Category Archives: Listening

The Most Anticipated Album of 2010

Can’t tell you how excit­ed I am to hear Kanye’s new album. “Run­away” just blows me away. I’ve loved every­thing he’s done so far, so why should My Beau­ti­ful Dark Twist­ed Fan­ta­sy be any different?

Feel like he real­ly turned a cor­ner with 808s & Heart­break, which I felt was unfair­ly maligned in some cir­cles as being too misog­y­nis­tic. I thought it was a painful, hurt­ful, fright­en­ing breakup album. Loved it. So did Mau­ra and Whiney. I feel like his next album is our sweet reward. Can­not wait.

In Praise of Titus Andronicus

I’ve lis­tened to this about 1,000 times. Don’t know if it’s the go-for-the-throat vocals, the clever Spring­steen ref, or the Dinosaur Jr. gui­tars, but I’ve been com­plete­ly cap­ti­vat­ed by a band I wrote off after their debut. ‘The Mon­i­tor’ blows away any­thing I remem­ber from ‘The Air­ing of Griev­ances,’ which isn’t say­ing much, since I remem­ber about zero from the lat­ter. I may need to revis­it that one.

For­give me for being turned off by a lack­lus­ter per­for­mance at John­ny Bren­da’s once. There was a stretch where every hyped indie act I saw proved dis­ap­point­ing on any lev­el. Pret­ty sure they opened for the Ponys. I’m still recov­er­ing from that experience.

Suf­fice it to say that I have a very sen­si­tive BS detec­tor when it comes to bands that fall into that cat­e­go­ry of new truth in indie rock, but Titus Andron­i­cus have defied all expec­ta­tions. Sol­id. I mean, who even releas­es a sopho­more album any­one pays atten­tion to any­more? Con­grats, dudes.

What Happened to Super Furry Animals?

I tuned out after Phan­tom Pow­er. I know peo­ple loved “Inau­gur­al Trams,” but I could­n’t get on board. (See what I did there?)

I lis­tened to their albums so much and SO LOUDLY dur­ing grad school that I’d thought I’d go deaf try­ing to fig­ure out what was hap­pen­ing in the back­ground on “Rings Around the World.” Then, sud­den­ly, like the New Pornog­ra­phers, every­thing end­ed up being more or less mid-tem­po. They’ve writ­ten some love­ly bal­lads over the years, but I just did­n’t expect them to ditch the fuzz pop altogether.

Can a case be made for Love Kraft and Dark Days/Light Years? Am I miss­ing out?

My Musical Comfort Food

Now that I’m not mon­i­tor­ing news feeds across the web for the lat­est break­ing music news, I’ve been set­tling in with some old favorites. They’re beyond pre­dictable, but I find it so refresh­ing to tune back in with music I was lis­ten­ing to non­stop when I first start­ed get­ting inter­est­ed in music crit­i­cism. Let’s just say I find it more reward­ing than try­ing to fig­ure out what peo­ple find so amaz­ing about, say, Best Coast.

What am I lis­ten­ing to now? Here’s a quick list:

  • The Byrds. There was a stretch there in the ear­ly part of last decade that I thought they’d get a crit­i­cal revival from the freak folk crowd, but it did­n’t real­ly mate­ri­al­ize. They opt­ed for Cros­by’s amaz­ing solo work instead. Fair enough. Love the Byrds in all man­i­fes­ta­tions. Feel like they’re the Amer­i­can ver­sion of anoth­er of my favorite bands.
  • The Kinks! Love this band so much and real­ly haven’t lis­tened to them much at all late­ly. Guess the last time I went total­ly crazy for their stuff was right around the time I caught Ray Davies at Irv­ing Plaza in 2005. Going to see him in a few weeks. Can­not wait.
  • The Rolling Stones. Watch­ing Char­lie dance to Exile on Main Street remind­ed me how much fun this band is. I know it’s quin­tes­sen­tial dad-rock, but what can I say? I’ve been going back and check­ing out albums like After­math and Between the But­tons and lov­ing every minute. Real­ly need to pick up these reissues.
  • Bob Dylan. Have to admit that Dylan’s a tremen­dous blind spot for me. I have a bunch of his albums, my favorite being Bring­ing It All Back Home, but I’m not exact­ly con­ver­sant. Now I can spend some time!
  • Neil Young. It’s high time this old man took a life at his life, too. Have always loved Neil, not that that’s any­thing spe­cial, but feel like I was always scram­bling to hear some­thing new that crowd­ed out my fur­ther appre­ci­a­tion of this liv­ing legend.
  • Kate Bush, Vic Ches­nutt, so many more. Long overdue.

There are plen­ty of oth­er acts I’m leav­ing out. I’m not rul­ing out new music entire­ly, mind, but I’m so hap­py to have unplugged from the non­stop music PR circuit.