The Greatest Hits of Two Thousand & Thirteen [deluxe edition w/bonus tracks] - by Tomi
Renault on 1/1/2014 at 01:01
I'll one up the old man argument and say that I haven't even heard of 95% of any of this stuff.
And I really hate that Daft Punk single. With a passion.
Fafhrd on 1/1/2014 at 01:40
CHVRCHES CHVRCHES CHVRCHES CHVRCHES CHVRCHES CHVRCHES CHVRCHES.
That is all.
glslvrfan on 1/1/2014 at 02:27
Favorite Song
[video=youtube;dkAhbK6q2FE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkAhbK6q2FE#t=36[/video]
Jason Moyer on 1/1/2014 at 12:09
Quote Posted by Brethren
And I really hate that Daft Punk single. With a passion.
I like it, but I'm sick of hearing about how it's the 'feel good song of the summer' constantly. Daft Punk already did a 'feel good song of the summer':
[video=youtube;Sa3VDErv2wk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa3VDErv2wk[/video]
Also the usual surprise that so many people seem to have had no idea who they were before 'Get Lucky' or Tron Legacy when they were completely mainstream nearly 20 years ago.
Jason Moyer on 1/1/2014 at 12:15
Best single of 2013 maybe:
[video=youtube;wCzoTQqEoFg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCzoTQqEoFg[/video]
june gloom on 1/1/2014 at 22:25
And anyway the feel good song of the summer is this:
[video=youtube;GgJ-pSmC6Eg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgJ-pSmC6Eg[/video]
No, I don't care that it was released in autumn. It's summer where Flight Facilities live.
june gloom on 2/1/2014 at 00:35
Queens of the Stone Age - (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f49yRhJ0NjI)
...Like Clockwork: Gonna be honest, I've ignored QOTSA up until now. And I have no clue why, as they're fucking great. After being a shown a video for "If I Had A Tail" I immediately went and listened to the rest of the band's discography, and while their early stuff is a little raw and experimental, they've solidified their sound for
...Like Clockwork, and what a sound it is, coming off like a slightly more mainstream version of Acid Bath. If Acid Bath's sound was thick and swampy and reflected the band's stomping grounds of southern Louisiana, then Queens of the Stone Age, especially with this album, reflects the band's origins in the California desert -- resulting in both bands somehow being very similar to each other despite somewhat different approaches. There's a raw, twisted emotion to this album, one that's really evident in "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" especially. The undead/vampire imagery shot throughout the album and its artwork and videos seem to reflect the tragedy that befell vocalist Josh Homme where he had a near death experience while undergoing knee surgery, and you can really feel the depths of his depression in some of these songs. That's not to say that there aren't some seriously good rockers -- the aforementioned "If I Had A Tail" being a highlight. If you're a fan of QOTSA, this is the best album in ages. If you're not a fan of QOTSA, give it a try anyway, as they've blended good old fashioned 90s-style Palm Desert alt-rock with that weird psychedelic murderousness that makes everything Dax Riggs has ever done so wonderful.
D/A/D - (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CDmmkHsAyY)
The Construct: I love how 80s-style synth has made a huge comeback in the past 5 years. I don't know what started it -- it couldn't have been video games, Vice City was ages ago and Hotline Miami's soundtrack actually depended on the revival existing beforehand. Whatever the cause, I'm glad for it, because there's a warmth to this music that I can't get enough of -- except Perturbator, which is the opposite end of the tone spectrum from acts like D/A/D (short for Day After Discovery) and Miami Nights 1984. And I can't get enough of Perturbator either. The latest release from D/A/D is constructed like a soundtrack of sorts, with the peaceful (and short) intro track "Farthest Reaches" moving through the more adventurous "Backbone of the Night" and beyond. The highlight here is actually the most traditional track; the third down the list, "Love Will Make You Stay" moves from the movie score feel of the rest of the album into a sensible 80s pop hit, checking all the boxes that make for a gentle lullaby that wouldn't be out of place on the radio in 1986. The rest of the album returns to the more experimental atmospheres presented in the early part of the album, with "Terminal" being a real treat for its use of Japanese public announcements in the distance, giving a sense of waiting for something. With heavy retropop hitters like Perturbator and Com Truise throwing their weight around it's easy to overlook D/A/D, but D/A/D was there from the beginning, and this album proves there still is something for D/A/D to offer.
Long Distance Calling - (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmoQ0jz8MA)
The Flood Inside: When it comes to instrumental post-rock/post-metal bands, we have a fucking embarrassment of riches. There really are a ridiculous lot of these, which means that they all have to strive to differentiate themselves from the rest. In this case, what Long Distance Calling did, after years of going instrumental-only (save for the rare sample, such as "Fire in the Mountain" using a clip from Orson Welles' grim adaptation of Kafka's "The Trial") was to add a vocalist -- but use him sparingly, in a similar fashion to the BLUES SOLO OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE that helps close out the opening track "Nucleus." The album is continually shifting in dynamics, making for an unpredictable listen, with Martin Fischer's vocal contributions adding a new element to an already well-established sound, reminding me a bit of the clean parts of Callisto's
Providence, though it trades the smouldering feel of that album for a more dreamy feel, with excellent use of electronics at precisely the right moment for effective, sudden drops. The vocals are great, but they don't drive the music, with Fischer preferring to let the music speak for itself and only stepping in when a new layer is called for. All in all, a solid contribution that feels less heavy than previous masterpiece
Avoid the Light and drags a bit towards the end but is a sign that Long Distance Calling isn't looking to remain in a holding pattern.
