Song of the Day: September 30, 2014

I was looking at my Facebook feed today like normal, and saw a post from one of my fantastic friends. This particular video post stars an attractive blonde girl, an attractive dark-haired man and a Seahawks fan with a guitar sitting in a car. Five seconds after my clicking the "play" button, these three musicians had blown me away with their fantastic voices (and guitar playing). I'll go ahead and share it, and after you watch the video continue reading to see why I think this is so fantastic.


First, an introduction: The babe singing lead vocals is named Andie Case. The hunk singing backups is Naphtali Smith. The back-seat driver and accompanist is named Ajay Marshall. I literally knew nothing about these three before watching this video for the first time 15 minutes ago, so you'll have to search them on YouTube to find out more. Why did I like this video so much?

• It's raw. It's one acoustic guitar and three voices. No synthesizers, amplifiers or effects.
• They have good voices, and sing with harmony. Good, solid harmonies.
• "Me and My Broken Heart" is a catchy song already.
• Andie has an attitude about her while singing this song. I've only known her for 20 minutes, but I can already see some of her personality.
• "Yea-uh" at 1:25.
• The growl in Andie's voice at 1:58 is absolute perfection.
• AND THEN THEY BREAK INTO ROB THOMAS? I'm done, shut up, take my money.

So, that was my introduction to Andie Case and I couldn't be happier that I saw this video. I will certainly be back for more.

Song of the Day: September 27, 2014

Last night, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon hosted legendary vocalist Robert Plant. The former lead of Led Zeppelin sat down with Fallon to perform a two-man musical number using a looping app for the iPad. Together, and with some help from Fallon's exceptional band The Roots, the two sang a doo-wop version of Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl."

Unfortunately for Plant, Fallon had already done the greatest looper app performance the first time he used the app. Fallon's duet of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" with Billy Joel will forever be one of the great Tonight Show moments, and perhaps one of the great impromptu musical performances since the debut of the digital tablet. Fallon and Joel's duet is, therefore, today's "song" of the day (the music starts at the one-minute mark).

Song of the Day: September 26, 2014

It's Friday, so here's an infectious, harmonious way to kick off the weekend.

Remember the five-people-one-guitar cover of Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know that took the Internet by storm in 2012? For those that don't know, that group is Walk Off The Earth and they've been doing music for quite some time.

WOTE has made many innovative covers like Somebody That I Used To Know, and even has an album out with some pretty awesome originals. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to watch through all their videos. After listening to this cover of Rihanna's "Cheers (Drink To That)" I immediately added it to my YouTube music favorites playlist; it's one of those songs you can listen to over and over again without getting tired of it. Have a listen:

Song of the Day: September 25, 2014

At 20 years old, Meghan Trainor has been one of the hottest new names in music this summer. As of last week's Billboard Hot 100 chart, her hit debut single "All About That Bass" has spent two weeks as the number one song in America. "Bass" would have hit that mark two weeks sooner, had it not been for a more established songstress releasing the first single from her recently-announced new album. As such, Trainor's consistently high record sales had to shake off the frenzy of Taylor Swift's unanticipated new song. Once the initial clamoring to buy and hear Swift's catchy new track died off slightly, "All About That Bass" finally became the top song in America after two months on the Billboard charts.

Apparently, Trainor has no hard feelings for Swift putting off the summit of "All About That Bass" for two weeks. In fact, Trainor paid homage to "Shake It Off" recently, recording an acoustic cover of the song that was shared online last week. Trainor adds her own flavor to the song and modifies the bridge, directly addressing Swift with the lyric "So Taylor, shake 'em off/don't let 'em get to you." 

Here's Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", as covered by the remarkable Meghan Trainor:

Song of the Day: September 24, 2014

Yesterday, my favorite band of all time released its third studio album, aptly titled PTX Vol. III. Naturally, I purchased a CD yesterday and have already declared I will listen to nothing else for a long time. So as not to overload you with Pentatonix greatness, I've decided every Wednesday Song of the Day will be devoted to the musical greatness that is Avi Kaplan, Kevin Olusola, Kirstie Maldonado, Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying.

In the first installment of Pentatonix Wednesday, I present the only mashup on the seven-song PTX Vol. III. "La La Latch" is a signature PTX mashup of two songs by one of my least favorite popular artists today, Sam Smith. However, this mashup is pure gold. In true Pentatonix fashion, it is difficult to discern what parts of the song contain "La La La" and which parts come from "Latch". My favorite part of the video is its simplicity: five friends standing and singing in a circle. Have a watch and listen (or 500):


Next Pentatonix Wednesday: Papaoutai

Song of the Day: September 23, 2014

Happy autumn! After a really crappy summer in Clayton's Universe (don't know about it? Ask and if I like you enough you'll know.) I've decided it's high time to turn a new page and bring the internet along for the ride.

Music has always been a very important part of Clayton's Universe: Real Life, and I've always tried to reflect that in Blog Style. From the summer of 2010 when I replaced post titles with song lyrics - let's be honest, we've all done it - to the time Allison Stoner may have visited CUBS but I can't be sure, this blog has always delivered sports with an undertone of my musical tastes.

It's time the music takes the forefront on the Blog front, because it's been helping me cope with Real World life in recent days.

From now until I get complaints from Google for having the lowest posts-to-views ratio in Blogger history, it is my intention to share a music video a day with all three of my regular readers (here's looking at you, Mother, Dad and David).

So what can you expect? I honestly don't know; I will be doing this on the fly a lot. My current expectations are as follows:
-Strong vocals and harmonies in almost every post, because the voice is the world's best instrument.
-At least one video from Pentatonix or the Gardiner Sisters each week, because I want to be their best friend.
-Mostly happy and upbeat songs, because I like to think I'm a positive person. When you see a sad song, I'm either depressed, having an introspective moment, or the harmonies are so superb I don't care how sad it is.
-"Friday" by Rebecca Black once every month or two, because sometimes we need to remember how the days of the week go. Don't worry, though, I will never post "Friday" on a Tuesday unless I'm feeling absurdly trollish.
-A healthy mix of newer and older songs and videos, because music is forever.
-More reasons for sharing songs than people reading said reasons, because self-depreciation shows you have a sense of humor.
-A random RickRoll now and then, because I'm Never Gonna Give You Up and you're just going to have to live with it.

Accompanying each song will be a few thoughts about why I chose the song or how I'm feeling because of the music or something along those lines. Like I said, I'm doing it on the fly. The ultimate goal of this project, at least for now, is to make sure no matter how bad your day may be, your ears will always have four minutes of good.

To kick off this music mania, here's the greatest music video of all time. There is no room for debate, because....just watch:


Obviously, I wanted a light-hearted start to CUBS Song of the Day, and what better way to begin than with the Internet's most classic running joke? And I warned you there would be a RickRoll every once in a while. I will never forget you, Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, and I hope the world will hold this video in highest esteem for years to come.