Muscle Car Chronicles Trailer/Thoughts

Well now. Another rap/rock project out of Dame Dash's workshop. Blakroc proved it can be done really fucking well, so it'll be interesting to see if lightning can strike twice with 72ways favorite Curren$y. It seems to me that the success of any rock oriented rap project is that the basic elements of rock really need to be refined in order to not over power the vocals. It can't be overproduced an glossy. Its gotta have that knock to it, thats so crucial to hip hop. Leave the double time stuff to Girl Talk Tapes.

The drums gotta have a punch to them like a beefed up break beat. The riffs need to sound like samples and loops. And more imporantly its gotta shape itself around the rap. They gotta play nice together. And given Curren$ys versatility as a rapper and the snippet shown on the trailer, I think we might just be in for a treat here.

Also whats up with him signing to Warner Bros? I thought that was like purgatory for rappers like him. Might aswell have signed to Jive...

The White Stripes - "Rag and Bone"

Fuck, well there goes one of the most important and awesome bands of my time. Like it was obvious they weren't probably gonna be doing much anymore, there was always the faint hope they still had one more awesome album of songs in them like Icky Thump. Apparently it just wasn't meant to be. Its good that they seemingly have ended on terms that were good and theirs, but its still a bummer that theres not going to be anymore music coming from them from now on.

That being said, here is this awesome song from their final album, and it feels like a fitting eulogy and mission statement for the band. It captures the insanity, energy, simplicity and personality that made the band what it was. Gonna miss you guys.

Best.of.2010 #4 - The Suburbs

Following the release of this album, I tried to write something about it a few times. The album really captivated me and I wanted to do it justice when writing about it. Originally I was sucked in by the fact that they’d traded in some of their grandiose for catchier riffs and it was a pretty cool album to listen to as a result. Plus I’m a sucker for any sort of concept and the lose one about suburban life is one I can relate to.

Is it white people problems? Maybe, but the album isn’t a bitch and whinge thing, it’s more of an exposition. For me, my city is one that is essentially entirely suburbs. The city is a huge sprawl, isolated from not only the rest of the world but also the rest of the country. A veritable sea of houses that clings to the coast for a glimpse of water. It’s a fairly boring city, one that has the hits of the 70’s and 80’s blasting out of car stereo’s and a number one radio station that sticks to its promises of no rap and no hard rock. It’s a city that a lot of people my age plan on leaving as soon as they graduate university. Its not a bad place to live by any means, but having seen the rest of the world, coming back to it seems like being stuck in purgatory.

The Suburbs works because it captures this idea of the sprawl through its extended tracklist and evoking the artists and music that echoes through its streets and living rooms, from classic rock, to folkier fare, to punk, to 80’s pop. Using these genres as templates, they’ve made some of the best songs of their career, while still being Arcade Fire. As such, between the songs themselves and the overarching concern of the disc, we have of on the best albums of the year.

Arcade Fire - Ready To Start - LINK REMOVED

This Is Happening.

Wow. Just wow. This isn't just happening, this is fucking amazing.

I'm a big LCD Soundsystem fan for a number of reasons. Firstly, I worship DFA for both its dance-punk and disco (and now its classic rock, true story), I even have a t-shirt. I think i loved them from the first time Murphy claimed that Daft Punk were playing at his house, transposing a childhood dream of mine to song. I delved into their stuff, from the epic Yeah (crass version) to Losing My Edge. The monsters of Tribulations and Disco Infiltrator became songs that went onto every playlist back in the day.

What was different about these tracks was that they weren't really dance tracks. They were songs. This is something that I've really been trying to highlight on this blog. So much material that's out these days, the endless barrage of remixes, everything becomes just another track, some halfway cool idea that's never really fleshed out beyond the flashy and oh-so-now production into a SONG. Something that's going to last. And that's what James Murphy really brought to the table. His awesome song writing ability always gives these songs their own life and soul.

And to make it all the more sweeter, he got better! Sound of Silver to me represents the first time i really put effort into listening to an album and got more out of it. When i first copped the album, I used to listen to Time to Get Away and All My Friends and that was it. But friends made me sit down and properly listen and appreciate it. And jesus fucking christ I'm glad I did. Every song on that album is brilliant from the epic disco build of Get Innocuous, to the heartbreaking Someone Great, the joyous choruses of Us vs Them and the loveletter to a city that I'm finally going to see in two weeks, New York, I Love You, which me and my friends still drunkenly howl along to or make up stupid lyrics for. (EASY MAC I LOVE YOU, BUT YOU'RE BRINGING ME DOWWWWWWWWNNN.)

With that, we come to the new album. This is one of those glorious times when all your expectations are met. Every song on this album is killer. To those of you who hate the song Drunk Girls, you are obviously not having enough fun in your life right now, you should work on that. Dance Yrself Clean is an absolute monster with that epic drop around the 3 minute mark that makes you lose your shit. There isn't a bad song on here seriously, this is a fucking fantastic album. Highlight has to go to All I Want however. This song just gets me every time, its sounds like what The Strokes should have been making all this time instead of fucking around with sub par albums and side projects (Little Joy not included, I love that album). An understated spiritual successor to All My Friends, its the sort of song that not only makes everything okay, it also makes me prone to exaggerated hyperbole.

Alot of good music has come out this year. 2010 has been an amazing year and we're only 4 months in. Whats been good about it is the abundance of new bands, new sounds that makes music exciting for the fans. While they may not be fully formed yet as artist, theyre doing great stuff, putting out good albums and songs.

LCD Soundsystem is on another level entirely. While others are putting out awesome debuts, they have honed their skills in both production and songwriting. This might just be their masterwork. Well done gents and ladies, this is amazing.

Stream the album HERE - http://www.lcdsoundsystem.com/thisishappening/

BONUS
LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 (Prince Language Remix)
Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem Cover)

Come On, Lets Get High

Sometimes stuff slips through the cracks. Really good stuff. Stuff thats around you, that people listen to, people love yet kinda stays at the back of your mind. Much is made of the so called blog consensus. That hive mentality that picks out its big albums for the year and so you know whats coming in that top 5 on Pitchfork/GorillavsBear/Stereogum/Pazz and Jop months before theyre published. Last year Merriweather Post Pavillion and Veckitemist dominated so much though other albums quality albums get left in their wake (and that's no shots at those albums, I love them both). At the same time everyones trying to push their own pet projects, making sure the really obscure stuff isn't left to float on by unnoticed, and good on them. That's how we do pick up on whats new fresh and keep music moving forward, by exposing them to new ideas.

Yet in all that sometimes stuff gets ignored, overlooked and cast away to the bottom rungs on the end of year lists, if remembered at all.

I am of course talking about Franz Ferdinand's blistering third album Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.

I can see why it happened. Released in January in the shadow of Animal Collective. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's came through with their excellent It's Blitz and its two huge singles, driving them to dance rock domination. And as a result of the declining sway of Brit-Rock and dance-punk and the rise of lo-fi/glo-fi and a Britain under the spell of the XX (another sweet band), Franz Ferdinand got lost in the shuffle.

And what a shame it is. This album was one that was constantly on blast throughout the year. I used to work at a bottle shop back home where the staff had near total control of the stereo (No Wu-tang was one of the few rules, its not store appropriate apparently). As a result of a busy work schedule, it became the best place that once you got a new album, you could put it on and let it play through, no temptation to start skipping tracks and as such you could really appreciate an album as a whole, from start to finish.

And "Tonight" is one of those albums. It plays (i think i remember reading somewhere that it was intentional) like a night out. Starts slow, seedy, sticky, chasing girls, to the massive climax of the new version of Lucid Dreams, the center piece of the album with its meeaaaaaan electronic section before the final come down of Dream again and the drunken, softly spoken memories of the night before in the reprise closer of Katherine Kiss Me.

And what a journey it is. There is simply not a bad song on this album. Beyond the massive singles like Ulysses and No You Girl's, each track is memorable and catchy in its own way. Each one presented with that white boy dandy swagger and class, with the filthy dubbed out bass and seedy lyrics.

So if anyone is reading this, I emplore you to go back to this album. Seriously, this is still played every time before I go out to party. Its something that should not have been overlooked but this can always be rectified. Do your self a favor and cop it now.