iTunes Genius

If you have a large and diverse music collection, you may have noticed that using the iTunes party shuffle can be less than fulfilling. It's just not fun to hear say, Lil Wayne followed by Sufjan Stevens followed by one of the random reggae songs your ex boyfriend who is Jamaican left on your computer. If this sounds like you (and feel free to sub in one of your own ex's crappy music selections), you might want to stop ignoring that swirly little button down there in the corner of your iTunes window and finally check out the iTunes Genius feature. After scanning your entire music collection (this can take a while if you have a lot of music...I just set mine in motion and left it while I went out to run errands), the Genius will build playlists for you based a song of your choice. For example, my first playlist was based on the song All That I Need by Blind Melon. I clicked the song and then hit the Genius button. Then iTunes made a playlist that included stuff like Pearl Jam, the Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Neutral Milk Hotel, The White Stripes, etc., etc. Then I tried one based on Beast of Burden and it generated a nice old skool Americana type playlist that had Neil Young, Bowie, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Tom Petty, etc. The interwebs tells me that there are some problem with it (for example, it doesn't work with Beatles songs or other bands that aren't in the iTunes store), but I'm still pretty damn pleased with it, and think you might be too.

Rating: 81%

Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

Most of the things that I love are pretty and dark at the same time. Park, if you will. Or not. Anyway, except for cheeseburgers, which are just awesome in every way, most things I love musicwise (examples, Radiohead, Burial, Bon Iver) and otherwise (examples, dystopia stories, black dresses, Glenn) are pretty and dark at the same time. This album fits right in to this sweeping personality generalization. Callahan's weird deep voice pushes along through lilting sweet little tunes and bittersweet memories, and the lyrics include such gems as "I ended up in search of...ordinary things...like how can a wave, possibly be? I started runnin, and the concrete turned to sand...I started runnin, and things didn't pan out as planned," from "Jim Cain." Another song begs, "show me the way, show me the way, show me the way, to shake a memory." I certainly hope he'll let me know if he ever figures that one out, but for now I'll just keep myself distracted by listening to this album over and over again.

Rating: 80%

Dissonance

Dissonance has it's place in life. It provides a much needed sense of perspective and where would rock music be without it? But at some point, the sounds have to resolve or you just end up with entropy.

Rating: 50%

Pasadena by Ozma

Ozma is a band that used to get compared to Weezer a lot, but now no one cares (about either band, I think). Except I like them (both), and Ozma's gone a little more towards synthesizers, more complex song structure, and multiple vocals. I don't know how other people feel about this album, but I like it, or more accurately, I like the first half of it. The best song (musically) on this album is Heartache vs. Heartbreak, and I'd totally link to the YouTube video of them playing it live, but I just watched it, and it's not worth it - the album track is much better than that crappy video. Thanks YouTube.

RATING: 64% (which means that it's better than a magazine, but worse than Supreme Power Volume 1)

Changin' Tires On The Road To Ruin by Superdrag

(Preface: I like Superdrag a lot and as such, I've decided I'm going to review all of their albums. I apologize in advance.)

Superdrag is a totally jangly rock band of awesome, and (technically) this is their most recent album, being a collection of unreleased tracks collected by Arena Rock Recording Company. As a collection of C-sides, early demos, and two live tracks, you can't expect to find their best work on here...however, a few tracks spring up as diamonds in the rough cuts. 'Relocate My Satellites' is driven hard by the rhythm section with great pacing and 'Here We Come' is a short, straightforward primer on the Superdrag sound. 'No Inspiration' sounds like a love letter to simple 60's rock. Oh, and lyrically, its still heads and shoulders above 90% of modern American rock music.

Weaknesses are songs like 'Doctors Are Dead' (not their best slow jam) and the demo version of 'Keep It Close to Me' (the demo lacks the drama and intensity of the album track).

As far as things go, it lacks some of the polish of full-length Superdrag albums like Head Trip In Every Key and In The Valley of Dying Stars, but Superdrag doesn't usually suffer from lack of production.

Because this is a review of a Superdrag album, people who know me very well will probably assume that I'll rate it highly.

Both of those people are right.

RATING: 78% (which means that it is better than the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and worse than Herr's Heinz Ketchup Chips)

The Three EP's by The Beta Band

This is easily the best Beta Band album, which isn't completely fair since it's technically a compilation of their (you might have guessed) three EP's; Champions Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Banditos. But whatever, it's still their best and probably one of my top 25 albums. I don't really feel like writing a psycho-analytical/Freudian review, but my favorite tracks are "Dry the Rain", "Dogs Got A Bone" and "She's The One". Check them out, and do it for the kids or whatever.

