’re featuring one full-length album premiere and two innovative videos -- one of which is an exclusive premiere on YouTube. But don’t worry -- we’re not ignoring the great music hitting the streets this week: albums from Steve Earle, EmmyLou Harris, Of Montreal, Prefuse 73 and more. We’ll have a playlist of the week’s freshest sounds later this week; be sure to check back to youtube.com/music to watch it.

Michael Stipe and Jim McKay Pick Their Favorite Videos
R.E.M. premieres their new video “Every Day Is Yours To Win” on YouTube today. The video, a pastiche of clips found on YouTube a la Kutiman, was co-directed by Jim McKay (you may know him from his work on a little HBO show called The Wire). It’s an exercise in humanity, finding and treating with great kindness the surprisingly intimate moments uploaded to YouTube. In honor of its release, longtime friends McKay and R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe assembled a captivating playlist of their favorite YouTube videos; find it on the homepage today.



Blitz the Ambassador “Native Sun”
“Live from Accra city, that’s my city, that’s beyond what they call gritty.”
When Chuck D gives a shout-out on your record (“It’s not where you from; it’s where you at....”), you could say you’ve made it as a hip-hop artist. Ghanaian-born Samuel Bazawule may not be a household name, but if his new album “Native Sun” is any indication, he should be. “Native Sun” is one of the most organic marriages of African music and hip-hop we’ve heard -- an effortless release that incorporates Afrobeat, highlife and kora music into old-school hip-hop. It’s a warm and danceable record with a social conscience, and it speaks to anybody who’s lived between two cultures -- as more and more of us do. We’re thrilled to premiere it a week before the release date.



Jib Kidder’s “Blue”
When we read an interview with Sean Schuster-Craig, aka the audio/visual artist Jib Kidder, in which he talked about his video-making ethic as an extension of the dream world, we were hooked. (“Dreams are like a collage made by your subconscious out of the raw materials of your inner experience,” Schuster-Craig told a blog earlier this year.) His music is a collage, too: a folk-art endeavor made from the found sounds of our digital world. Both the song and video for “Blue” repurpose material from his label’s archives, and they are meticulously crafted and strangely full of heart.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Foo Fighters. Wasting Light Live from 606.”

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Music Tuesday: Record store clerks cut loose in YouTube and Coachella highlights

It’s Music Tuesday, and new albums are hitting the shelves from Gorillaz, Eliza Doolittle, Lenka, I’m From Barcelona and many more artists this week. Over here, we’re still recovering from the epic cascade of music that was Coachella. Relive the festival -- and check out this week’s offerings on youtube.com/music.

Record store clerks cut loose in YouTube
Before there was YouTube, people went to record stores to discover new music. The good news is, they still do -- and record store clerks remain some of the best tastemakers out there. So we’re starting a new, occasional series in which we invite influential independent music sellers to share their favorite videos with us. We kick off the series just days after Record Store Day with Amoeba Music, California’s premier tune-peddlers. They share their own original content -- who doesn’t want to find out what’s in ?uestlove’s shopping bag? -- as well as other awesome video finds: salsa great Celia Cruz in Africa, Miles Davis in action, and an excellent, weird video from psych pop outfit the Fresh & Onlys.



Coachella Highlights
You’re back at work, you’re rehydrating, you’re massaging your neck after craning to see Kanye float above the crowd...or chances are, if you weren’t in the desert in Indio, California this weekend, you might have been checking out the music festival live on youtube.com/coachella. It was an epic event, and with cameras on three stages, there was so much to see it was almost befuddling. But in case you missed it, guess what? We’ve got highlights.



Vacationer “Trip”
And now, notes from the underground. This video showed up in our inbox last week -- we’ve got very little information on the band, Vacationer (except that they’re from Brooklyn, natch), but when we heard the glitchy-but-catchy, flat-shoed sound of “Trip,” we started to get hooked. Then there’s the guy moon-walking next a waterfall in the video, plus exotic birds showing off their plumage in slow motion. Trust us; this is entrancing.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “DaVinci - Blame Game.”

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Music Tuesday: TV On The Radio “Nine Types of Light” film premiere and more

This week, the music world is practically groaning under the weight of so many new releases. There’s something for everyone, from Paul Simon to Animal Collective’s Panda Bear, Foo Fighters to Del McCoury and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (!). We can’t cover all the bases, but we can point you towards some good ones.

TV On The Radio curates and premieres the “Nine Types of Light” film
TV On The Radio are one of indie rock’s most idiosyncratic and, dare we say it, magnetic bands. Their constantly evolving sound and restless desire to push the envelope has made them an endlessly interesting act whose albums regularly top critics’ year-end lists. So it should be no surprise that their new release “Nine Types of Light” isn’t just an album -- it’s a film, too, featuring ten different directors and interspersed with man-on-the-street interviews conducted by lead singer Tunde Adebimpe himself. The full-length video LP premieres on YouTube today, along with Adebimpe’s singular playlist of his favorite videos, complete with a gently deranged introductory video that will have you at hello, if you’re weird like us.

Hip-Hop at Coachella
So, there’s a little gathering in the desert this weekend. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? No, we don’t mean Burning Man. Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has evolved from a low-budget, low-visibility gig into a must-play event on a level with SXSW. You might say it’s this country’s Glastonbury. And while the festival has always flown its flag for indie rock, hip-hop is starting to find a foothold. Case in point: Kanye’s headlining on Sunday. Check out what other hip-hop acts will be on offer this weekend.

Dengue Fever “Cannibal Courtship” album premiere
And, last but not least, we have a full album premiere this week from L.A.-based band Dengue Fever. Dengue Fever began life as cover band of sorts, filtering 1960s Cambodian rock through an indie rock lens with the help of the otherworldy, ethereal-voiced Cambodian vocalist Chhom Nimol (the band’s not-so-secret weapon). Over the course of four albums, the group has evolved from imitation to original songwriting, and at their best they marry the familiar with the foreign in wonderful ways. Part psychedelic rock, part punk, part Ethio-jazz -- now with vocal harmonies! -- the group’s sound can be a heady brew. Fast forward to “Uku” at 8:32 to hear their potential fully realized, or just savor it from start to finish.

Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “CHRISSY MURDERBOT ft. DJ SPINN "BUSSIN DOWN" Planet Mu HD.”

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