This was an awesome week for rock music.  Here’s the playlist:

New Music Thursdays, 3/8

The Kills, Midnight Boom

The Black Keys, Brothers

Pete Yorn, Back & Fourth

The Robert Glasper Experiment, Black Radio

Social Distortion, Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes

My favorite this week was Brothers, hands down.  I think it’s magical when a band can sound old and new at the same time, and this band pulls it off (The Vaccines, from my 2/16 playlist, are also great at this).  It’s funky without being tongue-in-cheek. The album cover trick would normally annoy me, but they get a pass because they sound fantastic.  ‘Howlin’ For You’, ‘Too Afraid To Love You’, and ‘Black Mud’ are a few of my favorite tracks.

Midnight Boom was sort of predictable, but still good.  I am a sucker for female vocalists, so I can forgive their less-is-more style. While the minimalist approach is interesting for awhile, it eventually bores me.  I’ll listen to their other albums and see where they end up. ‘Cheap And Cheerful’, ‘Black Balloon’, and ‘Sour Cherry’ are my picks, and I should add the song ‘Alphabet Pony’ is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

Ah, Pete Yorn.  I just love this guy.Back & Fourthis what I like my stripped-down rock to be - singer/songwriter driven with nice hooks and melodies.  ‘Close’, ‘Social Development Dance’, and ‘Paradise Cove’ stood out for me.

I have to start out the Robert Glasper review by saying if you have the word ‘Experiment’ in your band name, you better bring something worth trying out.  This felt like musical masturbation (a cute phrase my husband made up to describe people ‘jamming’ without any direction or innovation).  This album lost me completely when a conversation starts up in the middle of a song, and one of the singers opines, ‘People just don’t think anymore. Much.’  Ooooookay.

I really wanted to like Hard Times And Nursery Rhymes, but it just sounded like country music to me.  I tried to remember why I liked them in the first place - punky, good lyrics, etc.  But this didn’t sound at all like I expected and I didn’t like it much.

That time I made a New York style cheesecake and nailed it on the first try.  Mouthgasm!

I got a little behind this week, so I only got to listen to four of the five albums I had picked out.  The good news is all of the albums were pretty fantastic.  Here’s the playlist:

New Music Thursdays, 3/1

Aimee Mann, @#%&*! Smilers

Nada Surf, if i had a hi-fi

B.o.B., The Adventures of Bobby Ray

Alkaline Trio, Damnesia

I didn’t have a favorite this week because all of these were pretty great. I’ve liked Aimee Mann for 10 years or so, mostly because I’m partial to female singer/songwriters.  I didn’t like her more-country-than-folk albums.  This album is solid, pleasant, and her lovely voice is the main attraction.

Rediscovering Nada Surf has been awesome.  I can’t believe I missed out on all these albums!  My favorite track is their cover of ‘Enjoy the Silence’.  I am a sucker for covers, and Depeche Mode has been covered by some great bands (see their remix albums).  ‘Enjoy the Silence’ is a hard one to cover though - it’s beautiful and sad. Nada Surf interprets it honestly by adding their poppy rock sound.  I love pop rock so I was thrilled, obviously.

B.o.B. was interesting.  I can tell he’s young and commercially appealing.  I found some of the songs to be totally unrelatable, but the few that I connected with (‘Don’t Let Me Fall’, ‘Nothin’ on You’, ‘Bet I’) were pretty great.  I hope he’ll stick around so I can see where he takes his talent.

Alkaline Trio’s album is an acoustic interpretation of previously released songs.  I did not know this when I added it, so imagine my surprise when I heard ‘Nose Over Tail’ with an acoustic guitar instead of their usual punk rock badassery!  I ended up loving the whole thing.  I’m glad they tried something different, and it’s refreshing to hear the vocals stripped down. Who knew he had such a lovely voice?  I’ve always liked the contrast between the fast, punk rock music and the haunting lyrics, and this album gets that across in a whole new way.

