Quick Recaps

Because of other less important crap, I've been neglecting the blog. Of course, I've still be listening to music, so I'll do some quick rundowns of what I've heard recently, divided into three categories.

OK:

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (Self Titled): I'll pass on commenting on the band name, and just say that I'm pretty sure that the Vivian Girls just made this album last year, following a number of bands that made this album before them. Sighs.

M. Ward-Hold Time: Second favorite voice in music today I think (behind Neko Case, but more on that later), which ultimately makes this album a pleasure to listen to. That said, Hold Time is not as strong or as urgent as his last effort, Post-War, and probably not as appealing as his collaboration with Zoey Deschanel on She & Him. Three tracks worth listening to: For Beginners, Never Had Nobody Like You, and Rave On. I would skip the rest.

Better:
The Miniature Tigers-Tell it To the Volcano: I love this album. It's bright and poppy, but also clever, which keeps it from being bland and annoying (which a lot of albums in this vein tend to do). It's like The Boy Least Likely To sped up a bit. The first track, Cannibal Queen, is going to end up being one of the best tracks released this year. The rest of the album contrasts bright instrumentation with some

Beirut-March of the Zapotec: I was a bit down on Beirut, which is more or less Zach Condon, after his sophomore release which was a inferior version of his debut album. However, this EP was enough to restore the faith. The first half of the EP is Condon backed by a mexican horn section, and the result is stunning. Actually, perhaps "backed by" is the wrong terminology, the horns on this half of the EP really dominate and direct everything else. The sound is original yet recalls a lot of his best earlier work. That half of the EP concludes with The Shrew, which features a great horn workout at the end of the track which I think needs to be heard by everyone. A frontrunner for one of my favorite tracks of the year. The second half of the EP, Realpeople Holland, is a bit less appealing to me. It's Condon backed mostly by keyboards and synths, and while it's not bad per se, it's just not as appealing as his new take on the Beirut sound present on the first half of the EP.

Coconut Records-Davy: So Jason Schwartzman, yeah, the guy from Rushmore, has a band (in fact, this is his second band). And seriously, I mean seriously, it's not bad. In fact, it's a pleasure to listen to. The toughest part of this is getting that whiny image out of your head. I know that it's hard not to think of him going toe-to-toe with Bill Murray, but it's worth it if you can do so. At best, this album is Harry Nilsson-esque, backing piano, clever lyricism, echoes of the Beatles. At worst, you can't stop thinking about Rushmore, but that's your own fault. This is a very, very good pop album that's easily accessible yet has depth. Best tracks: Drummer, Any Fun, Saint Jerome, Wandering Around, The Summer.

Great:
Neko Case-Middle Cyclone: Throwing covers onto your album can be a dangerous thing (um, song covers, not like the photo on the front of the album). If the covers are more well written than an artist's own tracks, it becomes painfully obvious that the songwriting is lacking. That is not the case here, and the covers actually serve to show how accomplished of a songwriter Case has become. On Middle Cyclone, she covers a Harry Nilsson track (Don't Forget Me) and a Sparks track (Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth). The Nilsson track feels right at home, I wasn't even aware it was a cover for a while, while the Sparks track feels out of place. And while some may fault Case for the misplaced Sparks cover, I think it feels misplaced because it's just not as strong of a song as anything else on the album. So for those math majors, it goes something like this: Nilsson=Case>Sparks. (whoa whoa whoa, at least in this one instance--I'm not suggesting that Neko Case's career work is equivalent to that of Nilsson)

On another level, this album is fucking heart breaking--I have to be careful when I listen to this because I'm usually in a somber mood for a couple hours after. I don't want to give it all away, but the stories in Vengeance is Sleeping and Middle Cyclone are almost a bit too much to bear. Of course, this album wouldn't be any fun if it weren't for a couple of more upbeat tracks, most notably This Tornado Loves You, I'm an Animal, and Red Tide.

This is going to be one of the best albums of the year--the only weak track is the Sparks cover, and maybe the 30 minute recording of nature sounds tacked onto the end of the album (don't buy that one on itunes or whatever). To close, I'd like to put in a plug for seeing her live--amazingly, her voice is even better live than it is on record (which isn't true for the majority of artists), and it's one of those things that you need to see at some point.

