- Doug Stephen in FOR FUCK SAKE EVERYONE KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE GOD DAMNED ACCORDIONS JESUS CHRIST Woah, okay Vice Magazine.
- Doug Stephen in Vampire Weekend - S/T I’ve never listened to a solo Paul Simon record, or to Graceland, so I don’t know about that. But the songs I’ve heard by Vampire Weekend...
- bjyhore in New Single: Patrick Wolf’s “Accident and Emergency” She had actually been robbed of it cant be cruel. Mistress. I could do. jennifer lopez porn Three.
So you’ve just gotten the 2005 summer anthem ‘Girl’ out of your head - or at least its Atari-inspired intro - and now you’re hungry for another Beck hook to lodge itself in your lower brain. You’re in luck! Beck’s latest, The Information isn’t as unthinkingly giddy as Guero, but it has the funk and the reliable cool to make you happy, moved and addicted. Written primarily between Sea Change and Guero, The Information offers up big doses of each. Beck apparently still has something to bummed about, but it is not the overwhelming emotion and he’s found the fun side to disappointment and frustration.
Beck made us glad to be sad in our formative years with Mellow Gold and Mutations, and now he makes the melancholia of the 20/30-something demographic seem somehow pleasant. I hope this doesn’t mean that he’s dissatisfied at home, but whatever the source of his driving dissatisfaction (let’s hope it’s just a keen worldview), it serves him well.
So far the big talk has been about the unusual packaging and presentation geared towards selling more albums (combating piracy in a constructive way? what?). Maybe the content on the disc isn’t as radical as its packaging and bonus features (finding ways to sell albums is revolutionary?), but there’s plenty of Beck on here that hasn’t been heard before.
The Information is about sensory overload, and it contributes in its own special way. Fortunately, Beck isn’t throwing handfuls of spaghetti at the wall in the hopes that some of it sticks. Sure, there is a lot happening here (dial tones, robot burps and technological bleeps that can only be described as ‘information’ all populate the album’s soundscape), but the songs’ arrangements and construction are typical of the composer: doing strange new things with simple chord changes and beats we feel like we’ve heard somewhere before. Read more »
I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’m absolutely, head over heels in love with The Pipettes. I’ve had them playing constantly on my computer, to the point where it’s starting to interfere with my album reviews that I’m supposed to be writing. I feel that I should tell you this so that you’ll be prepared when their CD inexplicably makes my end-of-year top 20 list that, as a “rock critic,” I’m obligated by federal law to create and post. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
At any rate, as their debut album, We Are The Pipettes, was not released in the US and isn’t going to be, the chances of them touring stateside are minimal at best. Which is why I was really excited when I discovered that fabchannel.com has made available the video of a complete Pipettes show that they played in Amsterdam earlier this year.
The audio isn’t perfect — the balance between the vocal mics is especially off — but as it’s the closest I’m going to be able to come to seeing them live for a very long time, I’m really happy anyway. Seriously. Don’t interrupt me. I’m gonna go watch them play “Pull Shapes” again.
Ok guys, in case you didn’t already know (and you totally did), Superstarcastic is officially WAY more awesome than Pitchfork. I know what you’re thinking: Dur! Totally! But now I have proof! All you have to do is read their review of the new My Chemical Romance track, “I Don’t Love You” to see that Pitchfork is CLEARLY out of touch. Seriously, click the link. Listen to the song. You can stream the whole album right there.
Now I invite you, dear SSC readers, to post your own review of this track (or the album as a whole), right here in the comment section. Hell, make your own post! Don’t hold back. I want to hear a detailed description of why this song/album sucks. Give it to me straight, people. And, if you happen to LIKE the song, now is your chance to defend it! We’re snobs, but snobs make their own rules, so defend what you want.
Now is your chance to win all those coveted albums. Give me your monologues, your diatribes, your verbal diarrhea! Ready, set, go!
Look, it’s critically important that i not be the only one here who endures this, so here you go:Â
Limp Bizkit performing Prince’s “1999″ in Seattle in 1999
I apologize in advance.
OK, no i don’t.
OK, the “breaking” part is a joke, since tour ended almost a month ago. Anyway, you may not have heard, but i play in a rock band what occasionally buys a cheap, dilapidated van and makes an effort to tour two to three weeks out of the year, since it’s all the time we can get off work. Ah, yes, the glamorous life of an indie rocker. Anyway, i’m not here to blab about myself (which may shock those of you who know me fairly well). Instead, i thought it may interest a few of you looking for some hott, obscure new music to check out a few of the amazing bands we met up with on tour–bands making a quality racket in front of 8 people in a Lansing, MI living room, 11 kids in a punk rock library in Huntsville, or maybe a couple dozen kids in a masonic temple on Long Island. Yeah, we play all the hippest venues.
Make Love to the Judges with Your Eyes is perfect background music for drawing ponies and rearranging your glass unicorn collection, and that description should be enough to tell you whether you’ll like it or not.
Also, in the grand tradition of bands like Ultravox(!) and Frente(!), Pony Up seem to have quietly lost their exclamation point between the release of last year’s EP, Pony Up!, and this year’s full-length. Not sure what that means, just thought I’d throw that out there.
Anyway, Pony Up are working within the cuddlecore template laid down in the ’90s by bands like cub and that dog. The difference is that a) they’re more technically adept — the sort of I-can-barely-play-my-guitar glory that gave cub a good deal of their charm is nowhere in sight, replaced by a polished professionalism, and b) they’re not at all interested in the noisier, scream-and-distortion part of the equation, choosing instead to focus on hummable melodies, cute keyboard riffs, and vocals that all sound like they’re delivered by the girl in freshman homeroom who wore different pink ribbons every day of the week. Also, the drummer seems to have spent a lot of time listening to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, because she’s got that whole vaguely out-of-place indie disco sound copied down to the note.
It’s not a perfect album, but the high points are very good indeed. Aside from the beautiful title, the lead single, “The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Is That They Die),” is a shimmering bit of crush-pop goodness, with a sighing guitar line leading into a stomping chorus followed by a priceless set of “ooh-wa-ooh”s. I’m a sucker for “ooh-wa-ooh”s, and these are excellent ones. Coincidentally, my second-favorite song on the disc, “Possible Harm,” also has some “ooh-wa-ooh”s in the middle. If their next album is called “Ooh-wa-ooh,” I’m gonna have it pre-ordered six months before it comes out.
They’ve got a few moments where they’re trying too hard — “Dance for Me” is nice enough musically, but it’s pretty difficult for me to get my mind around the disconnect between the innocent-kid vocals and the rather more mature lyrics: it’s distracting rather than interesting. Also, “Pastime Endeavour” (they’re Canadian, so they do have an excuse for spelling it that way) has lyrics that are so sterotypically 8th-grade-diary level that they look like a joke. “Keep my mouth shut / this secret’s well kept / now I’m done dying” …yeah. I wouldn’t have put that one on the album, ladies.
But by my count, I liked 8 of the 11 songs, which is a pretty good percentage, and if you’ve got a soft spot for this kind of music (which I do, if you can’t tell), you’ll probably think it’s great.
Rating: 7/10
