Season...Two?

Unemployment was the best thing to ever happen to my desire to write.  And that goes for all varieties of writing. Finally getting a job earlier this summer...well, that killed all that momentum; unread-music-blog-writing included. 

I've been listening to a lot of music!  I've been listening to a lot of music that makes me think "Well, I really ought to write about this...if only so that I can read this when I'm 60 and can't remember what kind of noisy shit I liked when I was half my current age."

So, again, here's more of this. 

RIP MCA

The Beastie Boys were a group who seemed omnipresent in my youth.  There was never a time where I got "into" them, because they had always seemed to be there.  Early on, I remember songs like "Fight for Your Right" and "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" being local radio staples and catching their music videos on MTV was as easy as just turning the television to MTV.  I remember rapping along to "So Wat'cha Want" from the car stereo of an older camp counselor at summer camp in the summer of either '92 or '93.  I remember seeing the video for "Sabotage" for the first time and wanting for there to be an actual Sabotage TV show that looked just like that video.  I remember waiting outside of my tiny local record store on the day that Hello Nasty came out, incredibly eager to get my hands on the then new album.

When I think about artists and bands that've never let me down, I think the Beastie Boys may very well be at the top of that short list.  The amount of talent in this group, whether it was rapping, rocking, funking or just being experimental, was always just astronomical.  Even with their latest album, last year's Hot Sauce Committee Part 2, the group was continuing to simultaneously impress and satisfy music fans.

Which is exactly why it's so hard to believe that MCA, Adam Yauch, has passed away at age 47 from cancer. 

MCA had always been my favorite of the group.  Sometimes it seemed easy to call him the "serious one," but we're also talking about the same guy who directed most of the insane videos from Hello Nasty on.  If anything, he was the most well-defined of the Boys, I always thought.  His gravely rapping was always a welcome counterpoint to Mike D and Ad-Rock's more nasally approach.

There's little to say that hasn't already been said, outside of personal reflections on MCA and the Beastie Boys.  Honestly, I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank the Beasties, especially MCA, for all the years of perfect music and amazing talent.  No matter what the future brings for the remaining Boys, I will forever be thankful for what we've already been given.

RIP, MCA.

Review: The Chromatics - Kill for Love

I tried a few awkward opening paragraphs, some about the time it takes to digest some albums and some about the impact of the movie Drive on the rising popularity of today's featured band.  But, no matter what I wrote, all I wanted to do was get right to the point.  So, here we are, in a much shorter opening paragraph that can simply segue into how I feel about the new album from The Chromatics' Kill for Love:

I absolutely love this album.

My 'Terrible' Mixtapes: The Orange Mix

The original idea of this blog, and the idea that I have not yet (until now) pursued, was to take a look back at the various mixtapes and mix CDs that I have lying about from my years of music fandom.  Some would be mixes that I made for myself or other people, while others would be mixes by others that gave them to me.  I am not actually insinuating that my mixes are or are not "terrible."  Self serving and pointless, sure, but whether or not they are actually "good" isn't really the point of this exercise.  With that said, here's the first installment of such a thing:

In 2002 I found myself in art school for most of my time, a welcome change of pace from the myriad of retail jobs I had endured in between my last failed venture to college and then.  As excited as I was to be in a design program that I actually cared about, most of my excitement from that time came from my acquisition of a laptop computer (paid for by my student loans of course).  Having such a current and cutting edge piece of technology in my possession was ridiculously exciting to me, and I spent countless days worth of hours customizing it and exploring it. 

One of the best features of the new computer, I found, was the inclusion of a CD-RW drive, something that I hadn't ever had the pleasure of owning at home - though I had used them in my few month stint working at a college radio station. 

Apologies for Brief Hiatus

So, as the title may suggest, a short span of time has transpired since my last entry in this blog and now.  It wasn't that long, I suppose, but the longest break between posts yet and it seemed worth commenting on.  I'd like to say that the reasons for this lapse in posting had to do with me getting a proper full-time job or that I was busy with some project.  But the truth is that I've just been lazy.

And I've been reading books.  What kind of excuse is that?

Anyways, this blog is not yet dead.  Thanks for reading.

Review: WZRD

It doesn't surprise me that Kid Cudi would choose for his next project to be an "alternative rock" album.  His last album, Man on the Moon II:  Kid Cudi and the Chamber of Secrets* was definitely leaning pretty hard on rock, and let's not forget that MGMT and Ratatat both showed up for the first MatM album.  In fact, in listening to WZRD (and, yes, that is pronounced Double-You Zee Are Dee), I'm curious as to why Cudi even felt the need to separate this from his solo material, except for perhaps the prominent contributions of producer Dot Da Genius.

Trouble in the Fortress

Deciding that it would be a good idea to finally organize all the music I have on my PC into one folder (a system that should've been in place from the very beginning, yet was not), I began the process of moving files around.  Unfortunately, due to a few mistakes/errors/magical-curses, I ended up losing a very very large percentage of my music.  With data recovery software only giving me bits and pieces, its safe to say at this point that a lot of the music is gone.  It's not so bad, as I have a lot of it backed up, but most of what I've lost permanently are albums from this year. 

So, what I'm saying is, forgive any delays that may come in updating the blog.  Either I'll straighten things out sooner than I think and I'll be back to offering new content here, or I'll there will be a week or so where there's not much going on here while I try to rebuild my library.

On the positive side, this was an awfully good means of getting rid of a ton of music that I don't listen to anymore.  For example, I like Asobi Seksu, but I certainly was never going to listen to three hours of live recordings from them.  Sheesh.

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.

Review: Lana Del Rey's Born to Die

I spent a good amount of time defending Lana already, so there's really no need to re-hash that.  There's an actual album of music in our hands now and it's time, as hard as that may seem to be, to review the music for what is - as opposed to what the music should or should not be, as based on your preconceptions of Lana Del Rey. 

