It was a fantastic week for music in Paris. Frightened Rabbit played Tuesday night at Le Flèche d’Or, and The Very Best graced Social Club the following evening. The groups put on shows that are practically polar opposites, but both nights proved to be brilliant in their own right.

Frightened Rabbit is a indie rock act signed onto Fat Cat Records, and was formed in 2003 by Scottish brothers Scott and Grant Hutchison. The band expanded to include Billy Kennedy, Andy Monaghan and Gordon Skene, and has since released three albums: Sing the Greys in 2006, The Midnight Organ Fight in 2008 and The Winter of Mixed Drinks in March of this year. Their sound is melodic, if somewhat melancholy, but beautiful beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The show Wednesday night was a world apart. The Very Best is the product of collaboration between Esau Mwamwaya and London’s own Radioclit. The group released their first full-length album Warm Heart of Africa in Obctober of last year through a joint effort by record labels Green Owl, Moshi Moshi and Ghettopop.

Their sound is heavily inspired by traditional Malawi music, which evidently translates to instigating an irresistible dance party. The Very Best is a must-see live act. The group puts on the kind of show where, from the moment they start until the second they finish, their stage presence is the only thing that exists. Unsurprisingly, their captivating and intoxicating performance was not at all lost on the Parisian audience, and got the entire crowd at Social Club fired up.

Frightened Rabbit will continue on their tour Stateside until December, whereas The Very Best will keep making more international moves until September.

-Liz Rowley

Liz Rowley is a 3-year WRBC Veteran. She is currently studying abroad in Paris, France.

This week was a huge step back for those of us who grew up with Music Television (MTV). The cable channel originally set up to feature predominantly music based programming, specifically music videos officially dropped the subtext of “Music Television” from their now-famous logo.

Granted, I personally only had a few years of ‘real’ MTV before the network was, in my opinion corrupted by the influences of reality TV, notably The Real World and Road Rules, which ultimately are, at this point, among the most influential shows of our time, leaving us a legacy of ratings hits ranging from Survivor to The Mole and even the insufferable Jersey Shore that is apparently the new craze on MTV itself.

Fortunately for the next generation of music fans, which I might as well be a part of as well, online video sites, such as YouTube and Vimeo are constantly being flooded with music videos from artists of all levels of fame and genres. These videos are available for free and whenever I want them, so, I am willing to see music television go the way of the Dodo, just as long as the record labels do not stop producing this subgenre of film of which I have much affinity.

There are always new and different videos being released on the Internet, here is a sampling of a few of my most recent favorites.

Jonsi – Go Do

The Icelandic singer (of Sigur Ros) is putting out a solo album (Go), this is the video from the first single, Go Do

The Very Best – Warm Heart of Africa

The interplay between Esau Mwamwaya and Ezra Koenig (of Vampire Weekend) in this video is hysterical.

Toro y Moi – Blessa

For the video for the first single from his new album, Causers of This, Toro y Moi (Chaz Bundick), buzz artist of the moment, creates a dream-like, lap dissolve heavy recreation of a good old fashioned house party. Pay attention to what he is drinking from.

Beach House – Silver Soul

The Baltimore duo presents a rather fantastic hula hoop user in sepia with an intricate use of speed augmentation and fantastic cinematography, very befitting of the song

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca and Escargot, Sundays 8-10 PM on WRBC.