Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
"KIDS".
Words. For Your Consideration...
""Skins" isn't "unscripted drama," it's drama drama. It demands something of its viewers that reality television simply cannot: the suspension of disbelief. It enters a pact with its audiences. It asks them not to merely gawk at the action but to trust the storytelling process enough to let the characters develop. It demands that we buy in not because we're watching average Joes (or C-list celebrity Joes) with cameras pointed at them but because, in the right hands, its stories and characters can convey certain "truths" about life more effectively through an imagined world than a "real" one.
Because many people are desperate to believe that real-life teenagers aren't nearly as messed up as the kids on "Skins," there's an inclination to write the whole thing off as smut, to call it kiddie porn and then call it a day. But in trying to figure out what to do about "Skins" — demand its removal from the airwaves, watch it and shrug, hope your kids have better things to do — we would do well to consider a question even more complicated than "what is pornography?" Namely: What is a true story? And when, if ever, will we really be ready for the message?"
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Maybach Music.
Words.
"Since the midterm elections, Obama and his lieutenants have been grappling with the implications of the self-described “shellacking” inflicted by Republicans on the president and his party, and laboring to devise a recovery strategy for the next two years. One of their chief conclusions is that Obama must occupy a higher plane than he did in the last two, elevating himself above the posturing, petulance, and incessant bile-spewing that have come to bedevil Washington in this age of incessant acrimony and polarization.
The lame-duck session in December—with the tax-cut compromise with Republicans as its centerpiece—presented Obama with his first opportunity to gain some altitude. The Tucson shootings offered another. And Tuesday night’s State of the Union address will extend him yet another.
...For Obama, retooling on this scale does not come naturally or happily. Among the hallmarks of his political career has been constancy: a tight and basically static cadre of close advisers and a stubborn resistance to calls for midcourse corrections. Yet in a series of interviews in early January with senior White House officials and many of Obama’s closest confidants outside the building, a picture emerged of a president engaged in a searching, clear-eyed, and sometimes painful process of self-scrutiny, and now determined to implement a plan to fix what has ailed his enterprise—and himself. To put behind his White House the frenetic, transactional, shambolic style of former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. To break out of the suffocating cocoon in which he and his team had swaddled themselves. To establish the kind of compelling narrative about where his administration intends to take the country and how it plans to do so that has been lacking since day one.
Judging the ultimate political impact of this endeavor will be impossible until November 2012. But contrary to the feral howling on the left or the applause of many Beltway tapioca centrists, the objective here has less to do with tacking to the center than with finding a way back home. What Obama seeks is to reconnect with the essence of why he was elected, to reanimate the unifying, postpartisan, pragmatic yet visionary persona that inspired so many in the first place. “What he wants,” says one of his friends, “is to be Barack Obama again.”..."
Monday, January 24, 2011
TELEVISION TELEVISION!
Another morning. Another workout. Another viewing of a music video from a band getting its feet wet/trying to grab our attention/stand out in the crowd. Worthy of a repeat listen? I'll let you decide.
The Rej3ctz.
Cat Daddy (Starring Chris Brown).
[So THAT'S the "Cat Daddy", huh? Hmm.]
The Rej3ctz.
Cat Daddy (Starring Chris Brown).
[So THAT'S the "Cat Daddy", huh? Hmm.]
Saturday, January 22, 2011
SKIN
Words.
"Think the MTV show's (Skins) depictions of teenage sex and drug use are terrible? Then monitor your kids."
Friday, January 21, 2011
"HIP-HOP!"
Words.
"...Clearly, crossing over is the new black. Rap doesn't typically embrace cupid-struck rappers, but with Kanye and Diddy and, especially, Drake testing the limits, let's call it progress: giant leaps for rap-kind. Drizzy's mixtape-as-unofficial-first-album So Far Gone, you'll recall, was filled with glistening Auto-Tuned bars and the completely non-rap sounds of Lykke Li and Peter Bjorn and John. We knew what we signed up for. He wore his softie side like a badge; we may not have loved Thank Me Later as unconditionally as Get Rich or Die Tryin', but we mostly accepted Drake's hodgepodge of soul-searching and half-white-people problems because he wasn't embarrassed about it. And because a lot of it sounded so good. So Drake, by managing to balance the creativity of hip-hop and the lure of pop, is the least guilty of switching tunes.
