Not sure if Blochead's comment was trolling. But if not, the question of who is a better band is not even up for debate. REM has as high of a "bad" rate as U2? In what planet is that statement true?
REM has one terrible album (Around the Sun), several truly amazing albums (Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Life's Rich Pageant, Out of Time, Automatic, New Adventures in Hi-Fi), some borderline classics (Document, Green, Up, Reveal), and finally some ok "rock" albums (Monster, Accelerate, Collapse Into Now).
Compare that to U2. How many absolutely amazing U2 albums are there? Two: Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby. War and Unforgettable Fire are borderline classics sure, but not amazing. Zooropa and Pop are probably next best but inconsistent. October, and Rattle and Hum are not very good overall if we're being honest. Everything else doesn't even rate.
So yeah...not even close.
Nonsense. He'd cancel at the last minute after failing to get them to stop serving meat at the event. The real question is: since we know The Smiths would never reunite, who would play their songs?
If the Flaming Lips were on 'member berries there'd be a drum machine and a synth bassline. THEN it would sound like a Yoshimi song.
I dig the vibe and production but the tune wasn't at all memorable on first listen.
There are 3 perfect R.E.M. albums, and a few more great albums, some good albums, and only 1 bad ones. The perfect ones are (in order):
1. Murmur
2. Reckoning
3. New Adventures in Hifi
For me, New Adventures in Hifi was the first of their later period. Monster was an attempt at a mainstream rock album, whereas New Adventures was the first time in a while they just seemed to go back to being a band with no agenda and started screwing around with new sounds on every song. Plus, the songwriting is just insanely strong throughout.
1. I'd say, that's probably the norm for any kind of big budget rock album.
2. You kinda have to when you writing and recording piecemeal and assembling them in the studio, which they're admitting to. It's the only way things will line up. It's not like they had songs written and rehearsed then just went into the studio to capture them.
So how do I charge this thing while listening to music at the same time (like at work or the airport)? Or is that not allowed now? Or will Apple just sell me a two-pronged accessory?
Agreed on that point. The Blurred Lines suit was a TRAVESTY. They effectively ruled that Marvin Gaye owns a style and that a particular "sound" can be copywritten, even if you don't use the same melody/chords. It'd be like if The Beatles sued every band that ever wrote a Beatles-esque song (goodbye Apples in Stereo and Of Montreal).
The chord progressions are different (I Turn My Camera On goes from Am to C which is a three step jump and the Kelly Clarkson tune is E to G#m which is a four-steps), beyond that, they're not in the same key, and the melodies above the bassline are significantly different. So yeah, they probably nixed the sound, but it's not enough to convince me that whoever wrote/produced that Kelly Clarkson song did anything more other than to say, 'oh, that Spoon song's cool, let's do something like that" which is far from plagarism if you ask me.
You've successfully tricked me into listening to a Kelly Clarkson song. While yeah, I hear it too, at the same, it's just an octave jumping bassline. That's been a thing in rock/pop since at least the very first notes of Purple Haze and is all over new wave and dance pop hits from Gary Numan to New Order to Kylie Minogue. The only thing that makes the Kelly Clarkson and Spoon songs sound similar is the instrumentation and the tempo.
Google and Windows may take 30% off of app sales for using their store, but 1) Google doesn't require you to use their store (you need to crack an iOS device not to), 2) why isn't Spotify complaining about Google? My understanding is that as long as Spotify offers their app for free, they're not trying to take a cut of any subscriptions, whereas Apple is. In addition, Spotify is also alleging that Apple is holding back updates to the Spotify app.
Does Microsoft take 30% off the top off of Windows subs? Does Google do that on Android? If I sign up for/watch Netflix using my Mac browser, does Apple deserve to get 30%?
Why does an OS developer deserve any kind of cut on content being offered by third-parties? The anti-competitive motivations of Apple's "walled garden" should have been called into question years ago. Sure, one could argue, "if you don't like it, don't use iOS," but that argument didn't work with Windows and Internet Explorer, and I think it's even less valid here. Apple has clearly been abusing their market position as one of the dominating phone operating systems in the US and Europe, by extorting a cut of all subscriptions sold on their platform. It's about time they got called on this.
