robertstjames

And you give it a 5.

Did they forget to ply you with free liquor or something?

Like Vigoda and No Age. Which is to say, strip all the effects from the songs and you have...nothing.

Maybe some band will come along to make this whole sound work. But Tomassi isn't that band.

RstJ

and dance a sprightly little dance!

Jesus fucking christ. Look, Sufjan can get away with this shit and make it work because he has a sense of melody when he's not spanking around. I don't hear that on this record. What I hear is overly intricate mincing that leads nowhere and annoys me to the point where I'm not going to focus on the lyrics. I know this might offend both fans and band alike, but being cosseted by rumors of undeserved "8s" isn't going to inspire Pictures to do anything more than polish the turd rather than correcting its essential turdness.

The band has pictures of Wilson and a young Paul Simon on their Myspace. They need to go *listen* to those guys again, not pick them apart for sonic pointers. Listen to the songcraft. Then listen to this Hobbit-eared mess again.

Notice the difference?

RstJ

Molina is one of the few artists who is immediately recognizable. She's perfected a technique of very clean looped acoustic guitar, echo vocals, and some kind of synthesizer that has a voice and personality of its own.

Call it Folktronica. Molina, Collective, Black Moth Super Rainbow, the Dodos, Six Organs (until Chasny lost his shit anyway). Heavy electronics/processed guitar but with an organic center.

Think green, my children

RstJ

Seattle detritus. If this was all grunge was made of, nobody ever would have heard of it. Or, as we would say, way the hell back then....Raayyyyyynnnnnniiiiieeer Beeeeer.

Put on your copy of Bleach and forget about this garbage.

RstJ

Xiu Xiu and Animal Collective are a couple of the bands (artists?) blazing a completely new forms of music. They take some getting used to, but once the music takes hold, it just takes you away. In Xiu-Xiu's case, it takes you some pretty scary places, although his best stuff (Clowne Town comes to mind) is uplifting rather than depressing. And lyrically he's brilliant.

RstJ

Surely Billy Childish wasn't *that* influential.

RstJ

Tongue Songs was a good album. Feels was a major achievement and one of the most important records of this decade. SJ just sounds half-assed, like they didn't care anymore. And these are the drippings from "we don't care."

Just too many of his best songs on it. And while it's hip to like On the Beach, he does the same thing much better on Tonight's or Time Fades Away.

Pretty cool film, but I must have missed the food fight lyrics the first time I heard this because I had a very different visual image in mind for this song.

RstJ

But these bands actually exist and these Connan guys are the fuck. Garage not dead!

I'm so in love with this sound...

RstJ

Quite the journey. But Christ Almighty, a "9"?

2008 - The Year of Critical Generosity.

If that makes any sense. Pumpkins were a singles band that insisted on making albums (fucking long ones too). Since Corgan had a one page musical playbook and some goddawful lyrics, he was never going to remain vital as a songwriter much past his sell by date. Don't worry tho--Corgan is too much of a showman/applause junkie not to play the 'faves. At least he's got 'em.

RstJ

Is the band hiring msg board assassins?

This song is so lame that it sounds like a parody. It's only when you get halfway through that you realize, to your horror, that no, these dickweeds are quite serious.

And are every bit as humorless as their fanbase.

RstJ

Still kinda forming, but these guys fit in nicely. They also seem to know how to write good songs:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=X8YDbOoY_U4&feature=related
(Jersey Kid)

Love that maj-to-minor Lennonesque chord change.

RstJ

Runs a bit long. Love the music, hate the words. Is it so difficult for indie songwriters to match lyrics to musical feeling? This is a great upbeat riff that 5th graders everywhere could sing along to, except as soon as Teacher heard the lyrics, they'd be sent straight to the school's counselor.

RstJ

big 'uns, made of stone, which you'll need to keep pimping Chan Marshall's heart-shaped ass out to the indie public.

RstJ

God I'm fucking grouchy this morning...

and downloads must not have made his last house payment, so back he goes to that great overflowing trough known as "Major Label."

Yeah, the labels suck. But you don't get to be huge without their backing. It's not the music, it's the marketing, and you can't offer saturation-bomb marketing efforts via direct download.

But there's good news: grunge is back, so Yorke should be able to make his retirement pile by doing another Kurdt "Creep" ripoff, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the only reason anybody ever paid attention to this pouty poser in the first place.

RstJ

Two not-very-good albums in a row and now I read they're tanking live. Not good. I guess nobody ever told them that it was the fuzz that mattered, not the feeling.

RstJ

Bands making great records *now*

Radiohead? Christ.

1. LCD (duh)
2. Jamie T (and his accent)
3. Deerhunter (freak show great record)
4. Black Lips (fuckyeahflowerpunk)

5-50 Who cares. They'll be forgotten by mid 2008.

RstJ

Sorry, this is a really good album. In fact, one of the best of the year. The song structures are interesting, the lyrics as always above and beyond, and its cohesive as a whole. Maybe its more fun to hand out the 9s to undeserving newer bands based on their freshness, but very few albums I've heard so far match this one for quality.

Maybe La Moss was sleeping w/this guy for a reason, huh?

RstJ

And although this one doesn't match Exile, it's still a great listen. Nobody sounds quite like Alabama 3 (fuck the country-pop shit of the "real" Alabama, since when can you copyright the name of a state?).