And as it happens, B.o.B. is right: Hip-hop is more accepting of skinny-jeaned rappers with a Coldplay fetish nowadays. And rappers are less concerned with the backlash they risk by preening in the pages of GQ and more comfortable with being themselves, even as they're still discovering who exactly that is. It's a bleak forecast—generic pop-rap overshadowing talent—but circumstances are such that the "official," rap-murking album is the commercial product, while mixtapes and other free fodder—featuring the creative music you actually asked for—are closer to the artist's true identity. Want their old shit? Download their old mixtapes. Or hope that the next wave of mainstream rap debuts—from, say, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, or 35-year-old virgin Jay Electronica—feature more conventional rapping. But who's to say they won't reach for the crossover hit themselves? Because everyone wants to be the next Drake."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
01/Beach House - Teen Dream
Conversations. Tonight. Investigations and an analysis of the here & now/this mess we’re in/this space between us. Done here, at this moment, as your full and undivided attention is held in this space where clutter and unnecessary extravagance is obsolete. An empty room, a walk in the park, our Silver Souls looked into, our heart string tugged. Album number three from this Baltimore duo is an emotionally open and aesthetically haunting exploration of the ties that bind us, and the much needed conversations and interactions that have escaped us as time goes on and (along with ourselves), separates us. Teen Dream is just that: A space to fawn, reflect, and relate openly with no fears of being judged or humiliated present. Anchored by a steady and constant stream of dazzling dreamlike instrumentation on which Victoria Legrand’s vocals float like a cloud, Teen Dream is an incredibly moving and captivating masterwork that is, again, steeped in the here and now, rife with wants, needs, and proclamations that are familiar to us all.
KEY TRACKS: Norway/Walk in the Park/Take Care
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
02/Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
Tuning, Volume, Knobs. AM/FM, Knobs. Childhood, Youth, Adolescence, Knobs. Basement scenes, 8-Tracks, Cassettes, Knobs. Frequencies, Soundwaves, Alone, Together, Knobs. Fiddling with the knobs, searching. Fiddling with the knobs, hunting. Fiddling with the knobs, landed. Fiddled with the knobs, Perfect.
(Steps away from the dial)
When I give Before Today my full and undivided attention, I'm taken back to those pre MP3/I can’t yet afford to purchase my own CDs days. Fiddling with the knobs and turning that dial til I hit that one station that just brings it on the music and satisfaction tip track after track after track. I get that with Before Today. A trip down Memory Lane, rockin’ robin with the historicals: Disco/Lo-Fi/post punk/soul. A man and his band: smooth, polished, and accessible, them too familiar with those glorious AM/FM days of yore. I’m glued to this here station. I hang on to every word. The sounds/genres/and bits & pieces so familiar, both singularly and together as one, gelled, flowing seamlessly. A 12 song, 45 minute block of musical exploration/trip down memory lane like no other. Cool, calm, collected, firmly planted in the present. Press play, volume up, and step away from the dials. Landed. We good.
KEY TRACKS: Bright Lit Blue Skies /Round & Round/Can’t Hear My Eyes
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
03/Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
Sufjan Stevens. In search of: Freedom. Freedom from that previous thought project. An escape from that additional 48. A release from those previous trials and tribulations that plagued him here on earth. An escape to that place of refuge where he is free to talk and speak on that and those things he knows that don’t have to be so thoroughly researched. That and those things he knows best: the self, here in The Age of Adz, Eternal Living. Reflection Eternal/Spiritual and Emotional Uplift laid bare in song form. In which a newly present Sufjan Stevens tries to make peace, get right and get real with himself, this life, and even the Lord, all while residing in his own private fantasia. A glorious and often EPIC cacophony of sound that provides, track for track, the emotional tone and settings needed for Mr. Stevens to place his narratives atop comfortably. He’s “not fucking around” and he “wants to be well”, all for himself. “It’s not so impossible.” And at the end of it all, when you hear those words, you believe it. You sing and harmonize along with him in jubilee. He’s earned the wide eyed moment of clarity, and you hope that he, like you, truly believes it.
