hot’n’slow

Hello! I’m excited to announce the first of at least one guest post from Valerie Burn. I have had top-of-my-lungs sing-alongs to her high school mixtapes after being well into my twenties, and thus am very pleased that Ms. Burn has been kind enough to share with us her hottest and slowest summer jams.

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Everyone loves a good, hot, summer jam. Everyone. This is science. However, sometimes you need to roll it back. Slow it down a bit. And that is precisely what slow jams are for.

But what, dear readers, would it mean if a song could be both? Simultaneously a hot jam and a slow jam? Before your head explodes, allow me to explain.

Sometimes musicians, usually white ones in indie rock bands, take an amazing hot jam and slow it down – with the tempo, acoustics, or otherwise. It’s like Columbusing, but way cooler and hopefully less offensive. Certainly, some (many) covers are awful, which is why I conveniently made you this list. You’re welcome.

These hot’n’slow jams are the perfect music to listen to at the end of a long night. Party’s over, but everyone’s got time for one last singalong.

hot’n’slow
01| Are You That Somebody – Gossip

02| Umbrella – Marie Digby

03| Crazy – Emily Asen

04| Hey Ya – Obadiah Parker

05| Hot in Herre – Jenny Owen Youngs

06| Heartless – Virender Singh

07| Whatever You Like – Anya Marina

08| Cry Me a River – Glen Hansard

09| Single Ladies – Pomplamoose

10| Bitches Ain’t Shit – Ben Folds

11| Whatcha Say – Princess

12| Grenade – Julia Sheer & Tyler Ward

13| 99 Problems – Hugo

14| Pursuit of Happiness – Lissie

 

Honorable mentions (i.e., songs not on Spotify or they might be on this list):

No Diggity – Klaxons

Umbrella – Mandy Moore (starts at 0:35)

World’s Greatest – Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Cry Me a River – Selena Gomez (trust me)

We Found Love – Ed Sheeran

Valerie Burn is a very cool adult who writes things sometimes and is always looking for new and innovative ways to listen to pop music.

sxsw 2012: the pro videos

So, we had this wonderful plan to write this post with lots of beautifully-shot videos to supplement the mediocre camera-phone videos we posted last Monday. It’s proved to be difficult. Our hosting service only allows embedding from certain sites, and most of the videos aren’t found on the approved list. We posted what we could, and linked to the rest of what we wanted to show you. We apologize for the minor inconvenience of opening a new tab and hope you’ll take the time to click. A big thanks to Spotify and Dig for Fire for creating such wonderful concert spaces and videos, as well as DoStuff’s Justin Schaffer.

Yellow Ostrich – The Shakedown

The Sheepdogs – Laid Back

Dry the River – Bible Belt

 Kimbra – Settle Down

Glen Hansard – Say It to Me Now

 Grimes – Genesis
Vodpod videos no longer available.

  SBTRKT
Vodpod videos no longer available.

A$AP Rocky – Peso
Vodpod videos no longer available. 

Of Monsters and Men – Dirty Paws

 Fanfarlo – Deconstruction 

PS – For an extra challenge, play spot the M|H editor. She’s in almost every one of these videos.

every photo we took at sxsw

We started editing photos from SXSW and realized we took 864 shots. M|H thinks that number shows restraint on our part, but it’s still a lot of photos to comb through and edit. To keep you from having to wait, we put every single photo into a two minute and fifty-three second video for you. Check back for edited shots!

All the photos we took at SXSW, unedited. St. Louis Arch, The Salt Lick, We Were Evergreen, La Sera, Dry the River, Kimbra, Spotify House, Friends, Pond, Miike Snow, Hype Hotel, Of Monsters and Men, Hotel Vegan, Glen Hansard, We Are Serenades, Hospitality, Brighton MA, Spotify Live, Grimes, SBTRKT, A$AP Rocky, Say Anything, Night Moves, Father John Misty, Doomtree, Jack White, Andrew WK, The Jealous Sound, Fanfarlo.