That new show with Lorelai Gilmore!

The last entry was a bit loquacious and quite ranty/ravey, so let me just take a moment to give a short and sweet spiel about a new NBC show.

"Parenthood" the hour long dramedy starring... well, a slew of people, really, hasn't exactly hit the nail on the head but also hasn't messed up royally by any means. A lot of the characters are likable (and believable!) and actually quite akin to something one might call "reality." But this is CineMUSic! Of course I'm going to talk about the music!

With the exception of the opening song ("Forever Young Continued" by Bob Dylan) the music is currently kicking ass. It's a family show, so odds are we'll never hear crazy-weird indie stuff, but here's a quick list of some of the best tracks (I think) they've used:

1. "Natural Disaster," Andrew Bird
2. "Once In A Lifetime," Talking Heads (okay, definitely not indie, but still super good!)
3. "Cool Yourself," Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down
4. "When You Learn To Sing," Rocco DeLuca

And these are among quite a few other great choices. If you're into mellow, acoustic-y music that won't offend you, I would definitely recommend checking out the music from this show. And if you're like me and no matter how much television you watch it just doesn't seem to be enough, pick up on this show. It's only six episodes in and it's nice. Even Dax Shepard doesn't totally suck in it!

A cute redundantly named band

It's been awfully quiet here at CineMUSic. You'll have to forgive me -- week seven mixed in with the Olympics makes a whole mess of reruns on television and no time to watch the new stuff. Because of this, we're going to travel in time to March 2, 2009. The setting is "Chuck," season 2 episode 15, "Chuck Versus the Beefcake." I give to you "Airplanes" by Local Natives.

This particular episode featured a band that's gaining a lot of popularity really quickly.

Local Natives is a band from Los Angeles and is exactly what someone wants from an indie band: haunting lyrics, quirky but beautiful vocals and some careful guitar plucking. A lot of people have chosen to compare them to the likes of Arcade Fire (not really), Fleet Foxes (slightly, only not boring) and Vampire Weekend (NO).

Their debut album Gorilla Manor, was released in the UK in 2009 and received a U.S. release less than 10 days ago. I'm siding with Pitchfork on this one: they gave the album an 8.4 which is -- dare I say -- praise! The 8.4 rating is well-deserved. The album is a nice little gem that people might overlook.

I'm predicting that now that the album is available in the U.S. there will be a noticeable spike in the amount of play they'll receive in television. Let's see: CW shows will want to jump on them and quite possibly Shonda Rimes's Thursday night train wreck (you know, because the shows are simultaneously horrendous and awesome at the same time).

Keep your ears peeled (ugh, gross visual. Sorry everyone!).

British adorableness, basically

Jack Peñate

"Chuck" is not only a great show because of the writing, cinematography and actors, but also because of its magnificent song choices. Last week's episode featured "40 Day Dream" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, but they've been discussed already so you'll have to do some archiving to read my thoughts.

Last night's episode? Jack Peñate! His song "Let's All Die" - which I assure you is actually an upbeat song and not a song about weird cult suicide - opened the show and most likely caught people's attention. He has a voice that you might mistake as someone else's at first but is distinctly his own. He's from London, and it's easy to tell from listening to any of his songs. You know, instead of singing "let's ahl die" he sings "let's oohl die." Charming, yes?

If you're sick of all the shoe-gazey, spacey, experimental stuff like Phoenix and Grizzly Bear, look into Jack. It's indie music you can skank to! And get this: his new album, Everything Is New, is streaming for free on his MySpace so I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't click that link and have a listen.