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New Pornographers - Electric Version
Pop, witty, filled with lines that are either brilliant or just don't make sense, but always sublime. Even at moments that would, in other musical hands, be depressed and panicked, angst is completely filtered away and replaced by something extant-apart. Incredibly simple music and lyrics are arranged and developed along paths that make them catchy as hell and a pain to dissect-to-see-what-does-what-and-what-works.
Scissor Sisters - Return to Oz
Everyone seemed to love the band for five minutes and then forget they ever existed. I, on the other hand, will continue to love them and the album, even when I'm old(er) and miserable(r).
Lovely sardonic stuff. A functional concept album that doesn't get ahead of itself, it only fails as a 'greatest hits' album by not including their entire repetoire - and how often can you say that? The one cover included ('Comfortably Numb') is better here than when Pink Floyd did it ages ago.
Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
Best album he's ever done. This is not opinion, but fact. Well, it's a really strong opinion, anyway.
I like a slightly happier sound than the mainstream, apparently. This is what a happy, giddy Morissey album would sound like, if the Smiths had been composed of the Mothers of Invention - but, not.
And, things that maybe should/shouldn't qualify, but I'll list anyway, and if anybody's interested I'll go into more detail: Patti Smith - Trampin'
Chicks on Speed - Will Save Us All
Weezer - Maladroit
Mari Ijima - No Limits
Peaches - Fatherfucker
all in a supposed retrospect way.
But it's going to be the miserable soulless commercial pop machine singers that will be remembered by most, most strongly. I'd like to say it's Tom Waits, Nine Inch Nails or, hell, even Danzig who'll be the crowning moment of the decade - even somebody completely new who just explodes onto the scene and madly drops away just as we're getting a taste, but it's not the way the mainstream seems to work. I mean, have you ever polled a random room of people on who John Cale or Blind Lemon are? Our ignorance and bad taste staggers me, mostly because I too possess too much of both. It's that 'if it ain't on the radio or in a car commercial' thing, kills off some of the best. Just like there's a 'Michael Bolton era' or 'Debbie Gibson years' for somebody. Two years ago will be remembered for that absurdly annoying 'butterfly' song.
Two months ago will be remembered as that era of confusion where Miss Kitten and The Transplants were hocking hair products, Tom Waits wasn't hocking cars but it seemed like it for a moment, and Loretta Lynn released a hugely wonderful album (with Jack White, which actually made me rethink my position on him) and nobody seemed to have listened to it.
When did the last NIN album come out? (Not the new one, I mean, but the last one that was 'the new one.') |
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