Review: Transatlanticism (2003)- Death Cab for Cutie

Every heard one song and liked it so much that you bought the whole album just because of that one song? That's happened to me many times but in this case Sound of Settling didn't make the whole album a let down.

Transatlanticism (the album) starts with a loud song that proclaims that "This is the new year" When The New Year is over it trails into a soft song about Lightness which is beautifully peaceful. This album is something I always look for, songs with great lyrics, can be loud and soft and no matter how long a song is I'm never bored of it. The song after which the album is named, Transatlanticism, goes for 7 minutes and 55 seconds and tells the story of how the atlantic ocean was made. Where as Death of an Interior Decorator tells the story of a mother, her three daughters, their father and his lover. The songs are so different yet so familiar and I have been known to start singing A Lack of Color on the way to science. Another reason to love the album is it tells you a lot of useful things " And when I see you I really see you upside down, but my brain knows better it picks you up and turns you around."

The complete product is a range of feelings wrapped together to make Transatlanticism, an album to dance, cry, sing, sleep and live to.

For that I give it: 9.5/10

The lyrics and hidden meanings behind the songs mean not everyone likes it but I truly did.
OVER AND OUT
LIL-ROZE

Little Bit's Top 5

So I'm Little Bit and this is my first post on this blog so frankie and I thought it would be a good idea to give you my top five songs right now

1. There's a Good Reason These Tables are Numbered, Honey, You Just Haven't Thought of It Yet- Panic! At the Disco
If you know me very well you'd know most of the songs I like have long names that have nothing to do with the song, which is one of the things I like about Panic! At the Disco. The song its self is quite odd, the lyrics don't really make much sense but its one of the things that make TAGRTTANHYJHTOIY (thats the first letter of every word in the name) good, that and the beat.

2. Lying is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Of- Panic! At the Disco
Another song thats name doesn't have much to do with the song. The chorus is the best part of this song "Lets get these teen hearts beating, faster, faster" take away the oddness, and weird looks, from the main verses.

3. I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)- Fall Out Boy
The thing I like best about the song is how the name is that long and then in brackets it says Summer Song. It doesn't make sense but makes for a good first impression. As with all Fall Out Boy songs the lyrics are the best part " And I wanted to be known for my hits not just my misses, I took a shot and didn't even come close." Its a song that I know if I hear it my day will get better.

4. Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued- Fall Out Boy
The first line of this song drew me in "Brothers and Sisters put this record down, take my advice cause we are bad news." Its a brilliant song that shows even my sister, who hates Fall Out Boy, the brilliance that is Pete Wentz. This reason for loving this song shall be ended with a quote from it "The best part of believe is the lie."

5. Keep Awake- 100 Monkeys
To show everyone that I don't just listen to long named songs with no relation to lyrics I choice Keep Awake as my finally song. This song is most likely the reason my sister thinks my music is depressing the main lyrics are " I will kill you in your sleep, so you better try, try and keep awake" The beat behind this song is something that makes it seem happy while the lyrics tell you to "Keep your left eye open and your right toe twitching" because the singer is " In the kitchen with the knife thats itching for your red blood on those white sheets."

Over And Out
LIL-ROZE

Review: Experience (1992) - The Prodigy

Dance music. You hear it everywhere. TV ads, shopping centres, buses. Everywhere. But how did this international phenomenon begin? I mean, 18 years ago, rave music was still confined to raves and warehouses and popular dance acts (which today receive international respect and large fan bases) were confined to these venues, not even considering a large stage show. That was all until The Prodigy. The Prodigy are a band who went where their music wasn't meant to. Experience (which I'm reviewing) was an album by a dance group at a time when dance groups weren't meant to make albums. Their next album, Music For The Jilted Generation bought elements of rock music, and sellout main-stage shows and was controversial to the dance music community as it sounded too 'mainstream'. Soon enough, the influence The Prodigy had on it's own genres, the world of dance music and everyone in it was apparent, and it's impossible to know what would've happened if they hadn't been there to guide us on the path of electronic music change.

