I know I'm quite a few months behind the rest of the blogosphere on this one, but I'll be willing to bet that some of you are too. (Marc, I'm looking at you.)
Vampire Weekend, the blog band of late 2007.
So I'm driving to work today, and it is one of those beautiful, warm springtime days. I have my windows down, and the neighborhood I am driving in contains many, many rosebushes which are quite fragrant.
I pop in VW, and everything seems exactly right. Am I in a wonderful mood because of the album, or the weather, or both? who knows. I have decided one thing, though. If this band is polarizing, that's okay. If you are of a romantic mind like me, pop this album in today and I am quite sure you will enjoy it.
I really cannot get enough of the first four tracks lately. I've posted them for you to enjoy. Play them. Even if you, like me, have been enjoying this album for a little while now. This is really happy music.
Mansard Roof
Oxford Comma
A-Punk
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Kerouac, DCFC, and the "meaning of life" (oh my)
I like Paste magazine. If you are a music, film, or literature fan of a certain ilk(read:"hipster-ish"), i think that you would too. Ben Gibbard, the singer/songwriting force of Death Cab for Cutie, recently spent some time in the cabin Jack Kerouac did in Big Sur, Cali. when writing the novel of the same name. i am more interested in this article for the Kerouac elements (not that big of a dcfc fan, but still)
here, read it.
in case you absolutely think that this article is a waste of time, here are excerpts of note:
here, read it.
in case you absolutely think that this article is a waste of time, here are excerpts of note:
I pulled On The Road off the shelf and found myself reading it between classes, and at that time in my life it was exactly what I craved, exactly what I needed to hear. I thought, “That’s the way, that’s the ideal life, that’s great. You get in a car and you drive and you see your friends and you end up in a city for a night and you go out drinking and you catch up and you share these really intense experiences.
But then in reading Big Sur, it’s the end of the road. You end up with a series of failed relationships and you end up being an alcoholic and in your late 30s, and not having any kind of real grip on the lives of the people around you. That’s the potential other end of the spectrum when you’re never tied to anybody or anything. I run the risk of losing touch with the people in my life that mean the most to me because I have made the decision to live like this.
And moments in Big Sur are starting to become very analogous to my life, where I show up in a town and call up my friends, and I’m like, “Guys, we gotta go out. Let’s hang out, I haven’t seen you in forever.” And their response is “Yeah, well, our baby needs to be going to sleep and I can’t be out all hours of the night anymore. It’s time to move on in our lives into another phase; we can’t live in this perpetual adolescence forever.”
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
This is not a joke
The empire records soundtrack is one of the best albums ever made.
Empire records scored a mere 13% on rotten tomatoes. The movie is really good. To say otherwise would be to betray everything that I have ever come to know and love about nostalgia. Maybe the window is different for every individual in my generation, but there was a period roughly between 1994-1998 that everything i absorbed is amazing to me. Things that are punchlines now; silverchair and bush's first two albums, doug and boy meets world, independence day! This stuff formed me, no matter how hard I will ever try to deviate from it.
So the soundtrack. So 1995 that it hurts. I actually only bought it about a year ago. A reason i didn't buy it back in the day, ironically, is because bands like the gin blossoms and toad the wet sprocket were punchlines to me and my friends. Now the gin blossoms sound so dated that they are one of my "go-to" bands for mid 90's nostalgia. I suggest you revisit your own nostalgic window and rediscover the bands you used to make fun of as well. You might find that for whatever reasons, what used to not be cool to you is exactly what you crave now. the gin blossoms for me were "safe" alternative music, a little too much classic rock and not enough eccentricity . Now i am considering downloading their entire catalog simply to have something to play in the background while i read.
post your nostalgic guilty pleasures in my comments section.
Empire records scored a mere 13% on rotten tomatoes. The movie is really good. To say otherwise would be to betray everything that I have ever come to know and love about nostalgia. Maybe the window is different for every individual in my generation, but there was a period roughly between 1994-1998 that everything i absorbed is amazing to me. Things that are punchlines now; silverchair and bush's first two albums, doug and boy meets world, independence day! This stuff formed me, no matter how hard I will ever try to deviate from it.