Secheron Peak - (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjSHGYk7raQ) Slow Gravity: Technically this album came out December 2012, but the physical release was in mid-2013, so I'm reviewing it -- that and
Slow Gravity is great and deserves a review. Other bands have blended electronics with post-rock, but none have done it so completely like this Melbourne one-man-band. Opening with "Cyan," a mid-pace track that feels like a cross-section of the rest of the album, it knows when to let the very crunchy guitars come in, and when to drop away to let the synths do the talking. Layers come and go throughout the piece, steadily building up only to drop away for a quiet reiteration of the opening melody only come back in full force for a quick finale, followed by a slow fade out. "MK2" doesn't fuck around, starting off slow, only to blow up into an almost dancy piece that's largely synth-driven with guitars providing a foundation, with drums not slouching at all. Much of the rest of the album plays out like this, but don't mistake that for every song sounding like the other -- it's an unpredictable work with a different conceit for each song, with "Heavyweight Earth" taking a page from Isis and building up slow and heavy with a steady drum track before it hits a critical mass of layers and turns into early Pelican. A very strong first release and I'm looking forward to more.
Tomi on 2/1/2014 at 00:36
I can't say that I've ever even heard of Flight Facilities before, but hey, that song's actually pretty good!
@Kolya: I had no idea that Babyshambles are back together and have a new album out. :o The Libertines reunion would have been nicer, but Babyshambles had their moments too... well, two or three good tunes anyway!
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Nothing really grabbed me by the balls this year. I mean, there was -- a crap overrated release by someone whose creative well dried up 35 years ago (Bowie).
Hah, I agree about the new Bowie album being overrated at least. I actually think that it's a fairly good album, but nowhere near his best stuff (in my opinion) in the 70's. It does kinda annoy me though that the new album features so high on all those top albums of 2013 lists everywhere, only because it's a Bowie album. (And yes, I know that I'm contradicting myself here - it also features on my list! :D But in my defence, I haven't listened to that many albums in 2013, so even some "fairly good" ones can make it in my top 10...) If Bob McBobbington from Bobsville had released the same album, no one would care about it, but that's how things seem to work in music. And I admit that that applies for me too - let's take the Cian Ciaran album from my list as an example. First of all, if I wasn't familiar with Cian Ciaran's music already, I probably would never had even heard of the album in the first place... and even if I had, I wouldn't have given it another listen after being a little disappointed at first. But because I've loved Ciaran's music with Super Furry Animals and his other solo stuff in the past, I refused to be so easily disappointed and decided that it
has to be good. And so I learned to like it. :p
The same would have happened with Bowie's
"The Next Day" too without a doubt. The first listen didn't leave me with a very good impression, but a little by little I started spotting those Bowie signature elements on the album, and it immediately became a lot more accessible. Unlike some of those weird 80's/90's monstrosities that I still haven't managed to gotten into, and most likely never will.
Speaking of old farts releasing albums in 2013, there's also the new album by Paul McCartney, with a very imaginative name
"New", which is also better than I expected! And then there's "
Electric" by Pet Shop Boys that was also a positive surprise after their disappointing album last year. Old farts reinventing their sound and trying to sound "modern" doesn't always lead to good things and can sometimes have cringeworthy results, but thankfully that's not the case here! :cool:
Quote:
It's probably just because I'm getting old, but music has been largely boring the shit out of me for a long time now. It seems to me it has basically the opposite problem that cinema has; where film has a handful of massive studios putting out giant releases of regurgitated digitally-produced retro bullshit, music fractured into tons of largely indistinguishable labels after the collapse of the recording industry made all of the major labels and large independents irrelevant, all of whom each focus on their own niche of regurgitated digitally-produced retro bullshit.
That's an interesting point of view. Discovering new music is much easier than it used to be (no more random CD purchases anymore, yay!), but discovering
good new music probably is more difficult now. I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore as there's not much that interests me, the internet is full of mostly uninteresting music so it's a happy and quite a rare occurrence to bump into something that you really like by coincidence these days, and most of the music blogs can naturally only cover and review the most popular releases. So I often have to dig deeper to find something that I like. (And I don't mean that in a "hipster" kind of a way, not all music that I like is by some obscure artists that "mainstream" media has never heard of.)
I'm lucky to have some friends with somewhat similar musical tastes, their recommendations have been a great help over the years. I often check out bands that I know that my favourite artists have collaborated with, or read other people's suggestions on music forums. The "recommended similar artists" tools based on my listening data (last.fm and Spotify mostly) are often crap, but every now and then you unearth some real gems too, so they're not a total waste of time. And posting music threads like this one can be helpful too - I'm gonna check out dethtoll's Flying Feces (or something like that) band now. :p
LaffyTaffy420 on 2/1/2014 at 01:04
My jams
[video=youtube;7y9fxPuj67I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y9fxPuj67I[/video]
