2007 is ready and waiting, yet I'm still hearing the same bullshit of the past 4 years. Last year I had propped myself up to get back into the mainstream of cool music by listening to Film School, Flaming Lips' At War, Editors, and Sufjan. Of course, none of the preceding stuck with me in the long run, but it was a chance I took and enjoyed for a fairly small part of the year. Then there was the powerful and overly successful coup by boy bands Fallout and Panic! By the end of 2006 I had found comfort in Ariel Pink and his friends, along with the avantgarde.
Also in 2006 we saw the slow uprising of fake rock by She Wants Revenge, Silversun Pickups, and Black Angels. Fake because it was pure music marketing at its best, trying to target a, now, dry bed of Los Angeles cool. Fortunately, record companies are still in search of the cool and will do anything to bring it back (MTV is pulling TRL and its President via Stereogum). Still, I think they've got their pockets ready for Lily Allen's U.S. "debut."
Going back to where I started, about 2 hours ago I had forced myself to listen to some new music of the year. My choices were Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's Some Loud Thunder and Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City. I thoroughly enjoyed both acts' debuts and was ready to hear what they've done on my time away from them.
First, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: With the introduction of the title track, Clap spells out tired, old men rather than pumping the listener with something grandeous and fantastic. In short, the first string of songs were boring. "Satan Said Dance" was actually a favorite of mine at their Coachella spot last April and the album version did just fine for the first 3 minutes. Right after the 3:05 mark I saw that there were 2 minutes left and the goodness immediatley left. All 11 songs were boring, repetitive, and went nowhere, which caused me to drift in and out of listening. After all, I didn't really expect too much from these brothers of love, because I really didn't listen to the entire last album, although there were some choice favorites of the time. Some Loud Thunder is for the kids and the exec's.
Now, Bloc Party: Going back to Silent Alarm, the U.K. boys did have promise and good dance attitude. They had plenty of hype and it was well worth it, but after the South County kids got a hold of Bloc there really wasn't anything left for me to enjoy. But that's neither here nor there. The new album isn't entirely good, but it does have its moments of that anthemic catch that everyone loves in Bloc Party. And yes, the drums are fancy, dancy, but it doesn't sell me the story of the 11 song collection as being new. Like Clap, Bloc uses many of the same vocal melodies and drum rhythms from the previous albums. Overall, A Weekend in the City is mediocre and stands up with The Killers' second release. The mediocrity, though, is not entirely the band's fault; they've been ready to release a new album since their U.S. debut. Don't you think the 2005 single, "Two More Years," had some meaning behind it.
Can anyone describe the difference of music between 1983 and 1987, or 1993 and 1997? How about 2003 and 2007?
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