Panda Bear – You Can Count On Me

Published on April 4, 2011 in 2011, pop and psychedelic. 0 Comments

panda bear

Panda Bear’s latest music is finally about to be released. The album, Tomboy, will release on April 12, 2011 and is now streaming in its entirety on NPR. After an initial listen, Tomboy sounds like typical Panda Bear. In other words, it has a pretty hypnotic and experimental sound but remains pop music at its core. I think my favorite track on the record is one that was actually released way back in October 2010. The track, “You Can Count On Me”, is the album’s opener. At a short two minutes and change, I wish the track was a little longer since it’s got a great sound to it. Have a listen below check out Tomboy when it is released in a week or so.

Peter Bjorn and John – Gimme Some (Album Review)

Published on March 31, 2011 in 2011, album review, foreign, indie, pop and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Gimme Some

As I mentioned a couple months ago, things were looking promising for the new Peter Bjorn and John album. That album, Gimme Some, has now released sees the Swedish trio making a fine return to form. After a misguided departure of style on Living Thing a few years ago, Gimme Some brings back the fun, uptempo style of their earlier works. The first three songs here are all better than anything that appeared on Living Thing, with “Dig a Little Deeper” being the standout. Even after those initial three songs, Gimme Some remains mostly fun and peppy throughout. The album slows down some near the end, but this is some of the year’s best music. (4/5 stars)

Best Tracks
Dig a Little Deeper
Second Chance
(Don’t Let Them) Cool Off

Bibio – Mind Bokeh (Album Review)

Published on March 29, 2011 in 2011, album review, electronica, indie and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

mind bokeh

As the imaginary frequent readers of this blog know, I really enjoy Bibio’s music, especially 2009′s Ambivalence Avenue. As such, Mind Bokeh has been one of my most anticipated records in quite some time. Upon first listen, I was struck mostly by how un-striking the album is. The songs all seem solid, but lack that extra something to put them over the edge of greatness. On Mind Bokeh, Bibio’s already eclectic sound is stretched even further. The track “Take Off Your Shirt”, for example, show’s a side of Bibio we’ve never really seen: electric guitars and fairly straight forward song structure. Somewhat surprisingly, that track is probably the closest this album comes to having a great song. Bibio’s strong point, electronica, is present here, but lacks the punch and perfection of tracks like Ambivalence Avenue’s “Fire Ants”. There’s no denying that Bibio is a talented producer/musician, but those talents seem oddly subdued on Mind Bokeh. (3/5 stars)

Best Tracks
Take Off Your Shirt
Anything New
K is for Kelson

Jonsi Song “Go Do” in Ford Explorer Commercial

Published on March 28, 2011 in 2011 and music in commercials. 0 Comments

jonsi

A newly released commercial for the Ford Explorer features the song “Go Do” by Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi. The song is pleasant enough and I like the way that it’s used in the advertisement. In typical Sigur Ros/Jonsi style, the song features a distinctive post-rock, heavily produced style and lyrics that may be English or Icelandic. I still haven’t listened to Jonsi’s solo album that was released last year. Wikipedia tells me that it’s called Go and was mostly well-received by critics. “Go Do” is the opening track. I’ll have to give the entire record a good listening to one of these days. The TV commercial and full song are posted below.

Kleenex Girl Wonder – Neon Redbone

Published on March 25, 2011 in 2011, indie and pop. 0 Comments

kleenex girl wonder

Kleenex Girl Wonder, also known as Graham Smith, has quietly been making very good indie rock songs for the better part of the last 15 years or so. His discography is honestly huge and consistently delivers acoustic fun. On March 8th 2011, Kleenex Girl Wonder released his (their?) newest LP, titled Secret Thinking. Sure, the sound hasn’t evolved much since 1996, but this music is still a lot of fun. I recommend checking out the opening track from Secret Thinking It’s called Neon Redbone and you can listen to it below.

