The Sampler- Tracks of the Week (Week 2)

Here’s this week’s sampler of songs I can’t stop listening to. This week they’re coming from all eras, both old and new.

Electric Light Orchestra – Mr. Blue Sky

First released in 1977, off of the album Out of the Blue, Mr. Blue Sky still remains incredibly influential and one of the most brilliant pop rock songs of all time. The song opens the way every great happy go lucky song should, with a pounding piano, hard snare hits, and hand claps. Switching in mid-song between high seventies rock voices, and low, nearly comical bass swells, the band swells in and out of the song with a childish glee. Even though it’s turning to autumn, you can still listen to this song and be enveloped in a summer haze.

September Collective – Out of Intention

The September Collective’s new (and only) album just came out in July of 2007. The first track off of All the Birds Were Anarchists is smooth and velvety, something that can take your mind off of anything. The entire album is ambient music, made by three friends from Germany, using only synthesizers and computers, and just a tiny bit of guitars and drums. Listening to the first song (and indeed the entire album) brings night to the mind. Listening to it, one can’t help but picture streetlamps and flower pedals curling in on themselves. The album is hard to get (seeing as you can only buy it as an import from Amazon.com) but if you have an eMusic account, it is available for download there. I’d highly recommend it.

So far, those are the only two songs that have been in my head all week, but keep track of the samplers, because compiled together, they’d make one hell of a mixtape.