FOTM Movie of the Year Award/Oscar Sighs

So the Academy Award Nominations are out.  Usually I don't care much for film awards, only because I know that I've never gone out of my way to watch all the high profile movies that seem to sweep awards seasons.  Still, there's always been something appealing about the Oscars, perhaps because it stands in direct contrast to The Grammys, an awards ceremony that seems less and less relevant every year.  At least with the Oscars, the choices (and this is debatable) tend to mean something.

I really don't have an overwhelming amount of commentary on this year's nominees.  I will say that there's a lot of movies on that list that I either have no desire to see (sorry, Hugo and Extremely Close and I'm Going to Make You Cry Every 13 Seconds) or want to see that I have yet to see (Moneyball and Tree of Life). I still don't know what The Artist is.  It has something to do with silent movies.  Okay.  Also, it seems to have every other award possible.  Great.

Honestly, the only point that I really wanted to make was that I was disappointed with the snubbing of 50/50 and Drive, probably the two best movies from last year.   Especially Drive.

Still, have no worries, Drive - I'm awarding you with the 1st Annual Fortress of Terrible Mixtapes Movie of the Year award.  Contact me to collect your prize, a certificate that I'll draw on a piece of paper when I've heard from you.

Review: Of Montreal's Paralytic Stalks

Of Montreal has a lot of baggage associated with it.  I mean that in two ways.  First, and most obviously, Kevin Barnes has infused of Montreal with an intense amount of emotion and personal reflection over the last few albums; this album being no exception.  Secondly, however, the band of Montreal, itself, has gone through such an evolution over the years that it is almost impossible to write about the band without calling attention to the fact that today's of Montreal is almost a completely different band than the of Montreal of yore.

Beck Week, Day 5

Wrapping it up with Beck week, I thought I'd talk about an album that I didn't truly appreciate until more recently:  One Foot in the Grave.

Beck Week, Day 4

I was going to write some Beck-related entry yesterday, but just didn't find the time for it.  We could pretend that this blog was protesting SOPA, but I'm not sure that'd fly.  Which is fine, because I'll just say that I was building up energy for today's topic:  My favorite Beck album.

Let's talk about Odelay.

Beck Week, Day 2

Let's talk about Mutations.

Defending Lana Del Rey

Somewhere in the summer of 2011, I was introduced to a song called "Video Games" by one Lana Del Rey.  I had heard the song mentioned once or twice, but besides that, I had absolutely no context as to who she was and what this song was about.  At that moment, the hype was still small enough that I could download the song and listen to it without having the opinion of another music fan forced into my face first.  Perhaps this was the best possible way to be introduced to LDR.

Beck Week, Day 1

For, really, no other reason than the fact that I like him (alot), I've deemed this:  Beck Week.  And, just because I can, I'm going to talk about a Beck album everyday this week.  The albums I've picked are not picked because they are my favorites nor are they to be presented in any particular order.  I've just picked 5 Beck albums that I feel like talking about. 

And so, on day 1, let's talk about Midnite Vultures.

Stuff I Forgot to Listen to in 2011

The following is a list of albums from 2011 (some may be from earlier) that I still haven't listened to yet and intend to.  This list mostly exists so that 6 months from now I can read this again and kick myself for still not getting around to listening to them.

Best Albums of 2011

So, just to briefly recap, here are the albums I thought were the best of last year.  If you have a differing opinion, you are invited to argue about it with me.

20.  My Morning Jacket – Circuital
19.  tUnE yArDs – W H O K I L L
18.  Monster Rally – Coral
17.  SebastiAn – Total
16.  Battles – Gloss Drop
15.  They Might Be Giants – Join Us
14.  Foster the People – Torches
13.  Cage the Elephant – Thank You, Happy Birthday
12.  Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
11.  Portugal. The Man – In the Mountain, In the Cloud
10.  Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will
9.  Akron/Family - S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
8.  Cults – Cults
7.  Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
6.  …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – Tao of the Dead
5.  Teenage Moods – Mood Ring
4.  Rozwell Kid – Rozwell Kid
3.  Wilco – The Whole Love
2.  M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
1.  Peter Bjorn & John – Gimme Some

Welcome to this Thing

It's a new year (this one being called 2012), and I'd like to think that its going to be a better year than previous ones.  Of course, that seems like a bigger challenge than usual, considering how this is supposedly the year that the world goes to hell and John Cusack has to get his kids onto a boat.

New Year's resolutions are pretty awful.  You know this and I know this.  I refuse to make them.  In fact, my former resolution to no longer make resolutions is the first only one I had ever stuck with, and I see no reason to jump off that wagon.  Still, there is something mildly refreshing about a new year that makes you want to pretend that you're going to be a new human.

And so here I am, attempting to try some new things in 2012.  One of those would be this blog.  Mind you, this blog is a little nonessential, but are there many (any) blogs that aren't?  My goals for this thing are as follows:

• Talk about new music that I have listened to.  I do a lot of this in the course of the year, and I've always wanted to keep a journal about my impressions of the new stuff I listen to.  I've tried this before, and failed.  
• Talk about other nerd things that are currently being enjoyed by me.  I go through nerd phases.  Sometimes I really like video games.  Sometimes I really like comic books.  Sometimes I really like video games about comic books.  
• Talk about the ideas I have for projects that I'll (probably) never complete.  This happens a lot, and I'd be nice to record all of these attempts so that I can look back at them later and wonder what the hell I was thinking.
• Other things not covered by the bulleted points above.

Anyways, I'm not seeking Internet fame with this blog, nor am I hoping to amass a group of followers.  I simply want a place to record things in a setting that's public enough that if someone was interested enough, they could read it too.