Wes Anderson films are about the story and his selective soundtracks play a huge factor. Vitamin String Quartet pays tribute to his intimate unions of film and music as innovative string arrangements of “Needle in the Hay” and “Here Comes My Baby” sweep you back into the deadpan drama.

Tracklist

1. Making Time (String Quartet Tribute to The Creation)
2. Here Comes My Baby (String Quartet Tribute to Cat Stevens)
3. Ooh La La (String Quartet Tribute to The Faces)
4. Heroes and Villains (String Quartet Tribute to The Beach Boys)
5. Alone Again Or (String Quartet Tribute to Love)
6. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (String Quartet Tribute to Paul Simon)
7. Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) (String Quartet Tribute to Peter Sarstedt)
8. These Days (String Quartet Tribute to Nico)
9. Life on Mars? (String Quartet Tribute to David Bowie)
10. Staralfur (String Quartet Tribute to Sigur Ros)
11. Needle in the Hay (String Quartet Tribute to Elliott Smith)

Available now at iTunes

Even before The Jazz Singer brought us audible dialogue, film and music have enjoyed a wonderful working relationship. Most of the time it’s still up to the movie to do the heavy lifting — the drama, the progression, the themes — but there are always exceptions. Once in a rare while, there will be a specific song that so wholly encompasses a film’s attributes, or comes to define a pivotal scene, that it becomes iconically linked. It’s not so easy as pairing a hit song with a hit movie, although that frequently works. We’re talking about iconic pairings here; a song has to embody an important theme or legacy of a film while not eclipsing it.

For reasons I can’t explain, Joe “Bean” Esposito’s “You’re The Best” is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of integral soundtrack pieces. It’s an iconic song perfect for The Karate Kid’s training montage, or any montage, really. It’s one of those songs that, over time, has been warped into a humorous novelty full of lyrical lumps of coal like, “A little bit of all you got can never bring you down!” which doesn’t even mean anything. Still, it is a song and film indicative of that whimsical decade, the 1980’s.

In the next decade, there was a period of time when a particular brand of sweeping R&B was all the rage and film studios seized the moment. Chief among these tie-ins was Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” on Batman Forever and R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” from Space Jam. It’s hard to call the former song iconic. It’s a hit that is faintly remembered today, sure, but the relationship it had with the film is flimsy. It doesn’t encompass anything about the film, not its ridiculous camp or its cinematic failure.

“I Believe I Can Fly,” though, is all you could want from a movie/song partnership. The mega-hit stood on its own, and it’s hard not to tie it to that climactic scene where Michael Jordan embraces the power of cartoons by dunking from half court in 5 seconds, even though it never actually scored that part of the film. But it sure does fit. (Additionally, isn’t there something amusing today about the single’s cover which features a very serious shot of R. Kelly, Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny?)

These kinds of partnerships are rarer to find today as this type of symbiosis seems to have gone out of fashion. Kimya Dawson’s work on Juno was important to the film and influenced many soundtracks thereafter, but it still feels like a phase and less like an icon. The Shins blew up with Garden State, but I have a feeling the band will far outlast the film. Today, it’s more likely to just see a movie use a song well. Whatever your feelings on the Twilight films, the choice to bookend the films with two versions of Iron & Wine’s “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” is pretty inspired. It’s more of a case where a song seamlessly melds into a film, rather than being an equal partner in crime.

Vitamin String Quartet Performs Music from Twilight

Available at iTunes and Amazon

His name is Skrillex. Not only do scary monsters and sprites know it but the dance world has bowed down to his dubstep detour. The three-time Grammy Award-winning artist has also beckoned VSQ to take their most progressive step yet with fierce string arrangements adapting erratic tempos and heavy beats on Vitamin String Quartet Performs Skrillex. Glitch-filled soundscapes are boldly filtered through violin, viola and cello, offering a beautiful collision of classic and current.

