Laura Marling "Goodbye England"

For the month of December, my Weekend Posts (usually a look back at obscure tunes from the 80s and 90s) will turn to Christmas. Enjoy a few odd, off-color songs to enliven your holiday!

Found this one, while when I unearth yesterday's post. I like the occasional tune that is set at Christmas, but isn't exactly a Christmas tune.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Laura Marling "Roll Away Your Stone"

I have to admit, that even though today is the last day of voting for mvyradio's Top 25 Of 2011 . . . um, I haven't come up with my list yet.

Hey, I have until 5pm!

Off the top of my head though, two major favorites have been Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling. So how excited was I to find this version of Marling covering Mumford?!?

I hope you have a chance to vote today. We'll count down the winners on the week between Christmas and New Years.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Laura Marling "Sophia"

Here's the flip side of something I wrote about a week ago . . .

This is a tune that suffers by premature judgment.

I had sampled this song a number of times, mostly based on the enthusiastic reviews Laura Marling has been receiving.

But I didn't feel too moved by what I was hearing.

Here's the thing. The first 60 seconds is pretty unmoving. It's low key, a little thin. Nice enough, but not a strong radio single.

Sixty seconds in, you start to hear a few interesting (seemingly unrelated) influences---Judy Collins, Nick Drake, among others---but the song still hasn't proven to be a standout.

A full 3 minutes into the song, drums appear and the songs propels forward. And that's where the song proves itself.

Her voice takes on a new level of urgency, and you suddenly realized that all the elements are coalescing---the melodic bass, the background vocals, the beat the beat the beat.

The build was slow, but it did build to some something super-strong, worthy of the glowing press.

So the question is, in a radio/singles world, is someone going to stick with the tune for 3 minutes before it gets to somewhere?

I mean, Eric Lindell's awesome new single in only 2 minutes total.

At a minimum, I am now moved to delve into the record further.

What do you think?


See the video on Youtube.