RATING: 82%

Journey (Live in Concert)

Do you like awesome? Because if you do, you already like Journey. In fact, Journey is so awesome, that they're all like "Hey, we have to replace Steve Perry...let's get a four-foot Filipino kid who runs around the stage like a crazy person." and THEY MAKE IT WORK.

In summation, this was a truly, truly great show. They did tend to play too many new songs (what happened to Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'?), and also didn't play a keyboard on a wall, but that's slightly forgivable, since they're trying to plug a new album. They played all the Journey hits, and therefore, made an already great concert legendary.

RATING: 97% (Gold medal at ROCK'LYMPICS 2008)

(image courtesy of BestWeekEver.tv)

Heart (Live in Concert)

You know what is much more awesome than I would've expected? Heart, live and in concert. Nancy Wilson is a truly, truly awesome guitarist, and let me tell you this: OLD LADIES CANNOT STOP ROCKING TO HEART. I swear to God, it was like me at a Superdrag concert, multiplied by FIVE TRILLION. They played all the Heart songs you'd expect, and both the 20-something guys and the 50-something moms all had a good time.

RATING: 85% (Silver medal at ROCK'LYMPICS 2008)

(image courtesy of my girlfriend's blog!)

Cheap Trick (Live in Concert)

So yeah, we showed up late to the greatest concert ever, and damned if that doesn't mean we were late to see Cheap Trick. But not too late to hear some true classics, like Surrender (during which the guitarist threw a KISS record into the crowd), The Flame (awe-some), and the big finish, Dream Police...which is weird. I wouldn't have picked that as a finisher, but hey, I don't TOTALLY RULE AND PLAY A FIVE-GUITAR COMBO GUITAR FROM HELL, AS WELL AS A GUITAR THAT LOOKS LIKE MYSELF.

So yeah, it was basically as awesome as Live at the Budokan, only, y'know, Massachusetts-ier. And way older.

RATING: 81% (Bronze medal in ROCK'LYMPICS 2008)

(image courtesy of some imageshack thing)

"Bones" by The Killers

So everybody loooooved the first Killers album (the rockin' Hot Fuss), but general consensus seems to be that the second album (Sam's Town) lay on the fail continuum somewhere between fail and moderate fail.

I've been told I have pretty poor taste in music, but really enjoyed Sam's Town - the track "Bones", however, was a middle-of-the-road song that deserved a video less than "This River Is Wild". Actually, this was probably my fifth or sixth favorite song on the CD, but for whatever reason, Tim Burton directed his first ever music video for this song, probably just because he could find a way to involve some skeletons.

In closing, hooray for theme day/week/whatever.

RATING: 52% (which means that it's better than Bones, but worse than Bones)

(image courtesy of wikipedia, where no one cares if you link back to it)

Modern Guilt by Beck

Meh.

Rating: 50%

Tim by The Replacements

The Replacements were a good band, led by Paul Westerberg, that made good guitar rock that tended to sound like what would've happened if the Clash and Big Star made a baby who smoked too many cigarettes. Tim is (in my opinion, which is the only one that counts in my review) their best album, because it both rocks, and is disarmingly self-deprecating and intense. The best song on this album also has a great video, which is why I just linked you to it, you're welcome.

Unfortunately, two of the best songs by the Replacements ("Alex Chilton" and "Can't Hardly Wait") aren't on this album...but you can hardly fault the album for that, especially considering "Can't Hardly Wait" was recorded for Tim anyways.

Anywho...this is a good album, and I'm pretty sure if annoying indie rock hipsters had been around twenty years ago, they would've loved it all to pieces, and made me uncomfortable for liking it as well.

RATING: 88%

Fleet Foxes at Bowery Ballroom, July 9th

Okay so I meant to write this review on say, July 10th, but I'm a busy girl okay? Regardless of my slow review writing skills, this show was amazing. What a voice on that lead singer! He had a cold, but I found his occasional coughs kind of charming, especially since he was still willing to power through and seemed so grateful when we clapped and cheered. I'm so glad I got to see them while they are still humble. Also cute and talented. Excepting the cunt who was standing in front of me taking photos for the first three songs, this was a fantastic show. Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture, I forgot my camera.

Rating: 90%

ps - That link above has a full streaming concert you should listen to.

pps - I swear the drummer was making eyes at me. Hey drummer if you reading this, you should email me. Cute girl, front row, short black hair. You know you want to.

ppps - Yep, I'm a giant dork. Cheers!

