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this is a review of the album i am currently listening to which is called BLANK WAVE ARCADE by THE FAINT from Pitchfork Media
quote: Alright, who out there is naked? You. I see you. You're naked. You're sitting in front of your computer, perusing the web, and reading about some records. And you're doing it all with your secret parts exposed. Is that really necessary? The Faint seem to think so. On their latest effort, Blank-Wave Arcade, The Faint sound completely nude. You can imagine these guys standing perfectly positioned behind their sea of keyboards, their hairy chests and legs staring you directly in the face. And whether it's really necessary is not an issue. It's just more fun.
But Blank-Wave Arcade isn't just an album about being naked; it's an album about sex. Virtually half the songs on the album revolve around an incredible longing for sex, and frontman Todd Baechle isn't exactly Julio Iglesias. He's not gonna sing in three different languages, he's not gonna light the room with candles, and sure as shit isn't gonna ask about your life. To Baechle, it ain't about intimacy-- he just wants to go balls deep.
Meanwhile, the music of Blank-Wave Arcade is new wave in its purest form-- a slightly updated version of debut records by The Human League and Gary Numan. But there's something else there underneath those layers of synth-- a trace of crazed 1990s indie rock bands like Brainiac, and maybe even elements of British pop stuff by The Auteurs and Pulp-- that make it curiously appealing to a staunch, gravely serious indiephile like myself.
Perhaps it's that these guys not only have balls, but that they also possess a certain creativity that's generally non-existant in today's new wave stuff. Not only are their songs brilliantly catchy, they're also inventive in terms of both songwriting and instrumentation. Where you might expect a lot of stupid, plinky Casiotones, you'll instead find hard-assed, fuzzy analog noise peppered with unexpected buzzes and whirs that enter the mix at just the right moment. In other words, The Faint have created one of the first records that's equal parts 80s new wave and garage rock. What're you gonna say about that? It sounds f**kin' awesome!
--Ryan Schreiber, November, 1999
[ June 15, 2004, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: Ben ]
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posted
aside: My apartment-mate is good friends with Matt LeMay, who writes for Pitchfork. This article isn't by him, though.
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posted
Another reason why these guys are great. This is for JIMMY EAT WORLD - CLARITY (an album i personally loved.)
quote: "Mr. President, Commander Sir, the air- strikes aren't achieving the level of success we expected."
"Ah, crap on stick. You know I can't send in ground troops. Are there any other options? I just don't understand it. On TV, that Marine guy fights a giant lava monster single handedly! Single. Handedly. Why can't we bring in that guy, with the sword?"
"That's a commercial, Sir."
"Ah, poo. I'm gonna bite my pillow."
"Please, Sir, we have another option. We call it 'Operation Safe and Sound.' Do you remember what we did with Noreaga?"
"No, not really."
"We rocked his ass out with what the kids call 'Heavy Metal.'"
"Heavy Metal. Hmmm. It just might work! Go up to Chelsea's room and look through her CDs. Get some of that rock and roll music and we'll blast it so loud, Ol' Slobba will come running out of Belgrade with bloody ears, begging for mercy."
2000 hours later, outside Milosovic's compound...
"Name and rank!"
"Brigadier Private, DJ Axel, Radio and Aural Uncomfortability Division, Sir!"
"Ah, the RAUD boys are here. I hope you brought some loud and aggressive music to flush that dumpy bastard out."
"Ah, well, the only suitable music we could find in Chelsea's room was this Jimmy Eat World CD and this Orgy CD single, Sir."
"Now, that Orgy is just bad, boy. Bad. Let's give the Jimmy Eat World a chance. It's our last hope."
"Yes, Sir! It was either this or Billy Joel's Greatest Hits and that 'Lady In Red' song."
"Damn Stanford girl. This better work."
0012 minutes later, inside Milosovic's compound, home entertainment room...
"Mr. Milosovic, Sir. The Americans have begun to play the rock and roll music very loud."
"Dammit, Volodrag! I must finish watching 'Red Dawn'! I must see these "Woolvereens" punks die!"
"Sorry, sir, but the Yankee canines win."
"Dammit man! Blood of Peter! Don't spoil it for me!"
"Sorry, Sir."
"Well, at least that Jennifer Grey girl got run down by a helicopter. I quite liked that part-- she got a nose-job you know."
"Please, Sir, come with me. The Yankees have begun playing their CD, in hopes of flushing us out. We must prepare."
"Wait, I hear the music... this is it? This is what they hope to drive us out with?"
"It just the opening song, Sir."
"But still! Listen to this! The plodding drumming and toy xylophone! A cello! The guitar sounds like crystal chimes. And the vocals! So much harmonizing. They sound like sensitive white American boys. I imagine if one of the photos in those vaguely homo- erotic Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs came to life and starting playing music, it would sound like this."
"The second song has started, Sir. We need to get you to your sound-proof recording studio."