Available now at iTunes

Courtney Love vs. Dave Grohl

After accusing former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl of “taking money from [her] child” during legal battles over her deceased husband Kurt Cobain’s band, Courtney Love most recently accused him of also trying to seduce said child. Now that 19-year-old Frances Bean Cobain is all grown up, it’s refreshing to see that she hasn’t inherited her mother’s mental instability. In response to Love’s tweet threatening to shoot Grohl dead (perhaps a bad choice of language, considering the “Courtney-Killed-Kurt” theories) based on the rumor she heard about Grohl hitting on Cobain, her daughter issued this statement: “While I’m generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn. I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way.” In a display of humility – and publicity – Love tweeted “Bean, sorry I believed the gossip. Mommy loves you.” Grohl, having responded to Love in the past by filing a motion to have her psychiatrically evaluated, decided to go the mature way once again – by having a representative deny all the claims.

Winner: Dave Grohl, for keeping his cool when Courtney lost it (again and again)

Wayne Coyne vs. Win Butler

In countless documentaries and stories, it seems the true monsters in musicians come out backstage at shows. The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne certainly got a strong (negative) impression from the few shows he’s done with Arcade Fire: “I get really tired of their pompousness …People treat Arcade Fire like they’re the greatest thing ever and they get away with it[…] They have good tunes, but they’re pricks, so fuck ‘em.” Win shot back with the excuse of jet lag and misconception, saying that while he also likes The Flaming Lips’ music, “I hope I was less of a ‘prick’ then telling Rollingstone [sic] that a bunch of people I don’t know at all are really assholes.” Oh, snap.

Winner: You Win some, you Wayne some…

Oasis Vs. Blur

The mid-’90s public quarrel between the two Britpop bands took an ugly turn when Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher told The Observer that he hoped Blur frontman Damon Albarn would “catch AIDS and die.” Even if Gallagher did think Albarn was “a f*cking knobber” and “a money-making, commercial pop-machine,” this death wish went a little too far – and was off mark of the guitarist’s usually more original insults, like saying Jack White looked “like Zorro on doughnuts” and that Kaiser Chiefs “play dress-up and sit on top of an apex of meaninglessness.” Though Albarn never did have any good rebuttals, he was the bigger man and recently invited Noel Gallagher to collaborate with him – the musician’s white flag.

Winner: Noel Gallagher, by default – coming to a comedy club near you soon (hopefully.)

Neil Young Vs. Lynyrd Skynyrd

More of a fake feud than a real throw-down, Lynyrd Skynyrd responded to Neil Young’s dismal portrayal of southern folk in his songs “Southern Man” and “Alabama” with this famous line from “Sweet Home Alabama”: “I hope Neil Young will remember / A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.” Though their lyrics would suggest otherwise, Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd admired each other’s music and even wore each other’s T-shirts to prove that the musical spat was just in the music for those who couldn’t read in between the ironic and humorous lines. It is even rumored that Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zant was buried wearing a Neil Young T-shirt – though the truth is buried with him.

Winner: Lynyrd Skynyrd – majority rules.

Be sure to check out:
VSQ Master Series: Nirvana’s Nevermind

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to The Flaming Lips

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Arcade Fire’s Funeral

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Oasis

Available at iTunes and Amazon

Rusted Moon: The String Quartet Tribute to Neil Young

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd: This Sweet Home

Available at iTunes and Amazon

No Doubt fans, rejoice! Last week, the band announced their new album’s release date, (the first since 2001,) which is slated for  September 25^th.

While we eagerly await the album’s arrival, the group is documenting the process of the albums completion with a mini-webseries. You can check out the first installment here, which features snippets of the band recording in producer Spike Stent’s Santa Monica Studio.

We’ve got a bit of time on our hands (just a little over four months) so kick back, relax and get stoked for new tunes from No Doubt by listening to VSQ’s renditions of the band’s biggest hits.

The String Quartet Tribute to No Doubt: The Singles 1992 – 2003

Available at our Webstore, iTunes and Amazon

As a viral-destined finale to Bruce Springsteen Week on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” last month, The Boss and Jimmy Fallon did a hilarious cover of the LMFAO hit “Sexy And I Know It.” While Fallon did his surprisingly spot-on Neil Young impression during the song, busting out a harmonica, acoustic guitar and cowboy hat, Bruce Springsteen did his own impersonation – of himself. In a cut-off jean jacket, aviators and a red forehead bandana, Springsteen sang “Girl I got that body / I work out” with his straightest face and lowest voice, flexing his biceps to prove the lyrics true, even after 62 years. As the cover followed the unlikely duo’s 2010 performance of Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair,” hopefully they’ll give more modern hits the classic rock treatment soon.

