Super Dope ! Music Blog

The music blog has been rebooted

rambleey — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 03:48:19 -0500

Congrats everyone we did it

Mitch's Weekly Roundup No. 5

carcinozaire — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:30:34 -0600

5 Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle (1979)

Genre: Synthpop, New Wave

um this is an album by gray newman. its got electric instruments and some good singing. some of the songs are kind of sad. i like listening to this album. it’s a good album in my opinion. i don’t really have anything else to say.

~mitch, age 8

3 Polvo Today’s Active Lifestyles (1993)

Genre: Math Rock, Post-Hardcore

I wonder how many great ideas you can pack into an album without it ever really paying off. I think Polvo may have pushed the limit with this album, which makes it a really frustrating listen for me because there’s so much that I want to like, but just can’t or don’t.

Today’s Active Lifestyles blends elements of post-hardcore, math rock, and noise rock with some sparse lo-fi vocals, which honestly sounds pretty great to me. The actual content is pretty dull though, and it feels really restrained and a bit meticulous; for math rock (which is supposed to be a bit unpredictable and erratic) this really kills the album for me. I will say that I think the first track, “Thermal Treasure” is really nice though and there are a few other moments on the album that are great. It’s just not enough for me to really return to this album.

5 BABADNOTGOOD BBNG (2011)

Genre: Hip-Hop, Jazz

First of all, I’d like to point out that BADBADNOTGOOD (which must always be typed in all caps) has offered this album/mixtape for free on their Bandcamp website, so you’ve basically got no reason not to listen to this if you think you’d enjoy it. I think the decision to release this for free worked out really well for this band; Tyler, The Creator endorsements/jam sessions notwithstanding, BABANOTGOOD has built up a considerable amount of popularity by doing this and have generated a decent amount of anticipation for their next effort.

This was a really pleasant surprise; I hardly listen to any jazz or hip-hop at all (but should), but this seems like a really interesting and well-executed fusion of the two. I can really hear the care and sincerity of the musicians in the tracks on this album, especially on “Fall in Love” and “Title Theme / Saria’s Song / Song of Storms.” The piano is soft, delicate, and evocative; I really get the mental image of BABADNOTGOOD performing in a smoky, dimly-lit bar with lonesome patrons sipping on alcohol. It’s a real pleasure to listen to.

So what prevents this from scoring higher? First, there’s an unnatural amount of covers here; these are mostly from hip-hop and rap (J Dilla, Gang Starr, Nas, Ol’ Dirty Bastard), but there’s also Flying Lotus, Joy Division (which works surprisingly well), and a great Ocarina of Time medley/suite. These are executed really well, but they often overshadow the original content here, and that’s a bit unfortunate. There are also some rough transitions on the dual tracks here, which makes me wonder why BABANOTGOOD didn’t just split them up and develop the intro/outros better.

BADBANOTGOOD are a band to watch; I’ll be waiting for a follow-up eagerly.

Ryan's Weekly Roundup No. 3

yargzz — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:54:00 -0600

Calling it a weekly roundup at this point is a little insulting isn’t it? Oh well whatever. Have fun reading these here horribly mediocre reviews I wrote in 3 minutes.

4 ASAP Rocky Deep Purple (2011)

Genre: Hip-hop

I was turned onto Mr. Rocky upon seeing the video of “Purple Swag”. The video is great. The song is pretty good too. I really like the music, though the lyrics are pretty mediocre. Swag swag swag.

I can pretty much say the same thing sans cool video about every song on here. He’s got a nice flow and the production is pretty cool. “New York Bittersweet Symphony” does a good job with the original song I think. The last track is the first track but slower or something, that’s pretty lazy.

Good mixtape/EP/whatever but it’s nothing to write home about.

2 ASAP Rocky LiveLoveA$AP (2011)

Genre: Hip-hop

The fall of the legacy of Mr. Rocky begins here for me. I don’t get why people like this. The entire thing felt incredibly lazy, “Purple Swag: Chapter 2” for instance is literally “Purple Swag” with different rapping. I don’t appreciate that.

Also the only lyric on this album is “I be that pretty motherfucker, Harlem’s what I’m repping, tell my nigga quit the bitching and we gon make it in a second”. THE ONLY LYRIC. There’s no other ones. At all. Nope.

It was kind of interesting sometimes I guess. It wasn’t insultingly awful.

5 Oneohtrix Point Never Replica (2011)

Genre: Ambient, Dark ambient

This album makes me want to curl up and die. I mean that in the best way possible. It’s one of the most unique things I’ve heard really, and every bit of it is terrifying. “Andro” really got me into the album right from the beginning, especially during the end where it sounds like tribal music/ambient noise or whatever. The samples are used very creatively, and all the songs on here are really great sounding and I’ve not much to say positively past that. Good job!

What stops this album from being a 6? It’s pretty messy. The samples just seem to go in and out like there wasn’t a good place for them, and there’s a lot of fading. Also, the tracks all kind of just end without any warning or good transitions. It feels very unnatural and it sorta kills the mood. Doesn’t prevent it from being a good album though and it’s worth a listen for sure.

Mitch's Weekly Roundup No. 4

carcinozaire — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:39:59 -0600

After a ten day break the BAD BOYS of TUMBLR are back! For me, university finals are approaching dangerously fast and I’m afraid that I just lose track of the days as my sleep schedule winds in and out of the late morning. We’ve also got another roundtable on the way.

4 764-HERO Get Here and Stay (1998)

Genre: Indie Rock, Emo

Like a more melodic, but less interesting Modest Mouse; makes sense, considering they were label-mates and toured together as this album was being recorded.

All of the stuff here is nice, listenable stuff, but it gets kind of ho-hum following “Ottawa Dropout.” Unfortunately, I don’t really have much else to say; this is good music but it just doesn’t really do anything for me. However, it does put “emo” back into the listenable genres category; before this my only exposure to the genre had been Cap’n Jazz’s Analphabetapolothology and that was pretty hard to get through; now I realize it’s definitely not very representative of this genre.

3 Galaxie 500 On Fire (1989)

Genre: Dream Pop

i don’t like twinkies

it’s okay if you do though, it’s just a difference of opinion

3/7

5 Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues (2011)

Genre: Folk, Baroque Pop

I really need to get around to hitting up the 2011 albums I have laying around; It’s almost a third of the way through December and I’d like to do an end of the year list for our favorites. I was recommended this album by Ryan, who rather liked it; I’ve listened to this group’s debut (2008’s Fleet Foxes), and while it’s a decent album it didn’t really strike me as particularly good. He assured me this one was better, and I’m happy to report that he’s right.

I really like the aesthetic that Fleet Faxes use on this album; the vocals and instrumentation congeal really well into this melancholic, regretful-yet-hopeful atmosphere that is reminiscent of “better times,” whatever that means to you. The songwriting also excellently complements this atmosphere. The lyrics never break the sense that everything on this album takes place in some kind of intangible past-time, full of young love, unrequited love, dying love, dying in general; the songs play as the bittersweet memories of a man facing his own mortality. As cliche as that sounds (and is) this album really surprises me with its capacity to deliver on this concept effectively.

I can’t find one song on this album that I feel is out of place or just isn’t up to snuff. My favorite track at the moment is probably the titular “Helplessness Blues,” the moment that this album began to resonate with me; it’s a beautiful song and perfectly captures a moment that my life is in and has been for a while. Right now, I’m definitely at a point where I can comfortably say that this is a great album, but I’m not completely in love with it. Perhaps with more listens I’ll grow into appreciating it more; as it currently stands, I think this is definitely one of the better 2011 releases, and I’m happy that Fleet and the Fax Machines were able to put out something that can impress even non-fans.

Mitch's Weekly Roundup No. 3

carcinozaire — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:07:00 -0600

Hope everybody’s having a good Thanksgiving. Mine’s average.

4 Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid (2010)

Genre: Pop, Soul, etc.

Apparently this is some concept album or something but I just can’t really care about the lyrics that much, which is a shame because Monáe is a phenomenal singer and her prescence really dominates this album. I guess that they tell some story about a bridge robot or something but most of the songs just play as stories about love and war and good and evil. They’re dense with symbolism but I don’t know if they’re meaningful per se. This is fine though - I mean there’s a lot of music I listen to that doesn’t have really meaningful lyrics - I just think that the lyrical side of this album is really overstated.

If there’s one great thing I can say about this album, it’s that the song transitions are on point and this really does feel like a complete experience, rather than a collection of unrelated songs. This is hard to find in pop, which is mostly about how much radio play you can get. Production is also really great - there are no stupid, overblown, loud synths obscuring the melody here, and the instrumentation is pretty diverse, from 70’s-esque guitar solos to orchestral strings. It’s a unique atmosphere for the album, and I appreciate that.

Despite all this I just can’t really get into The ArchAndroid. There are a couple of really nice songs here (“Cold War, “Mushrooms and Roses”) but as a whole it doesn’t do anything except be nice songs. I think that it’s mainly that the songs aren’t all that different in mood from each other (with a few exceptions), so despite flowing like an album it doesn’t really feel like it’s going anywhere. It also doesn’t really do anything emotionally for me (possibly because of the previous point), which is pretty important to my enjoyment of the music.

Rather awkwardly I have to say that I highly recommend this album and that I really appreciate what it does from a production viewpoint, despite my lukewarm score. This stuff absolutely blows your Lady Gagas and Ke$has out of the water- it’s smart, it’s artsy, it’s ambitious, and it’s almost never overblown or cliche. It’s just not entirely my cup of tea.

3 M83 Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005)

Genre: Dream Pop, Electronica

The sole reason I really listened to this album is because I was curious about M83’s new album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, but felt like I should find a better entry point for their material. Well, here we are.

So! M83 is this pretty popular indie outfit from our WACKY European friends, the French! You may know France for some of their popular exports, including: French Fries, French Onion Soup, French Toast, and French Guiana. I hear they also don’t use deodorant. That makes me want to avoid French people!

If I had to describe this album in one word, it would be “long.” The album itself clocks in at just under an hour; longer than average, but by no means unreasonable. It just seems like the songs themselves drag on a lot; there’s a lot of repetition of uninspired melodies or chords, and even some of the shorter tracks (“Fields, Shorelines, and Hunters”) feel like they stretch on for much longer than they should.

The aesthetic for this album is pretty diverse though; some of the early songs - “Don’t Save Us From the Flames” especially - are very synthy and energetic, and remind me somewhat of The Killers’ early work. Songs like “Can’t Stop” almost seem like a modern interpretation of 80’s power pop… albeit repetitive and aimless, like a lot of the other stuff here. There are also some really slow-moving tunes here, like the piano ballad-turns electronic “Safe” (which sounds eerily similar to some material on Deerhunter’s Microcastle; M83 definitely has some influence on that band); and snyth-scape “Farewell/Goodbye.” This is nice, but again the songwriting is a a bit weak and the album seems like it’s dragging continuously.

That being said there are some stand-out songs; “*” is a really great, chaotic noise piece that sounds like it doesn’t even belong on this album. It’s definitely my favorite here, despite its short length and almost interlude-like presentation - seriously, the only song I like is the one that isn’t long enough. On the other side of the spectrum, “Car Chase Terror!” is a standout song because of its status as my least favorite song. I think that it’s too good; the vocal samples (depicting a mother and daughter fleeing from a presumably abusive husband) legitimately unsettle me. Despite a soundscape that I actually rather enjoy, I can’t get past the uneasy state that the samples put me in.

I’m torn between a 2 and a 3 here, but “Car Chase Terror!” notwithstanding I don’t really dislike any of the tracks here - they just aren’t that good. I’m definitely less interested than before in checking out the rest of this band’s discography, though.

6 Battles Mirrored (2007)

Genre: Math Rock

Since Gloss Drop is one of my favorite albums this year, I was worried that the vocals on this album would sound really out of place with Battles’ chaotic, staccato-driven instrumentation. I was pleasantly surprised to see it work incredibly well here; lyrics exist, but for the most part all I was able to pick up without Google was “ooh-WAH-yah-WAH-hah-WHA” or some variation, and that totally congeals with the euphoric guitar twinklings and schizophrenic rhythm shifts. Every element is in its right place for this record.

I was also surprised to find that Mirrored was every bit as good as its successor, albeit in some different ways. It’s not quite as fun as Gloss Drop… which is kind of like saying something’s not as sweet as pure sugar (I’m not exaggerating when I say that literally every album I’ve ever heard can be described as “less fun than Gloss Drop”). This is still a fun album, but there’s more tension and conflict on the songs here; there’s something a little bit sinister floating beneath the surface on “Tonto” and “Tij” that doesn’t really make it to Gloss Drop. I also detect a greater sense of intensity here; Mirrored is less about ROCKING OUT \m/ and more concerned with itself and the structure of the songs; as a result there aren’t any tracks like “Ice Cream” or “My Machines” that settle into a nice pop groove. Weirdly, the tracks here are less structured yet more controlled, giving both of the Battles LP’s a unique flavor.

Ryan's Weekly Roundup No. 2

yargzz — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:41:24 -0600

Howdy. Apologies for not posting this last week, but I’m lazy. That’s my excuse.

Also this only has 3 albums. Deal with it.

7 Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid (2010)

Genre: Pop, Soul, etc.

One day a long, long time ago, I downloaded this album out of complete whim. I had no idea what it was or anything, it just seemed interesting. During the download, I decided to read about it a bit, and listen to a song or two to maybe get the feel of it. I was a bit skeptical after reading about it, it sounded weird and like I wouldn’t care for it too much. Then I went and listened to “Tightrope” and “Cold War”. At that point I made the horrible, horrible mistake of cancelling the download. I didn’t think I would like it. Thankfully, after this mistake, I showed the album to Zack. He loved it. And after a few weeks of him egging me on to listen to it I did. Holy shit.

I don’t even know what to say about this album. My first listen I was blown away just by “Suite II Overture”, the first track. One of the last things I expected was a really good instrumental piece to start off the album. The other last things I expected were the entire rest of the album.

What I expected was an above-average, radio-friendly pop album. I don’t think anything’s blown my expectations so much ever. EVERY song on this EIGHTEEN TRACK album is no less than great. There’s an incredible amount of variety in styles and genres, among the, if not the, most diverse albums that have ever graced my ears. Janelle Monáe’s voice seems like it can do whatever it wants to. Hearing her scream in “Come Alive (The War of the Roses)” or the high-pitched-ness on “Wondaland” or ANYTHING on the album is just an absolutely fantastic experience. The prouction is flawless. The instrumentation is another generic highly positive word. Everything comes together perfectly.

If I had to say any negative thing about this album, “Make the Bus” is too short. It should be like 5 minutes long. That’s about it. I literally can’t think of anything else this could improve upon.

Sorry for not actually talking about the music that much or anything but this is too good to say anything about for the most part and I’m a bad writer to begin with.

2 Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

Genre: Hip hop

I’ve given this album a 1 before, as well as having said it was my least favorite album ever (which was a hasty response, it’s not even close. Wiz Khalifa’s Rolling Papers wins if you’re wondering). I felt like I was being way too hard on it, especially because so many people love this, so I decided to give it another spin.

It was a lot better than I remember it being. I guess can attribute this to the fact that I knew what was coming, and felt less offended listening to some of the tracks. It felt a lot shorter too, which is good, because this is the most insufferably long album I’ve ever listened to. It’s not the longest, but it just has absolutely no business being as long as it is. Songs drag on for an average of 5 minutes, sometimes longer, rarely shorter. And every time it seems like the song ran out of ideas halfway through. The verses just start getting really lame, and “guest stars” are added, so it seems, only to add time to the tracks instead of making them any better.

A lot of people praise this album’s production. I don’t see why. I’ll admit it is potentially above average, but I feel like there’s a bunch of very noticeable slip-ups that completely ruin it for me. The mixing is fantastic, but there’s nothing else that really impresses; especially since the songs are so bad to begin with.

I do quite like “Dark Fantasy” and “All of the Lights (Interlude)”. I guess it’s just not my thing overall, though.

5 Nosaj Thing Drift (2009)

Genre: Downtempo, glitch-hop

This is a cool album I picked up the other day at complete random. I didn’t know who Nosaj Thing was, never heard of him before in my life. What I got was a pleasant surprise.

This album is really nice, as well as being incredibly easy to listen to. All the songs are at least good, though nothing on here really strikes me as GREAT. Other than that though, I don’t really have much to say about this. It’s a good album, and really easy to pick up. I’d recommend it.

Guest Review | The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

yargzz — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:46:00 -0600

One of the things that we do is accept and publish guest reviews; you can literally review any album or EP that you want and submit it at the bottom of the page and we’ll get around to it. This one is by a friend of ours; English isn’t his first language, so forgive a few weirdly structured sentences and enjoy the review! Thanks for submitting, Thomas.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) is The Flaming Lips’ tenth album, but the first album by them I listened to. Actually, it got me into listening to good music in the first place. Now, The Flaming Lips are my favorite band (even though I considered Radiohead to be my favorite band at one point but than Ryan pointed out that The Flaming Lips made The Soft Bulletin which is a pretty strong argument).