So the soundtrack. So 1995 that it hurts. I actually only bought it about a year ago. A reason i didn't buy it back in the day, ironically, is because bands like the gin blossoms and toad the wet sprocket were punchlines to me and my friends. Now the gin blossoms sound so dated that they are one of my "go-to" bands for mid 90's nostalgia. I suggest you revisit your own nostalgic window and rediscover the bands you used to make fun of as well. You might find that for whatever reasons, what used to not be cool to you is exactly what you crave now. the gin blossoms for me were "safe" alternative music, a little too much classic rock and not enough eccentricity . Now i am considering downloading their entire catalog simply to have something to play in the background while i read.
post your nostalgic guilty pleasures in my comments section.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
and this just feeeeels liiike...spinnnnnnnnnnningg plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates!!
the internet blew up today. 10/10/07. i thought i was the only one that was calling it radiohead day, but turns out several online articles i've read along with all of my internet radiohead cronies are calling today that.
if you're on the internet then you aren't far from many of the thumbnail headline type things on google and npr.com or whatever you have your homepage set too and you probably already know about this new radiohead album the kids are all calling "in rainbows". it's good, but it's more about the record industry than the music that it will probably be remembered for. look it up. (in brief, this album was announced a mere 10 days ago with the catch that it would not as of now be released in stores or by a record label, but instead would be a download you could decide the price of, if any, to pay online. the download code was e-mailed this morning to those who took the band up on this offer.)
but really, the internet is absolutely chock full of radiohead fans or else i've just got a very one-tracked mind today. it seems like this album is everywhere. good news for music fans, because i haven't seen this kind of mass hysteria over an album since the mid-90's and boyz II men.
The music's good, but if you aren't predisposed to liking a band like RH (and i believe whole-heartedly that it takes a certain personality to like RH), why start now? There's no middle ground for deciding if you are going to download this album. it is very good though. Starts off with a jumpy first two tracks that make you think that it's going to be a rocker like the old stuff then goes into the dense and haunting territory of their (thier? i never know.) newer albums: kid a, amnesiac and hail to the thief. really after 4 or 5 listens, i'd describe the music as a smoother take on HTTT. the lyrics seem more straightforward than i've heard from thom in a long time. most of the tracks flow into eachother until maybe one of the most heartbreaking songs in thier catalogue. the last track does end on a nice note though..
"No matter what happens now
You shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."
now how do i get people to read this? i'll learn more tricks like italics and bells and whistles later.
if you're on the internet then you aren't far from many of the thumbnail headline type things on google and npr.com or whatever you have your homepage set too and you probably already know about this new radiohead album the kids are all calling "in rainbows". it's good, but it's more about the record industry than the music that it will probably be remembered for. look it up. (in brief, this album was announced a mere 10 days ago with the catch that it would not as of now be released in stores or by a record label, but instead would be a download you could decide the price of, if any, to pay online. the download code was e-mailed this morning to those who took the band up on this offer.)
but really, the internet is absolutely chock full of radiohead fans or else i've just got a very one-tracked mind today. it seems like this album is everywhere. good news for music fans, because i haven't seen this kind of mass hysteria over an album since the mid-90's and boyz II men.
The music's good, but if you aren't predisposed to liking a band like RH (and i believe whole-heartedly that it takes a certain personality to like RH), why start now? There's no middle ground for deciding if you are going to download this album. it is very good though. Starts off with a jumpy first two tracks that make you think that it's going to be a rocker like the old stuff then goes into the dense and haunting territory of their (thier? i never know.) newer albums: kid a, amnesiac and hail to the thief. really after 4 or 5 listens, i'd describe the music as a smoother take on HTTT. the lyrics seem more straightforward than i've heard from thom in a long time. most of the tracks flow into eachother until maybe one of the most heartbreaking songs in thier catalogue. the last track does end on a nice note though..
"No matter what happens now
You shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."
now how do i get people to read this? i'll learn more tricks like italics and bells and whistles later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)