On The Mouth by Superchunk

Superchunk is a band that is an indie sort of band that was biggish in the 90s, so you might say they were a 90s indie band if you wanted to save words. Me, I don't have too much to say about this album, so I'm trying to spin my wheels a bit to make it look like I wrote a lot about it. It's fun I guess, but it's nowhere near their best album (Foolish), and all the songs basically sound the same. Since they sound fine they get points, but when I want to hear some Superchunk this is not usually the album I turn to, and I didn't even feel like drawing their cover so sue me.

RATING: 57%

Goo by Sonic Youth

This is Sonic Youth's first major label record, coming off of the critical (but not necessarily financial) success of the best album ever made, Daydream Nation. How can you top that? Well, you can't, and SY didn't even try, opting instead to make a much more traditional rock album. Sure, it doesn't have the poppiness of Dirty or Rather Ripped, but if you listen to this album it's clear a transition to radio has been made, and it's certainly the father of the grunge movement. It's fun, so if you have never heard these songs before you should definitely check them out.

RATING: 76%

PS - One cool thing SY did for this album is hire different avant garde film directors to make a music video for every single song, so if you can find them on youtube and have some time to kill, why not watch them, hmmm?

Third by Portishead

My first thought the other day when I heard Portishead had a new album was "why didn't anybody tell me there was a new Portishead album," my second thought was "well, that didn't take very long to download, technology is great," and my third thought was "Holy fuck, this was worth an eleven year wait." This is an amazing album in every way - if it was more trip hop beats with a piano and orchestra, well, who would care? But this is a much more minimalistic album that builds its tension and emotional direness using collage and sharp, sudden changes in tone. It's fucking fantastic, and (although I can't tell yet because I've only had it for a day and a half) probably better than any other Portishead album. I know I'm always saying this like all the time, but you will be doing yourself a huge favor if you pick it up, and if you don't then at least check out these tracks first.

RATING: 94%

Mixtapes

Thanks, iTunes - because of you I've been listening more and more to my own, hastily-put-together mixtapes rather than complete albums by a given artist. And (guess what?) I think I'm doing myself a severe disservice; I'm robbing myself of context and drama.

I'm not really advocating that we should go all Cultural Revolution on our mixtapes...the best of them have coherent themes (Bumpin' Beats For Clubs And Streets Mix), dramatic/emotional resonance (Ultimate Manatee Mix), or can be used to turn friends on/off to bands you enjoy (Bad Pop-Punk 2000 Mix). But no matter what, when I put a mix together, I will never get something as coherent as Superdrag's A Head Trip In Every Key, as clear as Ultimate Fakebook's This Will Be Laughing Week, or as dramatic as Muse's Black Holes and Revelations, never mind if I sprinkle the mix with the best songs from these (or other/different/better/worse) albums.

RATING: 62% (This means that it is better than overusing parentheses, but [ironically] worse than Guitar Hero, which is, in essence, an interactive mixtape.)

(image courtesy of thejsworld.com)

Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero is the second-most postmodern video game in history (behind Second Life, which is so postmodern, it's not actually a game and isn't fun). It is not for people who actually like to play guitar, rather it is for people who want to either (a) act like they play the guitar or (b) want to play the guitar but don't have the talent, patience, or both to actually do it. Note: if you have played Guitar Hero enough (I'd say close to 150-200 hours) in your life, you have officially defeated the purpose of Guitar Hero, because if you would've put that much effort into learning how to play the guitar, you could do it (a little) for real. In closing, Guitar Hero is lots of fun, especially if you don't like actually being creative and love Visine. Seriously though, stare at this game for too long and your eyes explode and brain catches fire.

RATING: 64% (This means that it is better than the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but worse than airships.)

(image courtesy of jubagong.com)

High/Low by Nada Surf

This is actually a really good album, in the tradition of borderline 90s indie/mainstream rock acts like Superdrag and Imperial Teen. They had one major hit that everybody knows, "Popular," and then nothing. Well, the album's pretty fun, and straddles the line between noisy Sonic Youth style dissonant jams and radio friendly rock out songs. They also really like to change up their tempo, and I bet you can probably get this for like $3 at the used cd store, so why don't you help out the economy you pinkos.

RATING: 73%

My 4th of July

Those last two postings made me realize that I pretty much had the greatest 4th of July ever this year. I went to brunch with friends, got to see Sonic Youth for free, ate a Cherry Garcia ice cream bar at the show, watched fire works from a rooftop, then got wasted and laughed and had a great time with my friends. I also met a cute boy who I now have a giant crush on even though he lives in Virginia and so dating him is impossible. But at least it was fun to flirt with him while getting wasted off tiny beers. All in all, a great holiday.

Rating: 91%