The other day I had to do stuff for university or whatnot and like always I distracted myself from it (in fact I’m writing this review even though/because I’d rather be reading the infamous “Brain and Behavior” by Markowitsch which no one of you knows or cares for anyways). So I was reading that Ryan went to a concert of The Flaming Lips some time ago and he was talking about it as though it was the best thing that happened to humankind since sliced bread and Thom Yorke (which I would likely agree on, would I ever get the chance to see The Flaming Lips live). I was a bit like “Oh wow, he’s pretty enthusiastic about this, might as well try them out” and then I tried “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.1” and “Do you Realize??” and decided that I like them and than I tried the entire album and fell in love with it. Now, some months or whatnot later I’m writing this review.

I have no clue about music genres and the making of music and all this stuff, but I’ve read that YBTPR is Neo-psychodelica/psychedlic pop/space rock/alternative rock. I used to think it was dream pop.
Anyways the subjects the lyrics deal with are pretty miserable and melancholic. It’s about love, loss and alienation and all these angsty things. The music however in contrast is pretty upbeat. Together they create ironic, partially almost whimsical effects. I also believe that YBTPR is a concept album, even though the story of Yoshimi’s Battle is directly mentioned only in the first four tracks. Two tracks are instrumental and greatly add to the album because they sorta give you a break to reconsider the previous tracks.

I’m not as much a music nerd as you guys are so I can’t really say anything about the “objective value” of the album or what have you, but I’d like to write down some thoughts on the tracks on YBTPR.

(1) Fight Test - The first track is kinda about being overstrained by life (which is true for almost any track on YBTPR). In the chorus it says “I don’t know where the sun beams end and the star // Lights begins it’s all a mystery // And I don’t know how a man decides what right for his //Own life - it’s all a mystery //”. The first part is a nice picture for how we tend to be so certain about what we are doing, even though we can’t tell “where the sun beams end and the star light begins”. We make clear differences in things that are actually pretty blurry and unclear but we act upon/treat them as though we know what’s right and what not. This idea is taken further in the next lines: “I don’t know how a man decides what’s right for his own life”. This is something everybody can relate to, I think. We see all the other people doing stuff and making descisions and for me at least “it’s all a mystery”, as I often have no idea what’d be the right thing to do, leaving me puzzled how others can figure so easily. This can lead (and often enough it does) to a certain passivity upon which the narrator (singer) lost his (girl?)friend. Another line is pretty great, too, where it says “Cause I’m a man not a boy” describing how he can’t cope with life. This is genius, because it shows that the old mystery, that we will know how to act when we grow up (become a man), is false and that actually the boy leads the less confusing life. It’s especially great because kids usually are told that they will understand when they grow up.

(2) One more Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 - My second favorite track from the album. It’s about a robot that tries to imitate emotions (and thusly tries to be human). Its motivation is to comfort someone else. “Unit three thousand twenty one is warming // Makes a humming sound - when its circuits //Duplicate emotions - and a sense of coldness detaches // As it tries to comfort your sadness - //”. The way I understand it, the casual society member, me and you included, is Unit 3000-21. Our modern societies are emotionally pretty crippled, the members being rather “robots” than actual humans. But we are fighting it, we try to be more than heartless robots (in the song, the motivation for this is that we want to comfort others, want to give love). It is not quite clear whether we succeed in this effort, but one after another we become more than mere robots: “One more robot learns to be something more than // A machine - when it tries the way it does - make it seem // Like it can love - // Cause it’s hard to say what’s real - when you know the // Way you feel - is it wrong to think it’s love // When it tries the way it does…//”. What’s so heart wrenching (a term I’d use to describe much of the album’s lyrics) about it is, that the singer can’t answer whether the robot succeeds, whether it can love. That’s also underlined when the lyrics go “Feeling a synthetic kind of love //”, which means that not only the love we try to give, but also the love we receive is kinda artificial, “synthetic”. It’s a song about the most zombie feeling in the world: the longing for a longing.

(3) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.1 - This is one track that shows pretty well what I meant when I said the album was sort of whimsical. The subject at hand is rather dark, but the setting (an Asian girl battling pink robots) in which it is presented is rather odd, as though it was a scene out of a sci-fi comic book. The music is contrasting the lyrics too, as it’s rather upbeat. So yeah. “Oh Yoshimi // They don’t believe me // But you won’t let those // Robots eat me // Oh Yoshimi // They don’t believe me // But you won’t let those //Robots defeat me //”. Apparently, robots are invading us and try to eat as. You could say that the robots are those people that have given in into the standards of the heartless, cold, modern societies and that “we” are the resistance, those that don’t want to let go of emotions and humanity. However, this track is rather a message of hope than of despair, as we’ve got someone fighting for us. Ironically, our heroine is an Asian girl, someone you wouldn’t expect to be your savior. That’s a nice picture for how often those that seem unremarkable in reality are those that save our lives. It’s a hymn for all the Yoshimis, all those people that care (for us).

(4) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.2 - The first of two instrumental pieces. It’s somewhat similar to part 1 but it’s laying emphasizes on other aspects that weren’t as prominent in part 1’s music. When I listen to it, I always imagine how awesome it’d be if there was a YBTPR videogame where you play as Yoshimi and kick robot asses. Hot damn.

(5) In the Morning of the Magicians - This track focuses on a subject introduced in Fight Test: the uncertainty about emotions, especially love. We are at a point (in the history of mankind or something) were we don’t know how to love anymore. In fact, we know so little about love, that it’s hard to tell it apart from hate (the very opposite), it’s all a big grey ugly mass of misguided emotions: “what is love and what is hate? // And why does it matter? - Is to love just a waste? // How can it matter? //”. The second part of these lines takes this idea even further and asks whether loving isn’t really just a waste. That’s pretty strong, I’d say. I bet everybody was at a point sometime when they asked themselves what all this hassle is actually good for and whether giving a damn is even worth it. As if that in itself wasn’t sad enough, it gets even more depressive when the singer gives into his lack of power:”As the dawn began to break - I had to surrender // The universe will have its way - too powerful to master”. The part that says “The universe will have its way” is kinda comforting though. It leaves me with an impression that everything is as it’s meant to be, however fucked up it might be. That does not make it better, but it makes it somewhat easier to cope with.

(6) Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell - One more sad song, at least regarding the lyrics. “I was waiting on a moment // But the moment never came // All the billion other moments // Were just slipping all away”. Once again, I think everybody can relate. I know the feeling well that you are waiting for some sign that tells you “Now it’s time to make a change” but it never really happens and than in retrospect you notice that you could’ve started a billion times already if you weren’t always waiting for the right moment. The subject matter gets scary when you consider the title:”Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell”. At the Gates of Hell. It’s too late. All the moments that ever were have slipped away and all I’ve done was waiting.

(7) Are you a Hypnotist - There this kind of irony here where the narrator (singer) sings about how he had forgiven for being tricked into forgiving. That’s probably about being inconsistent and “weak”, somewhat powerless in a certain regard. However, I find the much stronger message in the lines:”I thought I recognized your face // Amongst all of those strangers - // But I am the stranger now // Amongst all of the recognized”. These lines describe alienation pretty well. It’s sort of about being left (over). One day you think you’ve found someone to cling to among all those strangers and than the other day you find out that you’ve become a stranger to that person which renders you alone yet again.

(8) It’s Summertime - Have you ever hated the sun for shining on a day when you felt down? Ever felt as though it was making fun of you cheering everybody up but ignoring your misery? This song is about this sort of contrast between the inner of a human and the outside (“conditions”). “When you look inside - all you’ll see // Is a self-reflected inner sadness - // Look outside - I know that you’ll // Recognize it’s summertime //”.

(9) Do You Realize?? - My favorite track from the album. Maybe even my favorite track by The Flaming Lips all together (though “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton” from The Soft Bulletin is pretty awesome too, maybe even greater). This song mentions so many of those occasions where you notice this contrast in intended effect and actual effect (“Do you realize // That happiness makes you cry? //”) and mentions some of those truths that we tend to block out of our consciousness (“Do you realize // That everyone you know someday will die? //”) but it doesn’t leave us with those reminders; it goes further and gives us something to hold on to:”And instead of saying all of your good-byes // Let them know you realize that life goes fast // It’s hard to make the good things last // You realize the sun doesn’t go down // It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round //” (this thing with the sun and the illusion is quite possibly the greatest thing ever written). There is such a great comfort in this message that it makes me think that this planet isn’t such a bad place after all and there’s something worth living for and whenever I see the sun going down I simply have to remind myself that it’s just an illusion caused by the ways of the universe. It’s that kind of comfort you find in the cosmic joke.

