Tag: music

Refused Make Decibel’s Hall of Fame

Can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see the new issue of Deci­bel. This piece by Nick Green is a must-read, and I’m hon­est­ly sur­prised I haven’t seen more love for it online. Maybe I’m just not read­ing the right things, or maybe the Deci­bel mas­sive isn’t all that into Refused, but I was blown away. Great choice.

Not sure I know exact­ly why I love this album so much. It’s not some­thing I ever lis­tened to all that often and I cer­tain­ly was­n’t into it when it was released in ’98. I prob­a­bly did­n’t hear it until much lat­er when the album art caught my eye while job hunt­ing on my room­mate’s com­put­er in 2003. I loved how pre­ten­tious it was and could­n’t resist its temp­ta­tion. Like Fugaz­i’s The Argu­ment, it’s a bold state­ment album and one you won’t soon for­get. Cer­tain­ly a must for folks who missed out alto­geth­er. Let’s please diver­si­fy our ’90s nos­tal­gia past rote reunions like Pave­ment and Guid­ed by Voices.

Haven’t heard the reis­sue yet but I’m clam­or­ing to get my hands on a copy. Take every­one’s word for it. You won’t be dis­ap­point­ed. Chill­wave does­n’t have this kind of cathar­sis. Trust me.

Posted on by J T. Ramsay 0

Gil Scott-Heron in the New Yorker

Recent­ly read Gil Scott-Heron’s pro­file in the New York­er and was absolute­ly gut­ted. I’m among the few crit­ics who did­n’t imme­di­ate­ly fall in love with his new album on Mata­dor, and the arti­cle did lit­tle to con­vince me that it’s not the most exploita­tive release of 2010. Can’t help but feel awful for a guy who’s life is com­plete­ly dic­tat­ed to him by crack addic­tion. It’s like tak­ing advan­tage of old blues­men if you ask me.

Watch the video for “I’m New Here” above.

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Rihanna at the Borgata

You know that scene in The Body­guard? It was like that the whole time.

I’ve been all about R&B this year. Don’t know why it took so long. I guess it was eas­i­er to com­plain about all the things that were wrong with indie rock. Now when I look back, I feel like I real­ly did­n’t appre­ci­ate all the great stuff that hap­pened when I was grow­ing up because it was­n’t “under­ground” enough. Wish I’d under­stood the dif­fer­ence between main­stream crap and real­ly great, engag­ing art back then.

Hav­ing said this, this is a pret­ty lack­lus­ter Rihan­na song, but it’s one of just two videos from the Bor­ga­ta show last week­end. Fun­ny since you could­n’t look at the stage with­out see­ing hun­dreds of cam­eras point­ed direct­ly at her. Like I said, it was like that scene in The Body­guard from start to finish.

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Brad Lidge: Heart Attack Man

While I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful to Brad Lidge for mak­ing Eric Hinske a house­hold name here in Philadel­phia, I feel that after two con­sec­u­tive bases-loaded saves he should at least con­sid­er chang­ing his entrance music to the Beast­ie Boys’ thrash track, “Heart Attack Man.”

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What Happened to the New Pornographers?

I haven’t even fin­ished lis­ten­ing to the first song on the New Pornog­ra­phers’ lat­est album, Togeth­er, and I’m bored. This is a band that once inspired me to do that least cool of things — join the band onstage to dance — way back in 2001 at the Music Hall of Williams­burg. Man, that was fun. Has it already been five years since they played a pre­view of Twin Cin­e­ma at the Chameleon Club in Lan­cast­er, PA? It has, has­n’t it?

It sounds like a snide, elit­ist thing to say, but the New Pornog­ra­phers weren’t built to last. They were that rarest of ani­mals: a super­group not only did­n’t suck, but actu­al­ly pro­duced two clas­sic albums and a pass­able third before becom­ing adult con­tem­po­rary claptrap.

You see, it would’ve been won­der­ful if they nev­er real­ly formed a band as such, just pro­duced Mass Roman­tic, toured, and then went their sep­a­rate ways. Sure, Elec­tric Ver­sion is a spec­tac­u­lar album and I would­n’t want to for­get how fan­tas­tic it was to see them play those songs, too, but it’s just that it’s hard to look back on those albums and see them in the same light as they were made. Togeth­er, and it’s pre­de­ces­sor, Chal­lengers, are shock­ing­ly bor­ing mid-tem­po affairs that make you won­der how the New Pornog­ra­phers ever packed so many hooks into “To Wild Homes.”

The pace of their career makes me think they released those great albums, split briefly, and then reunit­ed to pro­duce two more lack­lus­ter albums, only to dis­ap­pear into obscu­ri­ty. Maybe it’s for the best. That way future gen­er­a­tions might dis­cov­er the unbri­dled joy when they first hear Neko Case wail on “Let­ter From an Occupant.”

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