Category: Pop (Page 54 of 216)

Eels: End Times

January 13, 2010 / Jeff Giles

RIYL: Grant Lee Buffalo, Parthenon Huxley, Jonathan Rundman

Here’s a record that lives up to its title. Eels frontman Mark “E” Everett has never exactly sounded peppy, but on the band’s eighth album, End Times, he sounds like a hollowed-out husk, strumming his guitar while he patiently waits for the sweet relief of the apocalypse. And despite Everett’s well-earned rep as a fairly dour dude, he came by this set’s crappy mood the hard way – yes, friends, End Times is the latest addition to the time-honored rock & roll tradition of the divorce album. Where some divorce albums sound angry or sarcastic, E copes with his pain pretty much the way you’d guess – namely, by opening his miserable veins all over these 14 songs. The story starts, appropriately enough, with “The Beginning,” a wistful look back at what almost was; 11 tracks later, E’s curled into the fetal position, telling us “I Need a Mother.” Alternating between haunting ballads and howling psychobilly stomps, all topped off by Everett’s not-quite-tuneful vocals, Times is relatively harrowing stuff; the closest the album comes to a single is the vaguely jaunty “Mansions of Los Feliz.”

Musically, End Times might be the Eels’ sparest collection; according to the band’s press release, it was largely self-recorded, on an old four-track in Everett’s basement, and it shows. Though some arrangements tend toward the fleshed-out (“A Line in the Dirt” even includes a little brass), the overall effect is that of a solo confessional. This is wholly appropriate, given the material, but it also means that, even in the context of the Eels’ other albums, End Times is the kind of thing you really have to be in the mood to hear. Hear it one way, and it’s just morose noodling; hear it another way, and it’ll slay you. Not quite as good as Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, in other words – but depending on your taste for heartbreak, it still might end up being your favorite Eels album. (Vagrant 2010)

Eels MySpace page

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21st Century Breakdown: Jim Washington’s Best Albums of the 2000s

January 9, 2010 / Jim Washington

As I compiled my list of the best music of the decade (a much, much longer list than you see here) one inescapable conclusion reared its shaggy head: the last 10 years pretty much belonged to Jack White.

How many other artists produced five stellar albums in the aughts, not to mention a couple of killer side projects and (that old rock critic standby) incendiary live shows?

No one, that’s who.

So, the best album of the decade really came down to which White Stripes album did you like more, White Blood Cells or Elephant.

Thankfully there’s no wrong answer. I first became enamored of “Fell in Love With a Girl,” totally fell for “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” became quite close to “We Are Going to Be Friends” and spent a lot of time in “Hotel Yorba” and “Little Room.”

On the other hand, Elephant had “Seven Nation Army.”

“Seven Nation Army,” motherfuckers. How could a song released in 2003 sound like it invented the bass line? Not just that bass line, but the whole concept of bass lines.

So as we recap our favorites of the decade, rock lives on into the new century in various forms, from low down and dirty to high and arty to pulsating and poppy, while what was once the cutting-edge hip-hop has devolved into auto-tuned disco synth. No doubt something new will emerge in the next decade to take our minds off it.

1. The White Stripes: White Blood Cells (or Elephant)
2. Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Outkast: Stankonia (or Speakerboxx/The Love Below)
4. Green Day: American Idiot
5. The New Pornographers: Electric Version (or maybe Mass Romantic)
6. The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
7. LCD SoundsystemL Sounds of Silver
8. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain
9. Jay-Z: The Blueprint
10. The Strokes: Is This It?

Just a few of the runner-ups:

Queens of the Stone Age: Songs for the Deaf, Rated R
Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Drive By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera, Dirty South
Sufjan Stevens: Come On Feel the Illinoise
Arcade Fire: Funeral
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Decemberists: Picaresque, Crane Wife
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Ben Folds: Rockin’ the Suburbs
Missy Elliott: Miss E…So Addictive
The Roots: Phrenology

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Arcade Fire Belle & Sebastian Ben Folds Drive By Truckers End of Decade Music Flaming Lips Franz Ferdinand Green Day Jay-Z LCD Soundsystem Missy Elliott New Pornographers OutKast Radiohead Sufjan Stevens the Decemberists The Roots the Strokes Top Albums of the Decade TV on the Radio White Stripes Wilco

OK Go: Of the Blue Colour of the Sky

January 7, 2010 / David Medsker

RIYL: Prince, MGMT, Death Cab for Cutie

They are only releasing their third album, but OK Go has rather shrewdly defined themselves as a multimedia phenomenon rather than a rock band. It’s a genius move, really, because suddenly the standard benchmarks for judging a band’s success are thrown out the window. Did the last album go gold? Who cares? The video they made of themselves dancing on treadmills has racked up over 49 million plays on YouTube. They are, in short, the kind of band that record labels used to kill to have on their roster; their devoted fan base would guarantee that all of the band’s albums would sell reasonably well, and as an added bonus, they allowed their bean-counting overlords to tell people that they believe in the creative process above all else. (Pssst. They don’t.)

