Songs of 09: Röyksopp and Wild Beasts

"Happy Up Here" by Röyksopp
(from "Junior," label=Astralwerks, Norway)
This song works. It makes me happy. It makes me perk up. It also has some fine electronic things going on, including a sound that goes like "neeeee-oooooowwwww, neeeeee-oooooowwwwww, neeeee-oooooowwwww." Please take a listen! You can hear the song on their Web site, here. Also, once you fall totally in love with the original, check out the marching band version. My rating system gave this song a 4. Here is the space invaders video:







"All the King's Men" by Wild Beasts
(from "Two Dancers," label=Domino, Leeds, UK)

This song got a 3 rating. It has a lot of cool vocal stuff going on. First there is a friendly chanting sound--like if the 7 dwarves were crossed with the cast of the 1958 school-ship Cinemiracle film "Windjammer." There's also some crazy falsetto, which is always good. (Hello Morrissey.) And this is a song about girls, following in a fine, long tradition of songs about girls, including "Girls, Girls, Girls" (Mötley Crüe) and also "Girls" (Beastie Boys) as well as "The Girls" (Calvin Harris), which lists types of girls, and "To All the Girls" (Beastie Boys again), which lists where the girls are from. "All the King's Men" may be closest to the latter, with delightful lines about "girls from Roedean/girls from Shipley/girls from Hounslow/girls from Whitby." (I became particularly interested in girls from Hounslow, and as a result discovered that there is a Hounslow curry map should you be in Hounslow and need curry. But this is a separate issue.)

Listen to the song on the Wild Beasts Myspace page. Also visit their Web site; right now there are two completely different videos up for "All the King's Men," one by the band and one not (by the dance gang Little Stolen Moments). I kind of like the not one!