So, a little about the album. It's a breakbeat hardcore album (basically early 90's rave) released in 1992. Perhaps the most influential dance album of all time, I bought this album a few months ago and haven't looked back. From the swelling, uplifting bass of Jericho to the almost devious undertones of Charly (Trip Into Drum & Bass Version), Experience offers a solid launching pad for a band who perfected a genre, and then evolved as the times changed, leaving this style unreplicated in their next album. This album is a classic and deserves all the good praise it gets. For that, I'm going to give Experience:

9/10

Sure, there is a strong retro feel to this album which may not be everyone's cup of tea, but to me it just sounds amazing.

The Prodigy - Out of Space

The Prodigy - Jericho

Top 5: Week 1

Here's what's Moroliquo and I've been loving this week:

Moroliquo's Picks: (I object to the term 'pick', but sure, whatever floats your boat:)

Pick 1: Grizzly Bear - I Live With You

Reminds me of David Bowie's Win. For the meantime, I'll just label it as an 'unintentional interpretation' until proven otherwise. Quite humorous due to the fact the song builds at parts and then entirely cuts away, as if Grizzly Bear were to say, "Hah! You thought we were going to begin the chorus, but no! We sure fooled you!"

Pick 2: Arcade Fire - Une Anne Sans Lumière

It's Arcade Fire - the indie band that my hipster friend hates! They're slated to make a new album, but I haven't heard anything of them for a while. Which reminds me of the time I saw the Where the Wild Things Are trailer and jumped up screaming "Oh my God! Arcade Fire!".

Good times. Good times.

Pick 3: Sufjan Stevens - Jacksonville

The album is one entire promotional for Illinois, maybe - if Chicago is the poster child and the cavalcade of half-mentioned characters, places and events give you a sense of belonging to a place you've never been. I haven't Google Street View'ed America since I watched Napoleon Dynamite and really wanted to see if Preston was a hick town.

Pick 4: David Bowie - Win / Beck - Debra

Might as well put Win up now that I'm thinking about it due to Grizzly Bear. It grows on you, really, and- What? Another song there? Yes, that's Debra by Beck. They are virtually the same song. I Live With You is a vaguely similar song, but no, Beck goes the whole way and virtually duplicates the song with some kicking falsetto. I cry myself to sleep knowing I can sing that high.

I will never be normal.

Pick 5: Hot Chip - Careful

Orwell's 1984 has nothing on this song. No, really, the song has nothing to do with 1984 at all. But I swear every time a man on a microphone tells me to do something while disorientating electronic music is playing, I feel like I need to talk in Newspeak and lose my individuality.

Frankie's Picks: (Well, you write fave then. Whatever...)

Pick 1: Shapeshifter - Dutchies

Since the glory days of Goldie, Drum & Bass has been a genre plagued with cheesy synths, over-simplified structures and devoid of meaning, but full of lovable tunes. A band trying to reverse this trend is New Zealand's own Shapeshifter, a band which combines D&B and heavy soul. Dutchies is one of most incredible and uplifting songs I've heard in a VERY long time.

Pick 2: 13th Floor Elevators - Slip Inside This House

Ah, the 60's. I can say with honesty that I dislike rock music, but the psychedelic rock of the 60s is just amazing to me. This song is a signature track of that era, and should have been much more popular than it was.

Pick 3: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Fire

Arthur Brown. The guy who influenced theatrical rock, revolutionised psychedelic rock and has influenced bands such as KISS in their makeup. This song, which I found by it being sampled by The Prodigy, is an incredible song which is just as good as it was when it was released.

Pick 4: Fluffy Little Clouds - The Orb

Fluffy Little Clouds is in my mind one of the lightest, most interesting songs I've ever heard. In the early 90's, drugs and rave culture took precedence in the electronic dance music world, so when people heard this song, it got instantly labelled as a signature song for coming down from drug-induced highs. It's still an amazing song though.

Pick 5: Aphex Twin - Peek 824545201

I have to admit, almost anything Aphex Twin does is good in my books. That's because he's an amazing artist - who used to live in a disused bank. He's also a geek. This incredible electronic romp is named after a part of a programming language. And I love it.

Until next week, keep reading the reviews and encourage others to press that 'Follow' button.