Ben l’Oncle Covers The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”

Since covers come after the original song is recorded, you’d expect remixes to have a more modern flare . But sometimes they rewind the sound a little back in time, like French soul singer Ben l’Oncle’s rendition of The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army.” Jack and Meg White’s minimalist guitar and drums are expanded into an upbeat orchestra of muted horns, rich vocals and screaming organ solo, leaving the telltale bass line (which is actually Jack White’s Kay Hollowbody guitar run through a DigiTech Whammy pedal set down an octave). Although rock fans are usually quite protective when it comes to preserving the dignity of an original classic like this one, crossovers into unexpected territory do stretch the songs into intriguing forms, giving them a new life – or at least new YouTube comments. Nevertheless, the Grammy-winning, chart-topping song has made quite the journey since Jack first named it after a misheard pronunciation of “Salvation Army” when he was little.

RAC Covers The Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979”

Remix Artist Collective (RAC) continues to build its remix empire (which includes The Shins, Kings of Leon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Edward Sharpe) with this ‘90s alt-rock cover of The Smashing Pumpkins. Sung by RAC founder André Allen Anjos’ wife Liz Anjos, the song turns Billy Corgan’s characteristically coarse vocals into silky female melodies that glide over ethereal electricity. More synth than guitar-driven, this bubbly electronic remix emphasizes the more kinetic side of apathy in the lyrics “We don’t even care as restless as we are…The street heats the urgency of now / As you see there’s no one around.”

Check Out Vitamin String Quart tributes to:
The String Quartet Tribute to Bruce Springsteen

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to White Stripes

Available at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Smashing Pumpkins

Available at iTunes and Amazon

There is definitely a danger in covering a song too many times. It can become grating the way overplayed songs on the radio can be grating, and at its worst, it can dilute the power of the original.  Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is certainly in the overcovered class, (Cohen himself has entertained the idea of calling for a moratorium on covers, though he ultimately decided otherwise) but because of its invincible gravity and writing, it has remained a sweeping and meaningful song since 1984.

The original is a little weird. Because it was overshadowed in pop culture by Jeff Buckley’s later rendition; many fans of the song haven’t even heard it in its first form. It’s obviously a product of 1980s production, something Cohen hasn’t totally shaken even today, with blunt, fuzzy bass sounds and those distant plastic drums. It’s understandable why some may not prefer it to later modernizations, especially given its comical appearance during the Watchmen movie. But no matter how close it comes to MIDI quality instrumentation, it’s hard to take away from the deeply poetic lyrics: “She tied you to a kitchen chair/ She broke your throne and she cut your hair/ And from your lips she drew the hallelujah.”

John Cale was among the first to get the ball rolling with a cover in 1991, which was recorded for a Cohen tribute album. It’s a merely pleasant and basic piano rendition, which might be why it’s fallen by the wayside, but it’s still notable for including many verses that Cohen chose to omit from his own recording. I think of it as an important baton pass, because it was these lyrics that were passed into Jeff Buckely’s iconic version. Were it not for Cale popularizing the new verses, things may have turned out differently in 1994 when Buckley’s Grace came about.

Here’s what makes Jeff Buckley’s 1994 cover so good, perhaps even better than the original in some aspects: He understood that the lyrics and melody were the most devastating parts, and built his cover to emphasize those elements. A bright but timeless electric guitar is all the accompaniment he requires, while his voice is given depth with a slight echo. It suits the atmosphere of divinity, and suddenly, the song doesn’t just sound great, but important. He reveals the song to be an event. His singing style is sort of like a restrained R&B voice, creating wellsprings of emotion in every line. Cohen’s voice was a bold baritone with a lot of weight on the original, but Buckley’s singing made the song cinematic.

It was such a landmark that many have tried to add their own efforts into the pile with varying degrees of success. In recent history, Britain’s Got Talent breakout star Susan Boyle had a version of the song on her Christmas album, The Gift. It plays on the song’s heart with calculated vocal work, a slow plodding grand piano and, a choir of children, but it all feels too obvious. While undeniably pretty, adding all of these garden variety flourishes washes out some of the personality and intimacy until it sounds like any other ballad.

