MP3 Download: The Sounds' Emotional 'Better Off Dead'

The Sounds

Kirsti Anna-Urpa

Click to listen to The Sounds' 'Better Off Dead'

Swedish indie rock band the Sounds are heading out on a North American tour in support of their album Something to Die For, which was released earlier this year. Guitarist Felix Rodriguez explains that the emotional, dancefloor-ready track "Better Off Dead" has some deeply personal meaning for the band in addition to its thumping electro-beats. "Better Off Dead is one of my personal favorite songs. It's a song that we refused to compromise with when we recorded it," Rodriguez explains. "It has many layers of different influences, and the structure of the song is really different from what we've done before."

The Sounds' album Something to Die For is available now, but you can download "Better Off Dead" for free here.

The Sounds' tour dates are as follows:

10/26 Toronto, ON – The Opera House
10/27 Montreal, QC – Club Soda
10/29 Quebec City, QC – Imperial de Quebec
10/30 Boston, MA – Royale Nightclub
11/1 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
11/2 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
11/4 New York, NY – Webster Hall
11/5 Washington, DC – Black Cat
11/7 Atlanta, GA – Masquerade
11/9 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald's
11/10 Dallas, TX – Granada Theatre
11/11 Austin, TX – La Zona Rosa
11/12 El Paso, TX – Tricky Falls
11/13 Tempe, AZ – The Marquee
11/15 Pomona, CA – Glass House
11/16 Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern
11/17 San Diego, CA – Soma
11/18 Ventura, CA – Majestic Theatre
11/19 San Francisco, CA – Warfield Theatre
11/21 Seattle, WA – The Neptune
11/22 Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter