The Hoosiers

Ten Song Sunday

lyns27Leave a comment

When I first got Spotify, I was mad on making playlists. In fact, that was and still is, the best thing about it. I always like to share what I’m listening to, usually by posting a tweet of a link to a current favourite with a #nowplaying hashtag attached. I used to post a few of my playlists on here too, until I started to slip out of the habit.

Today I decided that I wanted to start posting playlists regularly again, so I came up with this. I aim to post a spotify playlist of ten songs every Sunday. This kind of follows on from the “Ten Songs” playlists that I did as part of my NaBloPoMo challenge last year, which I quite enjoyed doing if I’m honest. Why only ten songs? Because I think it’s a decent length for a playlist made on spotify to have. Nothing against the long ones, but yeah I do find myself getting bored of the ones that seem to go on for hours after a bit. Although I suppose you can always dip in and out of them, I guess. The playlists themselves won’t have a specific theme, aside from being made up of some of the songs I’ve been listening to over the last seven days.

Anyway here’s the first one. The playlist includes:

  1. The Supernaturals – Alone With My Thoughts
  2. Gene – Fighting Fit
  3. Flyte – Please Eloise
  4. Everything Everything – Spring/Sun/Winter/Dread
  5. Editors – All Sparks
  6. Puressence – This Feeling
  7. Shannon Saunders – Bodies & Beats
  8. The Hoosiers – The Wheels Fell Off
  9. Mansun – Legacy – Radio Edit
  10. Florence + The Machine – Ship To Wreck

NaBloPoMo Day 24: Another Ten Songs

lyns271 Comment

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all the years that I have been blogging is this: when in doubt over what to write, make a playlist. I’ve done a ten songs list earlier in my NaBloPoMo challenge but this one is a bit more of a random thing.

In other news, I am once again thinking about maybe going back into education. Usually when this happens, it’s because I’ve seen a university publicising itself on Twitter or FB or whatever, but this time, it seems to be pulling more than it has done. I don’t think I could afford to do it, or have the time to do it, but if ever I did I’d want to move far away from here.

Isn’t it annoying when a song gets stuck in your head?

lyns27Leave a comment

Isn’t it even more annoying when several songs get stuck in your head?

This happens fairly frequently with me and while I tend not to mind as much when it’s a song (or songs) I like it can be a bit annoying when you’re trying to do something. Like writing blog posts, for instance. It’s difficult to come up with something interesting when your cranial jukebox is stuck on repeat.

Anyway, these songs have been in my head a lot in the last week so I thought I would share them with you. They are all pretty decent tunes, but that’s my opinion.

It’s gonna be a bumpy ride…

lyns27Leave a comment

Every now and again I like to use my blog to promote other people’s stuff.  I do this as I like to help other people out, draw attention to things that I like that those who make up my über tiny readership may also like (or not, as the case may be) and because I am nice like that.  It also usually occurs when I haven’t really got anything else to write about.

On this occasion, I would like to use this blog to promote a rather good song by The Hoosiers, a band that if you read this regularly and/or stalk my twitter feed, you’ll know I have  a bit of a fondness for.  It’s called Bumpy Ride, and is available for download as of today. For 59p, you can buy the track on its own,  or you can get the EP for £1.79 on iTunes, which includes alternative versions of Bumpy Ride and album track Made to Measure as well as two remixes of Unlikely Hero (the song that was originally going to be released after their comeback single Choices).

It is the first single that the band are releasing as independent artists, on their own imprint, after having been  dropped from their label RCA, after the release of their second  album The Illusion Of Safety. At this point, I could go on about how unfair it was that this happened to them and moan about how many major labels are more interested in making money than supporting and developing the artists they have, but I’d rather refer to this interesting article from the Guardian that you can read  here.

Because I am nice, I have posted the video for the single here:

 

I will even give you the link to get the song (if you like it of course) here

In other news, I have rediscovered Rainbow Drops.  Sure they are essentially puffed up pieces of rice dyed with food colouring, but they are still as yummy as ever.

 

 


 

The Hoosiers Are Back!

lyns27Leave a comment

The Hoosiers are back! You know them, don’t you? They’re that band who sang they were Worried About Ray, the ones who said goodbye to Mr A, and who some say have a lead singer that looks like Ben Stiller (I’ve never totally noticed it myself, though).

I have been a fan of the Hoosiers ever since I first saw the video to Worried About Ray three summers ago.  At first, I liked the song because it was another to add to the list of songs that mentioned my dad’s name (others being the Lemonheads’ classic It’s A Shame About Ray and the opening theme to Stingray).  However, the more I heard and saw of the band, the more I liked them. They’ve become one of the few bands I liked enough to join their mailing list,  follow on twitter, tune in to every TV and radio show they featured on, buy every magazine they appeared in, seek out every video of them on Youtube, enter every competition related to them and pre-order their album.  Their music made me smile, as did their videos and especially their TV and radio appearances. In short, I blooming love them.

Now, three years later, they make a return with the excellent single Choices. Released today (1st August 2o1o), it sees them move away from the  sound of debut album The Trick To Life (christened “Odd Pop” by its creators) and more towards an electro sound – a sound the band have referred to as “Robo Pop” on their facebook page.  But those fans thinking  that The Hoosiers have totally abandoned what brought them to the public’s attention need not worry, as the song still has the catchy quality of their previous hits.  Even those who have written off the band in the past (and I know there have been a few),  may find themselves enjoying this track a lot ( more than they may want to admit, in fact). Meanwhile, their new album The Illusion Of Safety is released on the 16th August. A sneak preview of this is the b-side to the Choices single available on iTunes, and sounds set to be a cracker, judging by what I’ve heard.

And one more thing, the video to the single is brilliant.

Reblogged from my Tumblr (again)

lyns27Leave a comment

I tried to write this post on here, but I couldn’t really find the words to write it.  So I put it on Tumblr instead.  It deserves to be on here as well though, so here goes:

Go with the mflow.

Have you started using mflow yet? I for one bloody love it. If you don’t know what it is, it’s kind of like twitter, but you share music with the world instead of what you had for breakfast. It is only available in the UK at the moment, but I am thinking that it won’t be long before the rest of the world is able to experience it’s greatness.

If you are in the UK, I recommend you try it. It is really easy to sign up, plus you have the option of buying the tracks that the people you follow share (or flow, as it is known). And if someone buys the music you’ve flowed, you even earn 20% of the price of the download, which you can spend on more music.

I especially recommend you try it out if you are a fan of the Hoosiers. The site is offering it’s users the chance to see the band perform an exclusive gig in London on the 28th July. Just visit their mflow profile at www.mflow.com/thehoosiers, download the mflow software and follow their page to enter the draw. Not only that, entering the code SECRETGIGHOS on your mflow page will get you a sampler of the forthcoming album “The Illusion Of Safety” absolutely free! What nice, generous guys they are.

Reblogged from my Tumblr (Because I realised I should’ve put it here afterwards)

lyns27Leave a comment

I don’t reblog things from my Tumblr on here often, but I thought I should this time. Actually looking back, I could have put it on here in the first place. Anyway, here it is:

The Hoosiers – Choices (Glam As You Club Mix)

The Hoosiers have very kindly made this remix of their forthcoming single “Choices” available to download for free from their website.  The above link will take you to said site, where you can choose (hehe) the way in which you would like to receive the MP3. You can choose to get it via either Facebook, Twitter, email or the good old Snail Mail (the latter provided you send an SAE and a USB).

Now I am not a big fan of remixes, but I have to say that this one is banging, as they say. Great, in other words.

Identically Sound

lyns27Leave a comment

One of my favourite comedians Mark Watson recently wrote on his Twitter page how he thought Kings Of Leon’s Sex On Fire sounded like the Stereophonics’ hit Dakota. It sort of got me thinking about which songs I thought were similar to others.

And so, after much searching and listening through the wonder that is Spotify, I noted the following:

Lily Allen’s Not Fair sounds a fair bit like Doves’ Kingdom Of Rust.

Take That’s Greatest Day could easily be mistaken for a Snow Patrol song. Chasing Cars springs to mind.

Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams is the musical twin of Travis’ Writing To Reach You.

Keane’s Better Than This has echoes of David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes.

The Hoosiers’ Cops And Robbers reminds me of The Cure’s Love Cats.

And Scouting For Girls’ She’s So Lovely sounds like, er, every other Scouting For Girls song.

I am fully aware that at least one other person has made the same observations of one or two of the pairs of songs I’ve mentioned here. However, listening to them one after the other has made me even more convinced of the similarities between them. And in no way am I saying that the fact that these songs are identical to others constitutes a bad thing. In fact, I happen to like most of the songs I’ve mentioned here.

EDIT : If you can think of any other songs that sound identical to other songs, then please feel free to leave a comment. Or tell me how much you agree with me on the ones I’ve mentioned. Or how much you  disagree with me and think that I should have my ears syringed. I can take it.