A Positive Spin

As I may have hinted at in earlier ramblings in this blog, the resources available to the teenaged version of myself for finding new music were a little limited. FM Radio and MTV could only go so far before I tired of the latest Everclear single or hearing "Champagne Supernova" yet again. In this pre-Internet world, there was at least one consistent resource on my side; one that I could probably credit for helping to make me the music-loving human being I am today: SPIN Magazine.

Listen to This: Robin Pecknold - "Olivia, in a Seperate Bed"

In the aftermath of Helplessness Blues, a great album that far exceeded my high expectations, here's a new self-released track from frontman Robin Pecknold. It's a beautiful song and I'd love to see if there is any further development from this song with the rest of this band.

Listen to This: Bruce Springsteen

It's been 10 years since The Rising, my most favorite of Bruce Springsteen's discography in about the same amount of time (seeing as how Bruce's 00s have been much more action packed than his 90s). I remain slightly apprehensive towards new Bruce albums, seeing as how both Magic and Working on a Dream fell below par for me. Still, after the goodwill brought by the exceptional release of The Promise (despite it being older material), I'm more than willing to give Bruce's new album Wrecking Ball a chance.

First single, "We Take Care of Our Own" sounds exactly like what you'd expect a Bruce Springsteen song to sound like: big, inspiring and...big. It's unfortunate, then, that this song doesn't offer much that we haven't heard before. Still, in his defense, at this stage in the game, Bruce certainly doesn't need to reinvent the wheel. Even a familiar sounding Bruce single goes a long way.

Wrecking Ball will be released March 6, 2012.

Listen to This: Islands - "Hallways"

For his forth album under the Islands moniker, Nicholas Thorburn seems to progress further down the path started in the last album, Vapours.  While I'm still digesting his latest, A Sleep & A Forgetting, "Hallways" is a definite highlight of the album.  Where most of the album is Thorburn channeling lost love and charming self-conscious MOR rock, "Hallways" has a bit of pep in its step thanks to the hammering piano. 

A Sleep & A Forgetting is out in stores now.

On Review Ratings, Etc

I'm working on a standardized method of ratings for reviews on this blog.  I had originally wanted to use a percentile based rating, figuring that would make them pretty comparable to reviews and scores listed on sites like Metacritic.  Of course, the problem there was that it becomes difficult to define what scores can mean when you have such a large rating scale.  Really, what makes an 89% better than, say, an 88%?  Is a 43% really that much better than, say, a 37%? 

I decided then, for the best, to implement a scale of 1 to 10, with half points allowed.  It's a little easier to define the difference between a 9/10 and an 8.5/10 while still having enough range to come close to pinpointing where it should be in the scale (a big problem I have with Rolling Stone's 5-star system, where a hard-to-get 4-star rating is still only the equivalent of an 80% on Metacritic). 

Anyways, I'm just throwing this out there in case anyone should ever find themselves curious as to how I'm rating albums in a review.

Review: Sleigh Bells' Reign of Terror

Sleigh Bells was one of those bands that instantly clicked with me the first time I heard them.  The concept of making music so catchy and, at times, fun out of components that were so loud and abrasive was something that shouldn't have worked as well as it did.  Yet, Treats succeeded and it succeeded wildly.  Even in hindsight, I find very few flaws with the album.

And so comes the popular sophomore album question:  What now?

Listen to This: Summer Twins - "I Will Love You"

On Valentine's Day, especially, some syrupy-sweet lovey dove pop doesn't seem as guilty of a pleasure as it may seem on most other days. For your listening Valentine's Day pleasure (or, perhaps, your terrible Valentine's Day Mix CD), I present to you this gem by the Summer Twins. It's bright, cheerful and saturated in so much sweetness that you're going to need to brush your teeth afterwards.

Honestly, you probably needed to brush your teeth anyways. You're welcome.


Summer Twins - "I Will Love You"

Review: Air's "Le Voyage Dans La Lune"

If you need me to save you the trouble of having to read an entire review to get to the two main points I want to make, then let me save you the trouble:

1. This is a really cool sounding album.
2. Comparing it to Air's previous albums is missing the point entirely.

Some Notes on the Reviews on This Blog

To comment on the nature of reviews on this blog in general:  I realize that the reviews I've posted here thus far have all been positive.  This is mostly a result of the fact that I only want to review an album that I've invested enough time into to critique fairly...yet I'm only going to invest time into an album that I either enjoy or want to enjoy.  Thus, reviews here will - most often - be albums that I'm just enjoying a lot more than others at the moment.

There are exceptions, of course.  For example, last year I spent an awful lot of time with the Cold War Kids' album Mine is Yours, but ultimately just didn't like it at all.

So there you have it: an explanation in case the question ever comes up.

Review: Django Django's "Django Django"

That's a lot of "Django"s in a row in that title....

Chimes of Freedom Commentary, Part 4

So here we are.  Four posts later, four discs later and about 5 hours later, I finally wrap up this:  the most unnecessary series of entries ever.  I'm still not sure if this compilation deserved four entire entries, but its one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.  Besides, I got it in my head that I wanted to not just listen to this entire compilation, I really wanted to take it in and absorb the effort that went into it.  I wanted to give every song a fair shot and then see where that left me in the end:  Wanting to delve into the Bob Dylan catalog proper?  Or to just walk away without a care.

Chimes of Change Commentary, Part 3

And so we know the drill by now.  I listen to folks cover Bob Dylan and I talk about it.  Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't.  In almost every case, though, I'm saying:  "Somebody get me a Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits CD."

Chimes of Change Commentary Part 2

If there is one thing I can take away from the first disc (besides the fact that Mariachi El Bronx is far better than the concept is on paper), it's that I desperately need to get my hands on Bob Dylan's proper back catalog.  The best part of all the songs are the songs themselves, regardless of who is covering them and how.

Chimes of Change Commentary, Part 1

Here's a little secret for you:  I'm not that well versed in the works of Bob Dylan.  Sure, I know the big Dylan songs.  I know about the watchtowers and the times that are a-changin', but the rest of his extremely large back catalog has always seemed far too intimidating for me to step into.  It's one of those things that I keep saying I'll do eventually, but it seems like every year that goes by, there's a new album or well reviewed installment in his Bootleg Series that gets added to the pile of albums that I'm not currently listening to.

So, this puts me in a strange position for the recently released 4-disc compilation:  Chimes of Freedom:  The Songs of Bob Dylan, a massive work featuring 70-some different artists and bands tackling the songs of Bob Dylan in support of Amnesty International.  One would think that I'd be better served listening to 4 random actual Dylan albums; or, at the least, some of his many greatest-hits compilations that are out there.  That's probably true. 

2012 Mix Series, Volume 1

As I explore new bands, albums, singles, underpants, etc, I like to keep some running playlists in order to help remind myself of the songs and bands that I really enjoyed and want to listen to more.  Now, with this handy-dandy blogamajic, there's the added bonus of having a place to talk about the music that I liked more than other music (whether or not you are paying attention is completely unimportant.)

With that said, this is the first in what will be a series of posts throughout the years of the songs that I'm really enjoying at the moment.  This isn't an all-inclusive list, its simply a smattering of the songs that I either have something I'd like to talk about or I just want other people to listen to them.  Or, even, both.  Note the absence of Miss Del Rey, who I figured you might want a reprieve from hearing about.