We’re starting to get into the good weather, so I think it’s fitting that our awesome Sunday omnivore for today is Brian Wilson, mastermind behind The Beach Boys, a great summer band. But, really, this post is going to be about one of the greatest albums ever made, Pet Sounds. A friend of mine once said something akin to, “Overall, The Beatles were a better band, but not a single Beatles album by itself is as good as Pet Sounds.” And I think he’s right. Here’s the opening track, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and holy jeez it’s amazing, still.

The more I listen to the album, the more I tend to think that “God Only Knows” is most likely the best song on the album, and possibly one of the best songs pop music has ever put out. Read the rest of this entry >>

Awesome Sunday Omnivores Old Crow Medicine Show! Have you ever had a song that you stumbled across randomly, from a band you’ve never heard of, and you immediately thought, “Oh, wow. Oh wow. This is pretty much the most perfect song, ever, and I have to listen to it fifteen more times, right now”? Well, if you haven’t had that happen yet, today you’re in luck. Because it’s going to happen now. Here’s “Wagon Wheel,” by Old Crow Medicine Show.

The greatest praise I can give almost any band (for the purposes of this series) is to play their best song, and then still have literally dozens of other amazing songs to choose from to show you. These guys blend bluegrass, old-school country, and folk to create a sound that’s just not too prevalent these days, but blows my mind. Read the rest of this entry >>

Okay, one more band post today, but it’s a great one, because I get to tell you that the awesome Sunday omnivores today are The Walkmen! Great band. Rocking band with a distinctive sound that immediately draws you in. Here’s a live version of “The Rat,” off Bows + Arrows, and I’m amped to show you a live version that really does rival the album version for sound quality.

That was one of my favorite songs of 2004, and the band hasn’t slowed down. For example, how about last year’s song “In the New Year,” which maintains a lot of the same sounds “The Rat” does, while being something completely unlike its predecessor. Read the rest of this entry >>

Awesome Sunday omnivores The Decemberists! What’s that you say? You already know who The Decemberists are, because you like catchy and beautiful songs about archaic subjects such as Japanese folk legends, and the Civil War? Well, then, jump right in and enjoy “16 Military Wives,” off of Picaresque. I’m pretty sure Wes Anderson is owed royalties on this one.

Here’s a solid live version of one of my favorites of theirs, “The Engine Driver,” which is off the same album. It’s beautiful, it’s melancholy, it’s The Decemberists’ wheelhouse. It’s after the jump. Read the rest of this entry >>

Okay, it’s late, and I just got back from the Kentucky Derby pretty recently, so let’s not delay in getting to your awesome Sunday omnivores of radtasticness, the dudes in Wolf Parade. Listen to this song, “I’ll Believe in Anything,” and be absolutely blown away. No pun intended based on the video. If I were you, I would watch the video or not, but definitely listen to the whole song. It just explodes into triple-awesomeness towards the end (given that the rest of the song is double-awesome).

Do I know what’s going on in that video? Not at all. Do I care? Not at all. It’s just an amazing song. Now, the cool thing about Wolf Parade is that the band has two main songwriters, Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner, both of whom are just amazing. And they both have side projects, too, that are really really good. But we’ll get to that in a second. The song above was written by Krug; this next one by Boeckner. It’s called “Shine a Light.” They’re both off Apologies to the Queen Mary, literally one of the best albums I own, period. After the jump. Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s Sunday, again, and so what better awesome Sunday omnivores than one of my favorite bands of all time, Rocket From the Crypt? Now, I’ve been shying away from writing this post for a very long time, because I have no idea how to narrow down the videos to show in this post. There are just so many, and they’re just so good. But let’s start with “Born in ‘69,” off the amaaaaazing Scream, Dracula, Scream! This video sums up the band pretty well: classic vibe, matching suits, awesome rock.

So, at this point, I’m lost. I’ve been searching YouTube for quite a while, just working to find the video that’s going to sum up my love for the band for you. And I don’t think it’s possible. Read the rest of this entry >>

Sunday awesome omnivore Sam Beam Iron & Wine! No time to delay, watch this video, right now, twelve times, and probably cry.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. Your awesome Sunday omnivore for today is Sam Beam, who basically comprises Iron & Wine. He writes tremendous modern folk music, with wonderfully (sometimes obscure) lyrics, and just…he’s good. He’s very, very good. That song above was “Flightless Bird, American Mouth.” It’s the last track off the most recent studio album, The Shepherd’s Dog. Read the rest of this entry >>

Sunday Sunday SUNDAY! Even on Easter, we have to do the awesome Sunday omnivore post, and this week, we’ve got The Thermals. Partly because just this Tuesday, they released their latest record, Now We Can See, partly because they’re on tour right now, and partly because they’re super awesome.  Catchy, straight-forward, and rocking. Here’s the title track off the latest album, which critics are being all like, this is awesome.

So catchy. Now, the album before this one, called The Blood The Body The Machine, is a concept album about the dangerous nature of religious fanaticism (just realized maybe not the best for Easter, but we’re going with it. No offense meant), and, rightly or wrongly, may end being considered their “masterpiece,” if music like this has titles like that. Anyhow, here’s “A Pillar of Salt” from that album - notice the Bible reference, even in the title? Lot’s wife? Look it up. Read the rest of this entry >>

(HUGE UPDATE: ORIGINAL TITLE SAID VEGETARIANS. WRONG. OMNIVORES.) Hey, it’s Sunday, so you know what that means…that your awesome Sunday omnivorous musicians are Bryce and Aaron Dessner, of The National. Why did I choose these two members of the band, specifically? So I could link you to Danny’s post about the charity album the brothers curated, Dark Was The Night, which looks amazing.

You may know this band (aside from them being a relatively popular band these days) as their song “Fake Empire” was used through some of Barack Obama’s campaign last year. I saw this band live three times in five days last year, and managed to not get sick of them in the slightest. I think - I think - my favorite song of theirs, off the most recent album Boxer at least, is “Apartment Story.” Enjoy.

It’s just such beautiful music. I have to say, that the album prior to Boxer, called Alligator, I might like even more. I didn’t hear Alligator until Boxer came out (well, aside from a friend playing me the first track off Alligator when it first came out and just saying, “this is just awesome” (and he’s 112% right)), but I love the spare structures of most of the songs. It creates an album that’s totally cohesive in mood. That being said, I’m going to now just show you some individual tracks from that record, screwing up the cohesiveness I was just raving about. Here’s a live version of “Baby, We’ll Be Fine.” It’s haunting and beautiful and builds and builds until it basically explodes in sadness. You don’t want to miss this. After the jump. Read the rest of this entry >>

Your awesome omnivorous Sunday band for today is Spoon. Now, I’ve mentioned Spoon here and there in the past, and my total love for the band, but today, we delve into the music itself. This also might be a particularly hard post for me to write, because Spoon’s last four albums have all been, quite simply put, amazing, and it makes it very difficult to choose just a few tracks to highlight. But let’s start with “Sister Jack,” off Gimme Fiction. No, I don’t really know what’s going on in the video.

Words like “sparse indie-rock” and “spare riffs” are often tossed around when talking about Spoon, which is really just code for, they don’t have to fill their songs with too much nonsense to make music sound really, really good. A perfect example of this sort of songwriting is “Don’t You Evah,” which is off the latest album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. And thanks to Spoon for not disallowing embedding on their official videos. After the jump. Read the rest of this entry >>