My Favorite Song About Robots Taking Over

Surprisingly, my favorite song about robots taking over is not The Streets' The Robots are Taking Over. (That's my second favorite.) The top spot is reserved for Citizens of Tomorrow by Tokyo Police Club.

This 2006 tune into the future--all the way to 2009--to imagine a frightening brave new world.

Let's take a look at some of the lyrics.

Our robot masters will know
How to clean this mess up
And build a better world
For man and machine alike
For the boys and the girls
Who are slaves building spaceships at night
In the fluorescent light.
That's 2009.

Child slaves building spaceships? Frightening indeed. But it doesn't stop there.

I have a microchip
Implanted in my heart
So if I try to escape
The robots will blow me apart
And my limbs will go flying
And land before the ones that I love. 

Man, 2009 sounds HORRIBLE!

But it sure makes for a great song.

And now back to The Streets. My favorite white British rapper (aka Mike Skinner) loved to rhyme about the wonders and ills of technology. (In fact, he wrote a whole album about it called Computers and Blues.) 

Here are a few lines from The Robots are Taking Over [VIDEO]:

We used to control it but now we let it control us
Made it to connect us but it turns it into loners
Now they double check our names and act like they don't know us
And one day they turn then they will certainly dethrone us.

Dang robots. 

But Mr. Skinner also writes a few nice things about bleeps and boops, including my number one favorite song about cell phones.

And who could forget Skinner's heartfelt shout-out to the ultrasound machine as he sings to his unborn child on Blip on the Screen [VIDEO]? Priceless.

But no list of robots and phones and computers is complete without Bad Religion's 21st Century Digital Boy. Greg Graffin wants to punch technology in the face!

Check out all these songs here. [VIDEO PLAYLIST]

Cloud Nothing's Psychic Trauma

Another new Cloud Nothings single from their forthcoming album "Here and Nowhere Else." And another success. Check out "Psychic Trauma" below.

If I Had to Choose Just One Track from Streetlight Manifesto's The Hand that Thieves

I think I'd have go with If Only For the Memories. It makes me want to sing along, pump my fist, and eat a chimichanga...all at the same time.

Talk about an emotional trifecta!

Best Moment: Bad Religion True North

What do you say about a band's sixteenth record? Of the Brett-Gurewitz-is-back-in-the-band era, True North is basically on par with the so-so Dissent of Man and New Maps of Hell. It lags far behind the excellent The Process of Belief (an album that is as good as anything in Bad Religion's entire catalog). In other words, it's good but not great.

Here's my favorite track from the record, a tune that has the urgency and simplicity of early Bad Religion.

Nothing to Dismay

Balance and Composure - The Things We Think We're Missing

I've been listening to the Balance and Composure all afternoon on Spotify. My finger is getting tired of clicking "star" on every single track.

On their debut release, the impressive Separation, it was easy to compare this Doylestown, Pennsylvania five-piece to contemporaries like Polar Bear Club or Transit. But on Things We're Missing, it appears the '90s have overcome these millenials. The album is awash with noisy fuzz, sludgy guitars, and some pretty striking post-teenage angst. It's angry and shoegaze-y and heavy without losing track of structure of hooks.

Here a few of the tracks I'm digging right now:



Tiny Raindrop



I'm Swimming



Lost Your Lost Your Name

The album is pretty solid start to finish. I'd highly recommend listening to it in its entirety.

Why I No Longer Hate New Found Glory

Here's the deal with releasing an album that all your fans hate. It opens the door for new fans.

I've never been a New Found Glory supporter. I don't even remember why I first listened to 2006's Coming Home. (It was probably in advance of an interview I did with guitarist Chad Gilbert, who was quite a nice guy, by the way). But I loved it pretty much instantly.

It's slower than their preceeding records. It's just a collection of songs about girls and heartbreak, but it's built on genuine melancholy, rather than just teenage emotion.

It's a record I love to listen to front-to-back. It's tough to even choose a favorite track, but this one will do.



Since Coming Home, NFG have released to back-to-basics albums, Not Without a Fight in 2009 and Radiosurgery in 2011. Though they don't resonant with me in the same way, they're both solid releases.

Hey, I guess I'm a fan now.

Koffin Kats: Inspired by Beavis and Butt-Head

Vic Victor can trace his rockabilly roots back to the most enlightened intellectuals of the '90s: Beavis and Butt-Head.

