Musical Interlude – Ace of Base

Folks, it has been a terrible week. A terrible month, in fact. This move is going wrong at every possible moment, and it is draining in every way. All I want to do is sit in the dark and watch Star Trek: Voyager and eat this entire party-sized bag of Skittles.

Instead, I’d like to share with your a little something that will always bring me joy: Ace of Base. Or, more specifically, bands that I adore doing Ace of Base covers.

Firstly, the leader of the fanclub and one of my favorite musicians for his sheer literary prowess, The Mountain Goats (John Darnielle) with “I Saw the Sign”. Now, there are a ton of different versions floating around YouTube, but my very favorite is the six-minute audio-only version I got from a friend. So, here you go:

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I promise you, it’s worth the whole six(ish) minutes. And if you’ve never before listened to The Mountain Goats, give them a go. I’d recommend Tallahassee, The Sunset Tree, Heretic Pride and We Shall Al Be Healed as good albums to start with. In no particular order.

Did I mention he was prolific?

Maybe I should post a good compilation list. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of Mountain Goats stuff to sift through. A lot of it is dark, a lot of it is lo-fi, but it really is a brilliant collection of work.

Jukebox the Ghost is a band that I had the pleasure of seeing when they opened for Ben Folds in April of 2009. I’m almost afraid to admit it, as much as I like Ben Folds, but I think I enjoyed Jukebox’s set more that night. Their album lived in my player for months, it was on constant repeat on my MP3 player, and I definitely gave at least one person that album for Christmas. They’re brilliant and catchy, they sing about the apocalypse, and they’re bringing piano rock back with a vengeance.

Imagine my delight when, while strolling through the iTunes store, I noticed they were on a compilation album. Of cover songs. Doing “It’s a Beautiful Life”.

Some YouTube-age for you, since they’re pretty silly dudes.

And, as a little extra, a video of their single “Empire” from the album due out in September. They are both absolutely worth the 99 cents I spent on them.