By Michael Mandeville
THE ROUNDUP

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This month The Roundup is introducing a segment where I run through a few new songs and artists that I may love, hate or find that students would like.

You can listen to this and clips from the songs discussed in the new podcast “The Music Sounds Better.” To download the podcast, head over to roundup.brophyprep.org and go to the Music section.

There is a lot of diversity in music these days, and that keeps developing day to day. It is important to consider all kinds of music whether it is rock, rap or electronic music.

I find there is a lot to appreciate in all spectrums, and I’d like to ease the way to finding new, exciting music.

So to get things started I want to mention a track from folk-rock dream team She and Him made up of M. Ward, who has been releasing albums on his own for the past 10 years, and the lovely Zooey Deschanel, the star of the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer.”

The song is called “In the Sun.” Immediately following the beginning of the song, I could predict its innocence and happiness.

Deschanel sings without worry and paints an antithetical picture of everyday problems matched to a delightful, shinny tune.

Musically, I don’t think it is the best of Ward’s work, driving too much on a single piano riff and a single chord progression.

All together though the song is very bright and very upbeat and I am interested in what the rest of the album with feel like.

Moving on, I introduce to you Owen Pallet, aka Final Fantasy. His work on the string arrangements with Arcade Fire opened his solo work to a much larger audience.

In the track “Lewis Takes off his Shirt,” Pallet demonstrates his ingenious talent as a multi-instrumentalist.He has shown signs of brilliant talent from a young age as almost a prodigy in classical piano and violin, and he is not afraid to show this in his music.

Really only made up of a single keyboard section and the work with his voice and violin, the song continuously builds. His efforts debatably surpass any of the work done on previously releases, including Arcade Fire.

“Lewis Takes off his Shirt” is only one of many complex, great songs on his new release “Heartland.”

To finish things off, consider a new interesting song by Sigur Rós front man Jónsi entitled “Go Do.”

In a recent interview he stated the material for this solo album was made up of the songs he felt did not fit the Sigur Rós catalogue.

While it’s necessary to respect the artist’s opinion, I honestly believe that this could easily just be a new track from the band.

It sounds like an electronic version of previous Sigur Rós material but in English. The song is by no means bad, I just feel it’s a bit predictable of Jónsi.

Anyway, that is it for this edition of “The Music Sounds Better,” watch for the second edition in the April issue of The Roundup.