Tunes from the Team: Siblings

This week we’re celebrating the people who are closest in our lives but sometimes drive us crazy; Siblings.

National Siblings day is April 10th, so make sure to call your siblings and remind them of that time they blamed something on you, and that you haven’t gotten over that.

Standard Daniel here, and I have been fortunate in my life to join a couple of bands, and even go on a couple of tours up the East coast. If you’ve never been in a band, you totally should start one. Don’t play an instrument, that doesn’t matter. Just make some noise. But I will warn all you would-be-rockers, it’s not as easy as some make it look. And this becomes very clear when you’re traveling in a Ford Econoline for any extended amount of time with the rest of your smelly gross band. Being in a band is like dating a group of people, and if you’re in a band long enough it’s like you’ve married these people. They become family. And sometimes family is the worse.

Maybe that’s why so many bands are actually made up of siblings. You spend so much of your life with them, you might as well form a band together. I’m going to assume that genetic link helps form that deep connection that a great band has, where you can almost read the other members’ minds. Look at all the great sibling bands in history: AC/DC (brothers Malcolm and Angus Young), The Jackson 5 (siblings Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael [and also Janet]), Van Halen (brothers Alex and Eddie), The Allman Brothers Band (Duane and Gregg), the Ramones (Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, and Tommy), and so many others. For the record, I know the Ramones aren’t actual siblings, but I make the list, and so they’re on this list. AC/DC and Van Halen are not on this list, because they will be on other lists later on. The Bee Gees and Hanson are also not on this list, and although I know they are each groups of three brothers, and you would think they would be perfect for this list, they are also not to be found here. Again, I make the list.

So here’s the list.

Now I believe the original intention for these posts were to be an open door into the minds of the creative folks who work at Standard Beagle. I think it has slowly morphed into an wide open garage door into Standard Daniel’s mind, and by extension his soul. The playlist begins with an incredibly influential band, Radiohead (with brothers Jonny Greenwood and Colin Greenwood) with the track ‘Optimistic’ from Kid A. I don’t think it was until college that I understood their importance, and that’s not to say you have to be an adult to get Radiohead, more that I was just slow to catch the train.

While they’re not as important as Radiohead, Oasis is one of the biggest bands to come out of England, and is probably the band that had the most brotherly friction of all the groups on this list. I could have gone with ‘Wonderwall’, but ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ is my personal favorite.

The next three bands are not nearly as popular, mewithoutYou, Tiny Moving Parts, and Every Time I Die, but they are some of the most influential bands in my life. I would tattoo their lyrics on me, if that’s any indication how much they influenced me as a person. When I’m feeling aggressive while programming a site I will put on ‘Brother, Sister‘ by mwY or ‘Low Teens‘ by ETID. Both records are amazing and I couldn’t recommend them more.

I don’t have time to dissect every selection here, so this is the quick hits. Haim is the only trio of sisters on this list, and they’ve put out three records that are modern and a throwback and a sound that is only theirs. They preformed at the Grammy’s this year, and they crushed it.

 

There’s a handful of garage rock bands with brothers in them that would make for one of the loudest blocks ever if they all lived on the same street; the Kinks, the Sonics, the Hives, the Ramones, and the Darkness. For folk fans out there, there’s the Avett Brothers and the Oh Hellos (brother and sister from Wimberly Texas). For the more modern indie fan, there’s the National (with two sets of brothers), and Arcade Fire (with brothers Win and William Butler, who grew up partly in a suburb outside of Houston). If you want to dance, there’s Disclosure (brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence) and the Brothers Macklovitch (consisting of brothers A-Trak and Dave 1 from Chromeo). If you like hip hop, there’s Chance the Rapper and his brother Tyler Bennent. And if you’re feeling a little older, there’s Devo and Poster Children.

If you love music as much as I do, and you love your family, maybe you’ll share music you love with people you love.