During the Hope for Haiti telethon came about, Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris performed “Hallelujah” as a duet to some acclaim and better sales. It’s a more appealing cover for adding some subtle tension and rising action; when the refrain of “Hallelujah” comes in, that little piano build in the back infuses a tiny bit of urgency that isn’t normally inherent into the song. They have the good sense not to milk all the building melody for big, loud hysterics, and understand the song to be affecting in its subtleties – not in how you hit the high notes.

Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor and dozens of others have tried their hand at the classic, but unlike other popular cover subjects like I Go To Sleep or Love Will Tear Us Apart, the results are never radically different. The reason is likely that the song simply doesn’t work in wildly different styles, so it presents a different challenge for artists. What small changes can you make that make your version worth listening to? This is a science that requires far more skill. In a song this popular, not everyone is going to succeed, but the winners stand taller on the mountain of failures.

Be sure to check out

Strung Out Vol. 8 Featuring “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

Available at iTunes and Amazon

There are patterns in the universe that we don’t yet fully understand, from the Fibonacci Sequence to the Golden Ratio. Then, of course, there is the sophomore slump: the phenomenon wherein which a popular band releases a groundbreaking debut album, and then just when everyone is primed for their second full-length, they release something that falls hard. A few bands recover by their third album, but for others, the sophomore slump is the beginning of the end.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! was, in the mid 2000s, the darling of the music blogosphere. They were a refreshing and unique indie rock sound, the kind of thing you hope to stumble upon, and for a while it was smooth sailing. When Some Loud Thunder hit, some perceived it to be a less accessible, even arrogant, swerve into experimental lo-fi and away from the impassioned pop that people fell in love with. Where once they were the ideal of blog rock, they were now its cautionary tale. It’s strange and a little dismissive to talk about them in the past tense since their third album was released last year, but they’re still working in the shadow of the hype they once had.

Bloc Party was another promising upstart full of the kind of buzz that put them on the path to mainstream penetration. Their first album Silent Alarm was no-nonsense guitar hooks and beat-driven rock and everyone was loving it. It took two years to hit the curse of the slump with A Weekend In The City, which Pop Matters called, “entirely unsuited to [their] strengths.” It was a classic case of going for the slam dunk and hitting the backboard. In an attempt to really break through to the forefront of pop music, they lost sight of their original raw energy and endearing roughness. It’s a weird thing that pop does sometimes, trading off sincerity for likability, which sometimes loses both.

And then there are The Strokes. Although they are still a well-liked band, the staggering drop from the modern classic Is This It? to the definitive slump Room on Fire is hard to ignore. Their aggregate score on Metacritic shows a 90 turn into a 78, which is only a bad score because of how high they had soared earlier. The critics were all over the map on the reasons why their follow-up flopped (New York Magazine: Too samey! The Guardian: No attitude!) which is a sign that perhaps the classic ghost of expectation is to blame for this manifestation of the curse of the sophomore album. It’s a common reason for the slump, and few things outside of a truly stellar album can counter it.

The sophomore slump is, really, what happens to just about anyone with early success in art. In the same way sequels are rarely better than part one, sophomore albums rarely live up to the debut with the exception of a few lucky musical geniuses. The pressure to be great is too huge for even promising talents to overcome. Expectation creates high stakes, and that’s no environment for creating art.

It’s a bit like any superhero arc. The original story is always the easiest part, and everything is new and exciting. But the rest of the story is where the trouble starts. When the novelty goes away, the scrutiny remains, and it’s often a hot and painful stare.

Be sure to check out

Vitamin String Quartet Performs The Strokes

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

First off, props to Goldenvoice for being hip to the 21st century and streaming their Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival online. Although not all performances remained online after the festival, their choice to share without obligation was an additional bonus for us at home.  The webcast was so adequate, in fact, that it was even better than being there. My specious reasoning is as follows:

1. The comforts of home: I’m sure giant art installations, a ferris wheel, amusement tents, and the general atmosphere of the Inland desert are appealing to some. But there’s something to be said about waking up at 4 PM, slowly rolling out of bed, brushing last night’s bean dip off your encrusted t-shirt, and watching The Black Keys play for an hour. Sure, I’m alone, as I always am and always will be. But if we cling to the Jean Paul-Sartre line, “hell is other people,” then this is surely a heavenly prison.

