Thanks, Sydne, for the introduction. If I could sit here and blog in polka dots and a peter pan collar, I would. Sadly, I haven’t seen that dress since 1990.
After working here at Essentials for what I think is somewhere around four years, I’ve realized that one of my favorite activities every day is the process of choosing the music playing in the store. We’re allowed to play mostly whatever we like, so long as it’s store appropriate, but having an entire library of music at your fingertips doesn’t make the decisions easy. Filling an eight hour shift with music that doesn’t drive you up a wall isn’t easy either, but here’s a little sampling of some of the stuff I played this week.
Little Joy – Little Joy: Formed by Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes and Rodrigo Amarante of Los Hermanos, Little Joy is a great mellow, fun blend of Brazilian melodies and American pop. Some of the lyrics are in Portuguese so it makes singing along tough, but dancing is a must. I love playing this in the late afternoon for the after-work crowd. This is one of those records that people ask me about all the time because it’s so infectious and sweet. Check out the 8mm video for their track, “Next Time Around” here.
Bande a Part – Nouvelle Vague: Nouvelle Vague is an undoubted crowd pleaser and always inspires a sense of nostalgia in me. I listened to this record all summer the first year that I worked here, and have only just begun to revisit it. Their records are full of 80s New Wave and punk hits done in a French pop, bossanova style. I think a great cover song does just what this record does — completely transforms the song into something new. Here’s Nouvelle Vague covering The Buzzcocks. It’s not to be missed.
So Runs the World Away – Josh Ritter: I’m an unabashed Josh Ritter fan. And tend to play every single one of his records while I’m in the store. Earlier in the week, a very hip looking guy asked me who was playing while this song was on and I gladly told him. From there, we had a great conversation about how this guy had played bass for The Weepies (another store favorite, more on them later) and was really interested in a new band called The Rescues. I’m always excited to recommend good music to customers, but I especially love when I get recommendations in return. This record is definitely Monday music, or wind down music at the end of the day. NPR has the exclusive look at the music video for his new song, “The Curse” which, if you have a heart, will break it. It has waltzing puppets in love. Puppets…Waltzing.
Tell me, are you the sort of person who likes mellow music to background your shopping experience, or do you prefer when your retail clerks are having the time of their life to some crazy upbeat music, like life is one big Empire Records?
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
