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Dept. of Animal Band Names
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The first album Nels was on was Kicking Television. Seems like, being new to the band, Tweedy gave him a lot of leash to go crazy with the solos and try things out to change up their songs. I can’t think of any other record with that much awesome soloing from Nels (or Tweedy for that matter).
I think this section is more directed at record store owners and yupster, but you only need to answer YES to 10 to have a reconsideration of your life choices suggested. If you collect records at all, chances are that you can answer YES to at least 10.
He played a lot of these songs opening for Joanna Newsom (Montezuma, Sim Sala Bim, Batterie Kinzie, Helplessness Blues, Someone You’d Admire, The Shrine, Blue Spotted Tail). They all sounded really great live, but I wondered how he was going to squeeze the band arrangements into his complex alt-tuning strum patterns. The band has more than pulled it off. Seems like there are a lot less of Skyler’s guitar leads on this album though (which I really liked). I think the band made a really bold artistic move by toning that and all the pop slickness back. This feels like a lot more of a “Robyn” record dealing more with his uncertainties and desire to find a place in the folk tradition. He sings lead on every song and even harmonizes with himself this time! The band recorded the harmonies in omni but I can still hear Robyn’s voice above the others (I could hear the bassist a lot more on the first record). I’m really glad I went to go see Robyn on that tour. I was just getting into Joanna Newsom at that time, so it was a bit of a gamble as to whether I’d like the show. I’ve listened a lot to Joanna’s record “Have One on Me” since and I think the critics barely scratched the surface of a lot of the themes (Alcohol, Birth, The West, Clothing/Femininity) and lyrical greatness.
Is it just the dad-folk influences that Stereogum thinks are uncool or is it the whole earnestness/Existentialism thing?The questions Robyn brings up on the record are ones that we all have to answer. Dealing with uncertainty is a major theme of the album.
P.S. If you watch Nardwuar’s interview with Robyn you’ll find that his Dad was a local musician and not a wealthy software programmer.
“Personally the goal was to be a little more reverent of certain folk influences, rather than perverting them by putting them in too much of a pop context, or making them sound slick, which is how I sort of feel about the first record now. As you said, it had a traditional “aesthetic,” but not much of the substance of that older stuff. And there’s a lot of stuff on the record that isn’t like these songs at all. The Simon & Garfunkel comparisons are interesting to me because the only bands I had in mind when making the record were the bands I DIDN’T want it to sound like (stuff we got compared to last time)! Never thought about what it DID. Heh. Thanks for checking it out!”
I think Robin Pecknold sums up the more traditional folk sound of his record best. This album was about finding their place in the folk tradition, it’s not as much of a rock album as even the last one was. Anyone who has followed his facebook or twitter feeds would have seen that he’s been listening to a lot of Jansch, Renbourn and the like. When he opened up for Joanna Newsom he played a lot of the new songs from the record along with traditional folk numbers.
My thoughts on this column are mixed. It seems like this column was OKed mainly to further establish Stereogum as a voice of opposition against the easily targeted Pitchfork. Brandon Stosuy is the pitbull that has come racing out of his metal cage to sink his teeth into all that indie rock holds dear. Stosuy is my favourite metal writer on the ‘net, but it seems sometimes that he takes the aspects of what makes great metal music and uses it to judge indie-rock. This can lead to some refreshing perspectives, but it also leads to tunnelvision on issues where the ideals of indie and metal criticism overlap, and a shying away from the finer points of modern rock criticism.
I first listened to the album in the summer after hearing all the hype about it from my circle of friends. I usually wait for the hype to die down a little bit before I evaluate, but people keep telling me to listen to the album. Nothing really struck me in it. It was better than Neon Bible but it was boring and too long. I didn’t even notice how bad the lyrics were until I was singing along at their concert. I applaud Brandon for shining a much needed critical light on these lyrics that nearly slid away from analysis.
Arcade Fire are shooting for the rafters with their latest release. It’s big music meant to fill stadiums more than headphones. In the 90s, it was shameful for an independent band to have pop-impulses, but Pitchfork has worked hard to make it more acceptable. Dinosaur Jr. et al used to keep the squares out with Mascis’ wierd singing, but now it seems a mark of pride for bands to sound like they could be popular but aren’t. A lot of this music finds its way onto iPod commercials. Bands have eagerly gobbled up this freedom to make music of a more commercial persuasion. Arcade Fire are the poster boys for this and they have built up a large, solid fanbase in the independent music community. The Suburbs is the album in which they finally present themselves to the world. The question we must ask is are these universal lyrics made more acceptable in the context of pop ambition? Rihanna and Justin Bieber don’t make it to the top of the charts with esoteric subjects. Is this hit in quality of lyrics one we must take to see a quality band further their career? Do the universal lyrics enhance the enjoyability of the stadium catharsis/pop experience? This is essential dialogue in the dismissal of an album like The Suburbs that it would have been nice to hear more about in the article.
Butler sings “I want to wash away my sins in the presence of my friends” in Half Light (II). The music we listen to divides us into tribes enough. Butler wants everyone in the venue to place their experience within his map of the Suburbs. If they don’t understand the symbolism in the songs, they won’t know the meaning of the song enough to join in with the stadium-wide catharsis.
Arcade Fire know how to write about the suburbs well. The neighborhood series on Funeral proves that they are among the best. Power Out has some great imagery, the constant reference to electricity and light as missing forces within the heart is fantastic. A lot of casual fans just see it as an upbeat song about a literal power outage.
I was surprised at the audience response to “We Used to Wait” during the Arcade Fire show that I went to. The video had just been released like a day before, so there is no way that it could have spread that quickly across the entire fanbase. Everybody was singing along, it was probably the biggest singalong of the night. Great concept in the song; lame lyrics. It was at this point in the concert that I realized just how bad the lyrics were on the new album. The constant, forced repetition of the chorus can get really grating. These guys aren’t going for subtlety. Where it might take repeated listens to communicate the power of a song to the listener, the Arcade Fire had even the most casual fans singing their hearts out at the concert.
That Intelligentsia stuff is good shit. It’s consistently ranked among the best coffee shops in the world, and their policy of working with the communities that grow the beans instead of fair trade is eminently responsible. The concept of putting the Wilco name on one of their blends is somewhat questionable, but their coffee is delicious, plus they are working with a local Chicago company.
If we look back to the early history of music, we see that a lot of music was around mainly to facilitate stories and poetry. The lyre and flute (and later the harp) were used by traveling minstrels to add emotional heft and greater entertainment value to their heroic stories. This was the very beginning of folk music, and what I believe Newsom attempts to reference with her style. Her lyrics often tell epic stories (“Monkey & Bear”) or resemble traditional poetry (she actually covers Robert Burns’ “Ca’ The Yowes Tae The Knowes” with just her harp and voice live).
During the folk music revival of the 1960s, musicians such as Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger used music that resembled the backing of traditional folk songs to talk about contemporary issues. Art, a category in which music is included, is all about expression. Since music often attempts to express more than menial thoughts or feelings, and the guitar-bass-drums instrumental setup of most “Rock” music is usually too simplistic to articulate the complex thoughts or feelings that the musician wants to express vocals (which must carry lyrics to convey more meaning than just adding another instrument) are a very necessary addition. In early Rock’n'Roll, musicians had not begun to tap the vast range of expression available through rock music and usually sang something along the lines of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Classical music was often written by brilliant composers who could convey complex emotions with their large ensembles so it does not require a voice to articulate meaning. With classical music however, it is not as easy to comment on social issues like the Vietnam War.
Popular music has evolved a lot over the years and so have the lyrics that accompany it. Musicians like Bob Dylan have made Rock’n'Roll yearn for a wider range of lyrical topics. Nowadays, we often take for granted the well written lyrics we experience in contemporary music. Contemporary musicians are attempting to explore outside the boundaries of guitar-bass-drums-vocals and filtered through a post-modernist lens that (instead of creating an entirely new sound) leads us to post rock and Joanna Newsom.
My point is that the voice is more than an instrument and should be appreciated as such. It does have an interesting timbre that is different from person to person, and there is definitely a place for vocals without lyrics (a cappella etc). The voice can be an extremely evocative instrument, but to make truly great rock music (art) that has something to say we almost always need lyrics. Musicians today don’t usually have the large ensembles and theoretical knowledge to articulate their feelings without words.
In shoegaze, the vocals seem to be distorted and low in the mix for artistic effect. MBV for example are making an artistic statement about noise vs. melody. They are expressing a thought/feeling without words being really necessary. The words just help to contextualize the specific meaning of their songs, and add an abstract quality.
For all you tl;dr folks skipping to the end, my thoughts here can be summed up by saying that lyrics are necessary for contemporary music to express thoughts and feelings, and that better lyrics often lead to better art. They are important to have audible because then we can hear the commentary that the music makes and place it as a cultural document. When the lyrics are inaudible, this is also an artistic expression that figures into cultural relevancy. I find that pitchfork often judges too heavily based on how culturally relevant music is. Groups like MBV that expressed the disconnected feelings of the independent music scene of the early 90s, and modern musicians like Joanna Newsom reflect the folky zeitgeist of the late 00s and also the yearning for music outside of the guitar-bass-drums narrative, so they receive large amounts of critical acclaim from sites like pitchfork.
Great lyrics should not be the only focus of your music, but too many modern groups think that they can make powerful music with the lyrics buried in the mix.
I think you guys are not giving her music a chance on account of it being something that pitchfork hypes up too much, which is unfortunate. On the first few listens, it might be difficult to get the appeal, but to me at least the subtlety is what makes it interesting. She isn’t a rock musician, or even “indie-rock” so to try and understand her music through this lens misses the point. She is a classically trained folk harpist and her music has more in common with the timbres, textures, and harmonic complexity of jazz and classical than with guitar-pop. Neal Morgan’s tasteful, dynamic percussion really comes out live as do Ryan Francesconi’s sophisticated arrangements. Her singing voice can sometimes sound harsh, and her album concepts are often overly ambitious/pretentious, but if you can look past that she makes some wonderful, complex music. It’s not pop pleasure central. Her music almost seems like poetry reading with gentle accompaniment. My advice to stereogum readers is to not be so reactionist against what pitchfork thinks. Just because you disagree with pitchfork doesn’t make you a free thinker in the world of independent music. Backlash against Pitchfork is becoming as much of a hipster cliche as agreeing with it.
Stereogum doesn’t like Agnostics?
Indie Rawkers are firm in their Atheism.
They played this at their outdoor show in Vancouver during the Olympics. The sound wasn’t that great because they only had a 5 minute sound-check, but it’s good to hear that they’re back! The recorded version sounds much better.
It’s been nice to see the faces behind this blog! I’ve enjoyed the interviews immensely.
This is great. I saw them open for Grizzly Bear and they seemed like a pretty standard indie band, but this clip shows major potential for them.
i lolled
This is not a standalone clothing line, this is a collaboration Kings of Leon did with Surface to Air, like Justice did a few years ago. Surface to Air usually charges high prices for their clothing, so Kings of Leon did not create their own t-shirt and decide to sell it for $100+. That being said, the quality doesn’t seem that great, and the designs look like stuff you could find at H&M for much less.
Homelessness is a major problem in Vancouver, and our city’s leadership has failed spectacularly in dealing with it. While this has spoiled a lot of my potential enjoyment of the Winter Olympics, I won’t let it stop me from supporting artists whose music I enjoy independent of their signing of a silly contract.
There are far too few all-ages concert spaces in Vancouver, so I will take advantage of the fact that for a week or two this winter I will be able to see bands that would otherwise be playing 19+ Venues (I’m a minor). Vancouver has a lot of issues on its plate, and we will have to wait and see until after the Olympics to see how they are dealt with.
Best of 2010? Get out your “<” signs.
lol.
The annoying drummer detracts from my enjoyment of the song even more than Julian’s awkward stage moves. The drummer looks like the douchey hipster version of Kid Rock and Kevin Federline. The mix is crappy and thin, and they give Julian way too much space in the middle. If the musicians were closer to him, maybe they’d look more like an actual band, and he wouldn’t resort to silly dice rolling gestures to fill up space.
All this being said, I still really like the song. Dude needs to work on his live act though.
I was thinking about this too, and I would guess part of the reason for the low output over the last few years was that he is a little disenchanted with his statement that he would make an album for each U.S. state. Thus, he has been playing around with experimental jazz, and his original electronic roots. I am a Canadian, so I’m not much of an expert on obscure references to states, but he could fit a lot of this into an album about any state in particular. He has however said that he has been working on material for a couple states at a time, so each song might be focusing on a different state (if any at all). He could always surprise us and make an album without the whole “50 states” theme.
I think there was more of a tip of to this new sound other than just “You are the Blood”. If anyone heard the bootleg of this last years Christmas album that he did, it is filled with electronic bleeps and the like. The soundtrack for the BQE is also like this. This may seem like a big jump from Chicago, but after a 4 year break with a smattering of cryptic output, one might assume he was up to something.
It’s a good video, but I think it could fit the music better. Not quite what I was expecting from a MoMa debut.
What the hell is Taylor Swift doing on this list? Since when did complacency deserve any spot on a top 50 list?
I think a lot of blogs haven’t done much of a writeup because there’s been no information from the band about whether its going to be part of their upcoming album, so there is no context to place it in. People are probably waiting for more information from the AnCo camp before they give it a larger writeup