He was watching the show when he saw the video for Reverend Horton Heat's 'Psychobilly Freakout.' "I thought it was just really cool," Victor recalls. "The video was weird and the guy played a big violin."

When Victor picked up the Reverend Horton Heat album at the record store, "It changed everything for me," he says. "I started getting into the 'billy culture and the hot rod culture. I started cuffing my pants and slicking my hair back."

That rockabilly/psychobilly culture became the backdrop for his band the Koffin Kats, where he sings and plays upright bass. But it wasn't the only inspiration.

"Once I started writing my own music and had my own band, I found my own way. I realized that lifestyle wasn't totally for me because I didn't fully believe in rockabilly. It was just another form of music. I didn't want to dedicate myself to one specific form of music."

"Ever since I've been a musician?--and just a fan of music--I've gone from listening to a Metallica album to a Tom Waits album to a Stray Cats album. Dedicating myself to one style of music has never been what I'm about or what Koffin Kats is about."

The band has always tried to let those varied influences come to the surface of their music. "I never want to put out the same album twice," Victor says. "And within the album, there's always something that the 'billy side, the punk side or the metal side, can dig. We play music that's all across the board. We're basically just a mutation of all the music we like, all put together--stylistically and musically."

Koffin Kats are also known to throw in a surprise or two, like on their new track "The Devil Asked," which is more Black Sabbath than Tiger Army. "It's cool that we've been able to make straight-forward, rockin' records, but it's also cool to be able to include some songs that people wouldn't expect from us," Victor says of the song. "It's going to be one that people either love, hate or just don't get."

"If someone has been a fan of our discography, they'll realize we've done stuff like this on other albums where something comes out of left field. It breaks up the monotony of the record. I don't want to write something where 30 minutes later, you think you'd been listening to the same song over and over."

As the band's sound has evolved, Victor's lyrics have also matured. "As I've gotten older, I've put away writing the off-the-wall science fiction lyrics of the first few records," he says. "I wanted to write songs about situations I've been in or or situations where people can just say 'I've been there.'"

The lyrical turning point came after Victor penned "At the Bar," a song about a fictional character wasting his life at the bar and watching relationships fail. "I've had so many people come up to me and say 'Man, I've been there,'" Victor says. "It's rewarding to hear people say that they can relate to something that you wrote. I don't consider myself to be any better than the next person, but to have someone say that they appreciate that you write really pushes you in a new direction."

Now Victor writes about what he knows best, and the band's new record, "Our Way & The Highway," is drenched in alcohol (see "It Happens Every Night," "The Bottle Called," "Booozincrossanation," among others).

The band's show in Salt Lake, however, will be slightly less, er, spirited.

"We're playing an all-ages show, so the booze won't be flying around [like usual], but we definitely try to make every show as much as a party as we can," Victor adds. "We want to have a good time and want to give [the fans] every bit of their dollar's worth."

Check out - At The Bar (YouTube)

Might I Recommend: Army Navy

Looking for a sign that you're getting older? Here's one--the place you buy your clothing is the same place you buy your groceries and fill your prescriptions. Ah, the wonders of Target.

Thanks to their crisp whites, circular reds, and bouncy tunes, Target commercials have a way of making the everyday-everything store seem like it's the hippest place in town.

Los Angeles trio Army Navy could easily write an entire Target soundtrack on their own. Their songs are immediately infectious and toe-tappingly fun. Their sophomore album, "The Last Place," is solid front to back. Most importantly, it's impossible not to feel just a little better after having listened to it.

Brandon Flowers is a Mormon

There are plenty of famous Mormons out there. You've got your sports stars like Steve Young, politicians like the Mittster, and actors like Napoleon Dynamite. But not many rockstars (Gladys Knight is not a rock star and The Used's Bert McCracken has left the faith).

Brandon Flowers has been linked to Mormonism since the early days of The Killers, but has rarely addressed the issue, other than to say he was raised in the faith.

Starring in one of the LDS Church's "I'm a Mormon" ads is a bold move. On both sides. I can't imagine that the spot will do much to bolster Flower's rock 'n roll cred, and it's an interesting move for the Church, which doesn't exactly cater to the rock world.

I guess that's why I'm so impressed by it. Kudos to Flowers for being willing to talk about his faith and a bigger thumbs up to the Church for recognizing that there are Mormons out there who may be more inspired by The Killers than David Archuleta.

And as long as we're talking about The Killers, here's a link to one of my favorite songs (and favorite video) by the band, Read My Mind.