Nope. No music video review today. I am 4 types of worn out from that Culturology thing and waiting for grad school decisions to come back.
So what can I write about that is timely, perhaps SXSW? Neh. I wasn't there and I am just not that hip. (I didn't know about the Air Yeezy till January!) But what then? Ok, I got it: a quick preview of three upcoming/recent albums that I am interested in. Disclaimer: I really have not had much time with any of these discs, my opinions are likely to change in a couple weeks.
MF DOOM - Born Like This
Honestly, no Doom joint is ever going to top Rhymes Like Dimes. And, I kinda fell out of love with Doom's records after Nick's fateful 21st birthday. But I suppose all of that is irrelevant to this discussion.
Doom returns with more of those crazy ill beats that make you think "what the hell was he on?" Are you looking for more out of context narration over superhero cartoon music? Well, look no further than Cellz.
Gazillion Ear (get it?) is probably the track everyone will talk about, but it is classic Doom. In general, the collabo's aren't terribly inspiring (look out for Raekwon and Ghostface)
Still Dope does remind me of Rhymes though - if for no other reasons than because the beat is similar and I can actually make out the lyrics - of course that is probably because Doom isn't even on it.
I suppose if you are a hardcore MF fan, you will cop this regardless, but I can never dig more than 10% of a Doom album.
The Decemberists - Hazards of Love
Colin Meloy and his band are all about the concept album, and Hazards is just that. A story about some starcrossed lovers set to music in the style of everyone's favorite sea shanty singers. Really, that should be enough of a description for you.
The disc starts with a three minute organ prelude track that's like a really long THX demo at the movies. After that, it all sounds like ye olde Decemberists album. Again, I have only spent about a week of discontinuous listening on this - but while I really dug the previous 4 albums, I am finding this one a bit harder to get into.
The songs are self contained, but does anyone listen to an album linearly anymore? If this were a record, or if it had visuals, or performed live - I might be more inclined towards it. As it stands, Hazards is just way too hip for me.
And another thing! I feel like The Decemberists stole their whole MO from Squonk Opera. Anyone who is anyone in Western PA knows about Squonk after all. Basically, they combine music, art, and drama into their own brand of opera. It is actually pretty fucking cool. Check out their album Inferno to get a taste.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
Perhaps I am most excited about It's Blitz. Back when they were just coming out and Maps was burning up the charts, I was totally out of the loop, (much as I am now) but was intrigued by this tiny 3 piece band and all their energy. I think my fledgling interest in Modest Mouse helped prepare me as well.
So, what up with this disc? It left me with a number of questions that perhaps you guys can answer: Did Yeah Yeah Yeahs always use keyboards this much? Is this supposed to be an electronic dance record? Heads Will Roll and Soft Shock have me thinking Goldfrapp (or am I totally off base here?) And do I hear some Feist-y influence coming through?
But don't get it twisted. I dig the keyboards and I like Feist. It's cool how the record is all over the place. Every track (except the lead single, Zero) has a big sound, and the disc ranges from in your face to subdued (Little Shadow). Of course, subdued is relative.
So far, Dull Life is my favorite track. It has the driving guitar I was looking for and the strained Karen O vocals that I desire. And for those wanting to relive the past, Shame and Fortune recalls Gold Lion. Dragon Queen had me grooving too - but it even if it probably isn't radio hit material.
Basically, despite the truncated gestation period, I am telling you to go buy It's Blitz.
and i must not be anyone because i have know nothing about Squonk Opera.
about Doom, yeah that summer pretty much killed my love for his music too. i listened to his first album way too many times and i got sick of the uneven production and mumbled rhymes. Dimes does have a great beat and so does that Supervillain track, but otherwise there's not too many Doom tracks i would listen to. not that he's bad, it's just not for me. the only other track i can think of that i like by him is Rap Snitch Knishes, and i prefer Mr. Fantastik's verse over Doom's.
yeah, Doom gets stomped on by his guests sometimes.
I am someone, knowing, as I do, about Squonk Opera, but, in deference to Neal in a renewed spirit of non-animosity, will not say anything negative about them.
Doom is definitely one of those artists--and I probably like him more than either Neal and Nick (maybe because they got ruined on him in a time when I wasn't friends with them)--who still is best in homemade best-of tapes made up of the best tracks from his various albums. That happens with most prolific artists, though, don't you think?
