2008 was Great!

2008 was a great year for debuts, half of the top ten on this this are the debuts for new artists. It seems like this was a year where people really rallied around the new guys in a time of change.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-BAMA!
Ahh, politics.

But, that is not why we are here, this is a music blog, so talk about some music, man. Okay then. where to begin? I think that one of the big trends of this year was the "earthy" sound. Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Department of Eagles, She & Him, Blitzen Trapper and even the Dodos to a certain extent. A lot of acoustic driven songs with a definite folk touch, and lots of harmonies.

The electro-dance scene was also in full swing, and will likely have a stronger showing in the coming year. Great tunes from Hot Chip ("Ready for the Floor" is easily one of the greatest songs of the year), Of Montreal, Cut Copy and MGMT. TV on the Radio even went out of their way to make more of a dance record with fantastic results (Dancing Choose!). There was also a renewed interest in Kanye West, who decided to make a electro-pop record, which was surprisingly good, even though there was a lot of auto-tuning.

So let's get into it then, I present to you great records of the year 2000, and eight.

1 the Walkmen You & Me
2 Department of Eagles In Ear Park
3 Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
4 Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes
5 TV on the Radio Dear Science,
6 Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
7 Deerhunter Microcastle
8 The Dodos Visiter
9 Titus Andronicus The Airing of Grievances
10 Jaime Lidell Jim
11 Sigur Rós Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
12 Shearwater Rook
13 Little Joy Little Joy
14 Of Montreal Skeletal Lamping
15 Hot Chip Made in the Dark
16 MGMT Oracular Spectacular
17 She & Him Volume One
18 Blitzen Trapper Furr
19 Cut Copy In Ghost Colours
20 Beach House Devotion
21 No Age Nouns
22 Okkervil River the Stand Ins
23 Beck Modern Guilt
24 Kanye West 808’s and Heartbreak
25 Flight of the Conchords Flight of the Conchords

That is it! The Walkmen totally did it. "I'll see ya in the New Year!"

Earth to the Dandy Warhols

!Mayo feliz cinco!

The Dandy Warhols are giving up a freebie track from their new record, Earth to the Dandy Warhols. Click It.

Enjoy the festivus.

Radiohead On Conan

As part of Conan O'Brien's green-friendly show Radiohead taped a live performance of "House of Cards" from In Rainbows.

The band taped the show as opposed to appearing live to keep their carbon footprint as small as possible. Apparently, flying to New York from England uses a lot of fuel. Who knew?

At first I was not a huge fan of the song, but it definitely has grown on me. It has this kind of simple groove, and does not try to get complicated like a Radiohead song. Wait. What am I saying?

Tokyo Police Club: Elephant Shell

In the summer of 2006 Canadian Indie Rock Group Tokyo Police Club released an EP titled A Lesson in Crime, and scored legions of fans and critical acclaim. On the EP the band blitzed through seven songs in under 20 minutes, giving just enough of a taste of their wry humor and catchy tunes to leave the listener wanting more.

In the time since their first release the bands signature sound has left a distinctive impression. With songs filled with hand-claps about the world’s take over by robots like “Citizens of Tomorrow,” and songs with group-shout-alongs and distorted vocals over squealing guitars like “Cheer It On” and “Nature of the Experiment” the band began to carve a niche of its own.

Two years later the group finally issues their full-length debut, Elephant Shell, to say that the expectations are high would be an understatement. Speculation on what their full-length record would sound like has been formulating in the minds of fans and critics alike for some time now.

On Elephant Shell most of band’s formula remains the same. As expected with a higher recording budget their sound is cleaned up quite a bit, perhaps too much. Vocalist Dave Monks voice had only a passing resemblance to Colin Meloy of the Decemberists when it was shredded though a distortion box. But now on songs like “Tesselate” and “The Harrowing Adventures Of...” it is nearly indistinguishable.

On “Sixties Remake” the band sounds like another band attempting to do a song in the style of Tokyo Police Club. All the elements are there, but it just comes off a ill-conceived and generic. The same can be said for lead single “In a Cave” which is a decent song, but just manages to float by without making much of an impression.

That is not to say it is all bad though. “Your English Is Good” has the same kind of energy that could be found on their EP, and kicks off a trifecta of great songs at the end of the record.

“Listen to the Math” shows that the band is capable of slowing down the tempo and still keep thing interesting. One of the band’s appeal is the terrific drumming by Greg Alsop and this track shows off his talents very well with a complex tom and cymbal pattern during the verses.

Album closer “The Baskervilles” is arguably the group’s strongest song to date. Starting off with the line “A toast to last of the dying breed” over a soft synth riff before giving way to the drums and guitars. The song puts all the elements that made the band so appealing in the first place. For the first time on the record you get the feeling that Monks is putting all his energy into a song, instead of just throwing the lines away like he did on much of the record.

And like that it is over. Perhaps it was the fact that the songs were likely over analyzed in the studio, or maybe the group has already run out of ideas? But it is not the record that many were hoping for. It contains a few gems that will at the very least keep you interested until the next record comes out.

Hope for New Weezer?

There is going to be a new Weezer record this summer, and after listening to the new single there may hope for them yet.

Most people would agree that most everything that Weezer hast done since Pinkerton has been a huge load of crap. However, we know what Rivers and Co. are capable of, so there is always a chance for the next one to regain some of that past greatness.

The new single brings back some of the honesty, and leaves behind the some of the contrived nonsense that corrupted their newer records.

Click here for a taste. Oh yeah, the record is another self-titled one, and this time it is red. Also, Rivers grew a 'stache.