Comments

I'm a month late to this, but I just read this comment earlier today and checked out that EP, and holy shit it's good. Thanks for the rec!
Very cool. Love the low-key (no pun intended) piano that pops up at the bridge. Crab Day is one of my favorites of this year—one of those happy genre-less records that is completely of its own voice, current trends be damned. I'll take all the leftovers they can muster!
34 here, although I think your question might be better suited towards those still in their 20s... I feel like anyone currently hovering around 35 is basically at Peak Belle & Sebastian in terms of when we got into them, generally all getting into college or late high school just as B&S were becoming less of a Secret and more of a Thing in the US. Personally I was introduced in 2000 right as Fold Your Hands Child was released. I remember downloading a bunch of songs, and feeling that Sinister was the obvious cream of the crop in their discography (although in my opinion, "Jonathan David" is their unimpeachable masterpiece). As for Boy WIth The Arab Strap, I've honestly never had much opinion about it; it's one of their more forgettable records in my opinion. But to me, Sinister, and surprisingly Dear Catastrophe Waitress, are B&S's only two perfect albums. All the others have a handful of duds on them that keep them from reaching the same level. Still, they're on my short list of all time favorite bands. But also I'm a snob. SIDE NOTE: As far as this idea of B&S being a gateway to 90s kids' embrace of softer, non-aggressive music, by 2000 I had already been primed for that world by Elliott Smith's XO (and Good Will Hunting soundtrack before that), as well as the Eels' Electro-Shock Blues. Neither were quite a pillowy soft as B&S, but they were definitely the records that made teenage blockhead me appreciate a more gentle palette in my music.
I don't know what I think anymore! After leaving those comments, I went back (confused) to iTunes to scan through the last three, and I realize I actually confuse and mix up a lot of them, which maybe says something about their interchangeability? Either way, I feel like Women As Lovers was a peak, and the last three haven't quite satisfied me. Also I realize that Knife Play is a lot more screwy than I seemed to remember. I just have this driving 4/4 beat in my mind when I think of it, but that's not really the case. Point is: Xiu Xiu clearly fucks with my mind. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Oh wait, I totally forgot about Angel Guts! Hah. So forget the thing about Dear God I Hate Myself, really I meant that Always and Angel Guts are the poppiest. Goes to show how their records have been slipping a bit lately.
It's hard to really pin Xiu Xiu down album to album, but in general, they've been slowly moving towards this more structured pop sound more as the years go on. The last two, Always and Dear God I Hate Myself are probably the most pop heavy, though I don't particularly love either of them. The thing with Xiu Xiu is that almost every album of theirs has at least one or two absolute perfect pop gems on it, even if it's surrounded by more 'difficult' noisey stuff. For what it's worth, I think Women As Lovers is my favorite of all their albums, followed by Knife Play (which is maybe one of their most straightforward 'pop' albums, despite being their debut). It's not necessarily 'synth pop', but the songwriting and melodic structure of that record knocks my socks off, particularly "I Do What I Want When I Want," which is their masterpiece as far as I'm concerned (apologies to "I Luv the Valley OH!")
Hah, I was listening to this thinking, "I bet these guys have listened to a Hum record or two in their day," and only now realized there was actually a Matt Talbott connection there. Cool song, I like these guys.
I like that attitude! People shit on Lars because like, yeah he's not a master technician. He's not Neil Peart or Brann Dailor or Dave Lombardo. But the dude was the co-writer and backbone of the greatest songs of an entire genre. His drum parts are never necessarily the BEST or FASTEST or TIGHTEST, but they're more often than not the CORRECT parts for the composition. It's just in these last couple albums, in the band's desperation to get 'back to thrash basics' or whatever they're trying to do, he's no longer playing the correct Lars parts for the compositions, he's trying to be fast and hard and Lombardo-y, instead of doing what works.
Instrumentally and musically I like this WAY more than "Hardwired". Vocally and lyrically... yikes. But then the chorus almost redeems it. Finally getting a little melody back into the mix. Still, not terribly exciting.
Neat animation though.
I think Green Day has made great music in the past, and have the ability to make more great music, but yikes they are on a cold streak and this isn't helping. Funny that the best thing they've done in the last decade (IMHO) was when they were pretending to be a different band entirely.
I love how at about 3:40, you can see that Soundcloud waveform jump, and you're sitting there like, "Yes, yes, come on, get to that bar, get to that bar." Which makes me think, when do we start making Soundcloud include spoiler warnings?
Okay. We all immediately thought "Band On The Run", right?
I'm surprised that the consensus seems to be for Cubist Castle! I always assumed Black Foliage was their obvious best work, and that everyone else thought that too! Not that I often have conversations with OTC fans or anything.
FOLLOW UP: I remember randomly listening to Chevelle's first(?) album at a record store listening station back then, and was SO PISSED that it was SO OBVIOUS that these losers were clearly trying to sound exactly like Tool. I never gave them another thought (or listen) until just now. And I'm not so sure anymore. The singer maybe has some Maynard-isms in his delivery, but otherwise it's mostly some fairly standard bro-y 90s heavy alt-rock. So maybe quote was correct.
re: "The only band Tool really influenced at the time was itself." ... Chevelle would like to have a word with you.
The rare album that you can be embarrassed for liking a little too much in high school, yet still defend passionately as an adult.
