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.

In the middle of his current tour supporting his critically-lauded sophomore solo record, "Lazaretto," the unequaled Jack White has unleashed a brand new stunningly blue-tinged music video for the LP's third single, "Would You Fight For My Love?" The brooding "Lazaretto" track finds a sensitive White cautious about committing to a relationship having been previously burnt. White used two live bands for the recording of "Lazaretto," the all-male Buzzards and the all-female Peacocks. This song features both playing simultaneously in separate rooms at Third Man Studios.

The alt-rocker made what he called the world's fastest record - he performed and pressed to vinyl the album's title track in less than four hours. Now Continuing White's tradition of innovation and penchant for quick turnarounds, he's applied a similar tactic to the moody video for "Would You Fight For My Love?" Set in downtown Denver's the historic Cruise Room, a beautiful art deco-era, spooky and original post-prohibition bar in LoDo's Oxford Hotel, the blue-hued visual was conceptualized, produced and shot within a 24 hour period. The six-hour shoot came together on less than 12 hours notice by British director Robert Hales.
The conceit has its pros and cons. It's an admittedly simple video drenched in a moody blue color scheme and has an old-school glamor that luring viewers into its scene of brokenhearted blue tones. The stylish video opens with a woman selecting a track on a bar jukebox, with a brooding, unusually dapper White plays a lonely-looking and sharply dressed bar hound fidgeting with a drink and sitting alone at a bar, which is bathed in blue light before he performing his lovelorn lyrics "It's not enough that I love you/ There's all these things I have to prove to you," while gazing directly into the camera.
The clip interacting with the female vocalist, played by musician and photographer Scout Pare-Phillips, on the unfulfillment anthem, but its stripped-down feel and ghostly aesthetic are of a piece with the song's mid-tempo rock and eerie, cooed vocal hook. It's an intriguing and fitting complement to one of the album's best cuts. The very well-groomed White and Pare-Phillips lurk around bar and never seem to make a true connection, occasionally vanishing into thin air, and the clip ends with White raging on an old-school microphone.

Jack White grooves, burns rubber, explodes guitar in the stylish black-and-white new clip for "Lazaretto," the scorching first single and title track from White's new sophomore solo album, drops next week. The record takes its name from the quarantine stations built for maritime travelers between the 15th and 19th centuries. No modern rock star does eccentric as convincingly as Jack White and so he delivers exactly what is expected with his new clip, directed by French pair Jonas and François and features White shredding the song's riffs while surrounded by broken glass and flames.

"Lazaretto" is a hippity-hoppity garage cut - the closest White comes on this disc to evoking the thump and crunch those dang Black Keys sometimes get with the help of Danger Mouse. He delivers the lyrics in rap-attack mode, this time closer to the slam-poet style of Saul Williams. And while this aggressive approach as an instrumental element itself makes for the catchiest song in the collection, the hip-hop harp ultimately draws one's attention back to the lyrics. White's latest single, "Lazaretto," is full of chaotic groove, and now it's been paired with an equally insane music video.

Everybody knows White is a guitar god, but "Lazaretto" is dominated by the low-end. The Nashville rocker keeps finding new, old ways to start the adrenaline pumping. Early on in the clip, the multi-instrumentalist plugs in his bass and nestles into a funky riff, as psychedelic synth leads sparkle between heavy drum fills. White spends much of the video mugging for the camera, cranking out one an ear-busting guitar solo midway through. It is a work of postmodern art, hitting all the hallmarks of the genre: ironic, referential and highly staged. Those attributes, are a delight to watch.

The gravity-defying clip opens with a guitar pick flying through shards of shattered glass and the whiplash visuals only get more eye-popping from there. The b-shots give us a collection of outsiders, reflective of White's perceived image of himself. We get snakes, shattered glass, explosions, speeding cars, a raging bull bull and a tattoo of the Third Man Records boss himself. But as with the old-fashioned rock'n'roll and the country-twanged fiddle of the song itself, damned if those familiar pieces don't fit together into something exhilarating. The climax - a guitar shattering into a million pieces - is the true highlight.

