My takeaway is that is very much their most herbal album yet, spreading the psychedelic hash especially in its tail end. It works great for the bleary, reflective nature of the lyrics. I do think, however, the slowed pace unintentionally sticks Damian into a territory of sounding a bit like the Tasmanian Devil, and while the collective harmonies make it their most melodic listen overall, I do miss that there isn't one intensely physical, accessible, immediate single that really gets your adrenaline kicked up a few notches in the vain of "Son the Father," "Ship of Fools" or "The Other Shoe." As a Fucked Up fan, I do like it a lot, but I can also recognize that the evolutions they made with the last two efforts aren't making as large strides here, and it's probably my least favorite album of theirs overall.
Your rant is no biggie, in the grand scheme of others'_.
Some helpful advice, though, mickrandom, from one grump reader to another: I think the past year and a half as a loyal Stereogum reader have been the most difficult for me personally because a lot of the business-ended motives are unabashedly transparent if you are the kind of person who pays a lot of attention to content and social media-influenced trends, but eventually you just have to choose your battles because you have to accept that the site is owned by a large media conglomerate and their operations depend upon clicks and ad revenue, so for every five great, weird indie nuance post you get, the deliberately pop and mass reader-baiting story is the equal reaction. I am sure all of us who don't have jobs working as professional music writers and work for any sort of monetary-driven entity understand we can't just do whatever we want while on the clock. There is always a little compromise. It's not to say that it is bad to type a Spoon-ful of fury at the screen every once in a while, either, but we can't shit on Tom, Chris, Miles or James' way of income (as Scott does a Scrooge McDuck dive into a giant money safe) because you probably wouldn't want them to do the same to you.
Not to make this "all about me," but I do comment too much, I do recognize. It's a side-effect of excessive loneliness throughout the day -- being stuck inside your own head with nowhere to put your thoughts. I'm not a fan of it and wish the alternative was a person or two throughout my daily life to bounce shit off of, but right now, that's not an option, so it's to the comment section I go.
I am so not a horrible person and that offends me considerable. Putting "having an unpopular opinion about a band everyone else likes a lot" equating to me being as unsavory a person as rapey bros, deadbeat dads, drug peddlers, misogynists, cheats, liars, emotionally and / or physically abusive boyfriends, and so forth is ridiculous beyond belief.
The full-on pop mode is everything I wanted them to become. There's also so much Moz solo reverence going on within their general scene, and right now, I'm okay with it, but here's hoping it doesn't become overkill.
Picture was taken moments after the dog stated he'd rather do a shoot with Malkmus.
And I agree: Pet "adaption" is a great thing.
http://www.watchcartoononline.com/thumbs/CatDog-Episode-1--Dog-Gone.jpg
Yeah, I'm just beating off under my table right now craving all of the attention. I just have an opinion and don't give a care about how many downvotes they make for stating it. Give me a fucking break, man...
Not to be a rumor monger, but a friend of mine knew their publicist back in their Gimme Fiction / Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga days, and she was fucking Britt while he was already engaged. I know -- musicians do it all of the time, cliche as it may be -- but sometimes when you hear the dirt first hand, it makes the decision of whether or not you should invest your time in liking a band a little easier.
Tell you what, graduation. The next time a post tailored to one of my favorite bands gets put up, I'll give you two opportunities to make a few pot shots at me and the music as hard as you can without judgement. We'll call it even. Sorry for messing with your style here.
Sorry, uncalled for reaction.
I've given Spoon a few shots, and a few of their singles have been alright but the entire package never did it for me. I think it's also because I associate them with living in big city where a predominantly white upper / upper-middle class male playboys permeated the indie music scene deeply, and there was this one show I went to where Spoon headlined. I think I was the only person there wearing Vans. Everyone else was decked out in suits, fancy leather shoes, beautiful modelesque girlfriends on their arms. I didn't care much for it, and the band's live show itself didn't leave much of an impression on me.
Wow, terrible grammar. My brain is dead and in a negative spce today.
Revision:
"Yeah, that's kind of too bad considering if you head on over to the Spoon 'R.I.P.' post, you'll see it probably won't fall off the front page since there's enough comments being slung due to a downvote war launched by Spoon diehards against my indifference toward them."
Yeah, that's kind of too bad considering if you head on over to the Spoon "R.I.P." post that will probably not fall off the frontpage since there's enough comments being slung due to a downvote war has been launched Spoon diehards against my indifference to them,
It's too bad the "R.I.P." isn't literal to them as an active band. Never could get into them and whenever they put out something new, all that means is that I'll have to wait even longer for the Get Up Kids to reactivate.
Some of the responses in the Impose article are harsh-bordering-on-mean. I mean, it kind of collectively comes off as a gang assault on Mariel Loveland, who I should add is only 19 years old. What the fuck did any of us know about life when we were 19? Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie she is not, so don't expect it.
The new Candy Hearts single is really catchy and I felt like the band had a chance to make breakthrough with their new album before seeing this article, but after reading all of these more popular / more vocal peers of hers basically call her stupid, I guess they / (she?) just shot those chances dead. That's kind of sad.
Said Linkin Park to the press about their weed allergy, "I need a little room to breathe -- CAUSE I'M ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE EDGE AND IM'MA 'BOUT TO BREAK!!!"
