The phrase “arrived with their sound fully formed” gets thrown around so much that if music critique had their own annual list of banned phrases, it would surely appear in multiple editions. But when confronting Sun Giant, the debut EP by Seattle indie folk giants Fleet Foxes, there’s little else to say.
Reviews
Record #166: The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (2009)
As I mentioned earlier, Embryonic was the first Lips record I ever heard. Admittedly, it’s hardly the most conventional place to start with their expansive discography–far removed from Yoshimi’s space folk and The Soft Bulletin’s wide eyed optimism, and even further from the trippy drug punk from the earliest days.
Record #165: The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
Like The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots could do with some decontextualizing.
Even a decade after its release, it seems this record is everywhere.
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Record #164: The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Too often, The Soft Bulletin’s significance is attributed to the creative leap forward it was for the Flaming Lips. It marked the moment the acid-dropping punks decided to get serious and make some seriously beautiful pop music.
And while that’s true, it discounts the strength the album holds on its own…
Personally, the first Lips record I ever heard was 2009’s Embryonic, which played more like the psychedelic soundtrack to a 1950’s sci-fi horror movie than anything the Flaming Lips would have turned out.
And that, along with “Do You Realize,” “She Don’t Use Jelly,” and the Postal Service’s cover of “Suddenly Everything has Changed” were my context for hearing this record.
And I instantly loved it.
The urgent, overdriven drums, the synth strings, the sprinkling harp, the extended instrumental passages, and Wayne Coyne’s shaking, wild-eyed voice that ties everything together. It’s an album of unveiled optimism, young love, friendship, and occasionally drugs (this is the Flaming Lips, isn’t it?) that begs the listener to live and be alive, even in the face of hopelessness.
And fourteen years later, there hasn’t been much to rival moments like the opening strains of “The Race for the Prize” or the instrumental groove in “The Spark that Bled” or the closing crescendo of “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.” It’s an absolute classic, regardless of its context in the Flaming Lips’ or anyone else’s discography.
Record #163: The Faint – Danse Macabre (2001)
If you’re unfamiliar, the Faint makes the sort of gloomy, anti-corporate-America, synth-heavy post-punk revival that you’d expect from labelmates of Conor Oberst (who was a founding member, though he was no longer in the band at the time of this record). Sometimes, it’s exactly what I want.
Record #162: Explosions in the Sky – All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Not everyone likes Explosions in the Sky, but no one who dislikes them does so because they don’t make beautiful music.
Simplified restatement: Explosions in the Sky makes beautiful music and no denies this.
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Record #161: Exitmusic – Passage (2012)
I first heard of Exitmusic from an article that likened them to Beach House. I listened to a track through that lens, and I didn’t like it.
A few weeks later, I gave them another shot. This time, that lens was shattered by the opening title track, which had more in common with Explosions in the Sky’s more frantic moments than anything Beach House has ever done. Continue reading
Record #160: Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellen (2012)
Some people have called the cover photo for this album ironic. And of course it is, right? Indie artpop god David Longstreth teaching some old country dude how to play air guitar? Hilarious!
Although listening to this album, I’m not sure there’s anything ironic about it. Longstreth isn’t mocking the fellow. He’s teaching him. He wants him to get it. He wants us all to get it. And that’s what’s special about this record.
Record #159: Elvis Costello – My Aim is True (1977)
The same year Clapton was putting together a collection of mediocre excuses for guitar solos called Slowhand that (let’s be honest) probably sounded dated upon its release, something else was brewing in London.
That something else was a young man named Elvis Costello who called in sick to his day job to record his debut album, which has become an undisputed classic.
Record #158: Eric Clapton – Slowhand (1977)
As a guitarist, I think it’s a little funny that the cover of this album depicts Eric Clapton, one of the most lauded guitarists of all time, playing a G chord, the first chord everyone learns.
But whatever.