2016-04-16
Evil Empire turns 20
2014-07-24
Spoon - They Want My Soul
2014-02-17
2013-02-20
2013-01-25
2013-01-13
Now Magazine's Top 50 Toronto albums of all time
A lot of odd choices, but the main takeaway is that it was likely someone under 30 who had final say on the list. No other way to explain why Austra is even on here. I like them just fine but putting them in the top 50 doesn't make any sense.
The Top 10 is decent... but putting The Weeknd and Rush back to back on any list doesn't feel right, as great as those albums are. We need waiting periods for albums before they are dubbed 'best-something-of-all-time', sort of like the five year period after baseball players retire until they can be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Nice linkbait on the mag's part though. Some interesting conversations happening in the comments too.
2013-01-09
It's official: Bowie has lost his mind
For some reason the music press is falling over themselves to praise the new song that is in fact, not very good.
I will wait for the full album to pass judgment but at this point I'm stuck between rage and apathy with a dose of bewilderment. Why on earth would he release this?
If you follow the link to his website there's an interview with the designer of the cover that is absolutely ridiculous. I guess no one says 'no' to Bowie any more.
I also find it quite telling in all of these articles I'm reading that none of the writers or commenters are pointing out what a stupid idea this is for a record cover, and that the song really isn't that good.
His voice may sound decent but he's been processed all to hell and frankly he sounds a bit ill. I really hope this isn't the way he ends his career, I'd hate for him to go down the Bob Dylan career path.
2013-01-08
Bowie returns!
I'm about as big a Bowie fan as there is, so you can take my opinion with some weight when I say this is really fucking terrible. Not quite Hours terrible, but I'll reserve judgment until I hear the full album. At this point I wouldn't be able to justify spending any amount of hard earned dollars on this piece of crap.
I'm hoping this is some kind of joke. Heathen and Reality would have been a nice two-album punch to close out his long, storied, illustrious career... but this... wow.
This sucks, and I'm bummed.
2012-12-03
Pitchfork Reader's Poll
For my albums I went with Hot Chip, Japandroids, Wild Nothing, Divine Fits and Joel Plaskett Emergency. Although... in a different mood I could have gone with Chromatics, Beach House, Patrick Watson, Darcys... and so on. If I had given more time to Tame Impala or Flying Lotus I may have put them on there as well.
This is kind of the problem with Year-end lists. For instance, how can I objectively rate an album that I've enjoyed for six months against an album that only came out three weeks ago? One I've had the chance to enjoy on commutes and road trips, the other is in a digital pile of listening that I'm trying to catch up on before the next album cycle begins.
Last year the M83 record came out in mid-November, and while it may have been better than the TV on the Radio record, I had a whole summer of late night walks home with it where I really got to know the songs and the flow of the whole thing. It's almost like the album cycle should go from March to March, since January and February are sort of dead months for top/hyped albums.
Consolation prize I guess: I put Flying Lotus down on the Pitchfork poll for best album cover.
I also put Frank Ocean down for most overrated. Not that I don't think it's a good album, I just don't think it's a 9.5 on the Pitchfork scale. Too many filler tracks on that record, which is symptomatic of far too many contemporary hip hop records.
Another prize over to Flying Lotus: My favourite video of the year.
The entire second page of the Poll is some a marketing survey/hipster test. Not terribly surprising but it's always interesting to see 'under the hood' in a way as big websites collect reader data.
2012-11-28
Download: Danger Mouse's 'The Grey Album' Remastered...
As I recall the original release was of pretty dodgy quality. Interesting to see if it's been cleaned up at all, and what their definition of 'remastered' is exactly.
2012-10-12
Paper Bag Records cover Bowie's Ziggy Stardust
I know what you're thinking, that my first instinct would be to hate it, and you wouldn't be wrong. Turns out it's not that bad.
It's a free download so if that's something that would pique your interest then it's definitely worth checking out. I wouldn't exactly give any of the cuts five stars, but the whole thing is surprisingly good.
Ziggy is one of my favourite albums of all-time so I really had my guard up when I first listened, but the first few tracks drew me in. It loses me somewhere in the middle, and it's tough for me to tell if that's just my pro-Bowie bias at work or what.
The Yamantaka-Sonic Titan cover of the Ziggy bonus track "John I'm Only Dancing" is a nice touch too.
It's interesting to note that The Darcys did a full-LP cover of Steely Dan's Aja earlier this year. I look at this, and other recent full-LP covers by the likes of Flaming Lips as a possible trend towards rock's canonizing of its catalog the same way that jazz and classical have genre standards that are performed and reinterpreted time and again. The maturation of a musical genre, I suppose.
