As far as I can tell, the code say they expire(d) on the 18th, and the list of shows is nearly impossible to browse/search, and they say there are only a "limited amount" of them anyway. Somehow Ticketmaster has managed to make even this generous offer seem like a complete scam. Don't know why I expected anything different.
Wow, I hadn't heard he signed to Sub Pop! That self titled record of his was a total brain-melt. It gave me very pleasant Olivia Tremor Control vibes that I thought were basically extinct in the 21st century. I worry a little bit about Sub Pop watering him down (speaking of centuries, who would've said THAT in the 20th?), but we'll see. There's enough weirdo collaging happening at the tail end of this one, maybe it will turn out for the best. Either way, I'm happy for the dude, and I've got a good feeling about this one!
Trust Fund was probably my favorite new discovery of last year! Beautiful songs, great sense of melody, totally solid power pop (or whatever you want to call it). This song feels like it's right in line, but I worry it feels a little rushed? Like, awesome, you got a decent demo recorded, but maybe take some time to clean things up for the album release! We're listening—go plug in another mic or two !
Am I crazy or is this really good? It's not terribly different than what was on their last couple albums, but strikes me immediately as being better than any of that stuff. I like it!
(I'd also clump Alice in Chains' self titled dog album into this statement as well, even though that was late 1995. Really great and underrated album. Way better than Dirt IMO.)
I've always loved this album. It's never been a particularly cool one to endorse, but I think it's quality, top to bottom.
1996 in general was a vastly underrated year for Big Huge Commercial Rawk Music. You have Metallica, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots, all seemingly 'past their heyday' releasing totally solid, if not career-pinnacle albums, that were generally laughed off or ignored by the music tastemakers of the time, because they all go a slightly different route than the bands' previous heavy, anthemic stuff; a little more thoughtful, musical, heady. Honestly I think No Code is possibly Pearl Jam's best album—though I'll accept arguments for Ten—Tiny Music is STP's best album, and Down on the Upside is Soundgarden's best. (And look, obviously Load was not and will never be considered a "career-pinnacle", but I dare say it's a whole lot better than nearly anybody gives it credit for.) I still spin all of these at least once a year (okay, Load maybe once every 2 years), and they're all still wonderful 20 years later!
Weird year for music, but seriously those four pulled off minor miracles, even if most people never appreciated it.
I don't know. Most of Acid Rap and Surf (not his album technically, but close enough) felt vital and vibrant. This feels like 14 tracks of trying to fit in with his famous friends, and dulling his spark in the meantime. Not terrible, but I'm just finding myself bored with nearly every track. "Finish Line" is fun though.
I can't really speak for Mirage, but I've recently been spinning Lindsay Buckingham's first solo album (and ostensible Tusk follow-up) Law And Order, and it's pretty great. It basically takes all the weirdo-pop elements of Tusk and runs with them, with a much smaller recording budget. I feel like it hasn't really gotten its 15 minutes of Indie-Rock-Cred-Album-Reference status yet, but it's due. Either way, Buckingham was definitely following a freaky siren in those years. Love it.
"Metal has become, in a lot of ways, a zero-sum game, everyone trying to perfect their chosen subgenre or find ways to out-brutalize everyone else."
I agree with this statement! I love (the idea of?) metal more than a lot of people do—I'd claim Opeth, Mastodon and Metallica as being 3 of my all time favorite artists of any genre—but the hit/miss ratio is gigantic for me. It just seems to be a world of bands absolutely obsessed and beholden to subgenre. Just go through the iTunes metal section and you can pick out exactly what each band sounds like based on their artwork. "These guys are gonna be black metal with more folky elements... these guys are gonna be stoner metal... these other guys are also gonna be stoner metal, but with some spacey prog synths thrown in... these guys are going to be thrash revivalists," on and on. And then even when you get somebody like Kvelertak here, who isn't afraid of things like major chords and melodic leads, they go and toss some extreme cookie monster vocals over the top, and it's completely incongruous in a completely boring way (to me!). It might be technically competent, and gets metal music writers and critics excited to play cite-the-influence, but it feels way too "safe." I'm dying to hear metal bands who are actually doing something new, and smart, and thoughtful, and outside of the tired arithmetic of "glam + viking metal + metalcore vocals".
Love the cover art though!
