The Gloria Record: “Tired & Uninspired”
i should wait to post this tomorrow, so it can be melodrama monday instead of melodrama sunday.
The Gloria Record: “Tired & Uninspired”
I shouldn’t be hard to find…
I’ll be the one with my big mouth moving;
my big words, saying nothing.
I hope you know
it’s not my father’s fault I’m such a bore,
and so afraid of everything.
I’m keeping inside; living in my mind;
hoping that the telephone don’t ring
with, “It’s all right… pain is universal, baby”
and worrying about what I’m going to sing.
I’m staying in, and saving up my energy.
I know my day is coming.
And when I find it, I will rewind it
(and play it over again a hundred times).
And when I hear it, I will not fear it
I will say it back again, and say, “I’m fine.”
(“Relief!…” “Relief!…”)
“I’m fine.”
La Sera: “Please Be My Third Eye”
Vivian Girls kinda leave me cold, but La Sera, a side-project of its bassist, is pretty great. In particular, this song, which is a perfect little chunk of pop-punk songcraft and melodies that the Thermals would be proud of (and hey, their label is named after a Thermals song! Perfect!):
Youth Lagoon: “17″
I’m late to the party here, but last year’s debut album by Youth Lagoon pretty shamelessly manipulates all my nostalgia triggers – namely, feeling young and timeless and lonely and horny and hopeful and stupid, all at the same time. I’m not sure if I enjoyed being that age more than I enjoy remembering it, but either way, this song is exactly how I felt when I was 17, turned into music.
There is, of course, a whole argument/discussion/whatever to have about the value of nostalgia, and I’m not immune to that kind of navel gazing either, but this is the navel gazing I’m choosing at the moment. I’ve been playing it (and the rest of the album) incessantly. Hopefully you feel the same.
Unicycle Loves You: “Failure”
As a rule, indie rock seems to be getting more gauzy and distant, and I mean, ok. I guess the heart wants what it wants, and the hearts of indie rock kids seem to want borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 80s. I sort of still want catchy guitar pop though, and this new Unicycle Loves You record is hitting those pleasure centers nicely. Simple, strummy, satisfying, and oddly, still pretty throwback. Anyway:
Unicycle Loves You: “Failure” (redacted by request of the band. replacement song below, which is also great, but maybe you should just go buy the album in any case)
Unicycle Loves You: “Wow Wave Cinema”
A People’s Tour of B-Sides: The Hold Steady
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
- John Lennon
If a band’s albums are the musical path they choose to chart, their b-sides are often the unexpected detours that, I’d suggest, reveal a bit more about their tendencies than the thoughtfully recorded and carefully sequenced documents they release every two years or so. (Except for the White Stripes, who seemed to care not too much at all about being careful or deliberate.)
In the case of the Hold Steady, their debut is the hard-charging introduction, Separation Sunday is the ambitious mission statement, Boys and Girls in America is the beginning of the party, Stay Positive is the start of the come-down, and Heaven is Whenever is a band trying to figure out what to do next. The contemporaneous b-sides and ephemera, however, paint a different picture. Read More…
No One Cares About the Poster Children
Which is really too bad. I go back to them occasionally, and today was listening to Daisychain Reaction, Poster Children‘s completely excellent second record. You can buy any/all of their records on their website, and you can listen to the best song from this record here:
Cloud Nothings: Attack on Memory (a review)
Youth is so great. At some point in the near future, I’m sure, Cloud Nothings (or whatever moniker Dylan Baldi is recording under) will record something boring, or a ill-fated concept album, or just run out of ideas (ala Conor Oberst), but at the moment, he’s breathlessly racing through his ideas like there isn’t enough tape to capture them. And that’s why we get a third full-length in as many years, this one spilling over with new ways to distill his love for hooks. Read More…
Craig Finn: Clear Heart Full Eyes (a review)
In retrospect, the last Hold Steady record was the exact opposite of a sleeper – it sounded great on first listen, all hooks and guitar fire, but in the end felt paper thin, an album of an idea rather than of ideas, and outside of a couple highlights (“Sweet Part of the City,” “Barely Breathing”), I haven’t gone back to it frequently, preferring Separation Sunday or Stay Positive or even b-sides.
Which is why this new Craig Finn record is such a pleasant surprise – it doesn’t sound unlike a Hold Steady record any more than an Extra Glenns (Lens) record sounds unlike a Mountain Goats record (i.e. not much at all) as much as it sounds like an interesting sidestep from the pressure of making a record under the appellations of those bands – the pressure to make something that SOUNDS like a Hold Steady record. Read More…
Here’s to 2011 – the Best Albums of the Year
So 2011 wasn’t like 2010, when Titus Andronicus worked its way inside my head and wouldn’t leave and LCD Soundsystem continued to be, by a number of measurements, the best band in the world. And it wasn’t like 2009, when Japandroids and Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Telekinesis exploded into the world and Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug released their finest moments (so far) respectively, as Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown. Instead, 2011 had a different kind of satisfaction – mostly steadily great bands releasing solid records, up and down the list. There are notable exceptions (Weekend, Big Troubles, Cloud Nothings), but for the most part, music in 2011 seemed to me a bit like comfort food – nothing to challenge you too much, but it never lets you down.
With that said – here’s Part 1 of Song-o-Matic’s end of year list:
