- Bad Company - Bad Company. No really. "But, cleek," you protest, "haven't you already heard all those songs a hundred thousand times on classic rock radio? Why pay to hear them again?" Because, dear reader, I like them. I've always loved Paul Rogers' voice, and that unucluttered simple no-nonsense vibe of theirs. And, now that I can hear it when I want to hear it, instead of having to wait 20 minutes between plays on my local 70's rock station, I'm struck by the sound of the recording; it sounds like the record was recorded quickly, simply and without much in the way of post-production. It sounds like they're playing live in a small room, at a moderate volume, with the guitar turned a touch too low. That's awesome to me. Makes it seem much more like listening to a recording of a band, as opposed to a song-based rock-flavored music product (now with 10% live content!). And the difference between the intimate, unassuming sound of this and something like Boston's first record, where there are 15 guitar tracks and constant screaming, squealing, thundering, swooshing, etc.... whew. Night and day. Plus, every time "Ready For Love" comes on, I get to sing "Weddy Puh Nuhhhb! Oh baby, I'm weddy puh nub."
Five raquos: »»»»» - Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record. I like BSS, but I can barely tell one song from another. Aside from a few exceptions, their songs all kind of run together into a big pool of pure BSS. The songs on this album are distinguished somewhat by having been produced by John McEntire (drummer and producer for Sea And Cake, Tortoise, etc.) so there's a little of that tight, compressed, somewhat electronic vibe that his bands all share. But it's only a touch. This is still unmistakably a BSS record; most of the songs follow the BSS formula: big and dense and loud, where bits of slowly-moving melody (usually buried in noise) alternate with catchy melodies played loudly and clearly. They do it so well, though. It's hard for me to not like it.
Four raquos: »»»» - Nirvana - Live At Reading. Damn, this is a loud one. And frantic and sloppy and grungy! Makes me bummed I never bothered seeing them when they were around.
Three raquos: »»» - Frightened Rabbit - Winter Of Mixed Drinks. Scottish indie-rock! Reminds me a lot of another Scottish band, We Were Promised Jetpacks, and not just because of the singer's accent! But, I think I like this one better. It's got a lot of that swelling-swelling-swelling-to-a-grand-anthem thing that bands seem to love these days. Thankfully, it also has some nice melodies to support that swelling. It's a bit overproduced, IMO, though. There's a lot of unnecessary strings and dinky little sounds here and there, and the arrangements are definitely stadium-ready. I think I'd much prefer hearing the band just play, rather than hearing the market-tested handiwork of someone trying to hit all the summer-music festival checkboxes:
[x] - First song starts slow and builds to thunderous climax [x] - Lots of wordless chants for the crowd to ohhh-ohhh-ohhh along to. [x] - Strategically-placed quiet-loud bits so we can show off the lighting rig. [x] - Banks of slow repetitive sections for maximum flag waving
Still, not bad.
A weak three raquos: »»»
ok-cleek
I guess I could use some rearranging
I’ve heard Frightened Rabbit described as Coldplay if Coldplay didn’t suck. I understand the point of that, but I actually kinda like Coldplay (and they were excellent in concert). I like this Frightened Rabbit album as well.
yeah, it’s definitely got a Coldplay vibe.
but sometimes i think i compare everyone to Coldplay, so i avoided saying it this time (though i certainly tried to imply it!) i guess that means Coldplay are influential.
This week I have mostly been listening to ‘The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads’ disc 1 (the earlier stuff) which sounds like it was recorded yesterday – the quality is simply brilliant.
Coldplay. At one time they were ubiquitous but they seem to have stepped back from the over-exposure brink a little. They are like vanilla ice-cream to me, I like them OK but I’m not mad about them. They have some decent tunes, with ‘Everything’s Not Lost’ from their first album being my favourite, but they seem afraid to experiment and are unlikely to ‘do a Kid A’. Still, the formula they have works so why change it.
I’ve never heard of ‘Frightened Rabbit’. I am either getting old, not listening to enough radio, not watching enough MTV2, not reading enough music magazines or they are one of those bands that have more US fans than UK ones (remember Bush? They were virtually unknown in the UK but were quite big in your neck of the woods IIRC.) I’ll definitely check them out though I wish I hadn’t read about the Coldplay comparison!
i’m getting most of my new music info from the Onion A/V club, these days.
For an indie rock guy, I’ve not been listening to much indie rock. ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe has been on repeat for weeks now. I just can not get enough of this album. It makes me happy every time I hear it.
Not that I’ve totally neglected my usual genre. Dum Dum Girls make poppy tunes in which you can hear the shiney stuff right there dying to get out from under the grunge. I like it a lot.
I look at the Onion A/V Club, NME, Pitchfork and Metacritic. Pitchfork can of course be insufferable sometimes. NME is very Brit focused, which is fine as far as that goes.
metacritic… i’ve only ever looked at that for video games. didn’t know they even did music. i shall explore.
cleek, you might enjoy listening to this mix tape.