KEY TRACKS: Futile Devices/Get Real Get Right/I Want to Be Well
Monday, January 17, 2011
Hollywood Divorce.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"In every twisted, wretched, ruinous relationship, there are moments so grim, flare-ups so appalling, that they offer both parties a chance to step back, take inventory, and realize that it’s time — far past time, in fact — to go their separate ways.
For the American media and Sarah Palin, that kind of a moment arrived last week.
...To the media: Cover Sarah Palin if you want, but stop acting as if she’s the most important conservative politician in America. Stop pretending that she has a plausible path to the presidency in 2012. (She doesn’t.) Stop suggesting that she’s the front-runner for the Republican nomination. (She isn’t.)
...To Palin: You were an actual politician once (remember that?), but you’re becoming the kind of caricature that your enemies have always tried to make of you. So maybe it’s time to turn off your iPad for a while, and take a break from Facebook and Fox News. The world won’t end if you don’t respond to every criticism, and you might even win a few more admirers if you cultivated a lighter touch and a more above-the-fray persona. Oh, and when that reality-TV producer sends you a pitch for “Sarah Plus Five Plus Kate Plus Eight,” just say no.
Breaking up is hard to do, of course. But for the majority of Americans who are neither Palinoiacs nor Palinistas, here’s the good news: If the press (including this columnist!) and Sarah Palin can’t quit each other, you can still quit us."
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Scenes From a Marriage
Words.
"In every twisted, wretched, ruinous relationship, there are moments so grim, flare-ups so appalling, that they offer both parties a chance to step back, take inventory, and realize that it’s time — far past time, in fact — to go their separate ways.
For the American media and Sarah Palin, that kind of a moment arrived last week.
...To the media: Cover Sarah Palin if you want, but stop acting as if she’s the most important conservative politician in America. Stop pretending that she has a plausible path to the presidency in 2012. (She doesn’t.) Stop suggesting that she’s the front-runner for the Republican nomination. (She isn’t.)
...To Palin: You were an actual politician once (remember that?), but you’re becoming the kind of caricature that your enemies have always tried to make of you. So maybe it’s time to turn off your iPad for a while, and take a break from Facebook and Fox News. The world won’t end if you don’t respond to every criticism, and you might even win a few more admirers if you cultivated a lighter touch and a more above-the-fray persona. Oh, and when that reality-TV producer sends you a pitch for “Sarah Plus Five Plus Kate Plus Eight,” just say no.
Breaking up is hard to do, of course. But for the majority of Americans who are neither Palinoiacs nor Palinistas, here’s the good news: If the press (including this columnist!) and Sarah Palin can’t quit each other, you can still quit us."
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
Mystery Science Theater 3000.
04/MGMT - Congratulations
Like the best adventures in psychedelic rock, MGMT’s Congratulations is a fantastical journey to some place else. A place where soul searching, controlled chaos and imagination reign supreme. For album number two, MGMT relax and feel at home in the rapturous tics and soundscapes of old school psychedelia that run rampant throughout this album’s sonic flights of fancy. From the brightly wacky cover art, to the mid album 12 minute “Siberian Breaks”,right on down to the creative sprawl present in the characters and music we are introduced to/come in contact with over the course of each song, Congratulations rides a tidal wave of experimental adventure in a nicely packaged and richly produced fashion. An “ORACULAR SPECTACULAR” if you will that expands its mind, and yours, like an epic work of science fiction. Congratulations, indeed.