Loved (loved [loved]) their first album. I think it was my favorite record of 2014. But these first two singles are hugely disappointing to me! Noisy electronic maximalist kitchen sink nonsense. I don't know. It's 2016, this stuff isn't new or unique anymore. Everybody with a Macbook and a mixer can play. Gist Is was thoughtful and melodic and carefully created by talented musicians playing together in a room. It moved and ebbed and flowed, it had space and heart, and (despite comparisons to Dirty Projectors and the like) came off as a totally unique, organic, beautiful piece of music. This just kinda sounds like Centipede Hz and Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavilion all being played at full volume the same time.
Trilogies that began and ended in between the first two Maxwell trilogy albums:
- Twilight
- The Hunger Games
- The Hobbit
- Captain America
- The Hangover
- The Expendables
- Atlas Shrugged
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish)
Worth it!
Also just have to mention... having been following these guys since Failure broke up and buying their handmade 'Demonstration' disc off their website 12-13 years ago, it's SO surreal seeing them perform on a network talkshow. Cool to see a band 'make it,' especially when they've clearly not cared one bit about 'making it' since day 1.
Granted it's probably been a solid decade since I've seen them live, but Autolux absolutely does kick volumes of ass on stage. Especially for a trio. They're total pros, and clearly know how to engineer their sound in a live setting. Really one of the great under-appreciated bands of the 2000s.
(I'm sure I'll somehow regret this comment, or else have it lost forever after this story leaves the front page, but here we go...) So obviously there's 100 different angles to take on the whole #OscarsSoWhite thing, but part of it that I haven't really seen anyone mention is situations just like this, where there are probably hundreds of young, talented, eager-to-make-a-name black actors who would be great for this role (and others), and yet they just give the part to a rapper, either because he has name recognition, or the showrunner is friends with somebody, or some production company owes a favor to a record company, who knows. Joey Bada$$, nothing against him, he's a great rapper, performer, all that, but he's not a trained actor, is he? What can he really bring to that role? How can a great unknown black actor ever create a body of work when half the parts go to Joey Bada$$ and Andre 3000 and Common and Mos Def and Ludacris (and Ice Cube and Ice T and on and on... granted those guys are all older, but you still see Chance getting some roles, A$AP Rocky has had a couple things, etc.). And I guess there's a history of the two intermingling, with Will Smith obviously being the most successful of them. It just seems that, tying it all back to this Oscars thing, of course you're not going to get as many great roles/performances from black actors when half of the parts they could be getting (and yes, there are 100 other reasons, but I'm just focusing on this one) are being filled by guys who aren't even actors to begin with, as glorified cameos with a much lower bar for greatness, while real trained, experienced actors are left out in the cold. Just a thought.
Commenting on this mostly because it seems as if the only thing getting comments on this site lately is Kanye news, Grammy updates, or general pop music gossip and/or sniping (or gossip related to pop music sniping), and I'm bummed that Eleanor Friedberger news has a sad little '0 Comments' underneath it. So here's my comment: Eleanor Friedberger is the best.
Worth noting, this is still a fantastic festival lineup. But last year's was a work of art in itself. I'm not a huge Bon Iver fan, but that dude can certainly curate with the best of them.
I saw a similar news story on a competitor's music site earlier today, and they too linked to a song from Port Of Morrow. "Port of Morrow?" I asked myself, "What's that?" I checked my iTunes library, and it only went as far as Wincing The Night Away. I checked the iTunes store, and sure enough, 2012, Port of Morrow. I totally forgot that record ever existed, so innocuous as at is. And at some point during a new-laptop transfer, I lost some iTunes files, so it disappeared from my life entirely and I apparently didn't even care. I guess what I'm trying to say is: I hope this new one is better than Port of Morrow.
More likely: The stock footage and stock photography worlds are full of that sort of thing. Not that it's laziness on anybody's part (either at Robitussun's ad agency or at Future's record label art department), because that's what stock is for, but just a bit of a peek behind the curtain of how most of the world's advertising sausage gets made.
I'll be so happy when this generation grows out of the "pronounce an R in every vowel like that Billie Holiday song I heard one time" vocal affectation. Or really, the "pronounce an R in every vowel like those other girl singers who started doing that 5 or 6 years ago after listening to an Amy Winehouse record" vocal affectation.
"When we introduced Diet Cig at the beginning of the year, they had barely played any shows and were just gearing up to release their debut." ...ladies and gentlemen, the state of 21st century music!
Comments