The Strokes – Angles (Album Review)

Published on March 21, 2011 in 2011 and album review. 0 Comments

The Strokes Angles

Five long years after the release of their lackluster third album, The Strokes are back with the release of Angles. Members of The Strokes have promised at various times that this new album would be a return to the sounds that made up their first two albums, Is This It and Room on Fire. The first single released from Angles, “Under Cover of Darkness”, certainly seemed to live up to this promise as it sported the playful, uptempo sound that dominated their earlier work. Unfortunately, “Under Cover of Darkness” is one of Angles few bright spots. This disc sounds almost nothing like The Strokes that you know from the early 2000s. Listen, I have no problem with a band’s sound evolving and changing, but this album just sounds like The Strokes have become more boring and generic, two traits that no one would have used to describe them back in 2001. It’s not all bad, but it’s mostly pretty bad. (2/5 stars)

Best Tracks
Under Cover of Darkness
Taken for a Fool
Machu Picchu

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp

Published on March 16, 2011 in 2010, experimental rock and psychedelic. 0 Comments

yeasayer

Despite being very well received by critics, I had never listened to any of Yeasayer’s music until just a few days ago. I’ll confess–the reason for this is because I hated the album art for their latest release Odd Blood. It just looked really tacky to me. Sorry, but due to the huge volume of music that I come across, I don’t have time to listen to bands that have albums with terrible album art. Actually, I should probably change that last sentence since I have listened M.I.A.’s last album which has some of the most garish, tacky album art ever, but I digress. My point is that I wish I would’ve given Yeasayer a chance last year when I first heard about them. Their music sounds like 3 parts Grizzly Bear mixed with 2 parts Animal Collective. I like it and am looking forward to hearing more of these guys in the future. Again, my apologies for being about 2 years late on this one.

Lupe Fiasco – Lasers (Album Review)

Published on March 8, 2011 in 2011, album review, hip hop and rap. 0 Comments

Lupe Fiasco Lasers

Stuck in record label limbo for over a year, Lupe Fiasco’s third album, Lasers, has finally been released. Lupe himself doesn’t particularly like Lasers, but I was excited to finally be able to hear a new full-length release from him. Unfortunately, the album fails to live up to his previous two albums. Lasers starts well enough with the first three tracks being some of the album’s best. The music goes downhill from there, though. The middle block of songs just sound way overproduced with auto-tune and synth noises in abundance. In some ways, this release reminds me of B.o.B.’s The Adventures of Bobby Ray in that it pairs a talented MC with a bunch of pop music and flavor-of-the-month featured artists in order to make it more accessible. Luckily, the album rebounds slightly towards the end with “All Black Everything” and “Never Forget You”. Three and half years and countless delays later, Lasers is an okay album but is a complete letdown mostly because we know that Lupe is capable of so much more. (3/5 stars)

Best Tracks
Words I Never Said ft. Skylar Grey
Till I Get There
All Black Everything

Lupe Fiasco Hates Lasers

Published on March 1, 2011 in 2011 and music news. 0 Comments

lupe fiasco

Lasers, Lupe Fiasco’s third album that has been stuck in record label limbo since the end of 2009, is finally set to be released on March 8th. I’m excited to hear it, as Lupe has been one of my favorite hip hop artists since his debut album was released in 2006. Unfortunately, it seems that Lupe himself isn’t too impressed with the end result of Lasers. Based on an interview with Complex.com, Lupe says he both “loves and hates” his new album. It sounds like the record label bigwigs at Atlantic essentially forced him to record songs that he had no part in writing and that he wasn’t even particularly fond of. It sort of reminds me of the record label garbage that was going on last year with Big Boi’s release, which was eventually released sans Andre 3000. It’s a shame that so much good music gets watered down due to an artist being signed to a particularly controlling label. Hopefully Lasers won’t disappoint too much when it’s released next week.

The New Pornographers song “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” in Amazon Kindle Ad

Published on February 28, 2011 in 2011, music in commercials and pop. 0 Comments

The New Pornographers

Based on Amazon’s recent commercials, it’s no secret that they’re trying to get the twenty and early thirtysomething crowd to buy the Kindle. The newest Kindle commercials features a song by the New Pornographers. The song is “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” which appeared on their 2010 album Together. The main vocals from the song are handled by Neko Case. It’s a good song, even though Together as a whole was pretty mediocre, at least as far as The New Pornographers go. While I have no desire to buy a Kindle, I do think the way that Amazon has handled its advertising is commendable. The ad and the full song are below.

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