Idolator

Today is the day to get all nutso about eights, or, maybe to just get nutso, if you have Olympic and/or Jonas Brothers and/or Boredoms-drum-extravaganza fever. (Woe to the person who's suffering from all three.) All the eight-related hoopla got me to thinking about how the eighth track on many an album is a hit-or-miss proposition; particularly on longer albums in the CD era, it serves as something of a midpoint, and albums become unfocused and maybe stick their not-as-good tracks in there. For example: track eight on Appetite For Destruction, for example, is the OK-but-not-great "Think About You," while track eight on Nevermind is the relatively irritating to my ears "Drain You." And not to be all lazy-Google-research about this, but the phrase "track 8 is my favorite" only has 22 hits on the search engine; spell out the word "eight," and you're down to four.) Anyway, I decided to root through my collection and find some outstanding examples of an album's eighth track—eight, in fact. They're unordered, although the last one on the list is probably my favorite (and I found an amazing live version of it, to boot). Feel free to add your own! More »

How long has it been since we've heard genuinely new music from the Swedish freak-pop band Love Is All? Since the remix album and few covers they floated out in the months following their 2006 debut album don't really count, the only obvious answer is "too long." Which is why the debut of "Wishing Well"—shot at a train station in a city that I think is Oslo—is more than worthy of mention. The not-very-plugged-in arrangement makes the song sound a little bit subdued in comparison to the full-on frenzy the band normally unleashes in performance, but the head-bopping keyboard line is definitely a keeper. As a bonus, Handheld Shows, where the above clip originated, also has sets by El Perro Del Mar and The Blow in its archives. Music hauls like the one I'm having today make me really miss being a college-radio DJ. [Handheld Shows via Gorilla Vs. Bear] More »

One album that we left out of yesterday's new-release roundup was the reissue of 9 Times That Same Song by Swedish skronk-poppers Love Is All. 9 Times, which came out just as 2005 flipped into 2006, remains one of our favorite full-lengths of the year so far (and hey, the clock is ticking!); it's all exuberance, energy and scream-along choruses, with some manic saxophone runs thrown in here and there. More »