"Wait, I quite like this song. This is a really great song. This must be the single."
"You are correct. It is also used in a new Drew Barrymore film."
"Of course! This song is just like Drew Barrymore. Puffy baby cheeks, curly hair hooks, kissable red lip drum loops... it's impossible to not like this."
"Oh no! The third track! It's has chugging power chord riffs and screeching guitar transitions! Cover your ears!"
"For this? I think not. They're trying to rock and be aggressive, but it's too polished, too produced. Whatever edge Jimmy Eat World might have live is sanded down to a waxy, smooth linoleum surface. And the harmonies are still everywhere. It's almost as if they don't know how to sing any other way outside of this 'tender and yearning' mode."
"Personally, Sir, I find it highly ironic when they sing, 'Imitate and water down.'"
"Exactly. And, man, there's more toy chimes on the fifth track. And more strings. When will bands learn that throwing some strings and a church organ in a ballad doesn't automatically make beautiful music?"
"I feel, Sir. The band is pretty talented. They pull off all their songs perfectly."
"True, Volo, true. But it's as if it's too perfect. There's no edge, no barb, no emotion. Sure, they may have come from the 'emo' scene, but the feelings here are so adolescent and stale that it's hard to be moved. This band could be the next Goo Goo Dolls."
"And, Sir, what about this song? He keeps whining 'Merry Christmas, Baby' over and over. It sounds like a bad carol."
"And the loops and samples. If I hear another band trying to mature with loops and samples, I'll conquer a small neighboring country!"
"The American's plan has obviously failed. Let us prepare our shoulder- launched missles. As soon as the last song ends, we will fire on them outside and win!"
0030 minutes later...
"Blood of Peter, Volodrag! When will this song end!? It's been going on for seven minutes! I'm feeling... sleepy."
"What's that, Sir? The same... repetitive chord plucking... is lulling me... to sleep."
"I can't believe it... This song must... be... over... 10 minu..."
Outside...
"Well, Axel, your ass was just saved by the longest, softest emo song ever! DC Talk has more edge than this! Ol' Slobba fell right asleep and we went in and cut his arms off. Who'd have thought? 16 minutes! 16! Of the same part over and over! Wow. All those syrupy harmonies sure do cloy. You might get a medal for this."
-Brent DiCrescenzo
[ May 07, 2004, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Ben ]
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Jets To Brazil Orange Rhyming Dictionary [Jade Tree] Rating: 8.7 I'm sitting in a hot mud bath on the second level of a chunky, airborne Pan Am. It's July, 1963, and up in that beluga- whale's- forehead bow lies a section primarily reserved for a cast of communist who's- whos and entertainment nabobs. Astrud Gilberto, settled opposite me, massages my feet, stopping occasionally to suck on a big toe, which especially tingles when she has a mouthful of Juan Carlos Jobim's "Mangoritas" (151 + pureed mango + triple sec + tequila).
"I zink, Brent, zat you are being too literal wis zis review," declares Astrud, sucking up pink alcohol.
"Listen, baby. I know you're a jazz lady, but my readers really wanted another of my trademark, wacky, loquacious reviews," I say.
"And Brazilians don't talk like ze Dr. Ruth."
"It's America, nobody will notice."
Jobim and Gilberto come up the cherry red sprial stairs. They giggle and poke each other's tummies through the billowing openings of their unbuttoned shirts.
"Ah, Brent, Critic From The Future. Please regale us with tales of things to come!" Gilberto cries. He's really trashed.
"Yes, Brent. Do tell! What ever becomes of our hit song 'The Girl From Iponema?'" Jobim asks.
"Hmm, well, it's mostly used as elevator music. Oh, and yeah, it's in this B-movie about mutant fish called 'Deep Rising,' that has this leggy Dane and Treat Williams," I tell him.
"What horror! Is there a point? Tell me, what do people in the future listen to?" Jobim says, visibly hurt.
"Yes, what is that in your 'Walking Man,'" asks Gilberto.
"This is by a rock and roll band called Jets To Brazil. No one really listens to jazz anymore where I come from... er... when I come from, except for single, older men. This album, Orange Rhyming Dictionary, is this band's first. But the singer/ songwriter, Blake Schwarzenbach, used to be in this band called Jawbreaker..."
"Mmm, the candy! Yummy!" everyone blurts.
"Yes, the candy. Anyway, Jawbreaker was an emotional punk band-- punk being this loud, fast rock 'n' roll that brilliantly explored relationships, sex, and politics in a far third. Blake's erudite lyrics really hit the hearts of jaded 17-24 year- olds. So anyway, Jets To Brazil is Blake's new band. Lyrically, he's gone through the expected maturation processes of his late 20's. There are some reflections on Orwellian futures and the drug and artificial preservatives that are pumped into the humanity of my time. The guy's just really clever and has a penchant for penning cynical slogans like 'Be a believer/ believe everything/ you'll be right/ half the time.' In fact, you never get a full appreciation for the band until you sit down with the lyrics and read along."
