Bank Robber Music - Film, TV, & Commercial Music Licensing

Posted by Hartley On Dec 21, 2008

I have only the vaguest idea why I chose this fireworks .jpg for this post...

Well folks, we made it. Recession and all, The Bank Robber has lived to see another year go buy. As fortunate as this may sound for Captain Lyle and the very lucky artists and labels who we fight for on a day to day basis, for me, on a personal note, it sucks. Another year going by at the Bank Robber, basically translates to another year going by in my life, which basically translates to my being only 2 (!) yearage away from hitting that old benchmark of "official" old agedom - the 30th birthday. Just the thought of it makes my stomach turn. If 30 is indeed the new 20, I guess I want to be ten years old. 

My suffering the slings and arrows of this thing called "living" aside, it has been a remarkably great year for the BRM. If I was in some cheesy pay-to-play LA Glam band, or some So-Cal skate punk posse I might even say it was a "killer" year. And bizarre. Not only did I get to see a song I wrote about "Brad Wood," get placed in a Payless Ad selling women's discount summer sandals, but Takka Takka's beautiful song, "Silence," got used in an informational medical video about lap bands. If you don't know what a lap band is, here's a graphic for you:

And as if our year couldn't get even more absurd, the Arcade Fire finally loosened up their skinny ties to allow their music to be "licensed." For those counting, their song, "My Body Is A Cage," was used in a trailer for the Benjamin Button movie - which, I might add, is probably where every Jew/emplyee of Bank Robber will be on Christmas Day, followed by Chinese and a brief family tussle. If only we could get Button's director, David Fincher, to personally call all our hold-out bands and get them to reconsider, I might succeed my position here to the man. Honestly, David, if you are reading this, CALL ME, EMAIL ME, I need you to have a serious heart-to-heart with Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel. I will pay you.

Yes, from Mates of State soundtracking Carnival Cruises to Bishop Allen and Army Navy serenading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - I can't remember us ever having a year quite so...um...colorful. And that really must be because 2008 was just a great year for music in general. If I wasn't contractually obligated to only write about music we work I might talk about the joys of running to Young Jeezy's The Recession, or how I swear this chick from LA - Nite Jewel - did the most "punk" thing of '08 by naming her criminally overlooked debut album: My CD, or how everytime I listened to the Fleet Foxes record it made me regret not joining an acapella group in college...but I digress. Pretend you didn't read any of that. And without any further adieu, here, sirs and madams, is the Bank Robber Music Top 10 Albums of 2008:

10. Okkervil River - The Stand In's (Jagjaguwar)

Brooding folk rock never sounded this brooding or "folk-rockey."

9. Tilly & The Wall - O (Team Love)

Yes, this is the band with the tap dancers. And it's a testament to how great an album this was that even with dancing band members, "Pot Kettle Black," still got NJ Hardcore Lyle singing along.

8. Devon Williams - Carefree (Ba Da Binh)

An unbelievable classic pop nugget. Really beautiful arrangements and great songs. Garden State Natalie Portman would love this dude. Kinda blah album art though, no?

 

7. Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line (Barsuk)

They went to Syracuse. They take the string arrangements from Vampire Weekend and leave all the African baggage behind. It made for killer party music. 

6. War On Drugs - Wagonwheel Blues (Secretly Canadian)

THIS ALBUM GOT SO SLEPT ON WTF?!?!?!? Like a Bob Dylan record, if he was backed by Yo La Tengo circa 1993. Blistering American work songs never sounded this good. MAJOR PLAY ALERT.

 

5. Takka Takka - Migration (Ernest Jennings Record Co.)

Any record that manages to sound like Steve Reich, Tears For Fears, and The National will have me at hello. Migration had me at hello.  

4. The Sea & Cake - Car Alarm (Thrill Jockey)

These guys just keep getting better with age. Is this really their best record yet!??! Maybe. And again, respect must be paid, to The S & C's consistently top notch album art.

 

 

3. MERGE RECORDS TIE FOR 3!!!!: She & Him - Volume 1 / Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst 

From The Rosebuds to The Broken West and beyond, Merge Records put out an incredible amount of quality music in '08. But truly, nobody could've predicted that Conor Oberst would make his best record to date without the help of his Bright Eyes moniker, and that M. Ward would make the best record of his career with actress, Zooey Deschanel. Both Ward, and Oberst have made many great albums before, but somehow on these 2 releases, both of these guys managed to play exactly to their strengths: in the case of Oberst, with a new band he was able to strip away all of the thematic melodramatic flourishes that in the past overshadowed his tunes/ in the case of Ward - the guy is such a masterful guitar player and songwriter, somehow people always seem to overlook that what he's best at is producing and arranging. Nobody seems to have a better grasp on how albums should sound, and the exact touches that any given song needs than M. Ward. Who could've guess that Zooey's unabashedly fun tunes and sassy vocals would inspire so much greatness of my generations best guitar player. 2 career-defining records from 2 of the best of artists making music today.

 

2. MODULAR RECORDS TIE FOR 2!!!!: Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours  / Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke 

2008 was the year of Modular Records. I could've easily also included Modular's releases from The Tough Alliance, and The Presets on here - but Cut Copy and Ladyhawke really deserve the most laudits. Both of these artists made records just dying for dancefloors and remixes, with healthy does of keyboards, and an anachronistic love of the 1980's - but yet what made both of these albums so godamn awesome was that neither Cut Copy nor Ladyhawke forgot that the most important aspect of any album wasn't style or how many mash-ups you can inspire - it's sheer quality of songs. Both In Ghost.. and Ladyhawke play like Greatest Hits. Especially Ladyhawke. For a debut (!) album, the girl can essentially quit music now - she has at least 10 hit singles on an album that has just as many songs - "Back Of The Van" and "Another Runaway" were total Pretenders pop, "Paris Is Burning" and "Dusk 'Til Dawn" sound like the Tom Tom Club remixed by Pheonix and the list goes on. In a year when everyone wanted to sound like the "cool" 80's, Ladyhawke embraced "Barracuda." And it absolutely f'ing destroyed.

 

and the biggest beloved Bank Robber record of '08 (eventhough I've technically been listening to it since early 2007!?)

1. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar)

Everybody loves Bon Iver. I know girls that haven't cared about a single record since Jeff Buckley's Grace, that started listening to music again cause of Bon Iver. And sure, populism is no fair measure of artistry, but with Bon Iver, it just speaks to the sheer power and scope of the man's songs. Or maybe it's just that the world loves sexy, weepy tunes with vague vocals sung in haunting falsetto vocals, played on strummy pretty acoustic guitars - who knows? But to my ears, Emma had something for everyone - twisted, rattling sonics for engineer dorks/spacey-droney-swells for the shoegazer set/emotional dramatic builds for the music supervisor set/stunningly gorgeous northern soul harmonies, beautiful enough for the ladies to overlook the fact that Bon Iver's brainchild (real name: Justin Vernon) was unshaven/only 9 songs, all of them awesome for the ADD set. We will all listen to this album 10 years from now. In other words, it's 2008's trend-proof, undeniable classic.

 *If you are a music supervisor and somehow have managed to not listen to any of these records, check your stacks, we have probably mailed them to you. If that fails, email any of us at the Bank Robber and we will send you links. OR you could just illegally download any of this stuff on any number of the thousands of mp3 blogs outthere...but in no way am I condoning such awful awful heretical behavior!

On behalf of the entire Bank Robber family, I would like to wish all 7 of our subscription readers a Happy New Year/Christmas/Hannukah/Kwaanza/New Year! We will see you all in the '09.

L'chaim!!!! 

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