Just chiming in to say that I was at their show at Elsewhere a couple of nights ago, and I actually found myself enjoying the new material a lot more live than I did the album versions.
My defense of her songwriting is that there's really not a need to "defend" something I like, since appreciation of all art is more or less subjective. Hope that helps.
God, this is such horrible news to wake up to. Frightened Rabbit's music helped me, like many others, through some rough times. Depression is such a motherfucker.
Rest in peace, Scott. You left a mark.
People here are really serious about the album cover. Question: Has a bad album cover ever actually affected your enjoyment of a record? I mean, if the music is good...who cares?
I actually find the top two lines of each day really interesting, but both Friday and Saturday drop pretty hard off a cliff for my tastes.
Basically, if you're not into electronica and DJs, the undercard is something of a vast wasteland.
I really need to see these guys live, again. I dig what I've heard from them, so far, but when I saw them at Panorama last year, whoever was mixing the sound did a terrible job, and you could pretty much hear nothing but a wash of bass.
Side note: Their drummer is an alien being.
I once peed after him in a stall at Terminal 5. I'm happy to report that he flushed and, judging by the unsullied state of the surrounding floor, had impeccable aim.
This is one area in which I'm hoping the whole NYC festival war between Governors Ball/The Meadows and Panorama will pay some dividends. All of them have a real incentive to make a splash, lineup-wise. The return on that this year was pretty damn stellar, with unique experiences like Tool at GovBall, Frank Ocean and Tame Impala at Panorama, and Gorillaz (and, I'd guess, Jay-Z, although I only went on Saturday and Sunday and so didn't witness it personally) at the Meadows.
As Ken Watanabe said in Godzilla (2014), "Let them fight."
Just wanted to add my voice to the "This was a fantastic show" chorus. I've seen the National four times, now, and this was the tightest and most energetic they've been, by my lights.
This is an excellent write-up...but, I have to ask, was the self-loathing and awareness of one's own impending obsolescence all that subtextual in "Losing My Edge?" It's kind of right there in the lyrics. The real subtextual irony there is that the guy writing those lyrics is just 32 years old, but is talking like someone experiencing a midlife crisis. That's the cost of being a part of a world invested in "coolness," I suppose. I still remember playing an acoustic show on my 30th birthday and thinking I'd probably be winding down with the whole music thing, soon. Such a jerk, I was.
No sting on my end, really. It's just that I don't feel like Murphy owes me anything one way or another. He doesn't owe me the continuation of a musical project he feels like retiring, he doesn't owe me a "legitimate" reason for retiring it, and he doesn't owe me staying retired when he feels like coming back. LCD Soundsystem's *music* means a lot to me, but they, as individuals, don't - I've known for years that Murphy is a neurotic, sometimes pretentious, sometimes asshole-ish control freak who's impossible to work with if he doesn't have absolute say about everything and who obsesses over himself to the point of absurdity, as would anyone who's read anything about the guy for the past two decades. None of what I'm reading now changes that one way or the other. But, man, he puts out some great records and puts on a hell of a rock show. That's really all I'm asking of him.
The problem with the Trump analogy is that we're talking about a guy with the power to directly affect people's lives through policy and through his bully pulpit. James Murphy makes pop records. Sure, pop records are important to people - they're important to me - but trying to say it's in any way the same as sticking with a president who supports white supremacists is one hell of a straw man.
Perhaps, but...so? Your standard record collection that includes any artist from the past two decades probably contains several releases by egomaniacs. Jack White is a raging egomaniac, but people aren't always up in his shit about it as if he owes it to his listeners to not be.
I still think he doesn't...or, maybe, I think people just invest too much in this. For one thing, I think this story takes a couple of quotes out of a larger tale and makes it seem like his ending the band was just a lark to drive ticket sales when, elsewhere in the NYT interview, he also goes into the idea of wanting to walk away before it was the band's turn to put out something that didn't measure up to its previous output.
I mean, look, do I think James Murphy is an angelic being of pure goodness descended from the heavens to grace us all with his benevolence? Of course not. He is a human person and, by all accounts, something of a troubled human person. Maybe he has some stupid ideas. Maybe he thought one thing for a while and then changed his mind without taking into consideration how changing his mind would affect some people...but I also think that it's not his responsibility to think about that, or his "legacy," or any of that crap. It's his art - he can do what he wants with it.
Personally, I'm just happy there's a new record and I got to see a bunch more shows from a band I really like. Oddly, I don't feel jerked by the dick at all.
42, I've seen them three times in the past couple of years, and all were great shows. They were in the top three sets I saw at Governors Ball this year, and "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales" is a monster song.
TL;DR - Your take is bad and you should feel bad.
This was my first Nine Inch Nails show, and I was absolutely blown away. "I Can't Give Everything Away" gave me actual, physical chills, "Head Like a Hole" felt like group therapy for thousands of people all at once, and "Hurt" legitimately made me cry. 10/10 would be atomized again.
I don't particularly like Coldplay and I love Cloud Nothings, but this was bullshit. If they wanted to jerk off, they could have done it in the privacy of their own homes.
Comments