Yes, we do love George Harrison here on either/or. And what better way to honour his memory than a cover version of one his most famous songs as performed by, like, a million musical celebrities? That’s right, there is no better way whatsoever. I mean look at the cast: Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty, and a scarily close representation of George in the form of his son, Dhani. My mind boggles! Despite the cavalcade of musicians and instruments, it’s still the wonderfully sweet and warm tune that its always been; a song that isn’t really about religion, but rather a strong feeling of faith that you could have in potentially anything. At least, that’s what it feels like to me!

It is not always a good thing when artists flirt with a wagon full of various genres: jack of all trades, master of none, as they say! Though there are times when said artist is insanely talented enough to pull it off, which brings me nicely to ILUKA. Bizarre name aside, ILUKA moves from country-flavoured pop to stuff like Eyes Closed, a wonderfully playful blues tune. It’s all united by her rather versatile voice as well: apparently, Nancy Sinatra and Janis Joplin are influences, so if you ever wanted to see what would happen if they were to make music together, then hello!

Sometimes you stumble upon music in the darnedest of places. I was looking for a streaming option for yesterday’s post and this tune came up as a suggestion. Considering yesterday’s tune was called Windy Day, and the word destiny is in the group’s name, I can only assume some kind of divine intervention occurred. Or, you know, a coincidence.

Sound wise, they sound a little bit like some of Martina Topley-Bird’s quieter stuff, particularly the vocals. It’s simple, husky, and breathless, and just a little bit sweet with a splash of melancholy thrown in because why not!

There’s something I love about a lot of Japanese music, and I may have already said this: it focuses very much on a strong melody. To this end, they tend to be quite catchy, and this tune is certainly no slouch in that department! Unless you’ve played Metal Slug 5, you may not have heard this track before: it continues on from Tanaka’s work on Metal Slug 4, what with its driving beat and the call and response between the old-fashioned, twangy guitars, and the saxophones. Yay video games!

This is genuinely a song I heard for the first time today, and felt compelled to share it. I’m not sure I’ve listened to any of her songs before, which is weird, since she’s Frank Sinatra’s daughter (and was insanely smoking hot back way before I was born). The awesome vocals didn’t skip any generations, thankfully. The lyrics are by Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, and if you’re like me, you know that’s a good thing. Ladies, listen up!

Too busy to look at either/or this week? Can’t be bothered scrolling down? Well, here’s the week’s worth of posts in one handy list!

Marilyn Manson – This is Halloween
Kimbra – Cameo Lover
Ride – Unfamiliar
Janek Gwizdala – Crushing
Perfume Genius – Learning
Esther Phillips – If You Love Me (Really Love Me)
Desert Sessions – In My Head… Or Something

If you think this tune sounds familiar (or the name does), then you might be thinking of Queens of the Stone Age’s In My Head of which this is the original version. Desert Sessions is pretty much just that: Josh Homme takes a group of musicians to a ranch out in the desert and they jam and record music. Some of their output has gone on to be re-recorded by Queens of Stone Age, including this one.

This version isn’t quite as heavy as the Queens of the Stone Age version, but it does feature a running piano (at least, I think it’s a piano) motif that didn’t make it into their version. For shame! It’s quite lovely, and matches the more relaxed nature of this version.

There’s a lot of charm to be found in the R&B tunes of yesteryear: they’re genuinely heartfelt and poetic without today’s apparent necessity to throw notes and key changes all over the place, or need to deal with life on the streets. Having said that, a lot of past R&B is quite soppy in their arrangements and not very empowering to the women that sang them: we get it, you love him even if he is a bit of a jerk!

This song doesn’t quite go the way of total devotion to some dude (it’s actually a rather sweet love song in general). The great thing about it is its haunting quality. The opening chords and choral “Ooo” are wonderful and get me every darn time, before moving into something with quite a bit of variety – it even goes into a shuffle later on!

One of the more annoying aspects of music blogging is deciding what genre a song belongs in. A lot of the times they are too narrow, and you don’t want to just shove it into one that it doesn’t really belong in. The genre for this song would be too long, something like “sad piano song with even sadder lyrics, and let’s top it off with some sad vocals.” Criminy, the piano in this is so simple but as addictive as crack (the good stuff, too). Maybe the genre can be called “sad piano crack.” This fellow was a random recommendation from last.fm, bless their souls. I’ve downloaded both of his albums but haven’t managed to make it past this song yet.

Jazz! I know less about jazz than the little I know about the other genres that appear on either/or, but I’m going to attempt to sell you on it anyway. This track is kind of reminiscent of the sound Vangelis created for the film Blade Runner: it has that same kind of rain-soaked, ethereal quality. At least I think it does!