A couple weeks ago when I was sequestered to the couch wondering if I was fighting H1N1 or just the regular flu, I stumbled upon a show on the Sundance Channel called “Live From Abbey Road“.  I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before, but 1. I rarely channel surf and 2. when I do, Sundance is in the like 800′s and I never get that far.  Anyway, the show is brilliant and this particular episode featured MGMT (fave!), Alanis Morrisette (fave when I’m angry) and a band I’d never heard of from the UK called Elbow doing live recordings in the famous beyond measure Abbey Road Studio.  Elbow was up first and I was kind of just tuning them out because I was more interested in the artists I was familiar with, but this band ended up absolutely drawing me in to their music and I sat completely captivated watching and listening and wondering why they had never shown up on my music radar previously.  To me, Elbow sounds vocally like a mash up of Badly Drawn Boy and Sting and musically like Coldplay, Powderfinger and (enter generic top 40 rock band from the US here).  But somehow it all comes out in this really likable package of big sonic sounds with big vocals and strings and really interesting rhythms and… it just works.  My favorite track featured was “One Day Like This” which seems to be their single off “The Seldom Seen Kid” in the UK.  It’s a very top 40 friendly song but has some great sing along hooks and lots of layers that are far more interesting than 90% of what is on the radio.  Make sure to visit Elbow’s Myspace, website and buy their album.  And visit the “Live from Abbey Road” website for some great performances.

Happy Listening!