Anyway, all the PBR record will cost you is your email address, so go check it out.
2012-09-18
Baseless Polaris Prize speculation
The gala will be streamed live on Muchmusic.com on September 24th at 8pm
Here's the nominee shortlist:
- Cadence Weapon – Hope In Dirt City
- Cold Specks – I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
- Drake – Take Care
- Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur
- Feist – Metals
- Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
- Grimes – Visions
- Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
- Japandroids – Celebration Rock
- YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN – YT//ST
If I'm on the jury, I would take the following into account:
No hip-hop record has ever won the prize.
No artist has won the prize twice.
No female artist has ever won the prize.
Last year's winner, Arcade Fire, could be considered a pretty big act compared to its fellow nominees. This may cause the jury to favour more 'indie' artists. However, the fact that Arcade Fire won at all was a surprise, in my opinion, considering they had recently won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
The jury is not afraid to go with an unexpected or underdog choice (Karkwa, Final Fantasy).
Past winners have been pretty much split between Toronto (and area) and Montreal (and area).
Adventurous musicality seems to be rewarded.
Considering all this, here's what I'm thinking. Since I haven't heard all the albums fully, and simply for the purposes of this possibly foolhardy exercise, I will assume that they are at least perceived to have equal artistic merit:
Good bets to win: Cadence Weapon (genre, geography), Cold Specks (relatively unknown artist, female)
Could go either way/I'm not sure: Handsome Furs, Japandroids, Grimes, YT//ST
Unlikely to win: Fucked Up (previous winner), Feist, Drake (pretty big artists), Kathleen Edwards (perhaps not 'cutting-edge' enough)
Welp, there you go. Totally uneducated, wild guesses.
Thoughts?
2012-09-03
Labour Day playlist
Going through my fav albums list today... Hadn't heard this one in a while.
Oddly, the wiki page lists each song with its own individual track. There are only four tracks on my CD version, of which only the first three make up the "official" album.
Listening to it now there's an eclectic element to the whole record that I hadn't really thought too much about before. Kyuss's spiritual successor Queens of the Stone Age are pretty eclectic at times as well.
Hard to believe this one is 18 years old now. Somehow weirder that Queens' Rated R is ten though.
2012-07-24
Best Albums of partway through 2012
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.
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.
Honourable mentions category:
-Patrick Watson - Adventures in Your Own Backyard
-Twin Shadow (aka Twin Shadbro) - Confess
-Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
2012-06-14
8-bit Radiohead
Cool stuff though, when I'm listening to it I imagine an alternate universe 8-bit NES platformer where Thom Yorke shoots flying daggers at paranoid androids in order to ensure the "OK-ness" of the all-seeing, all-knowing "Computer".
Oh yeah, there's a Kid A version too. That one works better for me, I guess cause it's a largely electronic-driven album. And perhaps also because I don't have the same emotional attachment to that record as I do to OK Computer
The concert this Saturday should be killer.
2012-05-03
The Darcys cover Steely Dan
This release works as a great stealth promo for the band's self-titled album, which you can also conveniently grab at their website for free.
"Peg" isn't quite the same without Michael McDonald. But hey, you can't argue with free music, right?
For me the original is untouchable, an absolutely exquisite piece of songcraft and studio excellence. However - that's clearly not what the Darcys are going for. It feels more like a deconstruction, but I'm not entirely sure it succeeds. My bias might be getting the better of me here. What do you think?
2011-12-21
New Weeknd album literally just dropped
This is pretty cool as this completes the 2011 album trilogy, and just in time for Christmas.
2011-12-17
Austra's Feel It Break
I don't think this band really deserves all this glowing press. They're pretty good, don't get me wrong, but it's not original or fresh enough to warrant the gushing praise for a relatively new band that hasn't found its own distinctive voice quite yet.
I find at this point, they're taking a lot from Ladytron. I will certainly be following this band as they continue to make music, but I can't agree with what appears to be the popular opinion on this group. I'm sorry I missed out on their recent Toronto performance, cause I imagine them as a performance-first type of band.
From their new album, the track "Lose It" also seems to get the most chatter. I prefer "The Beat and the Pulse", as it's the defining track on the album and contains the lyric from which the album gets its title, Feel It Break. It also has a killer build to through the song to the chorus, and the track just sounds amazing.
Decide for yourself:
Also, I can't decide whether this video is unbelievably precious and pretentious, or just low budget:
I'm going to say a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
2011-11-21
2011-10-05
Carles' commentary on the new Feist album
Metals isn’t made to introduce new people to her brand — it’s for people who already like Feist enough to go on an artistic journey with her.