(10) All we have is now - What I like so much about “All we have is now” is the lines it begins with:”As logic stands you couldn’t meet a man // Who’s from the future // But logic broke as he appeared he spoke // About the Future //”. Merely the fact that this tells us about how logic broke makes me love it to bits, as I often find myself disturbed by how much people cling to logic and ratio even though they are such imperfect tools to live a life with. Another great truth is spoken about in the lines “you and me were never meant // to be part of the future - // All we have is now - // All we’ve ever had was now //”. When you think about it, you’ll never experience the future. All we’ll ever experience is “now” and we’d be better off if we lived “now” for the sake of it rather than for the sake of the future (or past for that matter).

(11) Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia) - This is the second instrumental track. It’s awesome and everything, but I don’t know much to say about it.

So yeah, this “review” turns out to rather be an interpretation of the lyrics. Oh well. YBTPR holds a special place in my heart, as it introduced me to my favorite band (and good music in general) but it is not my favorite album by them. The Clouds Taste Metallic is somewhat better, but The Soft Bulletin is even better than that.
So yeah, on a final word: thanks for introducing me to this awesome band, Ryan!

6 The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Mitch's Weekly Roundup No. 2

carcinozaire — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:00:46 -0600

Hey everybody, back again and a little bit late. I listened to half of Swans’ Soundtracks for the Blind this week in addition to these albums, so… uh, now you know that.

2 Snowmine Laminate Pet Animal (2011)

Genre: Indie Pop

Here’s me, listening to Snowmine! ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz…

The cover itself is 6/7, and the only reason I picked this up. Indie pop is almost the least interesting genre description I can think of, and this is one boring album; and trust me, I know boring (I listen to post-rock!). The album is the same pretty song 9 times; the exception was a brief moment during “Danger in the Snow!” where I started to build a little hope that maybe this thing was going somewhere, but I was unfortunately mistaken. I do have a sneaking suspicion that hipster girls will eat this up though, so it may be worth putting into your iPod® to give you that extra edge in a budding relationship. Always think of the practical side of things.

5 Pixies Doolittle (1989)

Genre: Alternative Rock

Yeah, yeah, I’m a bit late on this one. Listening to this album is like a weird deja vu, because… well, it’s hard to find a 90’s alternative band that wasn’t influenced by Pixies in some way. I think the band I’m most reminded of is Modest Mouse (the vocals on a few of the songs on The Lonesome Crowded West definitely take a cue from “Debaser,” among others), although I definitely also hear some of what will become Weezer on “I Bleed.” There’s also some pre-Nirvana in there, but I didn’t pick up as much as I expected; then again, I’m not the person to be asking about Nirvana.

I enjoy every song on this album, but after “Crackity Jones” the song quality does drop a bit in my opinion. Considering that I really, really like a few of the tracks on the first half of the album (“Debaser”, “Wave of Mutilation”, and “Monkey Gone to Heaven” especially), I’m tempted to give this a 6. However, I think that this is just something that I happen to really enjoy and not something that I really love.

6 Pixies Surfer Rosa (1988)

Genre: Alternative Rock

Darker, less poppy, less polished, and probably a bit stronger overall than Doolittle. For me, there are less stand-out tracks, but the average quality is better. Lyrically, Surfer Rosa is denser than Doolittle; “Cactus” (which reminds me heavily of The White Stripes) depicts a prisoner requesting a bloody and sweaty dress to wear when he gets lonely, among others.

I really dig the dissonant instrumentation here, especially on “Where is My Mind?” and “Oh My Golly!” Otherwise I’m afraid I don’t have much to say; this is simply a really good alternative rock album. It’s a bit sprawling (the focus here is on the individual songs, not the album composition) but it still manages to keep momentum and deliver some really great moments.

7 Tortoise Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996)

Genre: Post-Rock

I listened to this, Surfer Rosa, and Doolittle in one night. Good night.

First of all let me apologize for this review’s length. Consider that this is only one of six albums (possibly seven) that I would now give a perfect 7/7 rating to, and that it’s an album I’m continuing to experience in new ways as I’m writing this. I also don’t normally do track-by-tracks (not that you’d know going by my review of The Fame), but this was special enough that I felt it deserved it.

Let me go through a typical post-rock recording session. “Man, that last one was really great! I think we’ve got a really great opening track! Starts out soft, gets really heavy… it’s got everything! Now, we need something energetic… but we don’t want to jar the listener too much, so we’ll start kind of soft again…”

And as a result you get an album full of songs that individually may be stimulating or emotional but each one covers basically the same ground as the last; each has the same style, building up to a self-contained climax to the same emotional result. It’s frustrating to me because I find so much that I think sounds really great, but has really bad structure, and as a result I just feel pretty “meh” about the entire thing. That’s what I find so… incredible, really, about this album. Each song is great individually - there are no bad tracks here (not that it says much, since there are only 6 songs) - but the way they play off of each other makes the entire experience much, much greater than the sum of its parts.

Consider that each of the four main songs have unique atmospheres and modes; the chill-as-fuck Djed dominates half of the album (and fills up one half of a long play record; the fact that the album itself is two sides almost exactly is a great aesthetic choice in the CD age), then segues into the energetic, yet melancholy “Glass Museum.” This energy then molds through the remaining tracks, transmuting into aggression into “The Taut and Tame” and finally the bleakness of “Along the Banks of Rivers.”

“Djed” is… very nearly, one of the most perfect songs I have ever heard. The fact that it sustains and drives for 21 minutes (precisely) is a huge accomplishment; many songs (songs that are quite good) can’t even do that for less than five. That being said, it plays less like one singular piece and more as a combination of movements over a central theme. I don’t know that I’d call it “experiemental rock,” but this piece definitely experiments. It drives on the bass and then suddenly drops it, leaving electronic drums (they sound made of leather) and feedback to fill the void. It deconstructs itself (assuming that’s even possible), then reforms itself with tendrils of timid, searching instruments, eventually settling on the proper bassline and giving one more short run before calling it quits finally. It’s life-affirming, it’s evocative, and it’s a perfect introduction into the album. And really, what other post-rock uses a marimba? Seriously, how does that sound so good?!

The second half of the album is altogether different from “Djed”, but not unfittingly so. Consider that, in the traditional LP format, the listener would change sides after “Djed” and this would basically form an intermission. “Glass Museum” arrests the listener, pulling attention back to the the music, and setting the energy for the rest of the album. Out of all the tracks here, it finds the most in common with modern post-rock, featuring a heavier instrumental atmosphere than the sparse “Djed” and building more traditionally. However, it still manages to avoid lapsing into the common cliches, such as grinding, feedback-laden crescendos (yawn). The song ebbs and flows naturally, like a breathing organism or a beach between tides.

“A Survey” acts as a nice transition to “The Taut and the Tame” but is probably the weakest track here. Not a problem, this is about as short as it gets and it doesn’t take attention away from the meat here. It’s just a salad.

“The Taut and the Tame” is one of the most aggressive songs I’ve heard in this genre. It still doesn’t play this aggression completely straight, fiddling with feedback and some noticeable ambient sounds (“noticeable ambient?” what the fuck am i doing it’s 4:30 in the morning help) over the driving riff and prominent, slappy drum line. It also has great dynamic (even compared to the rest of the album), dropping and starting again, launching into a gentle, subdued solo in the latter half, only to pick the aggression up again. These are moments that I really get excited about in music; they’re moments that always surprise.

“Dear Grandma and Grandpa” acts as another intermission track, albeit this time featuring extensive experimentation in ambient sounds and some muffled vocal samples. Skillfully breaks the aggression of the last track (while still being interesting itself!) in preparation for “Along the Banks of Rivers”. Holy shit. As soon as I heard that first acoustic picking, I fell in love with this song. Following 3 minutes of noise and experimentation, the guitar rings so clear- so pristinely bleak- that it’s as if a rubber band snaps back into place, all tension dissolved. This is the wind down, and it is haunting and awesome (not in a watered down, “That’s awesome!” sort of way; in the very real, “I am in awe of this sound” way).

Anyway, I think I’m almost done with this review. At the end of the day the music really does speak for itself, unless it’s instrumental because guitars can’t talk you dolt! I can’t recommend this album highly enough, and as a seminal post-rock album (predicting the sounds of Mogwai (and by extension the massively overrated, yet popular Explosions in the Sky) and Godspeed You! Black Emperor especially) I feel that this is essential for anyone who is into the genre in any way. Kudos if you read this far, hope it wasn’t as boring as a post-rock album, or worse, indie pop.

Roundtable Review | Lady Gaga - The Fame

yargzz — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:45:00 -0600

Bet you didn’t see this one coming. Neither did we.

