Crop Up Videos - John Mayer, Coldplay, Bon Iver, Young the Giant

There have been a lot of great videos cropping up lately- while normally, an 'official music video' won't really do it for me, stumbling upon a great live video is like finding gold while panning in the stream of the internet to me.  Here's a few I've stumbled upon recently- and note, there actually is one actual music video...I couldn't help myself with this one.

John Mayer w/ Tony Bennett (bonus: a live performance from JM)
There are a million things people say about John Mayer- he talks too much, he's self indulgent, he plays sissy music (says the guy whose girlfriend loves John Mayer but then 'agrees' to accompany to a concert) blah, blah, blah.  So for once, I give you the other side of John Mayer.  The side that can play guitar is one side we all know about- but sometimes its easy to forget that the man can sing, too.  Since he's been on hiatus due his vocal chord surgery, I haven't really heard his voice in a long time and had kind of forgotten how his smokey register sounded.   I saw this Duets video (via Idolator) with Tony Bennett recently that provided a nice reminder.   It also prompted me to re-listen for the umpteenth time to my favorite live performance from John Mayer, below.  While we await his next album, SXSW attendees can look forward to his performance there at Stubb's on Saturday March 17th.

One For My Baby - Tony Bennett & John Mayer (from Duets II) from Columbia Records on Vimeo.





Coldplay- Charlie Brown
Coldplay's latest album, Mylo Xyloto, has had some folks scratching their heads and others singing its praises (that's the category I'm in).  Regardless of how you feel about Coldplay's evolution over the years, this video (via Idolator) is really hard not to enjoy, and the song is infectious.




Bon Iver on SNL
The beautiful, serene music of Bon Iver graced the SNL stage this weekend, performing "Holocene" and "Beth/Rest" (via Stereogum).  The performances are full of a quiet simplicity, which is interesting given the number of band members and instruments on stage.  The horns in particular stand out. Give them both a watch:





Young the Giant on Jimmy Kimmel
This video is actually from a Jimmy Kimmel Live performance a couple of weeks ago, but I hate how good things get buried because it's older than 24 hours, and good is good, so here you go: