Jan
25
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
The Owl
from Fear Is On Our Side
This is the best animated music video I’ve ever seen.
The Owl
Jan
24
Tim Armstrong
[mp3]http://media.epitaph.com/timarmstrong/80491-apoetslife/holdon.mp3[/mp3]
Hold On
From A Poet’s Life
One of the most difficult questions for me to answer in recent years is What’s your favorite band of all time? There are a lot of bands who have had a lot of impact in my life. As I get older, I gravitate toward a much easier sound. The bands I have followed for the last decade or so are downright soft. A couple of these softer bands not only get regular rotation, but manage to create music that I identify with better than any other music I’ve ever listened to.
But one band started the whole thing. My music addiction can be traced directly to Operation Ivy.
Jan
22
The Shins
[mp3]http://media.subpop.com/downloads/free/Phantom_Limb400.mp3[/mp3]
Wincing The Night Away
Realeased 23 January 2007
I’ve been seriously contemplating writing a Best Albums of 2007 list in the first few weeks of the year, just to see how close I can get. Most of it would be based on expectation and conjecture. I wouldn’t be able to account for the surprise hits or debut albums. And, of course, it is impossible for pre-emptive Best-of lists to measure the emotional impact any specific album will have had by the end of the year. So I decided against it. Regardless, this is shaping up to be a very good year for music.
Well, Wincing the Night Away is a sure bet for the Top Ten of 2007. If ten better albums are released this year, I’ll be shocked. In fact, if this album ends up on 5 or fewer Top Ten lists over at Metacritic, I’ll eat a crayon.
Dec
19
The Transit War
[mp3]http://www.archive.org/download/ABSOLUTExclusive/01_Sheep_In_Your_Head.mp3[/mp3]
Sheep In Your Head
From Miss Your Face
My first thought when I heard this: Woah. Where did that come from?
This album is shockingly good for a band that doesn’t get national attention. These cats just know how to make solid rock and roll. It’s just a bit harder than your run-of-the-mill indie rock and less pretentious than modern emo. It’s not ground-breaking, but it isn’t trying to be. It’s just good, new-fashioned rock. When we’re old, grey, and thinking about retirement, the “classic” radio stations will play music that sounds just like this.
Dec
16
Maritime
[mp3]http://musicforsteve.com/music/maritime_calm.mp3[/mp3]
Calm
From We, The Vehicles
Emo music has had two distinct phases. Originally, emo was basically country music for hardcore kids: clean-cut mid-west kids singing about how sad and angry they are that a girl broke their heart. Whiney and predictable, yes, but it was also a new and oddly exciting branch of the ever-changing genra the rest of the world refers to as “punk rock.”
Then something happened. Some time in the late 90′s, emo got happy and poppy. The whiney, depressed, geeky, no-life, loser singer/songwriter was replaced with the pretty, tattooed, occasioanally sad, constantly complaining, but very well produced artiste.
Nov
6
The Decemberists
The Crane Wife
Released 3 October 2006
It’s difficult to write music that people will like. It’s harder still to write bold music with broad appeal. But it’s nearly impossible to create an album that will be considered a “classic.” Relatively few artists have managed to climb this Mt. Everest of musical accomplishments and we all recognize the names of those who have: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Dr. Dre, Michael Jackson, OutKast, U2, Radiohead… There is a special place in music history reserved for these albums and always room in our CD collection.
Well, make room for one more.
Oct
27
TV On The Radio
[mp3]http://www.musicforsteve.com/music/TV_ON_THE_RADIO_wolf-like-me.mp3[/mp3]
Wolf Like Me
From Return to Cookie Mountain
TV On The Radio makes music that is its own genre. Any number of hyphenated genres almost work. Soul-Punk. Indie-Funk. Alt-Fusion. Urban-New-Wave. Not only do these attempted definitions miss the mark by miles, they simply can’t do justice to the music itself. Nobody makes music like this. What’s more, nobody has ever tried. TVOTR have mastered the art of whatever it is they are trying to do. Welcome to the age of [nameless genre].
TV On the Radio makes music that is initially hard to listen to, possibly difficult to understand, and instantly easy to love. Mark my words when I tell you that this album will appear in almost every Top Ten list as the year comes to a close.
Oct
21
Silversun Pickups
[mp3]http://www.musicforsteve.com/music/silversun_pickups_lazy_eye.mp3[/mp3]
Lazy Eye
From Carnavas
Most of the reviews of Silversun Pickups will compare them to the Smashing Pumpkins, which is fair. Personally, I’m reminded more of My Bloody Valentine. But there’s another comparision that I find much, much more intriguing. Especially with Carnavas, it’s the subtle similarity to Lift to Experience that grabs my attention. It’s not so much that they sound like Lift to Experience, so much as they feel like Lift to Experience. Hovering somewhere between hope and sadness, with just a touch of anger. Simultaniously hard and soft. A constant slow build that takes several minutes to deliver and when it finally releases its energy, you are left wanting more. A lot more.
The critic’s insistence on comparing Silversun Pickups to Smashing Pumpkins means that this may be one of the most under-rated albums of the year.
Oct
20
Muse
[mp3]http://www.thehellerfamily.org/video/Muse-Invincible.mp3[/mp3]
Invincible
From Black Holes and Revelations
I’ll be honest, I have no idea why I got this album. I only heard one track on the radio, and I thought it was pretty cool, but not cool enough (at the time) to invest the time and effort into an entire album. But I got it. And I’ve made a remarkable discovery. Muse are what Radiohead could have been had they not gone lame after OK Computer. I can already hear the cries now, “Heretic! Traitor! Radiohead are as good as they’ve ever been!!!” Nope. You’re all either liars or really fooling yourselves. Radiohead took a steep downward spiral not long after discovering modular synths. And it was a steep spiral. I will grant you that both Kid A and Amnesiac had some really cool sounds, but those albums were nothing compared to their earlier genius. I thought that I was forever going to be yearning for the “old days”. And then I heard this song.
Oct
17
Tapes n’ Tapes
[mp3]http://www.tapesntapes.com/Cowbell.mp3[/mp3]
Cowbell
From The Loon
Tapes n’ Tapes is remarkable for being thoroughly unremarkable. Now if you’re a Tapes fans, before you get in a tizzy, let me explain myself.
There has been a serious influx of extremely complex music as of late. From the Decemberists to TV on the Radio, the trend is towards bigger, longer, or insanely produced songs. Even the Killers, who are already mega-famous, chose to create an epic, Springsteen-esque, arena-rock album for their sophomore effort. These days, the bigger, the better. Even more subtle bands like the Animal Collective or Sigur Rós (can I get away with calling Sigur Rós “subtle”…?) are hitting it big on big (in their cases, long and complex). I literally can’t imagine how these bands practice without an arena or a recording studio.
That is simply not the case for Tapes n’ Tapes. I can picture them perfectly fine plugging in their old and well-used guitars into older and just-plain-used amps, sitting around the garage, and writing an entire album. That’s beautiful.
Music for Steve
