The big New Radicals song is “You Get What You Give.” This massive hit did so well that I know many who got sick of hearing it by the time it faded away. It’s mostly remembered for its rousing optimism and positivity. It’s tight structure is filled in with lyrics like, “Don’t let go/You’ve got the music in you” and “This world is gonna pull through/Don’t give up, you’ve got a reason to live.”

If those lines kind of fall flat in text, that’s because optimistic, feel-good sloganizing rarely ages well. Not that all classics require drama, but one-dimensional, motivational songs will fall by the wayside given enough time. For more on this, look at “We Are The World” or Joe Esposito’s “You’re The Best.” I don’t know if anyone looks at those songs in anything outside of a satirical context. To say it simply, they become “Not-So-Cool.”

But it can be helpful to remember that New Radicals, while a one hit wonder, were more interested in working from a political message than putting out happy pop songs you can jog to. Even on “You Get What You Give,” all that empty bumper sticker positivity is punctuated at the end with a verse on health insurance rip offs, the FDA, and taking random celebrities to task and threatening them with an ass kicking. Why? Just to get a rise out of the media, who would focus on the celebrity gossip over the political bits.

Their single album, Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, is interesting to look at these days as a moment of pop music captured in time. This is the band that writes accessible, easy appeal lines like “One day we’ll know if love can move a mountain” with one hand, and “We did a porno film for coke/I hear I’m big in Japan” with the other. For that reason alone, that two-faced subversion of pop friendliness, I think that makes them kind of cool.

Be sure to check out Vitamin String Quartet

Available at iTunes and Amazon

In the interviews leading up to Mylo Xyloto, Chis Martin cited at least three separate influences on the concept behind the album: graffiti art, the White Rose movement, and, most perplexingly, the five-season HBO drama The Wire.

I don’t understand how that works either.

The Wire is a now-legendary HBO series that ran from 2002 to 2008. It focused on the city of Baltimore, particularly the drug trade; from the European suppliers down to the lowliest dealer. It was a complicated, gritty and sharp television show that sounds absolutely nothing like a Coldplay song. But, evidently, it was one of the things on Martin’s mind in the lead up to the album:

“I think the next one will be quite stripped down and based upon this story idea which I can’t talk about because it might be bad. . . . Ever watch The Wire? ‘Cause they’re always popping up to Philadelphia. The main thing I do on tour is write, and then go watch The Wire”

For a band like Coldplay, this immediately sounds like a bad idea. They’re fine musicians, but urban drug thrillers are not their wheelhouse. But they did it, so I decided to listen to Mylo Xyloto with an analytical lens to try and identify any shades of The Wire in its themes, imagery or characters. It is, supposedly, very narrative driven: two lovers, a gang called The Lost Boys, and the dark world around them.

It turns out that trying to find even the faintest elements takes some work. Not just for traces of The Wire, but for any of the reported influences. As a concept album, it’s actually not very defined or structured. The two characters are just expressed as regular love songs and that gang appears once. Still, with a little deconstruction, there are certainly things that you can imagine coming from the mind of someone who has just watched a lot of The Wire.

The first blip is on the third track, “Paradise,” which is a bit of character establishment. It’s a song about a girl who dreams of escaping her predicament, as seen in lines like: “When she was just a girl, she expected the world / But it flew away from her reach and the bullets catch in her teeth.” I can see an emotional cousin here. The yearning to escaping the crushing heel of reality has been a constant theme since season one. When D’Angelo Barksdale, nephew of the west Baltimore’s top drug crew, makes a deal with the police, he does so on one condition: he wants to start over, somewhere, anywhere, so that he can breathe like regular folk.

On the ninth track “UFO,” Martin sings “It just seems upstream I keep rowing, still got such a long way to go.” There is no clear path through life, but it’s always a fight. You can draw that same thematic line to a memorable conversation from season five between Dennis Wise, a retired contract killer for the drug gang, and Duquan, a nerdy kid trying to survive his surroundings.

“How do you get from here to the rest of the world?” asks Duquan, and just like in the song, there is no answer. The protagonists in either story are locked in their troubles because they don’t see any exits.

Then there’s the theme and plot device of surveillance. Throughout the entire series, the success of the Major Crimes Unit is predicated upon their ability to gather enough evidence so they can get up on some surveillance. Hence, The Wire. In response to this, the drug trade creates increasingly complicated systems and codes, involving everything from picture messages to disposable cell phones. It’s easy to hear Chris Martin trying to emulate this tension on “Major Minus,” which starts: “They got one eye watching you, one eye on what you do, so be careful who it is you’re talking to.” It’s not an explicit allusion, but it’s the same exploration of paranoia. It sounds like fear and confrontation.

Ultimately, no, it’s not a 1-to-1 reference. It’s unlikely that this album would be a good soundtrack to Omar robbing stash houses with his shotgun. But it probably shouldn’t be, because that’s how inspiration works. You absorb it and hammer out something new, something made from the essential spirit, but forged with your own voice.

Be sure to check out:

Vitamin String Quartet Performs Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto

Available now at iTunes

Nevermind: Originally released September 24, 1991

Rolling Stone: “ A dynamic mix of sizzling power chords, manic energy and sonic restraint, Nirvana erects sturdy melodic structures — sing-along hard rock as defined by groups like the Replacements, Pixies and Sonic Youth — but then at-tacks them with frenzied screaming and guitar havoc…If Nirvana isn’t onto anything altogether new, Nevermind does possess the songs, character and confident spirit to be much more than a reformulation of college radio’s high-octane hits.” (four out of five stars)

The New York Times: “With Nevermind, Nirvana has certainly succeeded. There are enough intriguing textures, mood shifts, instrumental snippets and inventive word plays to provide for hours of entertainment…Nevermind is more sophisticated and carefully produced than anything peer bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Mudhoney have yet offered.”

