The Not-Pop Jukebox

It's a rare day when the first song I hear makes me say, “That's today's post!” Phoenix got me this morning, however, with Lisztomania. The song comes from their newest album, “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”, which won't be released into the record-store wilds until May but which has apparently slipped its tether and wanders free about the web these days.

Lisztomania sounds much cleaner than Phoenix's other, fuzzy-guitar-and-synthesizer-heavy tunes. I still haven't figured out the lyrics. Why the obsession with Franz Liszt, or is there someone who shares that name that fascinates? The fact that I still love the song after half a dozen close listens strikes me as a good sign, however. Had the post that introduced me to the band not specified that they were French, I'd have thought they were yet more clever Brits. There seems to be rather a lot of interesting music from Europe (and specifically France) capturing my attention of late. Enjoy Phoenix, and visit their web site if you want more. It takes a bit to load and should come with a seizure warning about the blinking, but you can download the song 1901 for free.

For those of you attempting to figure out the lyrics, consider the 1975 film Lisztomania, which sounds so wacky that I intend to get my hands on it as soon as physically possible. I'm hoping that it explains some "inside joke" sorts of lyrics.

Obviously, you can't buy Lisztomania yet, but you can get the similarly-interesting Napoleon Says from their 2006 album, “It's Never Been Like That”.