Ryan’s Thoughts

ARE YOU READY TO VENTURE INTO A MAGICAL WORLD OF FLAWLESS PRODUCTION, AMAZING POP HOOKS, AND “MAD SICK” SYNTHWORK??? Well you’ll want to listen to Goo and The ArchAndroid and The Pleasure Principle. Here’s a review for a Lady Gaga album.

I’m fairly high writing this review. Fair warning.

So the first song is bad but it’s really good compared to the next song.”LoveGame” is the next song. It’s really shittin’ bad! Like holy shit! It’s really bad! Shit! I’m glad you’re enjoying my great choice of words so much.

Anywho, “Paparazzi” comes on after 40 minutes into track 2 and it’s the first solid song on the album. The hook is pretty good and The Beat Is SICK I WANNA TAKE A RIDE ON YR DISCO STICK dlepdfvc dear god what am I doing. “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” is pretty much like an annoying Hawaiian cruise or something manifested in a song. If that mankes any sense. You need to hear it I think. “Brown Eyes” sounds like Lady Gaga found a bad MIDI on some old Geocities site and sang over it with some BITCHIN’ GUITAR \m/ thrown in for good measure.

“I Like It Rough” is cool! It’s probably the second best song on the album behind “Paparazzi”, it has a nice hook and the I forgot what I’m saying. I like it rough too though. Also I have brown eyes. This album is about me :) “Summerboy” isn’t half bad either. It reminds me of a song from Katamari in a sense, and I’m a sucker for those.

The entirety of the album that I didn’t talk about, and most of it that I did talk about, is the same recycled shit over and over. I can’t distinguish between any of the hooks and none of the beats are unique enough to warrant anything more than absolutely no interest in any of the songs past “Paparazzi” and “Poker Face”. Ben pointed out that “Paper Gangsta” is literally “LoveGame” thrown onto the second half of the album. It really is, check it out! Lady Gaga isn’t the best lyricist either *Gasp*

We’ll still have a summer after allll.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review half as much as I did writing it and if I made any sense ertrhtfcx what am i saying
this wasn’t a strong album overall some of the songs were good but nothing really crossed into GREAT territory and I feel a 2 is good because it wasn’t the worst thing ever.

2 Lady Gaga The Fame (2008)

Mitchell’s Thoughts

I just kind of did a track-by-track review as I went through the album, hope you don’t mind. If you do mind, please contact me on the blog and I’ll do nothing about it.

Just Dance - Good vocal range, synthy sound isn’t appealing but for what it is (a dance song) it works really well. Absolutely didn’t need the rap verse though.
Lovegame - Well, here’s this song. Kind of really dislike this. I can’t really stress how ridiculous Lady Gaga sounds saying “a love game” because it sounds to me like “I love game!” which reminds me of Will Ferrel’s Anchorman, which is a much better experience as a whole. This was the longest 3:30 track I have ever heard.
Paparazzi - The synths on this song remind me of Epic Software’s 90’s shooter legend Unreal. I really like this chorus, it’s an excellent pop hook and she pulls it off flawlessly. No idea what the bridge was doing near the end though, this song did not need it whatsoever.
Poker Face - Okay these synths are kind of getting old. Christopher Walken did it better. What’s your favorite scene from Anchorman? There are so many great scenes! I think my favorite may be the spontaneous break into “Afternoon Delight,” although the jazz flute date is also great.
Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I can Say) - Alright, I think that Gaga is waving goodbye to some guy going on a cruise to Hawaii because the synths on this song are ridiculous. Seriously this sounds like it crawled out of some 80’s synthpop band’s ass.
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich - Yes Lady Gaga, that is the name of the song. Okay, really, we get it! Wow who would have expected a song about being rich and partying on an album called The Fame! This album is slipping away from territory I find enjoyment from.
The Fame - Speaking of Unreal, I never actually completed it as a kid. It’s a really atmospheric experience, and I always got really scared during the mine level (shortly after landing on the planet) and it took my years to get over it. I had a good run at it a year or so back but I just kind of lost interest after finding the second crashed ship (I only really remember it had a Russian name). Oh hey, new song, let me change paragraphs.
Money Honey - I did play botmatches a lot though. I always liked to put all the bots on the same team against me, then use the noclip cheat to go through the walls. The AI paths still tried to follow you, so theyd bunch up in a corner where you could pop out and kill them all at once. It was really fun. The maps were also really interesting and had good flow for deathmatch gametypes. Oh yeah, this song. Completely disinterested at this point, rhyming money with honey was never original.
Starstruck - May be worse than “Lovegame”. These synths are so damn cheesy at this point, and the autotune is terrible, Lady Gaga has a good voice and it’s completely unecessary. The guest vocals also sound like they’re trying way too hard to be Daft Punk’s Discovery and holy shit this rap interlude is terrible.
Boys Boys Boys - The anthem of countless gay men everywhere. Lady Gaga is singing pretty well but these damn synths are just everywhere. We get it, you like boys, you have been over this!
Paper Gangsta - PROG WARNING! You are in for a four-and-a-half minute song! I didn’t even know songs could be that long! Also this beat is exactly “Lovegane.” Lady Gaga, you sly bitch. Also I just heard “California” rhymed with “paper gangstera” which is the least viable slant rhyme I’ve ever heard.
Brown Eyes - What the hell is up with these drums they are literally terrible MIDI sounds. This song is an 80’s power ballad, complete with cheesy electric guitar solos, holy shit Meatloaf what have you donnneeeeeeeee„„„,
I Like It Rough - This song is Jazz Jackrabbit. That was a really good game, I only had the demo though so I played the first 6 levels over and over and over. That was in the days of floppy discs as well; something that my generation was probably the last to experience. The real question that Lady Gaga raises is what, exactly, she wants rough. She keeps saying she likes “it” rough, but we’re never told what “it” is; more lyrical genius. This was actually a pretty enjoyable song.
Summerboy - Lady Gaga writes two songs; one is an extended track about boys, the other is about partying, and these songs are cut into pieces that are put on albums. This is part of the song about boys. The hook on this song is actually really nice, but I question the use of the synth in the background since the guitar is so dominant. Still, this was a pretty good song and a really good outro to the album. Unfortunately I can’t ever listen to this without feeling like I’m gay.

I think there weren’t any overwhelmingly bad tracks besides “Lovegame” and “Starstruck,” but the album itself really didn’t do much beyond two or three tracks. For what it is (a dancey pop album) it’s works great but I can’t really appreciate it much outside of that context.

3 Lady Gaga The Fame (2008)

Ben’s Thoughts

HEY MONS†ERS! ARE YOU READY TO GET YR GAGA ON? LET’S WRITE A BAD ROMANCE… ! STYLE! GET READY!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Whenever I discuss Lady Gaga in the context of mainstream music, the inevitable response is “well, she’s not my thing, but”—or sometimes “I like her because”—“she seems different from most of the mainstream musicians out there today. She seems like a real artist. She has depth to her, and she writes her own music!” I’ll give her one thing—this album is 100%, without a doubt hers. She has a writing and producing credit on no less than fourteen out of fourteen tracks on the album—no mean feat within the context of slick, commercial, overproduced pop music. And the music is no doubt an extension of her own persona, carefully crafted.

But if we’re talking about depth,

Boys boys boys
We like boys in cars
Boys boys boys
Buy us drinks in bars
Boys boys boys
With hairspray and denim
Boys boys boys
We love them!

Oh, oh

Baby is a bad boy
With some retro sneakers
Let’s go see The Killers
And make out in the bleachers
I like you a lot lot
Think you’re really hot hot
Let’s go to the party
Heard our buddy’s the DJ
Don’t forget my lipstick
I left it in your ashtray
I like you a lot lot
All we want is hot hot

This is pretty typical of the entire album.

But who cares. I mean, nobody listens to a Lady Gaga album for the lyrics, right? Anyway, this album is chock full o’ drum machines and synths vomited right out of the belly of good ol’ Reagan-era synthpop, so if you love the ’80s, there’s no better place to be! And by “love the ’80s”, I mean underground post-punk! Hey, Sonic Youth fans, check out the swirling cacophonic guitar experiments on some of these songs! To this album’s credit, it’s laden with pop hooks. To this album’s demerit, most of the songs are laden with a single pop hook that doesn’t vary. Let’s talk about the songs that aren’t most of the songs!

Everyone knows “Paparazzi”, the song that made Lady Gaga famous enough to able to base her entire debut album on being so rich and glamorous it’s sickening—wouldn’t it have been great if the entire album had bombed commercially and it’d have ended up being an underground cult gem? The title and concept would have been all ironic, and hipsters love irony and underground cult gems. Ha ha, hipsters. You and your Radio Heads and Modern Mouse.