This week had some redemption, some disappointment, and some badassery.  Here’s the playlist:

New Music Thursdays, 2/23

Dropkick Murphys, Going Out in Style

Lost in the Trees, Time Taunts Me

Tiger Army, Tiger Army II: Power of Moonlite

Deftones, Diamond Eyes

Scissor Sisters, Night Work

I figured Going Out in Style would be pretty awesome, and it was.  Very high energy punk/folk/rock with a strong message of Fuck The Man.  Good examples: ‘Hang ‘Em High’, ‘Memorial Day’, ‘Deeds Not Words’, and ‘Take ‘Em Down’.

Lost in the Trees was a Zach pick and it was right up his alley - orchestral rock with haunting vocals. It was a lot like last week’s Bon Iver album in that I couldn’t distinguish a track or hook, but it was all beautiful and moving and not something I’d listen to often.

Power of Moonlite was a disappointment.  It sounded pretty identical to the other album I liked, except there weren’t any standout songs for me.  Conclusion: rockabilly has to be insanely good for me to like it.

Diamond Eyes is an album I’ve put off forever because I really didn’t like Saturday Night Wrist. I am a huge Deftones fan from waaaaay back in 1999 and I couldn’t take another disappointing album from them.  My new tattoo artist said this one was incredible, and I wholeheartedly agree. The Deftones at their best cause a visceral reaction in me.  Seeing them live was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had at a concert. ‘You’ve Seen the Butcher’, ‘Beauty School’, and ‘This Place is Death’ were my first-listen-favorites.

I liked Night Work because I can’t get enough good dance music.  Also, it made me think about sex. Lots and lots of sex. From the best album cover of all time, to ‘Any Which Way’, to ‘Harder You Get’, this will make you want to get laid, pronto. 

Sooooo…… bye!

So this week I looked up some other works of artists that I already liked.  And I threw in a few new guys for fun.  Here’s the playlist:

New Music Thursdays, 2/16

Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Pete Yorn, Pete Yorn    (just noticed right now that I have two self titled albums in this list)

The Vaccines, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?

Jay Z, Kanye West, Watch The Throne

Porcupine Tree, In Absentia

My favorite this week was Watch the Throne, hands down.  I didn’t really like Jay Z when he first hit it big.  I preferred my rap to be heavy on the bass and light on the philosophy.  Thankfully, I’m not nineteen anymore and Jay-Z won me over a long time ago with ‘99 Problems’.  This album was bad ass, of course. I can rock out and listen closely to everything he raps. It makes sense to me. Example: he refers to his wife as his bitch on a track, and instead of feeling offended, I felt something like awe that he could take a hateful word and make it beautiful.  He should teach classes on that shit.

Pete Yorn was a great listen for me in much the same way The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy was - it goes deep enough that I can connect with it without going so deep that I get lost in it.  It’s groovy and poppy enough that I can listen to it anytime.  ‘Paradise Cove’ and ‘The Chase’ are my favorites.

I liked What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? a lot - it sounded familiar without being dull.  I can’t make any comparisons without feeling stupid, so I’ll just say ‘Post Break-Up Sex’, ‘A Lack of Understanding’, and ‘All in White’ are going into heavy rotation on my Sunny Day playlist.

In Absentia was some serious shit.  Zach has been trying to get me to listen to this band forever. I loved it but it made me sad. It blended all together like a Pink Floyd album - no catchy hooks here. Just serious fucking music.  This is not something I can rock out to every day, but when I do pull it out I’ll make sure I’m out in the woods with a notebook so I can figure out why the hell this album makes me cry like a teenager.

I had never heard of Bon Iver before the Grammy’s. It took the ‘blend together like a Pink Floyd album’ thing to a whole other level. It was more of a play than an album. I can’t remember individual tracks, but I know the beginning from the middle from the end. Make sense?  Yeah, me neither. I listened to it most of it during a long shower, so it probably seemed more melodramatic than it actually was.

I do not think music by itself is pretentious.  If you present it in a pretentious way, like, “My favorite band? You’ve never heard of them,” then of course you are being a pretentious douchebag. If you say, “Oh, my favorite band used to be so-and-so, but then they got really popular,” then I want to punch you because you are definitely being a douchebag.

If someone recommends an artist to me because they like the music, I’m down.  Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t.