Kings of Leon are steady rolling out videos from their 2013 album "Mechanical Bull." This time, the band of brothers strip away the drama and the actors and keeps it simple with a straightforward performance video that they have just released for their song "Temple," the second official and third overall taken from the rock band's sixth studio album, "Mechanical Bull," the band's first album in three years sees the Tennessee rockers attempting to rediscover their early spark, but falling frustratingly short. The yearning "Temple," which sits neatly in the middle of the 11-track release, is perhaps the best thing they've written in five years, and certainly the most effortless.
Self-assured, conventional, and damned if it's not pretty effective, Kings of Leon's "Temple" neatly sums up the strengths of "Mechanical Bull." This song about taking a shot in the head for a prospective lover, was penned in a South African hotel room. "Obviously things changed when we got in the studio, like the intro, but it felt like a '90s song to me," frontman Caleb Followill told Billboard magazine. "That's when we were listening to a lot of music, and still when we play it, we crack up the whole time, this the most radio friendly song..." According to drummer Nathan Followill, the breakdown in the song is the band's ode to Irish rockers Thin Lizzy.
Kings of Leon's confident throwback "Temple" Video. In fact, much of the Paul Greenhouse-directed vintage-style visuals mix with a no-frills performance of "Mechanical Bull" standout, which they've already given on both Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Saturday Night Live. But the song has a "by Mennen" catchiness that the unshowy presentation only boosts. And the lyric about how Caleb would "take one to the temple" is more than a reference to Kings of Leon embedding themselves in some cranial pleasure zone.
Largely washed with a vintage effect, the video was filmed half on nice modern cameras, and half on and old-fashioned hand-held Super 8 camera that makes Instagram filters shiver in their boots to posterize their footage into blurry oblivion. The new clip also serves as a nice homage to the band's hometown of Nashville and is made up of shots of the band playing the song in front of the sign on the album cover giving Caleb plenty of screen time to tell us rather over-romantically that he'd "take one in the temple" for us. Together, they evoke both the reason the Followill clan do this and the old-fashioned pride in craft with which they do it.

Heartless Bastards have released the official music video for the song "Only For You" from the garage rock band's latest fourth full-length, "Arrow," which is firmly rooted in southern blues rock - gritty yet sentimental, out on Valentines Day this year on Brooklyn-based indie label Partisan Records.
Formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003, and since then, the Bastards have experimented with classic foundations. The lead singer Erika Wennerstrom's vocal was talented and especially unique. As the only consistent member in the Austin-based indie rock band's ever-changing lineup, his masterful singing never fails to enrapture. And don't let the name of the band fool you - these bastards are in fact full of heart. Sharp, smart, indie rock that rocked as much as it moved you emotionally.
Garage, folk, country, blues - throughout the Heartless Bastards's career, all these genres have been incorporated with mixed results. Rather than evolving a sound, the Bastards seem to be searching for one. "Arrow" has the potential to become something better if the Bastards decide to tread the path they're on. Chock full of repetitive guitar riffs and rock 'n' roll attitude, the album gravitates towards something you might hear from the garages of budding rockers worldwide in a good way. But sometime between their debut and 2006's "All This Time," the quartet decided to trade in their raw garage sensibilities for a more sophisticated musicianship.
Heavily inspired by bluegrass, the banjos, fiddles, and peddle steels give the album a distinct country flavor. It left some Bastard fans, myself included, nonplussed and wistful for the old aesthetic. "Only For You," is exhilarating in terms of Wennerstrom's vocal range. Accompanied by only two guitars and some easygoing drumming, he fluidly travels up and down different registers. It is a song tangentially influenced by southern rock, artistically expanding on the blues element but (thankfully) ditching the Lynard Skynard guitar licks.

Nashville resident rocker Jack White released a self-directed cloudy, vintage-looking performance video for his acoustic guitar and keyboard-led track "Love Interruption," the first single from the uuber-cool rocker's upcoming solo debut effort "Blunderbuss," will drop in full on April 23. The former White Stripes man has a pretty large profile in the music world. But, he'll launch his solo career on March 3, when he performs on Saturday Night Live – an episode to be hosted by Lindsay Lohan.
"Love Interruption," is a sparse and breezy episode of empty air acoustics, where a few simple strums of the guitar are given dimension by subtle swirls of clarinet and electric piano. White's distinctly familiar voice is the undeniable center of the arrangement, but his simple man delivery is blanketed by the full-bodied brood of backup vocalist Ruby Amanfu, whose mere presence rightfully keeps the tune from turning too much into one man's desperate plea for absolution. The sound may be mellow but the lyrics sure ain't as we hear White and Amanfu singing intensely of love in a bitter way.
The lyrics are exactly what you would expect from White at this stage; a concise and clever meditation on the longing that comes with loneliness, albeit with a darkened twist that is as cynical as it is romantic. Not just anyone could have you feeling a sense of empowerment while singing along to lines about killing your own mother and turning all of your friends into enemies, but White pulls it off here, particularly when the been-burned-before defiance of the chorus becomes more and more redemptive with each repetition.
White's "Love Interruption," as its discourse is all love. White its understated melody hints at something simpler, White's love is not for the faint of heart, speaking to murder plots and doors slamming on fingers, to lost friends and fresh enemies. It's not a song that needs a catchy video, and with its ashy tones and simple backdrop, the vision is not particularly compelling. "Love Interruption" isn’t a track for everyone, and it is certainly not a track for Valentine's Day, but in the midst of winter skies and winter sickness and winter stay-abed love affairs, it will suit many of us just fine.