I have the opposite gameplan (Vinyl only if it's not available on CD) but pretty much invest in the old fashioned compact disc for the same reasons: car portability and a dislike for music taking up space on my phone (and not to mention to have to always carry around a charger, because the iPhone is certainly not very long last when it comes to battery life.) The boring answer is also that they take up much more space (hence the name) and, until today's harsh realization, they are / were? more affordable. I just figure that there's no point in paying for downloads or streaming services when I can just have the physical copy always with me and rip the album onto my computer or listening device if need be.
Would it be so far fetched to say this one of their most difficult albums as well? I've given it a few spins and am now just beginning to wrap my head around the weird nuances that make it good. Either way, this is a cool surprise for AOTW. I really thought it was going to go to Ben Frost, Roby-sokk or Sharon Van Etten.
Related side note: When did CD prices even for new releases get so insane on Amazon? I had No Peace on pre-order at fully expected the $17.61 it was priced at to drop to the usual $9.99. Nope! That thing shipped out at that price due to have a Prime trial, and luckily Best Buy's price of $12.99 allowed me to make a price match.
But still. Here is what some of this week's more popular new indie release CDs cost at Amazon and it's troubling sign of maybe the final nail in the format, in a "If you want them, we'll make you pay way too much for them":
Ben Frost - $15.32
Royksopp & Robyn - $15.99
Hercules & Love Affair - $24.78
Hundred Waters - $12.39
It wouldn't be the Internet if people didn't react first and then think about what they were saying. This weekend for example was a doozy (at least on my tweet feed) in the wake of the UCSB shooting and a pile-on of think-pieces that arrived literally within hours of the news breaking ranging everything from the truth (how we need to put an end to rape culture, misogyny,) reflection (women being shamed for being sex positive) to bullshit (I read one where a guy stretched a tie into the Boston Calling festival and how a culture of songs by indie rock bands like Death Cab for Cutie soundtracked the shooter's perspective about some grand form of love.) It's too intense sometimes to take in all at once, and it would be great if the world took a few hours, days, weeks to put more succinct thoughts together rather than overwhelm us.
I didn't say they were doing that badly, I just said they hadn't improved much with Reflektor (and to their credit, they've been in a very good position since The Suburbs. I'd love to see how the investment in Capitol's promotional help this time around offered a big payoff.
The business of indie rock.
For some reason, I always thought Spoon had some sort of major label distribution anyway in the same way Arcade Fire stayed on Merge but used Capitol to promote it. I'd love to see the stats on how well that has paid off for AF several months later, by the way, because aside from the original promotional blast with the TV specials, KROQ airplay and award show appearances, I'd say their long-term visibility hasn't improved by much.
Very much looking forward to giving this a whirl. Another option is to stream the 1/2 speed drum version at Exclaim! if you want a different perspective: http://t.co/qkqd4D8pNc
I'm really excited the Blood Brothers are reuniting, but a week later, I don't think I can make it out to FYF because I hate the flights available around the time, generally hate traveling, it's costly and already made the trip out there once this year for Coachella (which I want to again say I didn't have my heart on going to and wanted to save my Cali trip for FYF, but alas, tickets were force gifted onto me, make this all that more frustrating today....)
It feels like I'm never going to get to see the Blood Brothers. I still have two unused tickets tickets from circa '04 because my friend at the time dodged out last minute and college me didn't feel like driving out to Boston alone.
Definitely feeling guilty and sad about not being able to finally see one of my favorite bands...
Another suggestion: Bulking up posts with embedded content (example: a ton of embedded tweets, YouTube videos, etc.) really slows the pace down of a page load. Sometimes it's necessary, but more often that not, and lately, it's been frustrating reading some posts when the load time locks up the browser (and I tend to use Firefox, have tried it on my laptop, phone and tablet with the same effect.)
Paramore simply work best as a full-on pop-rock band rather than trying to entertain some faction of bastardized punk. I love their new album. The best part about "Ain't It Fun" cracking the Billboard Top 10 is that it put the CD version of album on sale for $5.99 at Amazon and Best Buy last week, and you bet I scooped that up so fast.
The thing that confuses me, though, is that they also played the song live on last season's finale of The Voice, so it's weird that the less watched / nearly dead version of the singing competitions is the one that drove the song to be a hit.
Arcade Fire have enough star power at this point in themselves to bolster any message. Everything additional, be it the guy from 'Breaking Bad' wearing one of their wax heads, Greta Gerwig dancing live for them at a fake awards show or Andrew Garfield guesting in a music video, is just celebrity-skinned vanity. If I were part of a marginalized and under-represented group, I think I would start to feel annoyed if I continued to not see myself authentically represented in anyone up on the screen. Yes, acting is a form of artistic expression, but that doesn't mean that white actors smearing their faces with black paint made it alright back in the 1930s or whatever.
I expected this reaction from Laura Jane Grace, which is not to say that I think she is overreacting but that she is right. Arcade Fire chose to put a hot hipster-friendly celebrity in a role that could have more authentically been filled by someone from the community they claim to support. It steers more interest in media attention and clicks based on the actor's name attached and not the actual message. "We exist!" and yet Arcade Fire ignores the trans community by failing to show a real face from within it.
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