I was filing away the CDs I bought last year, and since I was in the midst of organizing my CD collection, I finished ripping Madonna’s Immaculate Collection. Previously, I had only ripped a couple of tracks I liked (Material Girl, La Isla Bonita, Like A Prayer), but now that I’ve started listening to the rest of Madonna’s 80s hits, I realize that it is really good music (or maybe it’s just the effect of listening to crappy music). A casual observer would claim nostalgia, but I didn’t grow up with this music, so it really is just good (like 80s Michael Jackson)!

Beirut’s Elephant Gun was #40 on Pitchfork’s Top 100 tracks of 2007, and one of like five tracks I actually heard before on the list. Beirut is a really weird band, as the instrumentation on their music generally consists of a banjo (or ukulele, I can’t tell the difference), accordian and trumpet; and sounds like polka music on first listen. But their songs are really good. On a more concentrated listen of Elephant Gun, I realized that the beginning of the song is amazing, almost shiver-when-you-hear-it quality. Here’s a high-res QT music video of Elephant Gun.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: CDs, music