Today's Pick

The Kooks recently released a slick, well executed, and sexy video for their latest tune "Bad Habit," the third single from Brighton group's latest fourth album, "Listen." Shot entirely in black and white, the ultra coy clip was ommissioned to the group by a "super fan," director TJ Andrade, according to Facebook, is all about a very attractive young woman and her numerous online admirers. A bad habit indeed...
The British foursome - Luke Pritchard (vocals/guitar), Hugh Harris (guitar), Max Rafferty (bass), and Paul Garred (drums) generate the rubbishy garage rock sounds of The Kooks, named after the song on David Bowie's "Hunky Dory." With songs described as "catchy as hell," The Kooks have experimented in several genres including rock, Britpop, pop, reggae, ska, and more recently, funk and hip-hop, being described once as a "more energetic Thrills or a looser Sam Roberts Band, maybe even a less severe Arctic Monkeys at times."
The street-smart garage rock of "Bad Habit," as told by frontman Pritchard during their Radio1045 Studio Session, is about someone with a sex addiction, so you can kind of put two and two together after watching the new video for "Bad Habit," a sexy web cam model dances for people while breaking hearts across the internet. But there's also a deeper message in there somewhere.
The hook for the song, which also summarizes the entire theme of the video goes as follows: "You say you want it/ But you can't get it." The video shows a nubile young woman apparently doing a semi-striptease for some unknown watchers on a web cam. The video seems to toy with a variety of taboo subjects: internet sexuality, the objectification of women, feminism, the inherent dangers of internet interactivity, etc. The main takeaway from the video occurs at the very end, when the woman dons her clothes and flips the bird at the camera as she leaves for the day.

Lana Del Rey showed us her penchant for tragedy when she and A$AP Rocky played the Kennedys in her last video for "National Anthem," and she continues down that road in the hazy new video for "Summertime Sadness," a cut off her major-label debut studio album, "Born to Die," which the 26-year-old raspy-voiced singer describes as "Hollywood Sadcore."
You know that feeling you get on cool nights in the dog days of summer? That tight feeling in your chest as you watch the sunset from your third floor walk-up? Well, most adults like to supplement that with cigarettes and beer, but Del Rey would rather jump off a bridge than deal with that type of twilight sadness. The scenario of "Summertime Sadness" is typical of her debut album, and tells the super true sad love story of two lesbian lovers ending their own lives.
Keeping the buzz alive while sticking with sepia-tones and a healthy dose of melodramatics, Del Rey probes a crumbling relationship in the new video, which was filmed in April in Santa Clarita, California with "Hart of Dixie" actress Jaime King playing her other half, and directed by King's husband, filmmaker Kyle Newman with the help of "Hesher" helmer Spencer Susser - looks like a visual ode to Instagram, which is similar to Del Rey's other videos.
The video is bittersweet with beautifully shot, sepia-soaked and melodramatic, and flickers through mock found footage of the viral singing sensation and her girlfriend enact a love story during their happy days that ends in suicide attempts with both the grief stricken lovers falling in slow motion off of a bridge, suicidal after realizing the irreparability of their relationship. "I just wanted you to know," Del Rey intones as she tumbles slowly into the abyss, "that baby you were the best."

The indie rock band Freelance Whales have come along way over the course of the summer and alot of that success is down to this deliciously lovely song, "Hannah," a song that references the mumblecore film "Hannah Takes the Stairs." Subtle as it may be, the name check has the slightest air of affectation-the Queens band proving it belongs among the Brooklynites. Freelance Whales are definitely a new favorite. they are a pretty young band based out of Brooklyn, not surprisingly, where a lot great music come from. The group have carried their 2009 debut, "Weathervanes" well into 2010 with an April re-release on "Frenchkiss." Here is the Stereogum premiere of their third single, "Hannah," featuring my favorite lyric from the album, "We could argue over where and when the cymbal hits should be."
Freelance Whales found one another in late 2008, in Queens, New York, amidst a strange amalgam of unfamiliar instruments, and precariously arranged pop songs. Using whatever musical gadgets they happened upon, the five members worked at crafting songs with interlocking rhythmic patterns, lush textural layering, and an engaged group-vocal energy. The result is their debut, "Weathervanes," whose songs work at evoking a sense of dislocation, or sensory disorientation. They invite the human spirit to exit the body, if only for brief moments. Freelance Whales can be spotted in the streets and humble venues of New York City, and in due time, elsewhere.
Freelance Whales songs always mix electronic and analog, but the way the synth mixes with harmonium on "Hannah" is particularly warm and bubbly. Vocalist Judah Dadone delivers track's lyrics in a quick half-whisper, as if he's scared of the song's namesake. Hannah's either a ghost or a girl as inscrutable as one. The track's video stays close the lyrics — the line "if you're vaguely attracted to rooftops" accompanies shots of the band on the roof, playing "Hannah" on something resembling a carnival game. And there's the beautiful barefoot ghost girl, and a kid who is too scared to directly interact with her. The video was directed by Issac Ravishankara and Ariel Danziger" Maybe less visually striking than "The Reeling," the video holds it's own by being just enough moody and fitting the song just as much.
To call them multi-instrumentalists might be a little overdone. The kids in Freelance Whales are really just collectors, at heart. They don't really fancy buffalo nickels or Victorian furniture, but over the past two years, they've been collecting instruments, ghost stories, and dream-logs. Somehow, from this strange compost heap of little sounds and quiet thoughts, songs started to rise up like steam from the ground. Though certainly not a provocative or dangerous band, Freelance Whales are marked by a distinct lack of cynicism that makes for a bright listening experience. The group seems to ultimately make music because they enjoy it, and that's never a bad thing.