David Bowie's 'The Next Day': Above criticism

Dull, too long, a shadow of past works. 3/10

That's my review in a nutshell.

What I'm really interested in writing about is the way in which the music press is rushing to heap mounds of praise on to this mediocre album.

Check out the metacritic page for the record and you will see what I mean. The two reviews I most identify with, at Exclaim and PopMatters, raise a couple of good points.

In the Exclaim piece, here's the money line:

The Next Day is a good latter-day Bowie record, worthy of at least a few listens, but since it's so evocative of his earlier, better work there's little reason not to put on Scary Monsters or Heroes instead. At the very least, it'll save you from The Next Day's lyrics.

Nailed it. So true. I have this conversation with friends all the time. If an artist's new record makes you want to go back and listen to their previous work, it's probably not a good record.

The PopMatters piece is interesting because the score, 5/10, doesn't match the scathing criticism dished out by the reviewer. Unlike the writer, I'm a huge Bowie fan, yet I can accept some of the points he's making. The commenters, however shit all over the guy because of some imaginary 'bias' against Bowie, as if the former Thin White Duke is somehow above negative criticism now.

When the single and album cover were first released, I was astonished that the first offerings seemingly conjured out of the ether could be so poor. "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" is a decent enough single, and it would slide nicely into the first half of Reality. The rest of the cuts are generic and frankly boring, not to mention the appallingly stupid cover art.

My guess is that if this album were released in 2004 as a follow-up to Reality, the praise might not be so universal, as most of the rock-crit world would not be lining up to pay what they perceive to be their last respects to Mr. Bowie.

Best Albums of partway through 2012

Blog neglect! Yes it's been far too long, mostly on account of... you know... life... vacation... the summer... July and August are usually slow months on this blog, but here's a half-assed attempt at making up for a few weeks of lean posting!

Yes, it's my favourite albums of 2012 (so far) partway through the year!

I had briefly (very briefly) considered doing a five day series sort of thing with this, but I have made blog-promises before and broken them. I dare not continue that trend, dear reader.

And so here it is... five albums plus some honourable mentions that you should definitely go get legally, in my opinion. I won't bother linking to your favourite review site or YouTube, since I don't know what your fav review site is, nor do I care for presenting these fine albums and their great cuts in crap compression YouTube formats... I digress.

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5) Chromatics - Kill For Love

A double album, which usually means lots of filler. In this case even the filler is highly listenable. Kicks off with a Neil Young cover, furthering the group's reputation for great covers.

4) Japandroids - Celebration Rock

I loved their last record, and this one is right in the same vein. The only knock would be that it sounds mostly like Post-Nothing, but more developed. It's also pretty abrasive, and doesn't exactly reward repeat listens. Or maybe I should just listen to it more. To be played at maximum volume, for sure.

3) Joel Plaskett Emergency - Scrappy Happiness

The return of the Emergency. It's a spontaneous, playful rock album with great songs, great performances, and monster riffs and solos. Not much I can say really... c'mon, it's Joel, and he never disappoints.

2) The Darcys - Aja

I hadn't heard any of their songs before this album, but a Steely Dan cover album is enough to make me take notice. I was skeptical at first, but the band won me over. It's a solid update of a timeless classic, and they made it their own by bringing it into their musical space and giving it a distinctive spin. Well worth it, and free. You don't have to be familiar with the original, but it'll definitely help with your appreciation of what the band has done here.

1) Hot Chip - In Our Heads

The cold hard fact of the list format structure would suggest that I think this album is one better than the #2. This is actually far and away my favourite album of the year.

Before this record, I felt like Hot Chip was a great singles band with hit-and-miss albums, some cuts too quirky, other cuts made me just want to go grab my Devo LPs. All that has changed with In Our Heads. It's a cohesive, unified collection of very strong songs that really feels like an 'album', in that its whole is greater than the mere sum of its parts. And oh the parts, how they are amazing. "Flutes" is my standout favourite, but the whole thing is filled with bangers, ballads, and epic tracks. Fantastic production, interesting ear candy, killer musical performances, hooks upon hooks, and timely, contemporary lyrics, this one has everything that I could ask for in an album.

It will be interesting to compare this list to my end of year list, but something is going to have to knock Hot Chip off with a vengeance because I can't say enough good things about this one.

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Honourable mentions category:

-Patrick Watson - Adventures in Your Own Backyard
-Twin Shadow (aka Twin Shadbro) - Confess
-Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE

On not totally dismissing the band Fucked Up

I surprised myself by enjoying most of Fucked Up's new rock opera/concept album, David Comes to Life. I didn't love it top to bottom, and it's not something I'll be listening to all the time, but there were a few standout tracks, including this one:



The non-stop scream-singing isn't usually my cup of tea, but for whatever reason I dig it on this song. The gruff vocals contrasting with the melodic instrumentation sells it for me.
You can also grab this disc, as well as their previous effort, the Polaris Prize nominated The Chemistry of Common Life, at the at the Toronto Public Library.

Klosterman on 'Lulu'

Spot on as usual, Klosterman takes down the forthcoming Metallica-Lou Reed abomination album, Lulu

Top 10 Harshest Pfork Disses of 2011

Top 10 Harshest Pitchfork Disses of 2011 so far

Always more fun reading negative reviews than middling reviews!

Duke Nukem Forever & Chinese Democracy

I had a whole post prepared about how the recently released 'Duke Nukem Forever' was the video game equivalent of Guns N Roses' similarly oft-delayed Chinese Democracy album, but I was a little late on the posting punch. 

So here's the AV Club's review of DNF, which says pretty much everything I wanted to say, except more clear and concise.  Better luck next time, me!

You have to hear this: The Weeknd

If you are into contemporary, fresh, modern sounding music that's atmospheric and mellow yet rhythmically intense, with a mix of rock, R&B and hip-hop unlike anything you've ever heard, do yourself a favour and grab The Weeknd's House of Balloons.

Excellent, just listen and let me know what you think... I'm going to go back and listen to this now it's so good.



Seriously, check out the album. Contains swears and sick grooves.

Lupe Fiasco's mess

So this new album from Lupe Fiasco got a huge turd of a rating from Pitchfork...

I guess the writer hasn't been keeping up with all the hate and buzz going around this album, as Lupe himself hates it and blames the label for its terribleness.

I wonder how much of all this is Lupe trying to save face from making a bad album, and how much is the outspoken rapper once again speaking his mind?

Thoughts on the new Radiohead album

In case you missed it, Radiohead dropped their new album, King of Limbs, recently.

What's struck me about this is it seems to be a "post-review" release, in that the review matters less than what people think about the idea of reviewing this album.

Here are a few interesting articles I've read about the album:
How long does it take to “get” an album?
Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' and Music Business Acumen in 2011
On Critical Zeitgeist and Contemplative Cows, Through The Lens of Some English Band…
Metacritic: Critics and fans love it, trolls hate it

It seems people are more interested in pointing out the band's possible decline rather than enjoying the music for what it is - textured and pensive, two adjectives that hardly relate to the cranky netizens of 2011.

I'll go out on a limb (see what I did there?) and say that this one will fit in as a 'transitional' album in their canon. Of course we won't know until the next album, or even subsequent ones, should they choose to keep making albums.

The people whining about King of Limbs (search twitter) strike me as having an awful sense of entitlement, and a feeling as though Radiohead owe them something, and frankly I find it offensive. Radiohead don't owe you anything. They made some seminal, genre changing and generation defining albums, and they nailed a zeitgeist.

To expect anyone to perform at that level indefinitely is remarkably unfair, and it's disrespectful to their great art and the band as human beings. Maybe people are just upset that the band made them pay for something well crafted and of a very high quality after years of getting things for free.

I'll finish with a quote from the Village Voice article posted above:

...I do think Radiohead are Objectively Important, in that they're the rare wildly popular band with wildly experimental instincts, capable of pushing the needle ever so slightly in terms of what the music-listening masses are willing to regard as normal and pleasurable (Kid A is enormous in that respect), I guess I have to admit that I take Radiohead personally. I am protective, I am selfish, I am defensive on both my and their behalves.

Allmusic Kesha review

Taking a cue from Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, Kesha's Cannibal is a mini-LP released on its own and also tacked onto her debut Animal, which has been squeezed dry of hits. Cannibal is expressly designed to rectify that situation, amplifying every annoying element of Kesha’s persona -- the sing-song hooks, the relentless Dr. Luke loops, the squeaked sleazy rhymes, the defiantly transparent Auto-Tune slathered on every track, the cheerful bragging about the dingy film left behind after hookups with douche bags.

Ha. Hilarious.

Review

Loving the new Girl Talk

How can you not?

This new album feels more organic than the previous two, but somehow he's managed to cram more samples into the album. Could be that it's like 20 minutes longer than either Feed the Animals or Night Ripper.

I also find that this one takes its time, allowing you to enjoy the interesting juxtapositions for almost a whole minute at a time, whereas the last two the best parts would last at most maybe thirty seconds. It's been pretty fun to see this guy's evolution of the past few years. If you haven't seen RIP: A Remix Manifesto, you should definitely check that out. Highly recommended.



It'll be interesting to see where Gillis goes from here... I'm starting to hear stuff he's sampled before. But maybe that's just his style, much the same way we expect Keith Richards to have a distinct style to his guitar playing. As the film above describes, we could be entering into an entirely new way to look at creativity... that is, unless those in power have their way.

Hat tip to Angry Robot (who has been supplying me with lots of bloggable bits lately) for sending me this site that lists all the samples on All Day in real time. Cool stuff.

New Caribou album already!

Caribou Vibration Ensemble

I had read about this but didn't expect it so soon, it's a recent concert recording from ATP... Live albums are usually hit and miss (more often miss), and this sounds like it has the potential to be a mess. Maybe I just like to set my expectations low so I'm blown away. The above Pfork review claims there's four drummers in the set, so the mix could get muddled... Dan Snaith hasn't made so much as a misstep so far in his brilliant career, so this will be interesting to check out.

File under overrated

I'm not sure why critics have a huge hard-on for the buzzband 'How to Dress Well'... the songs are mediocre at best and the album itself sounds like fucking garbage. I'm sure I'm missing the point of the 'lo-fi aesthetic', but sounds this unpleasant to listen to shouldn't be paid for.

The Pitchfork review states "It feels brave, like it's going places a lot of artists in this sphere are afraid to go."... among other things that make me want to throw up in my mouth. Music recordings have become so devalued that the ephemera passing through our shitty computer speakers gets raised to the level of art. I'm a little annoyed.

Of course this could all be for moot as I'm listening to mp3s... but to that point, my friend Matt picked up the recent Ariel Pink album on CD after enjoying the mp3s for months. He was hoping for the disc to be worth the value, 14.99 or whatever the price was, which would include higher quality sound. Boy was he ever disappointed. Something about having it on CD made the music sound worse, because the expectation was that the digital hard copy would sound better than the particulate floating around the interwebs.

So that's where we are in 2010, entry level artists can't afford quality production so they're stuck with manipulating Garage Band or some other cracked software in order to get their mp3s onto the hard drives of relevant websites while so called 'legacy artists' who made their money under the old paradigm, like Trent Reznor, are able to release new material on stunning Blu-Ray 5.1 surround sound.

I know which one I prefer to spend my money on.

Very brief album review

New Dan Deacon: Mostly irritating.

His Wikipedia page has got it mostly right: "Dan Deacon... is an American electronic "musician" and hipster who originates from Babylon, New York and Baltimore, Maryland."

Gold.

What's the big deal about Twitter anyway?

Chris Cornell-Trent Reznor Twitter war, round 2

My $0.02: Anything that connects Timbaland to Rage Against the Machine in one degree is bad.

Scream is my early choice for next year's Grammy for Best Comedy Album. Only the funniest of people could come up with the wacky, extra-dimensional idea of getting Justin Fucking Timberlake to pitch in on a song for the former Soundgarden frontman. This Allmusic review of the album just about sums it up, though I think it's a bit generous.

New Kanye bold, clumsy

Kanye's in the living room, pouring his heart out; I'm in the kitchen making lemonade.

Lazy Saturday surfing

Links from a very lazy Saturday of web surfing...

• Great review of Futuresex/Lovesounds from Allmusic:

his innuendos are bluntly obvious, packing lots of swagger but no machismo or grace. They merely recycle familiar scenarios -- making out on the beach, dancing under hot lights, acting like a pimp -- in familiar fashions, marrying them to grinding, squealing synths that never sound sweaty or sexy; if they're anything, they're the sound of bad anonymous sex in a club, not an epic freaky night with a sex machine like, say, Prince

• T.I. - Paper Trail

there is a sense of urgency and a new dimension of self-reflection not touched upon throughout the holding pattern that was T.I. vs T.I.P.

• New Killers single - "Human"

Massive Lotus... er... Flying Attack?

Flying Lotus is a hip hop/electronica producer from California with an album out called Los Angeles that I've been playing the shit out of lately. It's very cool, reminding me a lot of Prefuse 73 and there are threads you could trace back to a group like Massive Attack, which is curious, because check out these album covers:

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles (2008)



Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)


Both are wicked album covers, and introduce you to the music before you even hear it. It's kind of like the way you "eat first with your eyes" when it comes to presentation in food, except you "hear first with your eyes" in this case. Whether it's a direct nod as an influence is up for debate, as it could be totally unintended. However, the influence is clearly felt on a musical level. Los Angeles is definitely one of my favourites of the year.

Oh, also, Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison)'s great aunt Alice was married to John Coltrane. That'll give you a bit better context in which to enjoy the album's closer here:

Dear Science,: Best album of '08 or best album of all-time?

Drop what you're doing and go buy TV on the Radio's Dear Science,.

I'd say go download it, but you'd hear it and say 'Wow' and go buy it anyway, so I'm saving you a step.

Or stream the album from their myspace. Best track: "DLZ"



Good thing we don't judge the awesomeness of albums solely on video clips. Overall not that bad though, interesting idea.

Now go listen!

Lil Milli

I decided to take a listen to Little Wayne's new offering, hoping to find foolish musical fodder to tear to shreds. Too bad my plan didn't work, as there are a few decent, catchy tunes on the disc. A few tracks produced by Kanye West are interesting to listen to, so is the duet with Babyface (yes, that Babyface) titled "Comfortable"; it's a reasonably well-executed response track to Beyonce's "Irreplaceable".

The guy is quite the entertainer, able to stir up controversy by calling out Al Sharpton in his lyrics while walking around in his underwear. His performance at the MTV VMA's this year was nothing short of hilarious... he's mastered the art of the cartoonish rapper that was pioneered by his rap-tastic forefathers, Snoop Dogg and Lil Jon.

That whole thing about him selling a million albums the first week the album was out also sounds like a bit of a hoax. In this day and age, are people really going to run out to the record store to pick up this guy's plastic? I would think that all the suburban white kids would already have downloaded the thing weeks in advance!



Also: I'd give the album a less glowing review if I didn't think that the Lil Wayne boogeyman might be hiding in my closet.