McCartney, U2, Coldplay, and now Phoenix are among the acts who’ve been asked to play three songs on an episode of Saturday Night Live. I suspect only the French synth-rockers’ overtime was born of a lack of air-able sketches. Which is not to say the closing credits performance of nine-year-old soundtrack hit “Too Young” wasn’t delightful. But it was hardly worth having to sit through another interminable Obama open. From the new album Phoenix did “Lisztomania” and “1901,” both excellent tunes. I like how they dress like hip English TAs.
“Lisztomania”
“1901″
“Too Young”
If you missed the show, Videogum’s got the funny parts.
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is out 5/25 internationally and 5/25 in the US on Loyaute/Glassnote Records.
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Thanks for posting “Too Young” – I’ve been looking for it all day.
What an awesome sound mix they had….especially compared to TVOTR. PHX sounded really good. But what the hell is a lisztomania anyway? Who knows, but I shall buy this CD when it comes out.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073298/
yeah, sounded like listening to a cd.
When I first glanced this headline I assumed “phoenix” referred to joaquin and I was a lot more excited than I should have been.
me too.
OK “1901″ is officially my favorite song of the year so far.
I’m loving the new stuff I’ve heard. Incredibly tight performance as well. I agree with glazzy about 1901 being one of the best songs of 2009 so far.
Irony!
Anyone else think his vocals sound a lot like Doug Martsch? It’s a good thing.
Love both vocalists, Love Phoenix and BTS, but can’t hear a voice similarity at all.
Solid album all around. Armistice and Fences are my favorites off the album.
Stop with the obnoxious posts that are clearly designed to flaunt the fact that you have somehow obtained the album before its release date. The general public hasn’t heard these songs…great that you have, but if all you’re going to say is your favorite tracks, I don’t see the point to posting, other than to show off how savvy you are. Which is frankly, kind of douchey.
welcome to the internet, friend.
i already showed you how to use bittorrent dad.
uh are you being serious? You need to relax buddy. All I was saying was those two were my favorite tracks off the album. You can go onto blip.fm and pretty much stream all of them. By the sounds of it you need a hug or need to get laid.
RIght you are. Thanks for letting me know about Blip.fm… I needed enlightening. Sorry everyone.
Wolfgang Amadeus is great, but I prefer their follow-up album.
Thank you. That’s basically the sentiment I was getting at. You were more tactful…haha
that’s most definitely NOT what you meant.
Thanks. I appreciate you clarifying that. BITCH
yikes
McNutt, I really hope you DO marry SarahSpy…your kids would be equal parts adorable and hilarious.
I prefer the EP they released with PolyVinyl
I feel like Phoenix are criminally underrated. With that said, their latest rules, and they sound exactly the same live, wow.
rosewood telecaster!
That was the first thing I noticed! Made me think of Harrison.
Their new song “Rome” is so good I’ve been listening to it on repeat for like two days.
we burn million of calories doing the phoenix’ songs on my aerobic programs! Yes my trainer is the coolest!!!
Phoenix is my biggest addiction this year!
phoenix > skinny seth rogen… pretty horrible SNL on saturday… phoenix saved the 90 mins thou
It’s just the wrong kind of good…ya know what i mean?
“The term “Lisztomania” was coined by the German romantic literary figure Heinrich Heine to describe the massive public response to Liszt’s virtuosic piano performances. At these performances, there were allegedly screaming women, and the audience was sometimes limited to standing room only.”
thanks wikipedia.
i love phoenix, its always interesting and downright amazing. I agree they sound amazing live too. I do think that ” If I ever feel better, I’ll go to the disco” will always be their best and most classic song but i love 1901 and Love like a Sunset.
What shal we call this thing?…shopping Mall/Tyra spiritual?…that’s a hint Bono…zigged when you should of zagged…played it too safe…
That Phoenix performance was really fantastic and now I can’t wait for the new album! So great to see them gain a little cred in the US. Does anyone know if they’re performing in New York anytime soon?
yeah, I heard they played SNL recently
I’m so psyched for this new record. It probably won’t be a masterpiece, but it sounds like it’ll be great fun. Thanks for the vids!
these guys are great how have i not heard of these guys!? like M83 meets Clap your hands say yeah, i was disappointed with the skits though, but thats probably just because rogans my favorite actor…
these guys are great how have i not heard of these guys!? like M83 meets Clap your hands say yeah, i was disappointed with the skits though, but thats probably just because rogans my favorite actor…
YES! my roommate and i were amazed at how much they looked like grad students.
The new album is just awesome. All of their albums are immensely replayable.
Pearl Jam played 3 tunes. and without credits over their faces.
