MUSIC THREAD

In honour of the upcoming festival season:

 

But Huggy, where's Ass Dan on the bill? Or DJ Supersoak?

 

Fitz and the Tantrums are the new Foster the People for 2014. Book it.

Mizzougrad and CHETtheJET caught this wave early.

 

Fitz and the Tantrums aren't new, though...

 

Going off Huggy's post, the Clearwater Music Festival at Croton on the Hudson in NY in June has a great lineup..

http://www.clearwaterfestival.org/2014-initial-line-up/

 

Been playing the hell out of The Hold Steady's Teeth Dreams this week. Really starting to dig it. I stream so much music and listen to so many playlists I forgot what it was like to get a new album and just wear it out by listening to it over and over and over again.

Anyway, favorites are The Ambassador and Oaks, specifically the last five minutes or so of great guitar work on Oaks. On With The Business is excellent as well. I think it's taken THS a while to really separate itself from the Franz Nikolai era and find its niche with the two-guitar setup. I loved Franz and love what he brought to the band, but this record seems to be a bit of a rebirth. Heaven Is Whenever seems like such a transition record in comparison, though The Weekenders will remain one of my favorite THS songs.

 

I don't love it as much as others do, yet, but I agree on Oaks and On with the Business; probably my two favorites. I'm going to see them next weekend in a dive bar in the town where I went to college. This will be my third time seeing them, but definitely the smallest venue so I'm very excited.

 

St. Vincent's eponymous album gets better with each listen; definitely my favorite album of 2014 so far. Rattlesnake, Birth in Reverse, and Digital Witness are probably my favorites, but there's not really a song on the album that I dislike.

In other news, Jack White announced that he has a new album coming out June 10, so that is now the frontrunner for most likely to be my favorite album of 2014. Here's an instrumental from it that he posted, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRbnAxrS3EM. It's fantastic.

 

It is superb. I love that you can really hear the David Byrne influence very clearly.

My favorite album of the moment (and year so far) is The War on Drugs- Lost in the Dream. It works really well as the counterpoint to Kurt Vile's Waking on a Pretty Daze (my favorite of 2013), and it makes sense as they are former bandmates.

An Ocean Between the Waves is the leader in the clubhouse for song of the year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23GdGEzZPvE

 

Totally agree on the Byrne influence. Love This Giant is a really fun album.

I've listened to Lost in the Dream all the way through probably about seven or eight times at this point. I enjoy it, and think it's definitely a quality album, but it hasn't hit for me the way it has for lots of others. I've seen some critics call it one of the best albums in years, and it just doesn't come close to reaching that level for me. Then again, neither did Waking on a Pretty Daze, so I think that type of sound is just destined to make me feel like there's something missing. Red Eyes and An Ocean In Between The Waves are by far my favorites. I wish there were more bangers on the album. It's just a little too slow in parts.

 

I totally get that feeling. I honestly felt the same way about Waking on a Pretty Daze; initially all the songs felt very "samey" but the more I listened I grew to love it. Lost in the Dream definitely did have a more immediate impact on me though. I think I'm just wired to love swirly atmospheric music. I described it to a coworker (at least in terms of the more uptempo songs), as how Boys of Summer would have sounded if it didn't suck. It has a very 80s feel to it.

Speaking of rockers, the new Cloud Nothings album delivers. Holy drums.

 

It's definitely my favorite album by them. The drumming in Psychic Trauma is nuts.