KEY TRACKS: It’s Working/Brian Eno/Congratulations
Friday, January 14, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
05/Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
15 minutes in to Kanye’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, things go quiet. Not complete silence per se, but calm. Patient strings and tapping of the keys usher in a quick breath of fresh air and slow calm following the tidal wave that was track three, Power, with its loud, boastful talk, hard hitting swagger, and final notes contemplating suicide. A minute and some change. Calm. Quiet. Breath of fresh air. And then it ends. And then it happens. And then it comes… “ALL OF THE LIGHTS!” Track five. The album’s centerpiece. A gloriously decadent and ostentatious five minutes that contains and embodies every single element that defines and makes Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy what it is. A slice of “humble pie” from Mt. Olympus, All of the Lights gives us Kanye the artist, Kanye the student, Kanye the conductor, and Kanye the collaborator on a grand and opulent scale just like the album from which it is pulled. Fast life, drug life, thug life, rock life, this life, his life, here, and again there, and there, and there again, over the course of this dazzling 70 minute set. This is Hip-Hop on a wider scale that puts it all on wax, straight from the inner recesses of Kanye West’s mind, the only place left for him to go after the world, it appeared, turned its back on him. A place where all that wants to be said, and needs to be said is given a platform. Right here, on this finished product. Turn up the lights in here, the chorus sings, extra bright, he wants y’all to see this, wants US to see everything, wants us to see “ALL OF THE LIGHTS!” Fast life, drug life, thug life, rock life, this life, his life... Twisted Elegance: His Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
KEY TRACKS: Dark Fantasy/All of the Lights/Runaway
Humble Mumble.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"...Over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their own sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his own home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process.
So, of course, you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth. Of course you get people who prefer monologue to dialogue. Of course you get people who detest politics because it frustrates their ability to get 100 percent of what they want. Of course you get people who gravitate toward the like-minded and loathe their political opponents. They feel no need for balance and correction.
Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away.
President Obama’s speech in Tucson was a good step, but there will have to be a bipartisan project like comprehensive tax reform to get people conversing again. Most of all, there will have to be a return to modesty..."
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Tree of Failure
Words.
"...Over the past few decades, people have lost a sense of their own sinfulness. Children are raised amid a chorus of applause. Politics has become less about institutional restraint and more about giving voters whatever they want at that second. Joe DiMaggio didn’t ostentatiously admire his own home runs, but now athletes routinely celebrate themselves as part of the self-branding process.
So, of course, you get narcissists who believe they or members of their party possess direct access to the truth. Of course you get people who prefer monologue to dialogue. Of course you get people who detest politics because it frustrates their ability to get 100 percent of what they want. Of course you get people who gravitate toward the like-minded and loathe their political opponents. They feel no need for balance and correction.
Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away.
President Obama’s speech in Tucson was a good step, but there will have to be a bipartisan project like comprehensive tax reform to get people conversing again. Most of all, there will have to be a return to modesty..."
Thursday, January 13, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
06/LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - This is Happening
He, them, together: This is Happening. Case studies and observations: This is Happening. There’s lights and sounds and stories, the music’s just a part. Still, the expansive soundscapes are essential: This is Happening. Atop Synthesizers, guitars, handclaps; Cowbells, keyboards, drums. Climbing the walls, littered in notes: This is Happening. With James and Co. we ride the frequencies, both emotional and sonic. We take deep breathes. We march in step: This is Happening. From this position, we seek clarity. From this position we chase and find the escape. Catharsis. Reflection: This is Happening. We hear idols and influences from before. We marvel at new directions taken. We consult with our souls, confront things with humor: This is Happening. On this occasion, there are a couple things we know that we learned from fact magazine: (1) love and rock are pick up things and This is Happening. This is immaculately textured, written, and arranged. Cohesive, perfectly sequenced. From this position, with these sounds, chords, and arrangements, a few things are pretty clear: Look around you, let it surround you, it won’t get any better: This is Happening. You might forget the sound of a voice, still you shouldn’t forget, and won’t forget everything we’ve experienced here. Reflect in it, take part in it, go on and dance yrself clean. This is for us, and you, and yous, and yours. This is ongoing, our life, our scene. These moments, this laughter, these melodies: This is Happening.
