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Corinne Bailey Rae – Paris Nights/New York Mornings by teewee

It’s been such a long time since I’ve recommended a song that I’ve forgotten how to link the song to iTunes Store.

Today on my way home from work, I heard a commercial promoting Corinne Bailey Rae’s new album. I’ve always found a particular affinity to her music, maybe in part due to her jazzy tone or the fact that its just overall relaxing to listen to her music. I say its particular because I don’t like ALL her songs, but the ones I do like, I actuallylove a lot. One can really picture themselves sitting Starbucks drinking a coffee, while watching life pass by, against the backdrop of a warm sunsetting sky. But I digress, I came home and quickly checked out the popular songs on her new album on ITS, and immediately fell in love with the following track. Will be exploring the rest of this album in detail soon!

You Tube Link
Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea - Paris Nights/New York Mornings

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YFA Recommends – Lin-Manuel Miranda by YFA

A strange pick this week. If you watched the pilot of this season’s House, AND stayed around for the closing credits, you’d have heard this already. If not, here it is below (this is different from the one he did with House at the talent show).

Well, I came across such an odd choice because I watched a play this weekend that made reference to Alexander Hamilton, but I didn’t know who he was (aside from the fact he’s an important US historical figure). My friend told me to watch this to learn about Alexander Hamilton, which apparently is a Lin-Manuel Miranda rap of Hamilton (who’s head shows up on the $10 USD bill) that he performed for the Obamas.

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YFA Recommends – Up to Now (Snow Patrol) by YFA

Snow Patrol released a compilation album a few months back called “Up to Now”. Apparently it is not their “Greatest Hits” compilation, but more a compilation of songs over their past albums that documents their style and growth for the past 15 years, since apparently they’re going to switch styles and try for some new sounds in their next album, so they’re releasing this as a milestone. 3 new tracks on the CD, 1 of them is a cover, below:

Any one recognize who did the original version of this song? I definitely know the song when I heard it, but couldn’t pinpoint who did the original and where I heard it from since it was somewhat different. Search for the name online if you can’t figure it out… which is what I did eventually 🙂

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YFA Recommends – All the Right Moves (One Republic) by YFA

This week’s pick is definitely something I’ve been looping a lot in my playlist lately. One Republic’s “All the Right Moves” – has a “Phantom-esque” theme to it – I think I’ve watched this video like 10x already!

One Republic is not an unheard of band anymore (thanks to “Apologize”) and this track comes out of their sophomore album (do I speak like an American now?) released last Nov (2009). I gotta say – One Republic is on my top 3 favorite bands (you can guess what the other 2 are) and primarily because of Ryan Tedder (their front man), who is probably my favorite artist. He’s definitely a talented performer (can sing and plays multiple instruments, piano being one of them), but I think I like him most because of his songwriting and producing background – he writes One Republic’s songs, but moreover he pens a number of chart toppers for MANY other artists (Beyonce, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, to name a few). He definitely has an identifiable style in his arrangements, which I probably appreciate the most. For example – listen to the arrangement for “All the Right Moves” above – the instrumental at 2:40, then the piano/vocal solo at 2:53, then the double snare to drums/vocal at 3:06, then the cutout “Yeah, we’re going down” at 3:18… ah so creative!

Ryan Tedder’s bio is very inspiring as well – a story of tenacity. He was an intern at Dreamworks singing demo tracks, and was soon offered a publishing deal, but he wanted to be an artist (more than just background producing work). So at age 21, he entered some MTV hosted singer-songwriter competition ran by Lance Bass (N’Sync), and he ended up winning the competition. As a winner, he’s supposed to get a contract with a recording label, but this did not materialize as Lance Bass’ company folded soon after the competition – Setback #1. After that, he continued to work behind the scenes doing production work for other artists, apparently working with Timbaland from 2002 to 2004.

2002, he formed One Republic with his high school buddy, and at that point he had the choice of being a producer, or going to be an artist. “I was offered two publishing deals within two months of being in Nashville…I could have just written songs and lived a carefree life, but I knew that I had to be an artist. I wanted to form a rock band and create my own sound.” And then Setback #2: “The band had previously been signed to Columbia Records, and their album was due to be released in 2006, but this did not occur. Tedder explained, “Crap happened. People got fired. Labels merged and politics abounded”.[24] Subsequently, the band was released from their deal with Columbia, and they were signed by Timbaland in the summer of 2006 becoming the first rock band to be signed to Mosley Music Group.”

Hehe too bad he isn’t an outspoken Christian (not sure if he is one), or else another ++! But he was brought up by an extended family of missionaries and pastors, so maybe, who knows!

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YFA Recommends – YMCK by YFA

This week we have good ol’ 8-bit music that is reminiscent of Nintendo days!

All of YMCK’s work is 8-bit music + vocals. They have their 8-bit plugin available for free in AU or VST format here.

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