It's time for another Friday on My Mind post. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News.
KEXP hosts hundreds of in-studios performances from both established and up and coming musicians every year, which has added up to thousands of performances in our cache. Our amazing content team has captured many of these magical and exclusive performances and the public has responded with over 46,000 video subscribers to our YouTube channel with nearly 45,000,000 total video views on over 2,300 uploaded videos with an audience that is steadily growing. For this week's Friday on My Mind, we thought we'd take a look at KEXP's Most Viewed In-Studio Sessions.
Florence + The Machine
Out of London, Florence + the Machine performed live on KEXP on April 16th 2010. Like a lot of our performers, they were right on the edge of breaking out and this performance captures them at that perfect moment before they became one of the most popular acts in the world. Since their visit to KEXP, they've had four songs in the top 40 in the UK and in the US. Their song "Dog Days are Over" has been featured in film and commercials and hit #21 in the US charts.
At this point, the video of her performance of "Cosmic Love" at KEXP is at 3,429,575 views on YouTube:
The Temper Trap
The Temper Trap formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2005. "Sweet Disposition" was the first single off of their debut full length album Conditions which was released in August 2009. It reached top 40 status in the UK and the US. This band played live at the Cutting Room Studios in NYC where KEXP broadcasts when in NYC. They, like Florence + the Machine were booked just as their song "Sweet Disposition" blew up thanks in part to it being featured in the soundtrack and trailer for the movie "500 Days of Summer" with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Their performance of "Sweet Disposition" for KEXP took place on October 22, 2009 at the Cutting Room Studios NYC and the video has had 1, 387, 947 views on YouTube:
The Tallest Man on Earth
Swedish Singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson is the artist known as The Tallest Man on Earth. He is pretty well known outside of the US, but in America he still relatively unknown, which makes the popularity of this performance even more remarkable for us. The shear talent of this artist is what has driven so many to view this video. He draws influence from Nick Drake, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. He has a voice and style similar to that of Bob Dylan, whose music he was first introduced to when he was fifteen years old.
The KEXP performance he gave of "Where Do My Bluebird Fly" took place during December 2008 and has 1,276,510 views on YouTube:
Honorable Mentions:
Of Monsters and Men
Young Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men are going to be huge and as you know very well from this blog, KEXP was there with them from the very beginning. While you've heard their music on KEXP for a long time now, "Little Talks" was JUST released as a single on iTunes in January of 2012 and they will officially be releasing their full length My Head is an Animal on April 3rd in the US. They'll be kicking off their North American tour with an appearance at SXSW next week. They've booked 26 dates over the upcoming month and 21 of those dates are already SOLD OUT as of March 7th.
Here's the video that got the band international attention and helped them seal their record deal in the States when it became viral, filmed by our content team in the band's living room during Iceland Airwaves 2010:
The Head and The Heart
Another band that KEXP has been championing since day one is local heroes The Head and the Heart. As I've mentioned before in previous posts, Seattle's The Head and the Heart are some of the most talented and nicest human beings you will ever encounter. They will have a long and successful career beyond their hometown of Seattle if I have anything to say about it.
