Fantastic writeup! Perfect article to drink coffee over on a snow day here in Portland.
The song that was always the most memorable for me on this album is "Ask Me Anything." The minimalist Mellotron thing is pretty rad. It's a nice song.
Did you know that Is This It was recorded digitally? From what I've read, it was a pretty scrappy setup they were working with, even by the standards of the day. And it was all recorded to a click track. So in many ways, they were ALWAYS "Pro Tools/DAW rock." They just had a superior approach and superior songs than, say, Nickelback.
He was a nice dude. It was like the third promo thing he'd done that day, so he was pretty tired I think and didn't talk much, but he seemed pretty easy going. He's a talented guy too.
Seriously. I sometimes forget that some people DON'T pay for it and have to suffer through countless ads. I happily pay $10 a month for it. It's a steal.
I don't think this album is that bad. It's lacking a bit of substance and not particularly memorable, but it's perfectly listenable, IMO. I wasn't wild about Ghost Stories, and I don't think this album is a return to form by any means, but it's not that offensive!
Tame Impala was a huge disappointment for me. Lonerism is one of my favorite albums of this century, and Currents was just not good, save for a couple songs.
To be honest, I found myself disappointed by a lot of my favorite bands this year. Tame Impala blew it. UMO blew it. Kurt Vile is meh. Coldplay is meh. Beach House is meh (both of them). Maybe it's me, I don't know what my problem is. Maybe I expected too much. So I have a hard time finding 10 albums this year to even put on a top 10 list, so here's my top 5:
1. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear
2. White Reaper - White Reaper Does It Again
3. Telekinesis - Ad Infinitum
4. The Woolen Men - Temporary Monument
5. Grimes - Artangels
I'm a fairweather (or is it Merriweather?) Animal Collective fan in that I only really like MPP. I like some of Panda Bear's solo stuff too. So yeah, this doesn't really grab me.
Adele is boring, but at least she's an actual artist with talent and authenticity, which is more than anyone could say about the previous record holder. Though her music is not my thing, at least her sales feat isn't the result of record industry and PR brute force, like No Strings Attached was.
Mmm yeah, that's how I like my Coldplay. The poptimist singles ("Sky Full of Stars," "Adventure of a Lifetime," "Princess of China," etc.) don't really do it for me. Give me a soaring Coldplay piano song over that stuff any day.
Agreed. And I'm glad to see someone admitting to liking Chinese Democracy. I just listened to it again the other day, and other than some weird production decisions and bad Auto-Tune, I still like it!
Totally, U2 has a lock on this kind of cathartic music that Arcade Fire can only dream of. It's because they're the least cynical rock band ever to exist (except for a few years there in the 90s).
I saw this headline in my FB feed and I honestly thought it was The Onion at first. I'm not sure if my not realizing that it was not resulted in relief or disappointment.
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