Review: The Information (2006) - Beck

I distinctly remember a time earlier on when I started listening to music when impulse buying was my thing. I'd hear a song, enjoy it, and for no explanatory reason proceed to purchase the album for twenty dollars, to which point I'd enjoy it thoroughly regardless as I didn't really have any discretion in music. Then I purchased The Information.

Remember Beck? I do. To this day Odelay still receives excessive circulation on my mp3 player, thanks to the man's forward-thinking wit and ability to craft some tasteful groove. And then there were genre-exercises and soulful guitar melodies for a while, and then I never heard him on the radio.

Ten years after Odelay I was standing in front of the Beck section at a CD store to see a minute poster obscuring some of the Loser-era back catalogue. "New Beck Album!" it enthusiastically stated, "Seventeen new tracks, DVD, Stickers!". Or something like that. I was hesitant to pick it up as several questions swam through my head - why's the cover so bland? Is Beck's name written in lego? Is this really true, a new Beck album? I wonder what genre he's going to hop to this time?

What stickers? He doesn't want me to put them on the cover, does he?

Oh, he does.

So, let's explore the fact that this album is a wondrous marketing gimmick. You see, Beck wants you to buy a physical copy of the album so he can fund his ventures in Scientology. To do so, he gives you a series of stickers and a DVD to sweeten the deal of commercially-buying a CD and being a good consumer. They are genius ideas, and I found them to be very cool ones at that. However, there are a few setbacks to this witty business model, including:

• The fact that no matter what combination you put the stickers on your album cover, it will look terrible. That's presuming that you received the same sticker sheet as I did - there are apparently a few that are much better and actually have decent background scenery. And ones where Beck is not moody, nor in a sailor suit.
• Beck's hair. I don't know why, but he seems to like wearing a massive hat and having metre-long straightened hair around this period. Like pasta.
• The fact that these 'gimmicks' have risen the cost of the album to $30. That's after four years when I went to the store and noted the price the other day - it hasn't gone down a dime, if at all.
• The fact that the music videos from the DVD (containing all of Beck's songs from the album) are utterly bland. Now this is something that I've deliberated over for a while, but I've concluded that if you have a few friends, some instruments, a giant bear costume, and video editing software that has a 'rape the heck out of green screen' option, you could do the same as Beck. And nearly every video looks like it's been made in the same process.

Let me give you an example. One exception is the admittedly good Strange Apparition video, if not the best on the DVD. It's a wonderful song, Beck's wearing wings and there's a piano-key lady in a mansion. Actual choreography, decent song, so far so good. That is, until the speakers goof and stop the song for five seconds, which Beck decided to keep in the video for laughs.

Someone swears as a reaction to that, then they all fall on the floor laughing, the piano key lady and her equally randomly-dressed friends roll over and we realise how utterly pointless this video is. That's how incredibly lo-fi the DVD is.

The gimmicks and the price, which may have good intentions and be cool for a while, really mean nothing in this review in comparison to the music.

The music is nothing new, but it is fine-enough for the first half. Because, again, we have a case where all the notable songs are crammed into the first half and the filler put in at the end. And this is a long album. There's a ten minute song, which is apparently three songs, but God forbid, the man shouldn't make them gapless if that's the case. You'd be correct in your assertion that it is one of the 'filler' songs.

The genre this time for Beck is alternative. That seems rather broad because it's exactly how directionless the album is. But that really doesn't matter. If the songs are good, there's no reason to dislike an album for its artistic merit.

There are a few tracks that stand out. Elevator Music is standard Beck fare - one man, his guitar and the odd noises he can make putting you off-guard in the meantime, Think I'm in Love is as quaint as it sounds, the piano adds value to the song, Strange Apparition is a soulful tune that could (and certainly deserves) to fit on any other album, and Nausea has decent guitar, I suppose. Most of the other songs are predominantly a three-star affair or less.

The other songs are unremarkable. The album doesn't have highs or lows other than such mentioned tracks, really. I can't say I dislike the music, but most of it fails to make an impression. I feel bad for saying this after a thirty-dollar purchase, but...it's my least favorite album of his. It's okay, I'll give it that, but there's no personality, no technical prowess, no exotic trumpets and samples that made me love Beck's music.