You get the sense that the band is more than aware of their rather fortunate place in the pop universe, because they just used that freedom to create their most adventurous, and consistent, album to date. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky bears little resemblance to the over-caffeinated power pop that once served as the band’s calling card, trading the muscular grooves of their 2005 album Oh No for something, well, groovier. Prince’s influence is all over the place, from the Parade-ish “WTF?” (complete with a 5/4 time signature and rip-roaring solo) to the slammin’ “White Knuckles,” which is one of the best “1999” covers ever. (Likewise “End Love,” which is this album’s “I Would Die 4 U.”) Singer Damian Kulash gives the falsetto an extensive workout here, which is fitting with the lyrical content; he’s clearly had his heart broken – “Needing/Getting” is the Jilted Lover song of the year – so the falsetto gives good voice to his pain.

If they’re smart, OK Go will consider adding producer Dave Fridmann as an unofficial fifth member, because his influence here cannot be underestimated. The drum tracks sound like the stuff of Steve Lillywhite’s wet dreams circa 1983, and the guitars are crystal-clear. He clearly encouraged the band to think big, because these songs bob and weave in ways the band had never dared to try before; “Needing/Getting” and “Skyscraper” both feature lengthy outros, and the overall sound is positively massive compared to the stripped down Oh No. If there’s a catch, it’s the album’s final third; there is nothing particularly wrong with the songs, but emotional fatigue begins to creep in. And then, in the final moments of closing track “In the Glass,” they clean the slate with one hellacious tribute to “I Want You/She’s So Heavy,” a slow-building, climbing/falling chord sequence that will give Chris and Ben from Death Cab fits. If only Fridmann hadn’t recorded the drums so hot at the end; the music is so pretty, but when turned above a whisper, the drums sound like an avalanche. Pity, since Fridmann had done such a good job avoiding that pitfall up until then.

Of the Blue Colour of the Sky may not bring many new fans to the OK Go camp – outside of a few Prince devotees – but we’re guessing that doesn’t really concern the band much, and that is exactly how it should be; the second a band starts worrying about what other people think of them, they’re done. At this rate, it wouldn’t surprise us to see OK Go turn into the pop equivalent of Wilco. God knows, the world could use more of those. (Capitol 2010)

OK Go MySpace page
Click to buy Of the Blue Colour of the Sky from Amazon

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Freedy Johnston: Rain on the City

January 7, 2010 / Mike Farley

RIYL: Better Than Ezra, Counting Crows, David Mead

Freedy Johnston has been riding a small wave stemming from his mid-90’s alt-pop/modern rock hit “Bad Reputation,” from his major label debut This Perfect World. At the time, Johnston’s music could be found alongside the likes of the Gin Blossoms, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Better Than Ezra in retail stores and radio, and it fit nicely. That also was a high point for Johnston, because he continued to release a few more albums on Elektra, but never quite matched the magic of This Perfect World. The good news for his fans, though, is that Johnston has continued to make music and tour – and 2009 found him back with his original label, independent Bar/None, to release Rain on the City, Johnston’s first album of new original material in eight years. On this effort, Johnston still has hints of what made him popular a decade and a half ago, but the songs are a notch below that material, and his voice is a tad scratchier and more weathered. That isn’t to say this is bad stuff; it’s nice, and the title of the album is perfect for some of what you might call Johnston’s “rainy day” mood music – especially on the title track, as well as on “Lonely Penny” and “The Devil Raises His Own.” He also rocks a bit on the too-truthful “Don’t Fall in Love with a Lonely Girl” and offers up his take on lounge music with “The Kind of Love We’re In.” Rain on the City is a good album by anyone’s standards – but while Freedy Johnston has certainly earned the right to make his living making music, his days of making magic may be a decade or so behind him. (Bar/None 2010)

Freedy Johnston MySpace Page

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'90's rock alt pop Bad Reputation Bar/None Better Than Ezra Counting Crows David Mead Elektra Records Freedy Johnston Gin Blossoms Headlines Hootie and the Blowfish modern rock Rain on the City rainy day music

Vampire Weekend: Contra

January 7, 2010 / Jeff Giles

RIYL: Talking Heads, Paul Simon’s Graceland, pissing off hipsters

Hype giveth, and the backlash taketh away: Two years after being heralded as conquering indie kings by the blogosphere elite, Vampire Weekend releases its sophomore effort, Contra, amidst a hail of hipster boos. But wait, here’s the best part: All the stuff that seems to piss people off about the band – specifically, that they look like kids that wandered off their parents’ Hamptons estates, and sound like late-period Talking Heads crossed with Paul Simon’s Graceland album – is exactly what drew people to Vampire Weekend to begin with. They haven’t changed, and they haven’t been around long enough for tastes to change much, either – so what gives? We’ll let you draw your own conclusions (our theory has to do with the word “baa”), but no matter the reasons for the backlash, Vampire Weekend has managed to tune out the catcalls long enough to deliver a sophomore album strong enough to satisfy everyone who hasn’t pre-emptively left their flock. As far as second efforts go, Contra is actually pretty ideal; it isn’t exactly a carbon copy of the first album, but it doesn’t stray far enough to leave fans feeling betrayed. This seems to be a case of a band that knows its strengths – namely, crafting deeply derivative, intoxicatingly lightweight pop songs with a faint world-music bent – and is smart enough not to dick around with anything too far outside its wheelhouse. Not ambitious enough to earn high marks from the Pitchfork crowd, in other words, but on the other hand, it really is plenty of fun — Contra is the kind of record that doesn’t want to do much besides make it hard for you to sit still, and it succeeds. Could you ask for more? Sure, but albums this charmingly frothy make it hard to complain. (XL Records 2010)

Vampire Weekend MySpace page