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most artists? i'll vote for all artists! there are maybe two or three albums i will occasionally listen to from front to back and actually feel good about it. even back before the proliferation of MP3s, i would put on records and just listen to one song... or i would lay a bunch of CDs on the floor and play one or two songs from an album and then switch to the next. i'm pretty partial to One Hot Minute by RHCP and i will sometimes listen to the whole thing... but even that has some tracks that suck on it. and Pinkerton, yeah i like it, but rarely do i ever make it through the whole album in one sitting. Q-Tip's Amplified is my third and final album i will listen to in its entirety... but even that has the track collabo with the guy from Korn and i always skip that song. other than those three, i make my own best-of collections. i don't think Doom is a great example of this - i think he's just another symptom of the mass disease of inconsistency in albums. or maybe i'm just too picky.
I can play Cake's Fashion Nugget the whole way through. Also both Norah Jones discs, most Aimee Man, and The Grey Album mashup. But as I said in the post, who even does that anymore? Considering the volume of music that can be stored upon even the tiniest of iPods - it seems patently ridiculous to limit oneself to a linear listening progression.
I kind of agree with both of you Nick/Pete. Most artists do not have a seminal studio album full of platinum singles. But homemade best-of mixes? I don't think I am on board with that. No artist, beyond maybe SRV, deserves the effort required to make a homemade best of mixtape.
I think artists should, and perhaps the hiphop mixtape culture is a good example of this, go back to releasing singles and only singles. The album is no longer the unit of sale and needs to die already. (I know I have said this a million times before) Or maybe artists could stick with EPs. EPs are sweet because they are punchy, contain maybe 5 tracks, and are like band trading cards.
I feel like once artists realized they had 74-80 minutes of available space on a CD, they felt compelled to fill it all. So, we have gotten more skits, more interludes, and more extraneous bullshit on every disc we purchase. The pitch is that it adds value for the consumer, but don't you feel like it just gets in the way?
well i hear you neal but skits are really dead now. it's already shifting to a single-based marketplace... but i think it should shift more towards a mixtape based marketplace, even for rock artists. major rock artists have just as many outtakes and scrapped recordings as major hip hop artists. the only difference is that the hip hop artists keep their scraps and put them on mixtapes and such, which can make some money and (more importantly) create hype. rock artists should put out two or three songs that are incredible (and radio quality) and then give people demos and scrapped recordings and unused alternate takes as add-ons. this "behind the scenes" effect plays into the DVD-extras mentality that drives the media marketplace right now.
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I agree that the market is and should be single-driven at this point, but I do like the notion of the EP making a comeback. Where you've got like 4-6 songs that all go together in a way, like the best 5 tracks from what would've otherwise been a padded-out album.
But, at the same time, I've definitely had the experience where I given artist or band has put out a full album, and many people like it, but people like different tracks from it, so it does make sense, as an artist, to put out a bunch of songs at once in order to find the biggest possible market. It strikes me that, in that regard, the album is a good thing, since if we're left with only singles, then it will become more and more likely that all music will pander to lowest possible common denominator (like every track ever with a vocoder).
i agree that in a single-only market we'd see a lot of similar songs, (especially if a certain gimmick/effect is popular) - but i also think market saturation would come on quicker, be more recognizable, and ultimately those gimmicks would die off faster.
acting purely out of copycat-style profit motive, while having some bad side effects, tends to actually level out at a certain point when competition is high and i think artists would instead opt for originality (or at least some form of "unique" expression) and quality over repeating the latest trends. however, having the bloated album form of distribution that we have now, artists tend to slip in more bad copycat tracks than i think they would if we worked on more of a pure single or EP market.
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As much as I agree with all this, I must also still say that a part of me still very much likes albums--there're a fair amount of rock albums from my golden age of music listening that I still listen to with relative frequency, rarely skipping tracks. Most of its independent stuff, so doesn't really figure into the conversation, but bands like Soul Coughing for instance, if new bands still exist that are like what they were like, acted as gateways to independent music, which is, in my mind, always better than corporate music (I realize this is as much politically motivated as aesthetically motivated). Soul Coughing always had one obvious radio friendly track on their otherwise mostly unique, mostly good albums. But to get the audience towards the better music, they first had to hook listeners with a single. So, presuming that a band is making music that isn't immediately radio or gap-ad friendly, but would be accessible to a wide audience, how would we find their music, which would generally be on the album that contained the single, if we only have singles?
90s alt rock bands were great at managing the system by putting a couple radio friendly songs on the album and then shoving a bunch of weird and/or edgy songs on the rest of the disc... the whole model is different now though and the albums i hear lately seem to take less chances with the creative content.
and HERE is an article on Hypebot in defense of the album
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