KEY TRACKS: Dance Yrself Clean/One Touch/I Can Change
For Your Consideration.
Words.
"...This is the time to acknowledge that there is something deeply wrong with the militarization of American conservative rhetoric. Doing so is not - and there are many problems with the term - what Sarah Palin has called a "blood libel." The approach to guns, violence and "tyranny" promoted by loud voices on the right has been instrumental in blocking measures that could at least have contained the casualties in Tucson - or at Virginia Tech or Columbine. Extremism in defense of feeble gun laws is no virtue."
UNITY.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"...Every time the president speaks publicly, the nation is reminded that the caricature of him that dominates the conservative media, the racist, socialist tyrant who "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists" is so utterly ridiculous that the ubiquity of these smears defies comprehension.
While conservatives have found a million different ways to accuse the president of not loving his country, the truth is that Obama is never more effective than when he talks about why he loves it, as he did in Tucson last night, before exhorting Americans to "do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations." As Jonathan Bernstein wrote, "What happened in Tucson on Saturday was an attack on democracy. What the President of the United States did in his speech in Tucson was democracy fighting back."...
THE WASHINGTON POST: Obama's Tucson moment
Words.
"...Every time the president speaks publicly, the nation is reminded that the caricature of him that dominates the conservative media, the racist, socialist tyrant who "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists" is so utterly ridiculous that the ubiquity of these smears defies comprehension.
While conservatives have found a million different ways to accuse the president of not loving his country, the truth is that Obama is never more effective than when he talks about why he loves it, as he did in Tucson last night, before exhorting Americans to "do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations." As Jonathan Bernstein wrote, "What happened in Tucson on Saturday was an attack on democracy. What the President of the United States did in his speech in Tucson was democracy fighting back."...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
Riot Rhythms.
07/Sleigh Bells - Treats
I came in the door and said it before: this right here is BLITZKRIEG Pop from a boy and a girl that revels in that old time rock and roll while playing by its own rules. Treats is a wildly confrontational and raucous affair that booms like an 808, rips pop and rock's soundscapes apart, and puts it all back together again in its own special way. These gifts from the kitchen invade your territory and make themselves comfortable in your headspace. The beats HIT, and the songs CONNECT, both sonically and emotionally, thanks in large part to the mood enhancing vocals provided by Ms. Krauss. She talks, we listen, as she and her vocals ride the waves, chase the rhythms, and go toe to toe with Derek’s block rocking beats. A riotous call to arms. Take heed, get up, and get down.
KEY TRACKS: Infinity Guitars/Run the Heart/Rill Rill
Bad Romance.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"Last October, Glenn Beck was musing on his radio show about the prospect of the government seizing his children if he didn't give them flu vaccines. "You want to take my kids because of that?" he said. "Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."
Last April, Erick Erickson, the managing editor of the right-wing RedState blog and a CNN commentator, was questioning the legality of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey on a radio show. "We have become, or are becoming, enslaved by the government. . . . I dare 'em to try to come to throw me in jail. I dare 'em to. [I'll] pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."
Do right-wing talk show commentators incite violence against the government? Feel free to draw your own conclusions - but to dwell on the rise of violent rhetoric on the right is to miss an even bigger, though connected, problem. Let's focus, rather, on the first part of Beck's and Erickson's observations: The government wants to take away Glenn Beck's (and by extension, your) kids. The government wants to take a census and will throw Erick Erickson (and by extension, you) in jail if he, and you, don't comply.
...The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites violence per se. It's that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and conservatism's domestic adversaries.
...That doesn't make Beck, Erickson, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk responsible for Tucson. It does make them responsible for promoting a paranoid culture that makes America a more divided and dangerous land."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Dangerous outcomes from a culture of paranoia
Words.
"Last October, Glenn Beck was musing on his radio show about the prospect of the government seizing his children if he didn't give them flu vaccines. "You want to take my kids because of that?" he said. "Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."