Agree that the pace of Atlanta is very different than 30 Rock, but I think the humor and jokes are actually in a similar vein. Smart and thoughtful and a little bit surreal, and they move on from them before you've even realize they've landed. Only difference is 30 Rock moves on to the next joke, while Atlanta might move on to some dramatic contemplation.
S U R V I V E is this generation's The Rembrandts.
They also managed to misspell "Elliott" in the contributor credits. Eek.
Trying to spread the gospel! Same thing happened when Death Magnetic came out. You just see comment threads full of "Hell yeah, sounds like old MetallicA again, fuckin heavy and fast!," when like, no, it doesn't sound anything like that, it sounds like they're trying to keep pace with other (lesser) bands that they themselves influenced, even though that's a contest they're not built to win. As much as they've become the butt of jokes, James and Lars and Kirk are honest to god musicians, but their confidence has been totally shot. I almost want to write a 33 1/3 book on Load. I think the backlash they got from cutting their fucking hair completely unraveled them and their ability to judge their own work. When they should've said "fuck you, we'll make whatever music we want to make" and kept on their own path, they instead got scared and defensive and said, "Naw, we're still hard, see, listen to this shit!". I'd rather have a collection of weird psych-country-blues-whatever they were naturally moving towards than a couple totally thin records of James Hetfield yelling fuck and Lars attempting blast beats.
Problem here, and with Death Magnetic (and probaby St. Anger, though that was a whole different can of worms), is that they just seem desperate to be loud and fast and angry suddenly, to appease the masses of people who complained that they were no long loud and fast and angry. But what made Metallica great wasn't just being loud and fast and angry. It was composition, melody, harmony, arrangement. Yeah, some of it was fast, and some of it might have been angry. But it was a whole package. Suddenly they've gone through decades of lunkheads complaining that they're "too soft" or whatever, and they give us this nonsense. "We're so fucked. Shit outta luck." What? Death Magnetic was full of fast riffing and somewhat complicated structures, but it was all noise. There was nothing behind it like there used to be. Same goes with this. I might be the only person to ever actually defend Load (but not ReLoad), but I truly think it was a fine album, with good songs and interesting moments. But the fact that everybody yelled at them for trying something different leads us to "We're so fucked, we're outta luck." Old guys trying to relive something instead of daring to try anything new.
I don't say this to be be an Old Man Yelling At Cloud, but it's interesting to me that, to this day, I couldn't sing or quote you a single Drake song, I don't know what Drake sounds like, if I heard Drake rapping directly into my ear while sitting on the bus, I'd have no idea it was him. Call me out of touch, whatever, point is: I don't think this would be the case with the previous generationally-significant mega-sellers you pointed out. Somebody could not be a Celine Dion fan, and still be able to sing all of My Heart Will Go On. Somebody could have no interest in pop music and still dance their butt off to Billie Jean. People who never owned a Prince record found themselves wiping away tears when he died. But, like, Drake? Really?
So when the (probably extraordinarily high-paid) executive at Apple goes to bed the night after making this deal, does he think to himself, "Boy, by securing this agreement to distribute someone else's creative personal expression solely through the channel operated by the half-trillion dollar international behemoth which currently employs me to the detriment of any other channel both small and large, which even three years ago would've been fully within its right to also distribute this piece of recorded music, I've truly done some good for the world today"?
THAT DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY EVERYONE THOUGHT SHE'S ALL THAT WAS SUCH A FUGLY NERD! SHE'S JUST WEARING GLASSES YOU GUYS! SHE'S STILL THE HOTTEST BABE IN THE SCHOOL! CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!?
As a fan of the Mountain Goats and a fan of Wolf In White Van and a upper-midwesterner who also manned the counter of a video store right at the peak of She's All That's VHS popularity, this excites and intrigues me.
I'm as big of an Opeth fan as anyone, but I'm having a hard time with where they've landed in the last few releases. I totally appreciate their willingness to follow their (or at least Mikael's) muse, to try new things, but it's starting to feel a bit aimless. And not even the prog vs. metal thing. Like, fine, throw in all the organs and clean vocals you want, that doesn't matter. But the songwriting, the riffs, the progressions, the transitions, everything that truly made Opeth great, is just getting less and less defined with these latter-day 'prog' releases of theirs. Even the opening riff of this song, it's like they just kinda picked 6 notes at random, shuffled between them for a bit, and said, "Hey, that's discordant and weird, let's record it!" Which, again, fine, it's good to mix it up and try out some weird shit, but it seems like we're about to get the 3rd album in a row of that. Just a little exhausting.
I hesitate to make fun of old Angelfire/Tripod/Geocities sites, because hey, that's just how things were back then. But take a look at that second one... check out the date on it... 2005. Yikes.
"Inventive synth work."
Can't wait for their big stadium tour with The Drums, The Microphones, The Amps, and Lance Bass.
Wow, I really like both of these Saxophones songs that have been released here. Really nice stuff.
Ooh, the bridge really does it for me. And everything post-bridge. Love these guys.
17th Street was great, albeit in a "Do I like this? Is this awful or amazing? I'll go with amazing" kind of way. Excited for this new one.
"What the world needs now is another synthpop duo like I need a hole in my head"
I'd go farther and say it's like the kid stole your Zelda cartridge and then DIDN'T APOLOGIZE (I saw no such apology from Ticketmaster, they're basically saying "We're rigorously fighting this lawsuit but decided to settle therefore here are your vouchers"), and then offered you a new game to make up for it, and lets you pick between either his "Dirt Track Go Karting" or "Pro Basketball" Tiger Handheld game. Without batteries.