I think it's hard for the kids today to realize how much REM were worshiped back in the earlier half of the 90s. I don't think it's an understatement to say that REM was basically what rock bands wanted to be back then, even if they didn't really sound like REM at all. I think of New Adventures in HIFI as basically being their White Album, and really as something of a epilogue to the story of the original generation of American indie rock artists.
As long as we're drawing comparisons, the album this reminds me of is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot... precisely it reminds of the moment I first heard "Poor Places" as a fluke on WXRT way before the leak and I kind of felt like friendly, reliable Wilco had been pulled out into a string of particles along the event horizon of a black hole. This whole album is "Poor Places."
I feel like that part in 2001 where they're watching the monolith that's just been sitting there God knows how long doing nothing and suddenly it's screaming.
I'd say "Your Best American Girl" is (so far) maybe the song of the year, yet I can't imagine it as song of the summer. I feel like song of the summer has to be something you could at least somewhat plausibly play at a BBQ. "Your Best American Girl" would make for a pretty sad and reflective BBQ.
"The question, in my mind, is what 50 years from now looks like. These pop things used to be disposable." My guess: people will eventually gravitate to more tonally/rhythmically/etc. complex music as they get more free time due to automation.. With all that free time, you might ask well learn an instrument, and the second you get halfway good at it, you start understanding the nuances in jazz, classical, etc. But that's just a guess.
I hate to be all negative, but... is "Sound Of Silver" the last great New York album? I mean, there's kind of a "New York" genre that runs from the Velvet Underground onward through the Dolls and Television and Sonic Youth up to the Strokes, etc. I really feel like this album is the end of the line and the epitaph.
I was all set to defend "Community of Hope," and then I actually listened to it, and I was like... meh. I don't get the sense that she made the same imaginative leap like she did with "Let England Shake." I think the only way to make a defense of the song is that it's somehow about seeing a crummy situation and feeling bad but not really being able to do anything about it. Not that I'm saying I would make that defense.
The bands you list (Titus, etc.) are all great, but for most, their best album is probably behind them. At this point they're all trying to do an "Automatic for People," not a "Murmur." Not quite as exciting. As a depressive caucasian bro, I have to admit that depressive caucasian bro rock is kinda having a bit of a rough patch, and that makes me depressed.
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