Last April, Erick Erickson, the managing editor of the right-wing RedState blog and a CNN commentator, was questioning the legality of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey on a radio show. "We have become, or are becoming, enslaved by the government. . . . I dare 'em to try to come to throw me in jail. I dare 'em to. [I'll] pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."
Do right-wing talk show commentators incite violence against the government? Feel free to draw your own conclusions - but to dwell on the rise of violent rhetoric on the right is to miss an even bigger, though connected, problem. Let's focus, rather, on the first part of Beck's and Erickson's observations: The government wants to take away Glenn Beck's (and by extension, your) kids. The government wants to take a census and will throw Erick Erickson (and by extension, you) in jail if he, and you, don't comply.
...The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today's America isn't that it incites violence per se. It's that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and conservatism's domestic adversaries.
...That doesn't make Beck, Erickson, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk responsible for Tucson. It does make them responsible for promoting a paranoid culture that makes America a more divided and dangerous land."
"YOU'RE THE BEST AROUND!"
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| MeTunes - Grammy Vote - Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney & Ezra Koenig | ||||
| ||||
THE HEAT.
Words. For Your Consideration...
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
AND
08/Caribou - Swim & Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 1
During the first half of Robyn’s Body Talk EP, we’re placed in the club and on the dancefloor, “suited and booted”, putting on a show; two stepping, sweat dropping, and body talking to the beat. There with us is Robyn, frantically trying to get that boy’s attention, watching him woo HER, and give just about everything to this girl that’s not named Robyn. Unfortunately, at this moment, she is not the apple of his eye. Robyn sees this, acknowledges this, and in the end decides to keep dancing on her own. And really, who can blame her when she’s backed by such vibrant sounds as those bubbling underneath? She dances to the beat, SUCCUMBS to the beat, and we do too, as the music wouldn’t have it any other way. This act reigns supreme both here on Body Talk, Pt.1, and on Caribou’s equally hypnotic LP Swim. Both albums seek transcendence through song (and often on a dancefloor). Instruments crash, fall, and coalesce in an tantalizingly rhythmic fashion repeatedly over the course of each album’s running time. With Swim and Body Talk Pt. 1, the music is given free rein to be as expressive or understated as it wants to be, as both Robyn and Caribou mastermind Dan Snaith control the knobs, setting the emotional tone with a vocal presence here, a switch in the tempo or melody there, or a minute (or three or four in Caribou’s case) of simply letting the beat breathe. Each album toys with the idea of pop & dance music as something that is highly malleable; A template that can be bent, stretched, and shaped to accommodate the wants and desires of their music at hand, giving them the opportunity to produce what they want, how they want. Here, the music is in good hands and the handiwork is exquisite. Mission accomplished.
KEY TRACKS (CARIBOU): Odessa/Run/Leave House
KEY TRACKS: (ROBYN): Don’t F***ing Tell Me What to Do/Fembot/Dancing on My Own
Monday, January 10, 2011
"SPEAKERS GOING HAMMER!": The Albums: 2010.
09/Wavves - King of the Beach
There’s a world of hurt and disgust towards things past present in many of these raucous and tightly wound pop-punk ditties, as well as an uncertainty about how best to combat or navigate through whatever’s coming next, and yet what we hear is wonderfully playful and upbeat. On this brief 35 minute set, the So Cal post-punk outfit from San Diego tries to soar above it all by flying high on the music (amongst other things) and the coming onslaught of good times. “Understand, won’t you understand? In my time of need, won’t you understand, that I’m just having fun”, you hear midway through this set, and you believe it. You believe it cause you hear it in the vocals busy underlying sneers, complimenting a roll of the eye, or a quick toss of some angst. You believe it cause you hear it in the doo wop sways/bounce of the melodies, the shredded guitars, and beat catching hand claps. You believe it cause even when the lyrics get a little dour or the music lowers its speed, you can hear it: a bunch of young cats just having fun, playing in the sunshine with their chests pointed forward and the music front and center. Kings of the Beach.
KEY TRACKS: King of the Beach/Post Acid/Convertible Balloon
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