Melody Maker: “When Nirvana released Bleach all those years ago, the more sussed among us figured they had the potential to make an album that would blow every other contender away. My God have they proved us right.”

Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik: Originally released September 24, 1991

Rolling Stone: The album “displayed a growing curiosity about studio texture and nuance.”

Allmusic: “The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ best album…John Frusciante’s guitar is less overpoweringly noisy, leaving room for differing textures and clearer lines, while the band overall is more focused and less indulgent.”

Guitar Player: By blending acid-rock, soul-funk, early art-rock, and blues style with a raw, unprocessed Strat-and-Marshall tone, [Frusciante] hit on an explosive formula that has yet to be duplicated.”

PopMatters: “In one funked-out, f*cked up, diabolical swoop, Blood Sugar Sex Magik reconfigured my relationship to music, to myself, to my culture and identity, to my race and class.”

Be sure to check out:

VSQ Master Series: Nirvana’s Nevermind

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Red Hot Chili Peppers

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

This Paul Walker/Vin Diesel shoot ‘em up, blow ‘em up, drive away real fast flick has got us thinking about other guilty pleasure movies that we love to watch when no one else is around. Here are five of  our favorite guilty pleasure films. Don’t tell anyone we told you.

Road House

This 1989 flick stars an in his prime Patrick Swayze as Dalton, a professional bouncer with a philosophy degree and a Mercedes. He takes a gig at a rough club in a tiny southern town. Here, he gets the babes, takes down the bad guys and looks good (in his tight jeans) while doing it. That’s about all you need to know. This film also works with the volume turned down.

Twilight

Laugh out loud preposterous as the dialogue might be (“You know, your mood swings are kinda giving me whiplash,” says Bella), there is something captivating about the forced drama of the film’s shaky hand held camera shots and the perpetually pained looks on Edward and Bella’s faces.

Purple Rain

Yes, the script, plot and acting in this 1984 Prince vehicle all have the depth of a wading pool, but his Purple Highness carries the film on the strength of his charisma, musical chops, perfect curls and badass motorcycle. The Purple Rain soundtrack has stood the test of time with slightly more success.

Con Air

When this 1997 action flick comes on basic cable on a random Saturday afternoon, it stays on. At least until the scene when hero Nicholas Cage, dirty, sweaty and sporting a long haired wig, demands that bad guy Billy Bedlam “put the bunny back in the box” in his ridiculous Southern drawl. (”Why couldn’t you put the bunny back in the box?” Cage laments, after killing Bedlam).

Zoolander

Clearly ridiculous from start to finish, but Will Ferrell’s turn as evil fashion impresario Mugatu added to the sheer comic brilliance of Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller’s “walk off” . Plus the scene where the male models have a fight with gas hoses; well, they all make us laugh. Bonus points for the David Bowie cameo, too.

Be Sure to Check Out:

Vitamin String Quartet Tribute to Twilight and more!

Available at iTunes and Amazon

Featuring photographs by Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne’s wife, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne, All We Have Is Now’s first 10×10 volume covers the band’s 2009 Oklahoma City New Year’s Eve concert, the annual Halloween March Of 1000 Skeletons, the Zurich St. Gallen Festival, and the band’s Earth Day concert in Washington, DC. According to Coyne (see video below), the book will only be available for a limited amount of time, but it seems as if more volumes will be quick to follow.

This is one of those types of stories that seems like it wouldn’t really happen, but apparently it can. So Much Silence reports that Band of Horses showed up at a recent wedding in Tromso, Norway after the couple had gotten engaged at the band’s show earlier in the year in Oslo.

Here’s a bit more info from the band’s Youtube page: “Njal proposed to Elin at the Band of Horses (BoH) show in Oslo earlier this year. When the Bride and Groom heard that BoH was to play a festival in Tromso on the same day of their wedding, they contacted the band and told them their story. With all the coincidences surrounding the wedding, the band said, “What the hell” and decided to surprise the couple. The band showed up minutes after landing in Tromso to play “Marry Song” at their ceremony. BoH was honored to be a part of the couple’s special day. Congratulations Njal and Elin!”

How crazy is that? What band would you like to show up at your wedding? Do you think they’d show?

Check out the video here:

Check out this video interview and performance with violinist David Garrett that Rolling Stone recently posted. He discusses his methods for transforming songs like Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” into a string rendition:

“Of course you kind of try to stay true to the core of the essence of the original but try to go as far as possible away, especially when you have an instrument that is not typically for rock and roll music.”

Garrett goes on to prove that while the violin may not make an appearance at most Metallica concerts, the instrument can still rock just as hard.

“I always considered the violin quite close to the guitar.”

His new album Rock Symphonies features covers of songs like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Guns n’ Roses’ “November Rain,” Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” and Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”

Recommended Listening:

• Say Your Prayers Little One: The String Quartet Tribute to Metallica
• The Scorched Earth Orchestra play Metallica’s Master Of Puppets: The Orchestral Tribute (20th Anniversary)

A new music-video series over at avclub.com which featuring awesome bands playing awesome covers. The website has everything from The Swell Season performing Neutral Milk Hotel to Rise Against covering Nirvana.

More details and videos here.

The Swell Season covers Neutral Milk Hotel

Rise Against covers Nirvana