"Buh wha duh e zoun' li'?" Astrud asks, rolling my big toe on her tongue.
"I'm getting to that. See, when I first heard Jets To Brazil I was scared. I heard keyboards, which got really popular in the early '80s and really re-popular in the late '90s. I thought Jets succumbed to retro- revival. 'Resistance Is Futile' and 'Lemon Yellow Black' bounce along on an '80s new-wave beat. But the more you listen to it, keeping the lyrics in hand, the more it begins to sound like new new-wave instead of retread, old new-wave.
"The album signals a whole new post- movement, not a fascimile of old post- punk, which, if you think about it, would be pre- when- I- come- from. Am I making sense?"
"Everything makes sense when I have a quart of Mangoritas in my gut," Gilberto states, before belching.
"Yeah, so, like, you just know this album is going to make tons of kids go out and buy keyboards-- which isn't necessarily a good thing. Thanks to the production on the record, an organic mein still circles the sound. The bass just hums as if you're leaning against the cabinet. The chugging guitars are just one pedal away from being clean. But the glorious moments on Orange Rhyming Dictionary flow from the slower, moodier songs. Blake's lyrics have more room to breathe, and fluorescent- illuminated air becomes a fourth instrument.
"Also, these songs tend to be the ones about girls-- love poetry. On the acoustic 'Sweet Avenue' Blake sings, 'Holding you we make two spoons beneath an April moon/ Everything is soft and sweet/ This cigarette, it could seduce a nation with its smoke/ Crawling down my tired throat/ Scratches part of me that's purring.' That's some beatnik lovin' right there. Beautiful stuff."
"Brent, we'd like to hear this Jets to Brazil," pleads Jobim.
"I'm afraid I can't do that. It might disrupt the whole space- time- rock continuum. Suffice to say that this album is a mixed bag of up-tempo, new new-wave pop and achingly graceful power ballads. In the calender year 1998, you should pick it up. It's one of the best pop records I came across that year.
"Enough of this boring talk," declares Astrud, standing up in the tub, mud dripping of her tall and tan and young and lovely (and naked) body. "Let's bossa nova!"
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Sometimes I like Pitchfork, sometimes I don't.
I think that my problem is the blatant Radiohead fanboyism, which directly leads to their snooty disdain for large amounts of what is, in fact, good rock -- just straight-up, no strings attached rock music. At Pitchfork, if you aren't recording some tracks backwards, you suck.
I admit that I'm a bit snooty when it comes to music, so maybe the problem is that I'm somehow too snooty for Pitchfork. Actually, I think it's that I'm so snooty that I even look down my nose at conventionally snooty things like Pitchfork.
Edit: Note that Radiohead are one of my absolute favourite bands. It's just that unlike Pitchfork, I'm willing to criticize them.
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i love reading them and have no problems disagreeing with them. they rail on Conor Oberst any chance they get, and i personally am a fan of most of his music, so. but yea. THey are elitist dickheads but they are so damn funny. Their Reviews never fail to entertain me. and their newswire is a pretty good source for well...news. and i wouldn't know about half the records i now own if it werent for them reviewing them (some got good, some got bad, but their reviews are good at addressing the sound of said record so i can decide if i even want to check it out based on that regardless of whether it got a good or bad review.)
[ May 26, 2004, 07:50 PM: Message edited by: Ben ]
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quote:Blood Brothers Ready New Album, TourPiano Island Volunteer Bucket Brigade ****s up, pickets Trammps tour
Ashford Tucker reports:
It just so happens that hardcore revisionists The Blood Brothers are heading out on a 20-city North American tour this July, at which they promise to debut throngs of new material from their upcoming Fall release, Crimes, the follow-up to their controversially anti-Piano-Island album, Burn Piano Island, Burn ,. In case you're unaware, it's important to note that the world's English-speaking press collectively had sex with itself over the Bros' last batch of songs. In fact, Pitchfork's own Chris Ott gave the LP an ejaculatory 9.1; and-- just between you and me-- the man would bellyache over head from Bj๖rk, so you know that shit's hotter than a nun on a high holiday.
The band reportedly tracked Crimes in early 2004 with producer John Goodmanson, who has previously worked with Sleater-Kinney and probably some other people. Goodmanson's indie cred notwithstanding, word on the street is that the band have gone all adult contemporary on the new record, with lots of experimentation and the incorporation of instruments such as cello, acoustic piano, and accordion. According to Blood Brothers guitarist Cody Votolato, "Crimes has a warmer feeling to it. It's more spacious, there's more finesse and grooves to the music. It's still crazy, but not as constricted as Piano." Holy shit, it's not a conditioner, you guys!
anybody in reading the review for bloodbrothers last album click here. it's entertaining.
[ June 07, 2004, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Ben ]
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