This is my most-listened to song (according to Last.FM, so since 2006) for a reason: I have a weakness for upbeat pop rock. This track happens to be the first on a very consistent freshman album from The Postelles, hence it has the most plays. I’ve spun this entire album about 40 times, and it is barely old.
If you are not a young adult male you will not relate to these lyrics. Every song is either about dancing or dating, delivered with all the subtlety of blunt force trauma. Just listen to “Boy’s Best Friend”: “I’m not the guy for you / Maybe a girl will do / It’s too bad, too bad you were my type” laments singer Daniel Balk in his best vanilla voice. Pink Triangle this song is not.
This isn’t bad by any means. Nothing suits easy pop better than vapid lyrics. If you pick up this album you may easily find yourself 20 listens in before you realize it, as I did. Don’t judge yourself poorly for it.
“To Hell With Good Intentions”…amen. From me, this means getting off my ass and updating this blog. Coming from the rock trio McLusky it means something a bit more tongue-in-cheek.
Labeling bands with genre is often a tremendous waste of time. Calling McLusky a post-hardcore band does little more than place them chronologically within the timeline of rock music. What matters is that McLusky rocks. Their 2002 album McLusky Do Dallas is often satirical and self-effacing, an attitude I prefer over so many too-serious genre outfits. The album captures the frenetic, raw energy of a live performance, and live is where punk rock and all its derivatives really shine. Couple that with smart songwriting and you’re left with an above average album that manages to distinguish itself from the pack. A worthwhile listen even if sing-yelling isn’t your thing.
RIAA radar is no longer live so I will no longer be providing links to that site. You all should know better than to support the RIAA by now. If you enjoy an artist, please find another way to support them with your dollars than by feeding this awful, corporate giant. It’s not as hard as you think.
Red Fang is a relatively new band, releasing their first full-length album in 2009. You could call them a heavy metal band. You could also say that in a time where almost everything you hear is touched up with a computer, where pop has run completely rampant, that this is a band that is all about fucking shit up, musically and otherwise. For Red Fang, it’s about getting into the studio and tearing a track to shreds.
This official music video sees the band drinking a lethal amount of beers and messing with nerds. Another video sees them buying an old car, welding a big plate on the front of it, and driving through piles of stuff.
This is rock music. Enjoy it. You don’t hear it much anymore.
Ska is dead…they say! The Planet Smashers would like to respectfully disagree. Hailing from Montreal, this band eschews what seems like the standard of ska bands and does NOT wholly sing about such morbid topics as failure, death, and and drug addiction. Instead they like to PARTY!
Many of their songs are lighthearted or tongue in cheek; as such, comparisons to Reel Big Fish come readily. The Planet Smashers first formed in 1994 and are still active to this very day. They’d still have you believe that they are the life of the party, as they boastfully proclaim in this title track from their 1999 album…and that ska is alive and skankin’.
Interesting note: this album was produced by the prolific ska musician Chris Murray.
William Dupree was born in New Orleans in 1910. While he was still a baby his parents were killed in a fire set by members of the Ku Klux Klan, and ended up in the Colored Waifs Home for Boys. At 14 he left the orphanage and survived on the streets by hustling, gambling, and boxing.
It was at the orphanage that he first learned to play the piano, but it was in the smoky rooms of speakeasies and brothels that he developed his boogie-woogie style of play, picking up what he could from other musicians as he traveled from city to city looking for a safe haven from the same prejudice that took his parents.
This album, Blues from the Gutter, is widely considered to be his best offering. It tells tales of prostitution, drug use, and life on the low. Many of Dupree’s lyrics come off as darkly humorous…his word choices are sometimes comical even though the subject matter is far from it.
Weezer exploded into music with their first self-titled full length, now referred to as “The Blue Album.” After experiencing success and world tours, Weezer released their second album, Pinkerton. Critical backlash to the intensely personal Pinkerton ended up getting to frontman Rivers Cuomo who took a break from the band to attend Harvard. During that time he studied pop music and the band’s original album with the goal of recapturing the success of their debut…and with the consequence of taking all the heart out of Weezer’s music.
Fortunately, bassist Matt Sharp knew when it was time to leave, and focused all of his energy on his other band: The Rentals. The band has since seen many members come and go. It has dissolved (in 1999) and re-formed, and is currently active. Through all the years and lineup changes Matt Sharp has remained the driving force behind the project.
There is a lot of heart buried in the heavily distorted synths and pop melodies here, something I wish I could say remained in Weezer’s music. This dreamy, droning track floats on through a reminiscence of a summer fling. The haze of the distortion elicits images of a similarly hot summer and distant memory.
Mos Def is an incredibly successful entertainer. He’s been in numerous big-budget films and also has a successful music career. He’s even carved out a spot on stuffwhitepeoplelike.com, which when you strip away the sarcasm is a real indicator that Def is a true crossover success story. The musical side of his career took off with this album.
Both he and Talib Kweli, the other half of hip-hop duo Black Star, came out of Brooklyn and the east coast hip hop scene, and this track pays its respects to their peers who were murdered. At the same time they call for the community to elevate itself above the gangster/hardcore rap that was the face of East Coast hip hop and repudiate the actions of those involved in violence. Pay attention to Kweli’s first verse, it encapsulates the theme of the entire album.
Mos Def’s verses on this track are a lot lighter-hearted, full of the requisite boasting of a genre piece, but the staccato delivery and clever rhymes set him apart as an emcee. Kweli sometimes loses the beat, but the content of his verses and the urgency in which he delivers them more than makes up for it.
In the mid 90’s major record labels began phasing out CD singles in an attempt to drive up sales of albums priced around $20. Many bands would hit the radio with great singles carrying mediocre albums, but you wouldn’t find out until you had the album in your hand.
Thankfully, Harvey Danger wasn’t one of those bands. Their 1997 release Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? is solid from the in-your-face opening track to the quiet denouement. The album’s single Flagpole Sitta received heavy radio play, which may have made it easier to overlook the rest of the record at the time given the climate of the industry.
This track shows off the band’s ability to write something a little less simple than your standard pop radio single. It starts off slow and quiet and builds to a raging conclusion while frontman Sean Nelson wrings emotion out of every lyric, eventually walking the fine line right between singing and yelling as the song picks up. The lyrics itself are simple, flriting with imagery of a failed relationship, but ambiguous enough that they allow anyone to project their own experiences onto it…but there is one fact that nobody can rise above…“We’ll have problems yeah, then we’ll have bigger ones.”
The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Abolish Work
Swedish group The (International) Noise Conspiracy uses their music as a vehicle to deliver the message of their situationist ideology. Thankfully the shout-sung lyrics are just unintelligible enough to really ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the music with heavy handed messages.
Perhaps some people will get right on board with their anti-capitalist rhetoric; it could be kids thriving in teenage rebellion or adults disillusioned with the reality of living in a capitalist nation. All that really matters is that this band rocks, and shouting “We Must Abolish Work” along with them while flying down the highway makes you feel free and rebellious in a way that only good music can…even if you are showing up to your job again on Monday morning.
