Music worth hearing

Call me old fashioned (get OFF my lawn), but I’ve always kinda liked 1930’s/40’s swing music. And sometimes – just sometimes – a modern musician tinkering with an old recording, sampling it and adding modern music, can make something really rather spiffy.

Case in point: Parov Stelar’s “Booty Swing,” which samples Lil Hardin Armstrong’s “Oriental Swing.” You might have recently heard a bit of this in a  recent commercial for a Las Vegas hotel. But here’s the whole thing, in a YouTube video featuring some kid dancing (specifically: shuffling) to it:

[youtube SydaNY74Nb0]

Both the music and the video put a smile on my face. Then I turn on CNN and the smile goes away, but still…

Anyway, here’s the commercial:

[youtube RH1dYDEg-wY]

And looking at the concept the other way, here’s a Bridgestone Tires commercial featuring Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5.” The song’s not that old, not that good, and got played so damned often that the public eventually ran screaming away from it. But what makes the commercial awesome isn’t the song, but the old *car,* a highly modified 1957 Eldorado Brougham, tearin’ it up on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I’ve never been over fond of cars from the fifties (except for the Ford Nucleon), but damn… I want me one of these!

[youtube Yu3b_EvvMDo]