While many of us were playing catchup on our Monday post-Super Bowl sleep, The Black Keys have unveiled a new heavily-filtered video for “Gold on the Ceiling,” the second single taken from their most recent outstanding record, "El Camino," released in last December. The Black Keys ditched their usual humorous in favor of more conventional rock-star fare.
The blues-rock duo follow their buzz-worthy video for the first single "Lonely Boy" with a characteristically no-frills depiction of their new single "Gold on the Ceiling." The Singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach told American Songwriter magazine that he roped in three "local girls" to sing the gospel harmonies on this track about the illusionary nature of material success. Again bucking the norm of production grandiosity, the video takes a fittingly low-budge angle: intertwining studio footage with clips of the band behind-the-scenes and performing on stage.
Directed by Reid Long, the clip has no shortage of head-bopping footage which documents the Akron rockers performing at their album release party at Webster Hall in Manhattan, and then rocking out in a Los Angeles studio space. The clip includes plenty of mundane behind-the-scenes moments, and their hundreds of fans at the venue, courtesy of the squelchy, fuzzy garage rock the band excels at. There's even a cameo from the now-infamous wood-panelled van!
The new Video shows duo in their natural element, and details your standard road video rockisms. The two-man band has been rolling out the tunes and rolling in the accreditation. Whereas their other videos succeeded by contrasting The Black Keys' straight-ahead blues-rock with quirky viral fodder, this video fits them like a glove. It looks like it was more a product of necessity, given the whirlwind schedule that comes along with being one of rock's biggest bands, a status the duo are still getting used to. "It's been absolutely insane and everyday something weirder happens," Auerbach told MTV.

California-based five-piece The Young Veins continue on their '60s beach pop bend and is gearing up for the release of their brand-new video, "Take A Vacation!" the title track off their debut full-length album, out now on One Haven Music. Looking as dapper as ever, the band play their instruments indoors and outdoors, intercut with 'vacation'-esque montages. They decided to take a little vacation of their own, abandoning the mothership for a new project, The Young Veins, and head-scratching new sonic template '60s-style pop reminiscent of the Beatles and the Kinks.
Keeping with their '60s pop sound and feel, the new video from The Young Veins "Take A Vacation!" is no exception! Quirky, mod camera work nods to the Richard Lester-era Beatles' films, right down to the hazy surf shots, using retro Korgs, John Lennon Revolution guitars, Polaroids, hard-shell suitcases sets that look like the Monkees just moved out, occasional pops of Technicolor, and complementary suits and ties. You would think this video was taken right out of a page of music history. The colors, clothing and everything showcase the uniqueness of the band while bringing you back to a different time.
Following closely in the verve of pop-tunesmiths of yesteryear, the retro-leaning rock band, The Young Veins bring back an old model: hot-potato frontmen, deceptively simplistic melodies, and consistency across the entire album. It would be easy to dismiss "Take a Vacation!" as a clever imitation of their inspirations, but followers of Ross and Walker will recognize the unmistakable personal touches they have come to love. Those deceptively simple melodies are offset by the same sort of deeply beautiful lyrics as "Pretty. Odd." The vocals are obviously diverse--no single singer here. But the overall effect of the album is shockingly cohesive, which makes choosing a favorite an exercise in detail-oriented listening.
The Super-8-style video dovetails nicely and nostalgically with the song's lush Beach Boys- and Zombies-leaning harmonies. It's like looking back in time through a View-Master, and it's the perfect way to end summer--on a Young Veins vintage vacation. Just like one day, your van will magically turn into a time machine that will send you back to the 60's and you can happily live there. "Take a Vacation!" may be the first from The Young Veins, but these musicians brought many years of combined experience to the album, and it shows. I can't wait to see where the road takes them. Until then, I'll settle for listening to "Take a Vacation!" on repeat. So, get some quality R&R with The Young Veins as they take a trip back in time with their '60s inspired video for "Take A Vacation!"