But hey, some other good songs that accomplish things! I’ll confess to being a fan of “I Like It Rough”. Mitch said it sounds like Jazz Jackrabbit or some other deliciously cheesy ’90s platformer. I say it sounds like that and a song with its own melody! I like “The Fame”. I like the jerky guitar and the weird synthy bloops that show up on and I think it features the line that sums up the album’s message the most: “I can’t help myself, I’m addicted to a life of material. It’s some kind of joke, I’m obsessively opposed to the typical.” I’ve heard some people say that the song is mostly sarcastic or that she’s using fame as a metaphor for personal wealth. I guess. I’m not about to objectively analyze her lyrics or whatever, though.

And “Summerboy” is actually pretty good, too. It has a very “final”-sounding hook, like it was meant to be the last song on an album, and it works where it is. It’s very very bubblegum poppy though, even compared to most of the songs on the album!

The rest of the album… I don’t really care for it, for all of the reasons that’ve already been described much better by both Mitch and Ryan. But I don’t mean to discourage you from listening to it! There’s an audience for her music, and she’s obviously a more talented and successful musician than I am. I’m no synthpop conoisseur, believe me. And hey! She may not be more “real” than Ke$ha and the like (who’s to judge?), but she’s smart. And I think that’s admirable.

Also, nb.: I honestly, without irony or pretension, really like The Fame Mons†er and that’d easily get a 4 on this scale. It’s more synthpop in the same vein as The Fame, but each and every one of the songs on that EP is just as strong or stronger than this album’s strongest. Plus, it’s the one with Bad Romance on it!! You can’t go wrong! If you’re really looking for a platter of Gaga to sample from before committing yourself to mons†er-hood, I’d really suggest picking this up. It’s legitimately enjoyable all the way through, and even if it isn’t—it’s just an EP, so it’s brief, anyways.

3 Lady Gaga The Fame (2008)

Ryan's Weekly Roundup No. 1

yargzz — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:12:00 -0600

Hi I’m Ryan. I’m a petty thief and I like corndogs.

It’s Wednesday so here’s my weekly roundup! Yee-haw!

6 Various Artists Katamari Suteki Damacy (2007)

Genre: Soundtrack, Pop, Drum And Bass, Classical

WOW. Where do I begin with this? I’ve been a long time fan of the Katamari Damacy franchise, and from the time when I was a wee lad playing Katamari Damacy I can remember always loving the music. In fact, sometimes I would play just to hear songs because I actually enjoyed them that much. I could write a really long-winded essay but I’ll spare you. Long story short, the franchise has always had incredible music, and Beautiful Katamari is no exception.

The first ten songs on this album consist of completely solid 4-6 minute pop songs. Not a single track is weak, and every one is unique, fun, and catchy. “Katamari Dancing” is ~crazy fun~ and I really get a Radiohead vibe from “Bless My Stars”. I love singing along to all of these tracks even though I can’t understand a single word of it (Except the English ones! This Is America And We Speak English!!!)tr i’m sorry

The album shifts gear from tracks 11-17, “PROLOGUE” and “EPILOGUE” respectively. They become short, instrumental, electronic pop tunes that are still all unique and catchy and fun. This section of tracks almost feels like one long, epic song to a cetrain extent. The album then tops off with a nice neo-classical piece, which nearly reminds me of certain moments from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

This is one of the most fun and diverse albums I’ve ever heard. Despite its longer length, it doesn’t even feel like over an hour long at all. I would reccomend this to anybody.

4 Primal Scream XTRMNTR (2000)

Genre: Alternative Rock, Acid Techno, Downtempo

PRMLSCRM! Primal Scream’s album Screamadelica is one of my favorites. I’m not too familiar with their other work, because it all carries the unfortunate weight of being not Screamadelica. Though Screamadelica is whatever the hell it is, and XTRMNTR is whatever the hell IT is. Two completely different things!

It’s really hard ofr me to rate this without a bias, but I’ll do my best. “Kill All Hippies” is a really good intro I think. Then it hits “Accelerator” and oh my god IT IS NOISY. I don’t think I like it that much at all really. I’m not biased against noisy stuff or anything, it just feels awkward to me I suppose. “Exterminator” is a good song though, not too great but it’s nice. “Swastika Eyes (Jagz Kooner Mix)” is pretty ridiculous, a fast pasted electronic diddy that really sounds a lot like a club tune; it’s pretty cool. “Pills” is really eerie, the music creates these bleak, empty, dead images in my head, it reminds me of the album cover a lot. I also really like “Insect Royalty”, probably my favorite track on the album. It’s some crazy jazzy acid house song that’s just an incredible creation that nobody else could have came up with. The second half of this album is a lot stronger than the first come to think of it, it just seems to get progressively crazier and jazzier.

The negatives? I think a lot of the songs could do a lot better without vocals, or at least having them used more sparingly at times. “Keep Your Dreams” did it quite well I think, but they really don’t work for me a lot, especially during the first half of the album. And also like I’ve said, there’s some tracks I don’t particularly care for. Nothing is actually offensively bad though, just a bit “meh”. I don’t think any of the tracks are really that memorable either, even most of the better ones. The album doesn’t have a single track I think I could actually give a 7 to.

This is a good album. I just know PRMLSCRM is capable of doing better. I think it might grow on me a bit after some more listens, but I can’t bring myself to give it anything more than a 4 at the moment. I can definitely recommend it though, you might find it more appealing than I do.

3 Uzi & Ari Don’t Leave In Such A Hurry (2004)

Genre: Indie Rock

I got this album for the sole reason that it was presented to me as Dream Pop, and I love me some Dream Pop. Excited, I listened to it instantly (and by that I mean it sat on my computer for about 3 weeks before I touched it at all). “This isn’t Dream Pop! What the fuck!” was my initial impression. In fact, it was the opposite of Dream Pop! It was really boring and unemotional!

I don’t care for this album, I guess it’s just not my thing. The fact that it isn’t Dream Pop doesn’t factor into my rating at all, I took it as it is. I enjoy it for the first few tracks, but it really starts to just drag on and on for me, especially once it hits “Maher-shalal-hash-baz” and moreso when it hits “Blood And Vibrance”, neither of those songs have any business being that long.

The songwriting is good though and that can carry it to a 3.

em-are-i: What?

rambleey — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:02:53 -0600

em-are-i:

What?

Mitch's Weekly Roundup No. 1

carcinozaire — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:02:00 -0600

Hey everybody, I’m Mitch, the hopeless plebeian who likes OK Computer. You may know me as Ebola Zaire or carcinoZaire or whatever the hell other nickname I’ve used on various internet locales.

If you’d have told me at the beginning of the year that I’d be embarking on this project, I’d have been more than a little skeptical. While I did think of my tastes as mature (they weren’t, past Mitchell liked Muse) I didn’t listen to what could be considered a “variety” of music at all. However, really starting this year, I’ve made a conscious effort to dive into more and more music, and hopefully I’m pretty well equipped to handle this.

This is some of the music I’ve been listening to in the past week. Remember that you can view our rating scale by hitting the “About” button on the sidebar!

6 Whirr Distressor [EP] (2010)

Genre: Shoegaze

I didn’t actually pick this up in the last seven days (the horror) but it was very recent and I’ve been hitting it hard enough that I think it warrants a spot at the top of this week’s roundup. I went into this album with no expectations; I hadn’t listened to a single track, and I only knew the genre. The opening track was just weird enough (featuring a short repeated riff and a spoken word bit) to turn me off a tad. However, the remaining 23~ minutes of this EP were gorgeous, swirling soundscapes and some of the best vocals I’ve heard in shoegaze.

Those familiar with the indie scene know that it’s sort of in vogue to incorporate elements of shoegaze into their music; artists like The Horrors, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Deerhunter, M83, etc. have all played with shoegazing tropes (with varying degrees of success) but have mostly stayed towards a lighter, poppy sound. That’s almost the inverse of what Whirr does; Distressor builds huge and drowning walls of sound (somewhat similar to Jesu, though not nearly as droning or metal-influenced). The vocal effects and layering is somewhat similar to My Bloody Valentine (whose influence is notable on this EP), but the delivery is much closer to dream pop aesthetics.

The most obvious critique is that all of the songs generally stay the same and seldom leave the band’s comfort zone; however, I found myself drawn so into the EP’s texture and aesthetic that this failed to detract from it. I hope that they further develop their sound and am really looking forward to a near-future debut LP.

5 the pillows FLCL Original Sound Track No. 3 (2005)

Genre: Alternative Rock

The official anime of !, now in soundtrack form!