2. YouTube is preferable to live: You know how terrible concerts are, right? There’s, like, loud noises, and sometimes the stage is so big you get sensory overload and can’t focus. With the convenience of the streaming webcast, I can focus all my attention on a 5-inch wide rectangle in my cold, darkened room. My mild claustrophobia is more manageable than my rampant agoraphobia. Plus, with my state-of-the-art-in-2002 laptop speakers, it adds a cool fishbowl effect to any performance and I can pretend I’m inside a giant tin can. Imagination games are far less terrifying than trying to awkwardly figure out how to dance to The Weeknd.

3. I am afraid of holograms and you should be too: We all know the news about Tupac’s expensive projection into the realm of the living, and this development should only be a cause for concern. I’ve always linked holograms with ghosts, which is an association burned into me at a young age during a trip to Disneyland’s haunted house ride. In truth, holograms are close cousins of ghosts, and we should be worried about their incoming popularity. We are already afraid of robot uprisings and AI technology. We have a natural fear of vengeful spirits. Holograms combine the worst of both worlds: The unstoppable intangibility of ghosts and the cold brutality of robots. We must stop the march towards zombie holograms before it is too late.

4. I would have missed WWE SmackDown: Sure, Radiohead is a cool band and all, but I had to see if Daniel Bryan was going to get another shot at the World Title.

5. Loading times present opportunities to think back on where you went wrong: Should I have been smarter with my money? Do I need to take more initiative to be adventurous? Am I not proactive enough in shaping the course of my life? These are all questions you can ask yourself in the time it takes for the Wild Flag show to finish buffering. And really, is that not more valuable than 3 days of all the concerts your heart desires? Too often, joy and celebration get in the way of our doubt and anxiety, and how are we ever supposed to get out from under the crushing heel that is our lives if we don’t face it daily?

There are also a few dozen logistical nitpicks that might be considered a benefit – no commute, some hundreds saved, no possibility of sunburn – but these are merely mechanical benefits. They’re pedestrian and tangible. The lasting value lies in these desperate rationalizations. These are the ones that I think about daily, usually when I catch a glimpse of my reflection and realize that, for some reason, there are tears on my face.

Be sure to check out:
The String Quartet Tribute to Tupac

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

From upbeat indie shuffle to soothing electric pulse, Mr. Little Jeans’ cover of “The Suburbs” is almost unrecognizable from Arcade Fire’s more naturally instrumented original. More traditional instruments are replaced with shimmering synths and drum machines that lie underneath apathetically sexy female vocals, which sensually warn of a suburban shootout: “You always seemed so sure / That one day we’d be fighting / In a suburban war / Your part of town against mine.” The soft singer effortlessly brings out the slight rhymes in Win Butler’s restrained falsetto chorus “Sometimes I can’t believe it/ I’m moving past the feeling,” in a warm bath of sound.

Duffy Covers Paul McCartney & Wings’ “Live And Let Die”

An unmistakable voice covers an unmistakable song with an unexpected result. Duffy’s distinct quavering vibrato is accompanied by equally charming vibratos on violin and electric guitar on her cover of Paul McCartney & Wings’ “Live And Let Die.” Duffy’s simple yet soulful reinterpretation of a famous song into her own style even gained McCartney’s public approval after it appeared on War Child’s Heroes charity album. In the same way that musical complexity makes McCartney’s original so majestic, Duffy’s stripped-down sound makes her cover beautifully understated.

James Vincent McMorrow Covers Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love”

Irish folk singer James Vincent McMorrow has been compared to Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens and Ray LaMontagne, but he really makes Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” his own in this cover.  He takes the song higher, singing it in a delicate yet powerful falsetto backed by simple and deliberately placed piano notes that sink into disappearing echoes. McMorrow’s emotionally intimate and personal tinge put a gentler touch on the otherwise cheerfully poppy 1986 number-one hit song.

Be sure to check out:

Vitamin String Quartet Performs Arcade Fire

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

The String Quartet Tribute to Paul McCartney

Available now at iTunes and Amazon

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