Was surfing through my buddy Spip’s blog (post new stuff, Spip!) and saw the song “Black Balloon” by The Kills. Never heard it before, but it made me wonder how many songs with that title exist.
My favorite song of that title is by MONSTER MAGNET:
Arguably the most famous “Black Balloon” is by Goo Goo Dolls:
Spip’s link was to this song by The Kills:
The oldest song with this title I could find is John Renbourn’s 11:34 song from his 1979 album of the same title, a really beautiful guitar track, haunting especially when the flute or whistle comes in at 2:20ish, starts to get a little wilder with an electric guitar around 4:20 or so, and loses me by the end:
Finally, there’s a segment of the soundtrack to a 2008 Australian film The Black Balloon titled “The Black Balloon Theme” by composer Michael Yezerski.
Black Balloon is also the name of a video production outfit that makes music videos for hard rock bands. Check out their demo reel:
BONUS:
This cat’s voice is pretty fantastic. And I want to know what tuning he’s using on that guitar — open tuned to a power chord?
New city (town, really), new job, but new music? Only a bit.
In the last 3 months of adapting to a new environment, there hasn’t been a lot of time to explore new tunes. Hoping to fix that from here on in, and post a bit more often.Found this accidentally today, a little late for Halloween:
Thanks, Grimes. This *is* pretty great.
Just caught this on Adult Swim while watching Akira.
Holy heck, I dig this. That guy has a phenomenal voice, and this interpretation is fantastic.
JEZEBEL’s Laura Beck says Puddles is “Creepy” but I don’t see it that way. And I’m no real fan of clowns. There’s something strange, yes, about the whole scenario, but it’s not even Rasputina weird. It’s just kind of off kilter, and I like it.
And here’s his own homepage : Puddles Pity Pary.
(Don’t forget, you can buy the mp3 of that performance on iTunes.)
Boing-Boing has an article about an emergent genre of dance music called Zouk Bass. Cool overview of the sound that includes a 47 minute YouTube link to a live set, several SoundCloud tracks as examples, and links to 2 zipped sampler collections for free. If you’re into low BPM (90-115) African-inspired sounds, this is a pretty nice collection of stuff that is very listenable and danceable and would make for a nice addition to ambient and house dance collections.
Tina Turner’s B-side to “Typical Male” in 1986 became a hit later (1994) for Ace of Base. SUCH a different vibe.
Bonnie Tyler also recorded the song. It’s pretty similar to Tina’s version, with Bonnie’s husky, country voice in place of Tina’s sultry soul:
The Ace of Base version:
Clash Magazine
OtR
Pitchfork
RE>GEN Magazine
STEREOGUM
Digital DJ Tips
DJ Techtools
The Conversation