Strictly speaking this is a compilation album (and not original); I think only two songs were composed for FLCL (“I Think I Can” and “Ride on Shooting Star”). Despite my general avoidance of compilation albums, I really couldn’t pass up such a great selection of tunes that I knew from the anime.

As an album, this is not likely to be something that I return to often; however, while listening to it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of some great moments from the show and I think that it’s a testament to the music’s fittingness that it was able to evoke that characteristic FLCL feel. Plus, it’s great workout music.

Rather annoyingly, the title of the album does insert a space into “soundtrack.”

5 Pinkshinyultrablast Happy Songs for Happy Zombies
[EP] (2009)

Genre: Shoegaze

I hate it when the album title is too long to fit into one line.

Though unlikely to impress anyone with its length (clocking in at just under 14 minutes) this is a really solid shoegaze EP. Fun fact: Pinkshinyultrablast are from Russia! I guess even godless communists are capable of writing nostalgic tunes that capture the sound of early shoegaze albums.

The songs here are most reminiscent (to me) of The Jesus and Mary Chain and pre-Loveless My Bloody Valentine; “Deerland” in particular sounds like it would fit right in on You Made Me Realise or Psychocandy. I am also really digging the vocals here; I can’t tell if Luba (the lead singer) is singing in English or Russian, but who cares about lyrics in this genre anyway; it’s the sound that matters. They remind me a fair bit of the female vocals on LSD and the Search For God, which in turn reminded me somewhat of the Cocteau Twin’s Elizabeth Fraser (but don’t take that comparison very far, because Fraser is far more dynamic).

P.S.: In case you were on the fence about this one, the last song is titled “Ode to Godzilla.” That should be enough to convince you to listen.

4 Have a Nice Life Time of Land [EP] (2010)

Genre: Doom Metal (?)

Definitely doomy, not so metallic though.

This feels like a comfortable step from Deathconsciousness (Have a Nice Life’s 2008 debut LP); musically there’s not much extrapolation here, although the production is a bit nicer. Dan’s vocals are not as reverbed as they are on Deathconsciousness, so they end up reminding me a lot of Giles Corey (his 2011 solo LP). The songwriting is kind of rough and uneven (also like Giles Corey); “The Icon and the Axe,” especially, really fails to evoke any feelings and the yelling/drop thing that happens about midway through feels kind of silly and forced. However, I still enjoyed this, even if just for “Woe Unto Us” which sounds like a pleasant combination of “Bloodhail” and “Deep, Deep” (two of my favorite tracks from Deathconsciousness).

2 Lovesliescrushing Bloweyelashwish (1993)

Genre: Ambient, Shoegaze

2deep4me

I don’t think this album has melodies, just loads of feedback and ethereal “Oooooooohhhhhhh“s. It’s not strictly bad in that nothing seemed like it was actively hurting my ears, but there was nothing for me here beyond some nice textures that I wish had been developed into a coherent structure. Weirdly, I think the short, intermission-esque tracks are the strongest here, and the titular track is actually really nice.

Also, fuck this album, the second track is too short to scrobble.

Roundtable Review | My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

carcinozaire — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 10:16:00 -0500

Welcome to our first review post and our first Roundtable Review! When Ben said that we would be “reviewin’ some tunes on this bitch,” he was actually being quite serious!

This week’s choice is Loveless, the 1991 landmark album from Irish shoegazing quartet My Bloody Valentine. This is an album that we’ve all been listening to for the better part of a year, and who had a 20 year anniversary just yesterday! Funnily enough, none of us realized this when assembling the blog- this is eerily coincidental, as it gives us a great subject we’re all familiar with for our first review and is one of only two albums that achieves unanimous perfect scores (spoilers!).

Ryan’s Thoughts

Fun fact: Loveless is actually my favorite album ever. My first exposure to it was when our friend Daniel linked me to a video of “Only Shallow” way back when. I listened to it maybe 40 times on repeat. “Get the album!” he told me. “Okay!” I said. About 6 months later Ben listened to it and proclaimed it was really good. I totally forgot about it and proceeded to actually get the album.

“Hey, I remember this song I think!” was my first reaction to hearing “Only Shallow” again. I had honestly thought that “Only Shallow” was going to just be the star of the album and that the rest of it would be weird and nothing like it; so at first I wasn’t so enthusiastic about getting it. Probably why it took me so long to actually do it.

And HOLY SHIT on my first listen I was overall unimpressed. “Loomer” just felt like a disappointment after “Only Shallow”. It was a pretty jarring change from the Bad Ass Rockin VRRRRRRRRROOOO VROOOORORORORO to such a hypnotic atmosphere. And honestly I didn’t even like “Loomer” that much. “Touched” failed to impress me, I liked the sounds but it was just an interlude. “To Here Knows When” afterwards is when I really lost interest in the album. The noise confused me and I really didn’t get it. It wasn’t bad by any account but I just didn’t really care anymore. Honestly I was enjoying it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

“When You Sleep” and “I Only Said” somehow slipped under my radar the first few times around, along with the rest of the album. I don’t know fucking how. “I Only Said” is my favorite song on the album now, and “When You Sleep” is really high up there. “I Only Said” is one of the most brilliant songs I’ve ever heard. The riff is an unholy amount of amazing and I love the way it repeats itself 23 times after the singing ends. I think it’s 23 anyway, I’m bad with numbers.

Zack used to think “When You Sleep” was a flute. I told him it was a guitar this one time and blew his mind. The control over the sound Kevin Shields produces is absolutely incredible. I could go on about the flawless production, but quite frankly, there’s probably nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. It’s 20 years old now.

What I love about Loveless is how, even after listening to it well-over 70 times, there’s still more and more to find. I appreciate songs like “Come In Alone” and “Blown A Wish” even more now than I did when I first decided Loveless was my favorite album. There’s so many layers of sound, you can always find something new with every listen. Even the lyrics feel like a mystery, having them never officially released, and with the “blended in” vocal style. One time I listened to it with my headphone jack partially unplugged, which filtered out most of the feedback. “HOLY SHIT, THIS EXISTS?” was my reaction upon hearing most of the tracks like this.

“Hey Ryan!!! If you didn’t like it at first, why do you now?”
Because I listened to it more. I didn’t force myself to like it or anything, I just kept hearing more and more that led me to love it better each time I heard it. For instance, the first few times I heard “Only Shallow” I didn’t even know there was a guitar riff behind the feedback. Loveless is the epitome of something that can grow on you. I can still find more and more to appreciate about it each time I listen to it, and it never fails to impress me. It’s only gotten better, and hopefully it will forever.

7 My Bloody Valentine Loveless (1991)

Ben’s Thoughts

Hey! Guess what!?!? I’d love(less) to praise this album like the other two if not for an unfortunate truth: THIS ALBUM SUCKS VAVCCUM CLEANERS 15 YEAR OLDS SOMETHING ABOUT KEVIN SHIELD SBEING OLD HAHAHa hahfHdahAHAHAHAH

In all honestly, though, there’s really not much I can say about this album that hasn’t already been said. So how about a personal anecdote regarding my experience with the album? I’m sure you guys like reading poorly-paced stories about strangers on the Internet with no social clout.

It was the 1st of February 2011. It was my birthday. I was 20 years old that day. Snowed in, too. The largest blizzard I had ever seen in my life whited out everything outside—through the fog of the snow, you could see nothing, and the fog of the snow blended with the towering snow on the ground. It was beautiful in its own way—it represented purity and ambiguity. True, winter usually represents purity—but this time, it felt different. It was like all of the bullshit, everything that had built up and bogged me down over the past year was being whisked away like nothing. I was given a blank canvas to start out with. I could choose what kind of a person I wanted to be, and I was gonna do it.

Of course, maybe that wasn’t gonna be that day. I didn’t think so, anyway—there was a blizzard!! I couldn’t really get around, there was nothing to really do, locked up in my room bored out of my mind on my birthday. Well, whatever—I’d had worse birthdays, I was sure. I might as well make the most of it. Plus, blizzards are cool. I’d have cool anecdotal stories to tell people about it, to pass around and use as a cheap metaphor and whatever.

I’d been so out-of-touch with all of music by that point. And I seriously mean that. I didn’t care about music—all it ever seemed to do was disappoint me or eventually bore me. Modest Mouse were pretty much the only proper band I listened to the previous year. Most of my time was spent listening to video game music, or—for the vast majority of the time—nothing whatsoever. I couldn’t imagine obsessing over an album and fixating on it and analyzing it over and over again the way I had before.