Being the sucker, I brought this album when it was new, ruined the cover with the stickers, peeled all the stickers off, got bored with the DVD, and only then listened to the music. The thought occurred to me, "Do these gimmicks only exist to bring my attention away from the less-than-standard music? Could Beck do better?"

The answer was - and i knew it in my heart - yes and yes.

5.5/10

Beck - Elevator Music

Review: Fall Be Kind EP (2009) - Animal Collective

The last time brought an album without knowing what to expect was a few weeks ago. Said purchase was caused by none other than a hipster - you know, the type who craft their musical taste and dress code by general popular trend and fashion.

I was at the music store.

Without any formal introduction or senseless fraternizing, a long-time primary-school hipster friend had barged into me - turned around, and realized I was compulsively flicking through the David Bowie albums, because I was obsessed with him. Said older-aged hipster happened to be wearing a fedora and suit. He stank of tequila.

"Hi. Is that David Bowie?" He swaggered in the usual flamboyant demeanor. "You listen to him?"

I clenched my fists as he saw me slowly lowering one of the particularly gratuitous records that involves the titular artist being dressed in a Pierrot. This would not be easy, but I'd stand my ground in the face of being genuinely honest about my personal choice rather than some hipster that had long-worshiped the genres and albums that said friend comparatively seemed to like.

"Yeah." I trembled, wishing that the guy had some equally-irritable parents that could whisk him away at the promise of purchasing some ironic clothing or the like. "He is a little odd though, I admit."

"No offense, but really, David Bowie is just not a good artist. He's pretty gay, if you get what I mean."

"Bisexual, actua-"

"No! God, I mean his music." Eyeing the copy of Best of Bowie I had in hand, he snatched it and began to go over the rear cover song list. "Of all his, quote, 'best and greatest hits', I can only name a few. Heroes, Ashes to Ashes, Space Oddity, Life on Mars..." He mumbled, confused a little, and handed the compilation back to me.

"Some achievement. Look. You may like him, but really, he's not even a trend-setter, he's a sheep following the leading genres of the period. Anyway..." He signaled to his other hipster friends outside the door, "Listen to some Animal Collective or something. Gotta go."

He put a light brown cardboard CD case in my hands, and left. Being the impressionable sort, I was gullible enough to go to the counter and buy it instead over my preferred David Bowie CD.

The CD I bought instead was the Fall be Kind EP, by Animal Collective.

I've heard of Animal Collective from none other than Pitchfork, who assert that the EP is excellent and a wonderful experience, although I'd rather not quote from the site. Of what I have heard from them, mostly in the incantation of songs from the widely-lauded Merriweather Post Pavillion, they're different. A kind of pleasing, dreamy electronic album, yet a discordant cacophony at the same time. I know I'm harsh. Maybe I just don't understand it because I'm too naive.

The result, however, is pleasing, if not for the point that I feel this album manages to 'dumb down' its inaccessible complexity but somehow retain its, well, 'dreaminess'. It's a step in a different direction - not up nor down in comparison to Post, but diagonal.

It's original - Graze changes song midway, What Would I Want? Sky uses (and subverts) the only Grateful Dead sample known to man, and gives a real sense of genuine wonderment. I haven't heard a song made within the end of the year that really rivals this. Maybe it's the strings that actually brings me up in the clouds with the band on the same level on the first time.

So far so good, right? I really wish I could like the other three songs as much as the first two, but no, they're more ambient, therefore virtually inaccessible unless you're in the right mood and disposition towards that sort of thing. An exception has to be I Think I Can, with an odd indescribable hook, but bah, the whole problem that I have with the rest of the album is that repetition is only fine when it's melodic. Not to say there isn't melody, but I can't get into it. It doesn't have the 'feel', you could say, that the first two have.

Regardless, I'd justifiably pay for the EP for the first two songs. If you like Animal Collective, this is going to be your lucky day. The EP didn't win me over to being a fan per se, but it was happily accessible, which I duly appreciate. I'll have to thank my hipster friend regardless for waving said EP in my face, even if he is a pretentious, opinionated, ironic git.

Buy it? Sure, why not. Especially if you're going to be dancing in blue-skied grassy fields. Then you can be at one with nature as you play this music. Or something of the like.

7/10

Animal Collective - Graze

Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky