I think this might be the first ever Destroyer music video (not counting Myriad Harbor). I've always wondered what kind of sensibility his videos would have.
This is awesome, definitely beats my dad's Mannheim Steamroller CDs.
And unless Andrew W.K. wrote Silent Night, I'm pretty sure there are covers here too. The Walkmen cover is part of the same series, I think they just didn't want to link to all the songs in order to save space.
I feel like Sleigh Bells deserved inclusion. I didn't really pay attention to them until the album version of "Tell 'em" was released. I now know about all the CMJ hype, but I feel like until an artist has released official material (not demos or live recordings) there isn't enough material to base discussion on. I'm sure people at CMJ were talking about them, but for 99% of the current Sleigh Bells fans that weren't there, Sleigh Bells was a 2010 thing.
I also feel like James Blake should be on here, he's produced some brilliant stuff, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't too talked about until January.
That said, this seems like a pretty fair and balanced list, good job! I like that it's in alphabetical order, ranking "best new bands" seems like a task that would necessarily involve a lot of arbitrary placement.
pop fun? How about: "Are you far too depressed now / to even answer the phone? / I guess you just want to / Shave your head, have a drink, and be left alone (Is that too much to ask?)"
The songs may have sounded "fun", but the lyrics on Hissing Fauna were very specific and powerful because they were about a real world conflict. When Kevin shifted into Georgie Fruit, it was a defense mechanism to distract himself from his pain. There was something real about the schizophrenic nature of Hissing Fauna's back half-- By suppressing his problems instead of dealing with them, Kevin ended up in an even more unstable place.
Now that the real life conflict with his wife has been settled, this Georgie Fruit character and the music he makes seem a bit unnecessary. Instead of being Kevin Barnes' unstable, imaginary hiding place, the music now just seems to be Kevin Barnes stringing together as many provocative sounding phrases as he can.
Don't get me wrong, I found Skeletal Lamping (and for the most part, this new one) to be IMMENSELY entertaining. And when it comes to stringing together provocative sounding phrases that reference college level math, literature and philosophy, no one does it better. But 2.5 albums into this, it's getting a little stagnant. Even if he doesn't come out with another record as powerful as Hissing Fauna (which I'm fine with, I don't want Kevin to be that sad!) I think he needs to take a hard look in the Eagle-Shaped Mirror, find a way to shed this Georgie Fruit character and write an album that doesn't lean so hard on these prince-ish joke things.
I love Panda, but I feel like Avey gets cast aside too often as the "difficult, screamy" member of Animal Collective. His stuff on Strawberry Jam is some of my favorite Animal Collective material. I seriously can't wait to hear his solo stuff.
I severely underestimated Beach House. My friend convinced me to wait up front for their set instead of seeing Girls, and I'm so happy I did, they killed. However, Major Lazer was the biggest surprise for me this weekend. I heard about their set at SXSW, but I never thought a hype man and his dancers could keep a crowd occupied (<-understatement) for a whole hour.
Pavement was fantastic, but when I walked away from the set, I didn't feel nearly as blown away as when I walked away from LCD Soundsystem. Although that probably has more to do with the fact that the second half of Pavement's set was pretty mellow.
I also have to say, I think a lot of people underestimate how well we "young people" know pavement. I mean, yeah, we weren't there when it all happened, but with between the reissues and the B-sides and EPs that came with them, Pavement have done an excellent job of accidentally grooming a new generation of fans. Pretty much everyone up at the front with me was my age (20ish to 20-something) and we all sang along with almost every song. It also probably helped that they weren't as sloppy as they were back in the day (I've seen Slow Century, and yeah, I was a little worried).
The player Stereogum has been using never seems to work for me. Instead of playing, a tiny bit of text pops up next to the song title saying: "Link failed, d'oh! 404?"
I'm in the US, on a Mac, with Firefox. Anyone else have this problem?
As much as I love her music, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed in Annie Clark. I understand that that essay was written about a lecture in the '60's, but for all my "look for the deeper message" skills, I cannot see how it is relevant to this issue or even this time period.
Ignoring the fact that it makes repetitive use of outdated terms, the essay seems to divide the field this way:
-Straight white men who want to make self-indulgent art that no one will like
-Homosexuals, Women, Jews and other minorities who just want to make fun art for everyone, but the straight white men don't like it.
First of all, both of these groups have made tons of "commercial" art. This is undeniable fact.
Next, the essay assumes that we live in a culture that despises commercial art. This is absolutely false.
And finally, this article is criticizing Straight white men for hating "Commercial Art" aka pop music. CocoRosie is not pop music. Now, right about here you could rip apart my argument and claim that this is merely my opinion.
I don't particularly dislike CocoRosie, but you could really never call them pop music. If you can, and claim they are the pop music we are "repressing" with our "crazy art music that nobody enjoys", I'm just not going to talk to you.
But if straight white men are making such stuffy, unlikable, uncommercial art... why are bands like the Strokes selling out Madison Square Garden?
I really want to hate these guys-- I mean what kind of band name is "Suckers"? And the Jack Black guy has a really obnoxious voice-- but I'm finding it hard to do so.
This is clearly just a dis track thrown together because of the interview. Getting upset over the quality is like complaining about the quality of a free mixtape or an old demo that an artist posted on their blog.
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