When The Video Doesn't Match The Song: Snow Patrol's "Just Say Yes"

I loved Snow Patrol's brilliant Eyes Open album, but the singles I heard from their last release did nothing for me. But when I heard this new song from the Irish band's upcoming Up To Now hits collection I was excited again!

The song is synthy pop brilliance, the chorus is very "Chasing Cars" vocally but musically it's a lot more poppy and almost upbeat. I really enjoyed hearing Gary Lightbody's warm and loose vocals over the bed of pop beats and keyboards, it creates an urgency that makes his vocals contrast.

But the vocals of the song stay loose and smooth, warm and beautiful but not urgent or hysterical. So why is Gary pulling diva faces and jumping around in the clip for the single? If he wanted to show us that level of angst and pain, he should have sung it that way. It may have improved the song, it may have ruined it. I don't know. But the faces he's making don't match the voice that comes out, which destroys the integrity of the clip. The song gets a pair of thumbs up, the video is a waste of time:


Snow Patrol - Just Say Yes

Snow Patrol | MySpace Video

VIDEO: Leona Lewis Covers Snow Patrol!

British songbird Leona Lewis has had an amazing run here in the states with the soaring ballad "Bleeding Love" and mid-tempo "Better In Time." Months ago I heard her cover of Snow Patrol's "Run" as performed on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge. That cover went on to be the most requested song the next day on BBC Radio 1, so it was only a matter of time before Simon Cowell pulled some strings to get a single released. In the US, the third single is the Akon produced club-banger "Forgive Me" but in the UK, the cover of Run smashed through download records to become the number one single this week.

The song is gorgeous, Leona is gorgeous, but it all runs together into a sticky vanilla soup. I like it, it soars at the right moments, and the choir joins to take it to the next level. But it's pretty sweet...
Watch:

My Top Twenty: "Chasing Cars" - Snow Patrol

Song: "Chasing Cars"

Artist: "Snow Patrol

Album: Eyes Open

Year: 2006

Label: Interscope

Highest Billboard Hot 100 Chart Position: #5

Players: Gary Lightbody - singer, lyricist, guitarist; Johnny Quinn - percussion, songwriter; Nathan Connelly - guitarist, songwriter; Paul Wilson - bassist, songwriter; Tom Simpson - keyboards, songwriter; Jacknife Lee - producer

Snow Patrol was formed almost fifteen years ago as Shrug, but didn't have a breakthrough hit until 2003's "Run" from their third album Final Straw. It was not a smash here in the US, but I really enjoyed it. Not enough to buy the album or anything, but it's symphonic rock quality was something I really zoned in on. The Northern Irish band then replaced the bassist/keyboardist and started work on the follow up, Eyes Open. After releasing a minor Modern Rock hit with "Hands Open" the stunning ballad "Chasing Cars" was featured on One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy and proceeded to blow up.

I had seen the original UK "Chasing Cars" music video right after VH1 first started playing it, I'm not sure if it was before or after the TV appearances. I was immediately interested in the song, like I was with "Run" as the two songs shared a similar symphonic rock sound. I heard it a few times on radio after that, and by then I was hooked. Even after the crazy success of the song, I'm still not sick of it. Lightbody said on the band's MySpace that it was "the most pure and open love song I've written" and I really agree. Besides the iconic opening bars, the sweeping chorus and the impassioned vocals (oh, and Gary's hotness!) "Chasing Cars" is above all an intimate love song that draws you in. In my mind, it is one of the most perfect expressions of love, that someone would want to "lay with me and just forget the world." So, who wants to join me and "waste time, chasing cars around our heads?"

Five Songs On Shuffle Vol. 11

This is the eleventh installment of my weekly blog entry series "5 Songs On Shuffle." I’ll put my iTunes on shuffle and blog about the first five songs that play.

"Last Request" - Paulo Nutini These Streets
A gorgeous and bluesy torch song from the Scottish import who should have a career like fellow Scot Rod Stewart, minus the "Great American Songbook" years. The single mix is better than the album cut, but you can't go wrong with lyrics like "I know I can't except that we're going no where/but one last time lets go there/lay down beside me"

"Carbon Monoxide" - Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch
This is not one of my favorites from Regina's first major label LP, in fact I often get it confused with "Sailor Song" another goofy piano song from that disc. But Regina's shit is better than most people's gold. She has a nice song that closes the latest Chronicles Of Narnia film which is really weird, since Imogen Heap had a song in the last Narnia film and I bought both of their albums on the same day. Coincidence?

"No More Drama" - Mary J. Blige No More Drama
The Queen of hip-hop/soul makes the most brilliant sampling choice in hip-hop history. Utilizing the piano theme from sudsy TV daytime drama The Young And The Restless as the backdrop to song about freeing oneself from drama, ironic and hot. Plus the choir breaking loose with a cry of "No! More! Drama!" at the end would be fly on any track.

"Set Fire To The Third Bar" - Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright Eyes Open
Snow Patrol's lead vocalist Gary Lightbody and sister-of-Rufus/daughter-of-Loudon Martha Wainwright duet on my second favorite Snow Patrol song. It's one of those duets where both sing simultaneously, creating a strange harmony over a slightly creepy music bed, with pianos and guitars dueling for the spot light. The lyrics are haunting in their beauty: "Miles from where you are/I lie down on the cold ground/and I pray that something picks me up/and sets me down in your warm heart"

"Knock 'Em Out" - Lily Allen Alright, Still
A funny song from the bratty Brit, lampooning barfly girls and rude boys hitting on each other and making up excuses for not passing out their digits. "Yeah, I'm pregnant/I'm gonna have a baby in about six months/I've gotta go, my house is on fire/I have herpes"