So, late that evening, I asked a friend of mine where a good album would be to start in regards to shoegaze—I was kinda curious about the genre but mostly just bored out of my mind. It was one of the few genres I hadn’t really listened to at all. Daniel recommended me Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. I have to admit I was skeptical just based on the name alone.

So whatever, new album to listen to, it’s been a while, and I am immediately, without even the slightest hesitation or question as to whether or not my reaction was due to my self-imposed musical drought, immediately absolutely in love with the sound. I’m sure a lot of people heard “Only Shallow” for the first time and fell in love with the opening notes—feedback-laden, twisted raising and falling guitar noises enveloping the main riff—but what did it for me was the verses and the overall sound. The warping of the guitars, Bilinda Butcher’s voice—sweet, sensual but not anywhere near overtly sexual, and oh-so romantic.

It was, however, “Loomer” that really captured my heart immediately—it was dreamy, hypnotic, strange, and alluring in ways that I’d been searching for in music this whole time—I adored and still adore just the swirling, loopy guitar sounds that open the track, and I loved the way the song itself carried the feel of the verses of “Only Shallow” even further. It’s like the chord changes in the song, which sound like they should be a subtle thing, were somehow inverted, making you consciously aware of each and every single one. I felt like that sound had been a part of my subconscious for years, and the band had managed to somehow actually articulate it as a tangible thing. It was an amazing, cathartic and beautiful moment actually hearing it right in front of me.

“Come In Alone” goes beyond hypnosis and turns into an anthem, with an explosive guitar line that colorfully fizzles out, like fireworks, as Bilinda and Kevin’s voices harmonize into an androgynous one, so much that many people can’t even tell who’s singing on the track when they first listen to it. (As a matter of fact, I couldn’t.) I think the album’s androgyny is a key to its broad appeal (and a key to its appeal to me personally, actually). It’s feminine, on one hand, with its lushness and beauty (ie. it’s pretty and warm and romantic), and masculine, on the other, with its emphasis on pure power (ie. IT KICKS ASS!!!!!!!!!!!).

There’s so many other wonderful moments. As Ryan pointed out, the production is so dense and layered that some of these might not even be apparent on first listen. I love “When You Sleep”. I love the flute noises, I love the gorgeous vocal harmonies and pop melody, I love the voices that are layered seemingly infinitely in the background. I love the way “I Only Said” gradually becomes a mantra. I love the glistening, gliding guitar noises subtly layered over “Blown A Wish”. And if I keep discussing each of the moments on the album that I adore, I’m going to keep you forever. This album can be listened to so many times without getting old, just because of the level of detail it has.

Truthfully, if I really wanted to say something negative about this album, it’s that from a purely technical level, the songwriting isn’t that great. Most of the songs follow a really simple ABABAB or even AAAAAA structure—but they all feature great melodies and don’t need to have a complex structure in this format, anyway. “Touched” isn’t really a necessary track either, but it’s a 53-second interlude, so it doesn’t really matter much, either.

What else is there to say? This album was probably the catalyst for my newfound interest in music. When I first heard this album, it was like all of the bullshit, everything that had built up and bogged me down over the past year was being whisked away like nothing. Listening to this album, if you’ll allow me the hyperbole, felt like freedom.

Dammit, this was supposed to be a totally personal anecdote but I think I ruined it by talking about the actual music too much. Talking about music in a music review is for losers and people who listen to music, and people who listen to music are all stupid people with hair that’s way too long and also losers. Losers.

Also the last song is an early ’90s dance song. I mean, any album where the last song is an early ’90s dance song is literally perfect.

7 My Bloody Valentine Loveless (1991)

Mitch’s Thoughts

My first time listening to Loveless was sometime in February, at the behest of Ben and Ryan. We had just gotten off of Radiohead’s The King of Limbs that was released in the middle of that month and I was curious about new music to explore. Pretty soon I was listening to Beck and Modern Mouse and Sigur Rós and, of course, My Bloody Valentine.

Very few albums really click with me on first listen; this is the part where I say “Loveless was the exception!” Psyche! Totally fooled you. I was pretty lukewarm to it at first, which I think is pretty common for this album in particular. Slowly and surely, though, it did work its way into my regular rotation of albums and is now one of my personal favorites.

It’s kind of weird that we (meaning Ben, Ryan, and I) all got into the album at around the same time and have all come to love it so much. It’s become the not-so-unofficial album of !, and this seems pretty fitting for some reason; it’s something that I (even as a latecomer) was able to contribute to and rally around.

This album is incredibly important to my current appreciation of music; it was my first shoegazing album, a genre that I have now really started to delve into. In a cheesier sense, it was important in my moving away from listening solely to Radiohead. I have a very complacent personality, and it really took this album (along with being a few others) to realize that there was incredible music that I was passing up on.

In terms of production, this album is deceptively genius. A key example is the first track, “Only Shallow.” Even on my first tepid steps into the album, I knew this was a great song; however, it took me a long time to finally think, Holy shit, these are guitars making this wonderful sound! (Note: I thought this was an epiphany at the time; then I realized that guitars make the sounds on “When You Sleep” as well. Mother of God.) It’s an album that I’m still somewhat learning to appreciate; the more time I put into it, the more subtle intricacies I see; even after listening to it dozens of times, I am still growing into the album.

Ironically, Loveless is an album that has a lot of love poured into it (Super Dope ! Music Blog - Now with terrible puns!); the design process was Kevin Shields aggressively and relentlessly pursuing a highly specific sound and texture, achieving it, and building tracks around that sound. I can’t help but appreciate that; there’s something romantic (in the art sense of the word) about its focus and cohesion. It’s also remarkably savvy; like a good film, the album has a real sense of dynamics and flow. The three songs from “When You Sleep” to “Come in Alone” have real punch and impact sandwiched between the creepy, droning “To Here Knows When” and the soft-spoken, introspective “Sometimes.”

Ultimately I think this album is really hard to write about and it’s kind of taken me the better part of six hours to do this. It’s a damn good album and unfortunately I feel that I can’t talk about it in the way that it deserves.

P.S. Loveless was released in 1991, and people born in 1991 are the best people.

7 My Bloody Valentine Loveless (1991)

An introduction

rambleey — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:05:12 -0500

Hello!! And welcome to the Super Dope Rad ! Gang Music Tunes Reviewing Blog Page, or SDR!GMTRBP for short. We are totally gonna be reviewin’ some tunes on this bitch. Oh god, I can’t believe I just said that.

To distract you from the horrible embarrassment of what I just said, I’m going to take the time to explain how things’re gonna go down! We obviously wanna review as much as we possibly can without oversaturating you guys with like 500 posts per week, so my super-cool pal Mitch came up with the idea of doing a format that goes a little something like this:

Two or three times a week, we’ll do a Roundtable Review. These will contain a review of a specific album from each of the three of us. These might vary in length from “concise, about the length of a Twitter update” to “Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace”. It all depends on how much each of us has to say about the album we’re analyzing.

Once a week, each of us will post our own personal Weekly Roundup. These will be usually brief paragraph-or-so long (but, again, maybe longer) reviews of every new album we’ve listened to that week—perhaps an album or two we’ve had in heavy rotation that week as well.

Every now and then one of us might have a lot to say about a particular album—these will be Standalone Reviews, and will only feature one of us three. They’ll almost certainly be relatively long in length.

There’ll be other things, too. Submitted Reviews (scroll down to the bottom of the page to submit your own!), maybe an end-of-year roundup/top 10s/random essays/whatever. Not everything’s quite set in stone yet, considering we’re just barely getting started.

You’re probably wondering: “what do I have to gain from reading this? Aren’t music critics all pretentious jerks? Like Christgau and all them Pitchfork people and whatnot?”

Yeah, and we’re pretty much pretentious jerks too. But we have one thing that those people don’t: a heart!!!!!!!!! That, and I’d imagine a fresher perspective and wittier and cooler and more egotistical people. Also if you don’t read our reviews I have logged your IP address and I will send you horrible screaming death worms through your modem and they will come out and crawl under your skin and eat you from the inside. Also they’ll give you mild indigestion.

So join us! Maybe you’ll learn a little bit about Ex-Clam-Nation Lore(tm). Maybe you’ll be a little more enlightened musically. Maybe you’ll look on in wonder and awe at our evolution as writers. Maybe you’ll be amused. Not with us, I mean you’ll be laughing at us and our amateurish plebeian tastes in music. I mean, we all like Radiohead for Chrissakes! Eeeeeeveryone likes Radiohead. Mitch’s favorite album by them is even OK Computer I swear to god what is he some 30-year-old stadium rock craving ’90s junkie dad geez.

(nb. I really like OK Computer so don’t take that personally readers and I like Mitch too it’s okay Mitch you don’t have to cry I’m here for you)