How these guys could ever be huge under any circumstances has always been odd to me. well, the english and their dance rock. Their NME created arch-nemeses Jesus Jones to me had the more interesting production and an album packed with alt radio ready dance tracks, while EMF had ????? and Profit!. For both EMF and Jesus Jones, I liked the second singles better than the first smashes. This was EMFs second single (only hit 18) after “Unbelievable” went to number 1. An early 90’s fave for the grandparents in the audience.
Monthly Archive for June, 2008
Sugary-spun shuffling psychedelia. I always post songs from this album (The Stone Roses) with the admonishment that this is one of the nastiest albums that you don’t ever think is that nasty because the sound is so lazy hazy summery drug Sunday. This is one of the most obviously nasty of the bunch. King Monkey spreads the hate with a matter-of-fact-smirk on his face. Think this is the Bad Acid at Woodstock:The Next Generation with Ian Brown, lead singer, as the Jean Luc Picard of Manchester hippie pub club drug thug.
What can be said, that has been said better somewhere else. Sometimes no matter how great the critical adulation or reevaluation or geekster pop love for the Pet Sounds era Beach Boys, some will always consider them ultradorks and deeply insufferable. They are the ultimate in wonder bread, and some will refuse to appreciate. To them, I say check it before you wreck it. Not all people that don’t like the Beach Boys are crusty bumsicles, but some are, and they are in such a way that you know their taste in things is sad. What can I say? They isolate their heads and stay in their safety zones! What can you say that won’t make them defensive??? They come on like their peaceful but inside they’re so uptight. They trip through the day and waste all their thoughts at night.
To bad Brian Wilson super genius wrote a song to burst their bubbles. This isn’t the usual version of this alternate-lyric-ed original take on “I Know There’s An Answer”, it’s an alternate alternate version.
I’m not sure if I was hearing the John Prine original or some more modern country take on this laid back lemonadey summertime country rambler. I do enjoy the Alabama 3 (Sopranos theme song purveyors’) version (here at hype machine). I heard someone doing a version while tooling around the AM dial on a sports talk station that after they sign off with the sports seems to go some kind of country. I thought the song would make a great theme song for a long lost 70s or 80s PI show, you know about the ex-cop or con, or vietnam vet, or both or two of the three, who has a small PI business, or maybe is a drifter doing odd jobs, solving crimes all over the country, making the ladies happy (natch) but always doing his own thing. It is the kind of show that I would keep checking Hulu to see if they had added yet, and I’d be a little nervous if it were as good as I remembered, but deep down I would still love it no matter what.
Spoon are inconceivably good in a package that is so seemingly demure and lacking in superfluous flourishes that I am astounded. In reality, this means they are usually quite entertaining and listenable, but they rarely floor me. This, from Kill the Moonlight, is a one of those rarer, wonderful times.
I find Radiohead’s In Rainbows to be an exquisite collection of songs but one that gives me pause. I find them to be wonderful, yet with the semblance of odds and ends, and essentially this is what the album is. Many of the songs seem perfect yet half finished, opaque, secretive. Out of all of Radiohead’s work, In Rainbows most reminded of the My Iron Lung EP, a collection of non-album tracks circa The Bends. If I compare In Rainbows to the last Radiohead album, Hail To The Thief, I feel HTTT is both much more cohesive but also not as good. I wonder if the band is somehow losing steam or energy, the dissipation of which still leaves a residue of genius and wonder. I guess I am thinking these things because I wonder if a time will come when all Radiohead will have all but evaporated into warm and elusive half tones and murmuring (tasteful and great, though). I find that “All I Need” reaches a clarity that is sublime.
I really don’t like this song. I especially hate the elision of the syllable for the word “to” in the “too late to apologize” line. There is something to be said for it’s particular pop sensibilities. One, it is a total smash. Two, it makes hay with a relatively depressing yet deeply true-ringing sentiment. The fact that there exists some time x whereby an apology y equals 0. The reasons for such mathematical truth are numerous. I believe in some cases that y=0 holds, while it is the perception of x that can be defined by some f(y). Either way, I’m slightly shocked that it took Madonna and JT to somehow wash off the Timbaland magic dust. I can’t tell if I want him to recede even further from the radio or keep dropping hits.
I know we just did a Ladytron, but this song has been on my mind lately. I’ve just gotten their new one, Velocifero, but haven’t had a chance to listen. This is from their top-to-bottom super solid Witching Hour. The album strikes one as “pretty good” on first listen, but it is just so listenable it has to get a knock up a level.
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