W♥M

The Legends

The Legends - Darling

The Legends

 

The Legends "Call It Ours" from Up Against The Legends

The Legends is a side project of Johan Angergård, who just might be one of the busiest men in the music industry. A former member of Poprace, he co-founded Summersound Recordings which later merged with Labrador Records, where he currently holds a manager position. Aside from being the sole member of The Legends, he is also one-half of Club 8 [W♥M], and a member of Acid House Kings [W♥M].

Formed in 2003, The Legends have 3 LP releases so far: Up Against The Legends (2004), Public Radio (2005), and most recently, Facts and Figures (2007). Each album features a slightly different style of music, with the first album often described as "garage pop", and the latter two progressing towards "electro pop" or "synth pop" (comparisons with New Order are inevitable). The commonality in all of the releases is Johan's obvious talent for writing catchy pop songs, to go along with his musical and singing abilities.

Interestingly, the early details on the alleged members of The Legends was shrouded in mystery. It was thought that they were a 9-member band, but none of the members' names were ever mentioned. They even made appearances in the music videos from the first album. It was later revealed that The Legends was not a band at all, but was comprised solely of Johan Angergård, who wrote all the songs as well as played all the instruments and did all the singing. What a workhorse!

The song I'm including in this post is "Darling", from the most recent album, Facts and Figures. It's my favorite song off this album, although there are many to choose from. I also love the more down-tempo songs "Closer" and "Nothing on TV", both of which are quite mellow and dreamy. As a bonus I'm also including the video for "Call It Ours", a song off the first album, Up Against The Legends. Enjoy!

 

 December 18, 2007 8:25 PM  Randy my♥posts official myspace

Compiling Compilations

Seems silly to compile compilation albums, isn't it?

Well, compilation albums are such a great source of discovering new music. Especially if they're cover compilations (since you already know some of the songs, you're willing to take a chance on something new).  So below are some compilations that I thought I'd bring to your attention.  Plus two of them are available for download for free, so check it out:

Perturbazione - Portami via di qua sto male A CENTURY OF COVERS Head over to kirstenspostcard to download A Century of Covers: Belle & Sebastian Tribute (2006). The most interesting cover is "Get Me Away I'm Dying" translated into Italian by Perturbazione. To hear another version of this song by Bettie Serveert, head over to Cover Lover.	Haley Bonar - The Queen Of Everything TWIN TOWN HIGH: MUSIC YEARBOOK VOLUME 9 This 2007 album compiles some of the best Minneapolis bands. There are some excellent bands on here. At least five really amazing songs, so picking one is really hard for me. I've decided to just use the first song by Haley Bonar. It sounds a bit naughty. The other songs will be spotlighted later in my Minneapolis entry.
Irene - Stardust HOY COMI SANDIA EP #2: A SWEDISH INDIE-POP COMPILADO You know we love the Swedes here, so I wanted to mention about this Swedish Indiepop compilation. Most of the bands on this compilation have already been covered by us (see W♥M: Sweden). I wanted to mention a band that we haven't talked about: which would be Irene. Checking out their myspace, I noticed they're going to be playing Eurosonic Festival in January 2008. "Stardust" seems like a very short song but it's very good. I especially love Bobby's bold voice (it reminds me of 80s Europop). If you like this, you'll probably really love The Legends - which we're also reviewing here.	Lewis Taylor - Hide Your Heart HACKTONE DIGITAL SAMPLER 2007 It's free and there's no DRM on any of their 8 tracks. Download them here. I have created a custom cover art, in case you guys want to group them together under your Various Artists or Sampler folder. You can download the art by following this link (save it as a jpeg). Hacktone have been pretty good about giving free samples on their iTunes page, but since you need to live in the US and have an iTunes account, these unDRM free tracks are well worth checking out. For more details on Hacktone, visit their website or read our coverage of some of their artists on W♥M.
The Zambonis - Hockey Monkey EXOTIC RECORDINGS PRESENTS DIY DISS Check out Exotic Recordings. We've covered one of their band on W♥M, but I'm planning on reviewing a few more from them in this month. This compilation, I believe some of the songs are original. I do know each of the introduction to the song (usually a "diss") were recorded exlusively for this compilation. I'm assuming these compilation (which aren't for sale) are given away if you buy a CD from them.	Pavement - Stereo EVERYTHING IS NICE: MATADOR RECORDS 10TH ANNIVERSARY ANTHOLOGY Released in 1999, this is a 3-disc set. The tracks that I really liked off this compilation is Non Phixon and The Arsonists. Obviously, Pavement is undoubtedly  one of the more popular band that is on this compilation - so here's "Stereo". The prices are pretty reasonably, I think I picked it up for $10 (for about 40 tracks!)
The Gentle Waves - Sister Woman REVOLUTIONS #3 These came free with Select Magazines This song is from The Gentle Waves' second album, Swansong for You (2000), it's my second favorite song after "Falling from Grace". Trivia: Isobel Campbell appears on the cover.	Lily Allen - Knock 'em Out NEW NOISE #13 They give these things out for free, they're basically samplers from EMI. I've discovered quite a few good bands from these samplers, their latest one has a great track by Lily Allen. This song is pretty cute, it's about coming up with excuses to avoid being picked up - including the hilarious "I'm pregnant, yeah."

 

 12/07/2007 23:50:43  vu my♥posts www.weheartmusic.com