Irrelevant:
U2-No Line on the Horizon: Honestly, I gave up on this one after the first (unsuccessful) listen. I sat down at my computer, put it on, expecting something great, and had forgotten that I was listening to it after 10 minutes. It might as well be elevator music. Subsequent attempts at listening played out similarly. I expected a lot more, especially after The Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars (which, by the way, means absolutely fucking nothing anymore). Bono himself said that if this wasn't the best album they've made, then they're now irrelevant. Welcome to retirement, douchebag.

I will say however, that some of the U2 diehards enjoy this album. An unnamed friend, who admitted to crying at U2 shows and using his free time to shop at American Apparel, convinced me to listen to the album a second time after relating a similar first experience and then expouding on the majesty of Bono and Edge and other people with only one name. But even after more listens, I remained unconvinced. U2 doesn't, um, rock hard enough to be as good as any new band out there, and their balladry is dry and unconvincing. I don't see U2 garnering a lot of new fans with this one. Maybe time will prove me wrong on this one, but I think most of us would do better to skip this crap and try listening to something new.

Upcoming: Right now I'm listening to the new Grizzly Bear, Cymbals Eat Guitars, MF Doom (or DOOM), Boy Least Likely To, and a few more things. Updates when I have time.

Update

Ok--I'll have something up in the next week about the following records: M.Ward, U2, Benjy Ferree, Beirut, and Neko Case. And also my best so far of 2009.

The Rolling Stone

While not a regular reader, I could not help but notice that the most recent issue of The Rolling Stone proclaimed the forthcoming U2 album a "Masterpiece" and gave it RS's most prestigious honor, a 5-star rating. I was a little surprised. To be honest, I wrote U2 off a while back, I think around the time the time of their 1997 release, Pop (with such great hits as "Discotheque"). Subsequent releases revealed anthemic but unemotional songs that I found easy to ignore. With No Line on the Horizon, however, I may be forced start paying attention again when it is released on March 3rd.

On the other hand, RS is by no means perfect. Historically, they panned almost every Led Zeppelin releasecalled Layla bloated, and trashed Pinkerton. Wary of this, I went back and took a look at every album that RS has given a 5-star rating to since 2000. The following is a complete list (I only included new albums, no best-of compilations or re-releases):

Bruce Springsteen-Working on a Dream (2009)
Bruce Springsteen-Magic (2007)
Bob Dylan-Modern Times (2006)
Kanye West: Late Registration (2005)
Damon And Naomi-Earth is Blue (2005)
Brian Wilson-Smile (2004)
Beastie Boys-To the 5 Boroughs (2004)
White Stripes-Elephant (2003)
Bruce-Darkness on the Edge of Town
Beck-Sea Change (2002)
Bruce Springsteen-The Rising (2002)
Mick Jagger-Goddess in the Doorway (2001)
Bob Dylan-Love and Theft (2001)

Take out RS's unrepentant boner for Bruce Springsteen, and that's only 9 albums in the past 9 years that have garnered 5-stars. Take out the sentimental picks (both Bob Dylan albums, the horrible Mick Jagger album, and the Beastie Boys past their prime/911 sympathy), the album that was written in the 60s (Smile), and you're left with four albums in the past 9 years to take the honor. A big fucking deal. Seriously. That means this new U2 record needs to be better than everything released last year (as there were no 5-star records according to RS). EVERYTHING. I'm skeptical to say the least, especially based on their track record. A co-worker of mine thinks they paid off David Fricke to write this review. While I'm not that jaded, if this record turns out to be horrible I might start being a little more suspicious.

P.S. I compiled the list of albums manually, so I may have missed something (for some dumb reason, you cannot search the RS website for 5-star albums).

A Question of Thunder

Dan Auerbach-Keep It Hid

When looking at the lineup of Dan Auerbach's main band, The Black Keys, one has to wonder how a solo record by Auerbach, the lead singer and guitarist in the two piece band (the other person being the drummer, Pat Carney), would be any different from any other The Black Keys record. And so, Keep It Hid is the answer.

It is immediately apparent that the texture, and more importantly, the thunder, provided by Pat Carney is missing from this record. The upside to this, however, is that we get to witness some pure class songwriting from Auerbach. The downside, as I already hinted at, is that there is something missing which Carney must provide on the Keys records. The result is a number of mid-tempo rockers that don't offend, but don't excite either. I would skip the following: Heartbroken, in Desrepair, When the Night Comes, and The Prowl.