R.E.M. also played thrice on a show in 1994, promoting Monster.
didn’t anyone else notice that in certain spots (choruses mainly), mr phoenix’s voice was doubled? yet no one else was singing. and the other voice sounded eggs-act-lee like his. it doesn’t bother me that they were playing along with some backing tracks necessarily, but considering some of the above comments – “sounded like listening to a cd”, etc – makes me wonder what else wasn’t being performed live. controversy!!!
yes the vocals did sound doubled at some points. I doubt he was playing to pre recorded tracks becuase it would have been impossible to match up so well. I am assuming it was just a vocal effect that doubles what the singer is singing and off sets it a few milliseconds like a tape delay. Actually a pretty cool feature for live that I would like to get my hands on.
Also those drums sounded kick ass.
They looked like they were playing to a backing track. Meaning a cut of the song not featuring the stems for vocals or any solo bits.
Most artists on SNL do, but usually not the Indie rock bands.
Sounded/ looked pretty obvious to me. I could be wrong. Maybe This tiny (for the gig) band just got better sound treatment than any artist I’ve ever seen on the show.
Are they attached to Universal somehow?
I doubt they were playing to a backing track. Right around 2:44-46 on the Hulu you can hear the keyboard player miss a note (kinda). What makes it so good isn’t that its hard to play/make sound good cause the song is pretty simple its how catchy and poppy it is.
I was psyched to see that Phoenix happened to be playing live somewhere on the Las Vegas Strip when we were there in 2006… that is, until we went and discovered that it wasn’t Phoenix from Paris that was playing, but some crap “Phoenix” folk duo from California. Remember when they made Squeeze bill themselves as “UK Squeeze” because a lousy US band was called “Tight Squeeze?” They shoulda made that band be “Shit Phoenix.” End rant.
Forgot to mention: next week’s musical guest is YYYs
I’ve never heard of these guys before Saturday, but since then I’ve been listening to them pretty much nonstop. Super catchy and fun.
Should I hit myself in the head for not knowing who these guys are up until now?
Btw, Fleet Foxes is the best act they’ve had so far this year.
No but…check them out because they are so great!….they make me feel French and awesome….like the 1st time you do extacy …before you find out it burns holes in your brain.
WHY NO FUNKY SQUAREDANCE?!?
Nice! Really stoked to hear W.A.P. Also, Seth Rogen = Kevin James with more jokes about weed and genitalia.
to the folks who haven’t heard of phoenix until now, you should check out their last album, “it’s never been like that.” it’s one of the most catchy and replayable albums i’ve ever heard, and i expect nothing less from wolfgang amadeus. also, see them live if you ever have the chance, you won’t regret it.
“like M83 meets Clap your hands say yeah” – oh my.
and sorry, like fleet foxes a lot, but this kinda blows them out of the water, just as far as SNL performances go.
LOVE IT!
I am officially better than all of you who had never heard of Phoenix.
the best thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRQsCgYmtc
Great performance. The new album is superb..
http://fallingnlaughing.blogspot.com/2009/04/interview-thomas-mars-from-phoenix.html
You know there are the bands that you love so intensely….You’d actually watch SNL on TV! …..if you knew they were gonna be on….it’s official..I just do not watch enough TV….missed this entirely…still very nice to see them getting some ‘major’ US TV after all these years.
Just curious…. how many of you knew about Phoenix before this stereogum post…? Be honest donnytilla!…you, mouth breathing puppet you…
Drunk Post
1901…o my god….that made me sooooooo happy.
That terrible year in the mid-90s with Chris Elliott and Janeane Garofalo, the bands played 3 songs almost every week if I remember correctly, undoubtedly for the same reason.
I’ve seen bands do 3 songs, but I only know of U2 doing a song after the ‘goodnights’. Never would have thought they’d have this practically unknown band do that. Kewl.
check out the video of their performance on KCRW. dudes are one seriously tight band.
Phoenix is one fine group of Frenchmen:) (established before the SNL performance)
I would love for them to do a North American tour! I cross my fingers….
All the videos from the SNL performances (including the deleted ones) are still available here : http://www.lechoix.fr/videos/2009/04/06/phoenix-dans-le-saturday-night-live-3-videos/
re: backing track – i think that first song was mostly a backing track – it looked like they were acting like they were playing.
also the singer’s vocals were doubled a lot but no one else was singing – unless there is some effect that can do that.
sorry, folks, but this dude pulled an ashlee simpson–in the chorus for most of the songs (?all of them) he was singing along with a tape of himself. band was playing live, vocals on tape…pretty f-ing lame.
Nice site. Thank you.,
This could be the best band I have never heard of before!