I spent the summer after my freshman year of college driving all around Michigan in a Chrysler Town & Country minivan with a busted CD player, leaving me nothing to listen to except a cassette tape of the Greatest Hits of James Taylor, who I considered the greatest singer-songwriter ever (an easy claim to make when everything you listen to has a -core suffix).
Author: Nathaniel FitzGerald
Record #233: CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe (2013)
There’s always been a weird sort of relationship between the independent music scene and Top 40 pop. Often, indie often derides pop for lack of artistic integrity, separating itself from the cheap tricks of pop to make serious music. But there are other times where indie tries to beat pop at its own game, shoving even more hooks and dance hooks into three minutes, which always ends up dripping with irony.
Then, there’s CHVRCHES.
Record #232: BRAIDS – Flourish // Perish (2013)
2011’s Native Speaker was one of those albums that snuck up on me without much fuss, but it crashed onto my year end list like a whirlwind. It was a bipolar affair, slipping from vulgar to tender within the same verse as the tracks jumped from manic exuberance to serene atmospherics as the record progressed. And with the announcement that their keyboardist had stepped down, it seemed like Flourish // Perish would spend most of its time in the chirpy, bouncing art pop portion of Braids’ repertoire.
But that’s not the case at all. Rather, Braids merged their two extremes into one beat-ridden, ethereal whole.
Record #230: Iceage – You’re Nothing (2013)
Punk’s not dead. It’s just been hiding in Denmark, where four teenagers found it in the streets of Copenhagen in 2008 and unleashed its fury back upon the world.
Record #229: Built To Spill – Keep It Like A Secret (1998)
As a snot nosed fourteen year old, I had a discman with the Ataris’ End is Forever album set to “repeat all.”
On this album was the song “Mixtape,” which featured the lyric, “there was Jawbreaker and Armchair Martian / Built to Spill and the Descendants.” Amazing as it may seem, through my years of trolling through CDs thank you notes to find new bands, this litany somehow escaped me until recently.
Hipster music junkie that I am, I somehow didn’t listen to Built to Spill until just this summer (and I still haven’t spent much time with Jawbreaker).
And the loss was all mine.
Years I have wasted, unaware of some of the most blissful guitar rock ever churned out by three human beings with recording equipment. Decades spent deaf to the sweet melodies of “Carry the Zero,” the max-capacity riffs of “The Plan,” the gentle softness of “Else,” the classic rock homage that is “You Were Right.” Years of my life spent depriving myself of the biggest guitars and sing alongiest pop songs 90s indie rock had to offer.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to send a note saying “BUILT TO SPILL” back in time to 9th grade me.
Record #228: Fugazi – Steady Diet of Nothing (1991)
On their second full length, Fugazi decided to keep control of the boards to themselves. The way they tell the story, none of them wanted to offend any of their bandmates by turning their parts down or suggesting second takes, resulting in a very democratic mix and a very safe album.
Record #227: Foals – Holy Fires (2013)
You would be forgiven for dismissing Foals if your only exposure to this album is the single My Number. It’s fun, catchy, and not too terribly distinct from any of the other dancy post-punk revival tracks to be released in the past ten years from Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club, Phoenix and the rest of their ilk. Palm muted guitar lines play against ragged start-stop chord hits over a tight snare beat and background “woo-oo-oo”s. Although there are some nice atsmopherics on the lead guitar in certain sections.
Nice single, but the rest of the album probably isn’t much to write home about.
“Not so!” says Bad Habit, the second single, which trades club-calling and dance beats for spiritual introspection and pleas for forgiveness. Continue reading
Record #226: James Taylor – …and the Original Flying Machine (1966, 1971)
Before James Taylor found widespread success with 1970’s Sweet Baby James (one of my favorite singer-songwriter albums ever), he was in a struggling band called The Flying Machine. The Flying Machine recorded seven songs in 1967, which they felt was only demo quality. Night Owl and Brighten Your Night with My Day were released as a double-sided single, which failed to gain traction, and they decided not to pursue a full length album. However, when Taylor’s breakthrough created the demand for it, Euphoria Records released the sessions as a quick cash in on his sudden popularity (to the chagrin of the other band members, who saw it for the cashgrab it was).
Record #225: James Brown – …plays James Brown, Today & Yesterday (1965)
No one disputes that James Brown is the Godfather of Soul. His legacy needs no summary here. But when you take him from the microphone and put him behind an organ, his songs lose a bit of their charisma. There might be some fine playing here, but ultimately there’s nothing that stands out the way his vocal performances do. Which is sad.
Record #224: James Blake – James Blake (2011)
It is my understanding that the term “dubstep” means different things depending on what side of the Atlantic you’re on. Stateside, it means the sort of bro-friendly, attention deficient, robot-sex music that’s made its way into car commercials and cheap summer movie soundtracks. In Britian, however, dubstep is a little more subtle–shifting textures over time, setting grooves and resting in them, forming a subset of electronic music much more suited for a late night drive than a trailer for the new Transformers movie.