YouTube Playlist of Spring 2014 Playlist Songs

The Spring 2014 New Music Playlist solicited mostly official videos from YouTube, from the psychedelic swirls of Thumpers, Cage the Elephant and Phantogram to the travelogue pastiche of Kelis and a dystopian future courtesy of St. Vincent. There's a collage of club life for Polock's song "Everlasting," kids making bad decisions for Ages and Ages' "Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)" and a tongue in cheek dance off via Wye Oak's "The Tower." Mr. Little Jeans brings a grim tale of a trucker for "Bad Mistake" and Courtney Barnett's malaise is made manifest on a clay tennis court. And check out Lost In the Trees' glowing eyes and headlights for "Past Life," along with Sharon Van Etten's enigmatic tarot card reading.

Included here is the much discussed performance of Future Islands on David Letterman with the host gushing afterwards (and rightly so), declaring "That was wonderful!" Samuel T. Herrig's groovy moves and impassioned performance underscores yet again the importance of eye contact when selling a song. There's also the confident SNL appearance by Beck, singing one of his new songs that gave rise to my husband/music biz veteran Paul to exclaim at first listen, "Who broke Beck's heart?" Other live versions provided are a low tech WFUV studio gig by Real Estate and a fan video from a record release party for Maxïmo Park, emblematic of the various conditions faced by musicians.

Link to listen and watch here or click video below.