Some sifting is in order, sure. But that's why God invented the iPod.

I take off for a couple months and when I come back the high scores are being handed out like cheap candy at halloween (get off my doorstep you dumb kids...)

When Los Campesinos grow up and stop being so whimsy-like, they'll probably be a good band. In the meantime, they annoy the living crap out of me because every song I've heard is punched out of the same stencil.

And did I really hear this guy diss Hurricane Henry Rollins, one-time lead singer for the fucking Flag? A band that ruled the 80s Ameripunk scene like steroid-abusing dictators?

First the dirty projectors, now this...sissiness!!

Argghaea;fgsdilkharh;klh;!!!!

Banhart was always something to be endured, not enjoyed. He was an icon of freak folk, and stripped of the surrounding vibe of the movement he's revealed as just a supremely annoying navel-gazing hippie; one who had been told by the hipperati that his silly-sounding vibrato made him unique (which it did) without bothering to mention that it did not make him any good (which it didn't.)

He's bound for the same ash heap as his obscure, moldering 60s heros.

RstJ

And Feels deserved the 10 that's given to this new record.

This stuff is terrible, the sound of a band breaking up, saving their good stuff for solo records while half-assing their way through music they hardly seem to care about. Peacebone and Fireworks just wander around and go nowhere.

Is this really the band that produced a landmark track like "Banshee Beat"?

RstJ

would write a garage rock song about a natural disaster.

If they ever lose the jokey side, they're going to be a formidable band. They can already rock the living fuck out of any crowd. The real question is whether they've going to evolve like the Clash, or fall into a cartoonish rut like the Ramones.

Ah, wistful Autumn, the sound of Flower Punk and cheap amplifiers in the air...

RstJ

Although tearing the cat's head off was a bit much.

RstJ

great tunes to annoying crap, then you're right on the money.

Another novelty band catches the morning bus home.

Sounds tasty!

RstJ

It's like attack of the Zombie Ken dolls who work for UPS. Where's my parcel, damnit? Aieeeeee!

...some brilliant music because he doesn't have La Moss around anymore to paparazzi-size his career. Drugged out rock mannequin and supermodel on coke plays marquee audience. Doped up loser and 2nd tier runway slut doesn't.

I still like "Albion" a lot. Great song.

If you're going to do hop, you have to have flow, and this sounds like a video game from the 80s. I'm sure the politics are fascinating, but I cannot get past the jerkiness of the beats. No sale.

RstJ

The PR company your metalish friend was inquiring about, I mean.

It will be huge. Ambrogio is artistically fascinating, nobody's been able to figure out if she actually knows how to play guitar or not. Her singing is intense, her lyrics, genius. Her stage presence...well, youtube can tell you about that.

Chasny's last two Six Organs records are spectacular. I listen to them constantly and they never get old. If these two can figure out a way to combine their talents it will change the landscape of modern music.

And, if they don't, it will just be pointless noise blasts that go nowhere.

Here's hoping...

RstJ

awe-inspiring, especially whoever that girl was who was singing harmony. I loved the first record (minus the "rock" garbage). The tattva stuff was the only reason to listen to these guys, c'mon now.

would be so influential?

Not sure what to make of these guys as they don't seem to have one cohesive sonic identity, but they're interesting at least, and not emo. Which is good.

RstJ

...

Love the band, frustrated by this production sometimes. "Only daughter" has a beautiful, spare glimmer. But "Down to Rest" is overloaded after a great toybox start.

8. Yeah, that's fair.

Given that Fever is one of the best albums of its generation and Bones goes nowhere, I'm thinking they should let the girl write the songs from now on.

The song can't really decide where it's going and has no discernible melody, but the video with its cheesy tinfoil spaceship is a true work of art.

A Nation in Shock.

RstJ

Nirv (12-15yrs)
Zeppelin (15-17yrs)
Punk Rock(17-21yr)
Indie crap bands nobody will remember a year from now (21-life)

RstJ

Was the material written between Fever and Bones but not recorded until no, or are these outtakes from Fever sessions?

Inquiring minds, etc.

I was really hoping they were going to use Kidsmoke as the jumping off point for the new record because that seemed like the way forward from Foxtrot (despite the surrounding throw-aways on Ghost). Unfortunately, they seemed to have revolved back to their roots, which is to say, boring vaguely countryish songs that expose Tweedy's achilles heel: his suburban lyrics.

But apparently this is what sells for Wilco, so goodbye experimentalism.

and now they're shit Foo Fighters.

I guess that's progress.

I wanted a new Black Rebel record. They released one. It blew.

They both (for me anyway) always have a couple of tunes that I listen to obsessively even though I don't like the rest of the album. The Underdog thing will make them huge but for my money it's Don't You Evah that swings like a motherfuck. Curiously, it's a cover by something called "the National History" but whatever. It's a great song and someone should invent a little dance for it.

You docked them a couple points on the squealing chori, huh?

RsTJ

Michael Jackson's new CD will be included in boxes of Franzia

Lady Sov's next CD: free with purchase of Big Mac Meal (super-sized only)

Paris Hilton's sophomore disk (working title "I've been set Free!") in copies of People magazine