The bright spots are Trouble Weighs a Ton, a slow blues number which opens the record, and I Want Some More, which finds Auerbach using a distorted organ to great effect. Auerbach also channels a bit of Creedence and comes out sounding strong on tracks like Mean Monsoon and When I Left the Room. The rest of the album are Zeppelin blues retreads, which, if you're into that type of thing (and I am), are better than anything similar out there right now. Right, so bottom line here depends on how you feel about some classic rock, namely CCR and Zepp. You like that, you probably like this.

Mixed Emotions

Andrew Bird-Noble Beast

Why is everyone panning this album? What were you expecting this to sound like, the second coming of Led Zeppelin? Did you actually listen to Armchair Apocrypha? That was not a mainstream pop record, and despite selling 100,000 copies, I'm unclear why everyone expects Noble Beast to sound like the soundtrack to a McDonald's commercial. Armchairs was a seven minute song without a chorus! He wrote a song about his favorite ancient civilization! And it was good! Dorky, but good! So temper your fucking expectations.

I read in Andrew Bird's blog on New York Times (yeah...I know) that he was afraid because everything sounded a little too good to him on this album, and maybe came to him too easily. I can hear a bit of that. There's not a lot of dissonance here, and at times he gets carried away/drifts off. Masterswarm tends to warble on too long without any real climax or conclusion. Souverian starts great, but rambles on a few minutes more than I would have liked. And even the best tracks don't quite have the bite of Heretics, Dark Matter, or Imitosis.

By my count there are three standout tracks on here (Oh No, Fitz and the Dizzyspells, and Not a Robot but a Ghost), and another handful of very good ones (Natural Disaster, Anonanimal, and Effigy). Of course, the tough thing is that despite this not being his best album, it's still better than most of the dreck out there. For the record, here's how I'd rank his post-Bowl of Fire albums:

1. Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
2. Armchair Apocrypha
3a. The Swimming Hour
3b. Noble Beast
5. Weather Systems


So now you know where to start. And for those already fans, just enjoy the album.

"The Eagles?" "Nobody listens to the Eagles." "Quiet Riot?" "That trash is for dope addicts and twelve year-olds."

Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion

Good lord does everyone love this album. See Pitchfork (9.6/10); CokeMachineGlow (85%); and AllMusic (4.5/5 and AMG Album Pick). And so, the contrarian in me wants to hate it. Alas, I cannot (or, um, maybe that's a good thing, at least for our ears), but I'm also not giving it a full-fledged endorsement.

For one, the album has a true opener, the lovely In the Flowers, in which Panda Bear (or Avery Tare, who knows) declares his thesis at the key moment-- "if I could just leave my body for the night," thereby setting a directive and theme for the rest of the record. Here, already, Animal Collective have surpassed previous efforts which at times sounded more like collections of songs and less like a singular feeling/emotion. The rest of the album, usually for the better, has a celestial feel to it, especially in the instrumentation.

Perhaps the most apt comparison here is the Beach Boys' classic, Pet Sounds. Like Pet Sounds, MPP has some really great moments, which are amplified by the lush and complex production (notably My Girls, Summertime Clothes, Brothersport, and the second half of Bluish). Brothersport closes MPP as a track that sounds like what the Vampire Weekend record could have, if it was, you know, better. And, like Pet Sounds, the album lags during some of the tracks which preserve the sonic feeling of the album but cannot stand alone (Taste, Also Frightened). Even the aforementioned opener, In The Flowers, is only great for about one and a half of the nearly five and a half minutes.

So, should you get this record? I'm not sure. It opened at #13 on Billboard (selling 25,000 copies and just one spot behind Andrew Bird), which, when you think about it, is probably about right. While the number of people who have actually heard an Animal Collective record is small, many of the ones who have probably also bought this one. But for the average listener, it's tough to get through the 11 tracks clocking in at 55 minutes. If someone has the time, it's no doubt worth the listen, especially if you're willing to sit down with some headphones. Otherwise, you might want to stick with some of the more accessible tracks, which are still 4-6 minutes long anyway.

Quick Update

Got a little busy this week so failed to keep up. In the coming days:

A look at the new Animal Collective (which everyone seems to love), the new Andrew Bird (which everyone seems to loathe), and the new Nobunny, which nobody has really talked about at all.