And of course Spotify will only be interested in how these rules apply to Spotify. That said, I'd be all for them bringing this into the courts and/or filing an FTC complaint.
Apologize for the horrible grammar...for some reason the typing window was tiny so proofreading went right out the window. Seeing the full post, I'm a little embarrassed.
There's something a little off about a company that help popularize the concept of a smartphone as a camera in every pocket and openly brags about its camera quality, then goes out of its way to create and patent technology to disable these features in their own products.
More importantly, I also really worry about the speech concerns around even developing technology that could disable these types of features on our phones. What would prevent an oppressive government from mounting this tech on tanks and flipping the infared switch to disable camera phones while they violently quell protests? Once that technology exists, there's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. So why create it in the first place? To potentially make a few bucks selling this tech to concert venues and crossing your fingers to hope it's never abused?
Let's hope Apple just rushing to patent the idea before someone else does and don't have any intention of implementing this.
There aren't many RHCP songs I like, but Scar Tissue beats anything on this list IMO. And no Breaking the Girl? I'd forgotten all about Soul to Squeeze until I played the embedded video above, but even that's a way better song than "By The Way," "Other Side," and "One Hot Minute."
Based on the tracks on the above list, some of which I hadn't previously heard, the author clearly has a thing for 90's-minor-key-moody-alt-guitar-rock. "Californication" has been, and always will be a terrible song. That could have just easily have been the Three Doors Down follow up single to "Kryptonite."
Should a song cost as much as an avocado though? Ask the millions of people worldwide living with hunger what the value of each is.
Ok, I'm off my high horse now (don't really care, just thought it was an assinine comment for him to make)...
Yeah, I think the point of using Adele as an example was "even though she's clearly an amazing singer, they still have to tune her voice to make her sound even more perfect, which leads to a more boring end product." He just didn't say it quite as well.
He's talking about voices being "manipulated" and a "sound to pop now that is so close to perfect it's boring." I'm pretty sure Mothballs hit the point on the head, and he's talking about tuning. I don't think this is a discussion about comping together the best takes, which would surely have been going on with Bowie and the other artists he produced.
Yes! Spoon is still pretty damn consistent and the last two Walkmen albums, in particular, are my favorite. Want to hear some blasphemy? I also think the last two Sonic Youth albums are their best (and by that I mean consistently listenable throughout).
It's so weird to hear them do a straight rendition of Creep in the same set with their new material. I half expected it to be a slow, piano based, symphonic re-working of Creep.
This post needs a different title. MP3 and Wav formats are far from dead and both are widely used. In fact, they both get more use today than they did 90's. Soundcloud, Spotify, and the like are basically just streaming MP3's (the same format you can purchase from iTunes and Amazon). And wav (.aif on Mac) is still the de facto format for digital audio recording/production, and has branched out to the point where consumers can even buy .wav versions of albums (see: A Moon Shaped Pool). So I'm not sure how either could even remotely qualify as dead formats.
Did Radiohead make an authorized copy of any of the original video? If no, then it's not a copyright violation. Thanks to the Blurred Lines lawsuit, now everyone thinks pastiche and parody are the same things as copyright violations, which they're not.
You're completely allowed under copyright law to create a work in the style of Shakespear, or Hemmingway, or the Beatles, or the Stones. That work, just by being in the style of another artist, is not a copyright violation. Take for instance David Bowie's "Rebel, Rebel." It's clearly done in the style of the Rolling Stones. As is the Dandy Warhol's "Bohemian Like You" riff. Mick and Keith aren't suing in either instance. How many other songs can you think of that sound "just like" another band, without actually stealing a chord progression or melody, etc.
The same logic holds true for video. You can make a music video in the style of Wes Anderson, or Trumption, and it's not copyright violation unless you actually used clips from the original It's like the world forgot that copyright laws are to prevent against unauthorized copies (originally books, but later music and film). If there's no copy, there's no copyright violation. Copying a style isn't a copyright violation.