How popular or unpopular or new or old music is the stupidest thing to talk about ever. If the song is about drinking and fucking or about heartbreak and anger, either way, someone made it and likes it and you shouldn’t be an asshole about it.

Just listen to the goddamn song or don’t, and stop being a douchbag about it.

That time I stopped my car on a back road because I couldn’t stop laughing.

That other time I did something stupid and dangerous for no reason other than I could.

This week was made up of recommendations from NPR and Spotify.  Here goes the playlist:

New Music Thursdays, 2/9

The Revelations, Concrete Blues

The Pretenders, Lose Screw

Wale, Ambition

Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More

The Kills, Blood Pressures

My favorite this week was Concrete Blues. From ‘Something’s Got to Give’ on, this album is flat-out-bad-ass. I liked every single track on this album, which is still amazing to me. Maybe I should’ve been doing this all along? :)

Sigh No More is a fantastic album, and not just because of how amazing ‘Little Lion Man’ is (although that is a factor). It’s also very heartfelt and honest without being a douche about it. 

Ambition is also very good. I like this guy’s music a lot, but I really hope he stops saying his name over and over again on every track because he is obviously irritated that everyone pronounces it ‘Whale’ instead of ‘Walay’. ‘Chain Music’ is my new jam.

The Kills is going to have to get another listen, because I was so blown away by The Revelations that I had a hard time paying attention.

Loose Screw was my least favorite. Chrissie Hynde’s voice is still amazing, but it sounded to me like she was singing over some other band’s music. Like if Blondie made a baby with Jimmy Buffet, and that baby crapped on The Pretenders, this album would be a hot mess of all that.  I’ll admit I was looking for the next ‘Tattooed Love Boys’, and I was disappointed.

That time I did something pretty stupid and dangerous for no reason other than I could.

That time I thought about adopting an entire litter of puppies to rescue them from these people. I ended up with only one.

That time I brought a little black cat home and named him “Bruiser” because he had blue eyes. I was allergic to cats, but I kept him anyway. He’s 14 years old now!

That time I visited a giant Superman. Sadly, he was wearing underpants. (I checked.)

Whenever I talk to people about music, I start with a disclaimer: I’ve never been able to sit down and listen to an album in it’s entirety - with two notable exceptions (Antichrist Superstar and Led Zeppelin IV - both in my adolescent years).

This is my attempt to both cure myself of this embarrassment and discover new music. I’ll only be adding albums I’ve never heard, without a release date restriction.

New Music Thursdays

2/1/12

Foster the People, Torches

Villagers, Becoming a Jackal

The Frames, Burn The Maps

Nada Surf, The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy

Sharon Van Etten, Tramp

Tramp is available as an NPR First Listen special, and the other albums I listened to on Spotify. Here’s the playlist link: New Music Thursdays 2/1

Since I’m not a music scholar or a music critic, all I can tell you is what moved or excited me.Tramp was my favorite. I’ve been in love with Sharon Van Etten for a month now - ever since I heard a brief sample of the song Serpents on NPR. I’ve devoured everything I can get my hands on, and Tramp lived up to all my expectations (Epic, the album before this one, is also fantastic).

Becoming a Jackal is also an NPR referral (can you tell I don’t branch out much?) and it was a very pleasant surprise. I loved every single song on the album - it seemed easy to relate to the music. I had a lot of fun listening to it. 

The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy came up in one of my newsfeeds. Of course I remember Nada Surf from high school, but I hadn’t heard anything from them since. After listening to this album, I’m excited to go back and listen to all the albums I missed.

Burn the Maps was a Spotify recommendation. It was almost too moody for me.  I thought it was a solid album but it didn’t move me right away. I’m not writing it off, and I think I’ll try it again in a few weeks to see if it grows on me.

Torches was also a Spotify recommendation. I thought it was a little boring. I can’t find anything really wrong with it, but it sounded sort of disingenuous to me. I was pretty disappointed because I love upbeat pop music. I’m not writing it off either, because sometimes it does take a second or third listen to get through to me.

So, now you have my unofficial and uneducated opinion on a few albums, and I have some new music in rotation! What a productive Thursday.