Mac DeMarco's medical procedures are his, and his alone, to disclose. Stereogum could potentially violate HIPAA if there was any attempt to independently fact-check this story. The headlines stands!
FJM's public persona just reeks of media trolling schtick. "Hey, what's up with that that guy desperately seeking attention? If you want to talk about something real, let me talk to you about my beard, or my chest, my wit, or my wonderful fashion sense." FJM comes across as either an ego-maniac, or someone who thinks his own ironic inside joke (trolling) is just too clever for anyone to pick up. Lawd help him if that's his actual personality and he made those comments with no sense of irony.
I bought the With The Lights Out box set years back, and there was a bunch of similarly unlistenable Kurt solo demos on there. Unfortunately, this is a guy who didn't put much effort into demoing material, leaving us a lot of listenable material to pour over years later. I'm hoping somewhere out there, there's some interesting Nirvana in studio out-takes that were actually well recorded and worth a listen.
Could just be (a combination of all or any of the following):
1. The songwriting is solid (i.e. starting from a good base)
2. Some folks don't like hyper-produced modern pop music
3. Some folks, particularly on an "indie blog," are going to prefer the more stripped-down, rock style arrangements of these songs (particularly music that's somewhere between the Replacements, Springsteen and the Smiths)
4. Some folks might just like Ryan Adams in general
5. In some cases, the changes made to the arrangements and presentation of these songs might actually add to their emotional impact
But if you think the only thing that makes Taylor Swift's music interesting in the first place is the production, then yeah, I can see why you wouldn't like an alternate presentation of the album which strips that away. I also didn't realize there were rules that only classic albums could be covered. In my day, people might cover a song, or do an album of various covers, but covering a whole album wasn't even a thing.
On first listen, this is great. Ryan Adams is one of those artists that I always want to like more than I actually do. Every time I listen to a Ryan Adams album, I'll enjoy a few songs, but end up leaving disappointed. This on the other hand is fantastic, the songwriting is fantastic, but beyond that, the arrangements fit the songs perfectly. I hear a huge Replacements influence, along with some Smiths and Springsteen.
I can see this being one of my favorite albums of the year.
One more reason I think so many of us think "Yoshimi" with this album is Dave Fridmann, who produced/mixed Yoshimi and mixed Currents. While Kevin Parker produces the Tame Impala albums, Dave Fridmann is a huge part of the actual sonics.
I was in the (apparent) minority that felt that Innerspeaker was a better album than Lonerism. I always felt the latter was just too inconsistent, especially in relation to the amount of praise it received. Lonerism starts out weak, then hits a great stride in the middle of the album, with some of the band's best songs, then fizzles out in the end. Innerspeaker on the other hand doesn't quite have the highs of Lonerism, but is a much more enjoyable listen throughout.
That said, Currents is awesome. Cause I'm a Man, Let it Happen, and Eventually had all been on heavy rotation here, and I was looking forward to finally hearing the whole album and this did not disappoint.
I don't hear this as being quite the radical departure or quite the move into pop/R&B territory that this is made out to be. Just sounds like Kevin Parker is using his synths and drum machines more, and pushing them up in the mix. Synths have been a big part of Tame Impala since Innerspeaker, and were featured even more prominently on Lonerism, so this just seems like a natural progression to me. If anything, this is more Yoshimi than Kid A.
This still very much sounds like Tame Impala, and it's very much a psychedelic record, but what's perhaps most surprising is how accessible the songwriting is. I get the impression that dropping the guitars really forced Kevin Parker to focus on really finding the right vocal melodies, which are totally complimented by the insane musical arrangements. Great album...
She may go for the most obvious rhyme in her lyrics, but she's an incredibly gifted songwriter. I hold her melodies, progressions, and arrangements in high regard, and frankly, the lyrics fit well with the genre and content. I'd kill to have half of her songwriting abilities. So let ye amongst us who can consistently turn out better music cast the first stone.
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