New Kids stray too far from The Block in new album
Caution: Objects in your rearview mirror are older than they appear.
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Caution: Objects in your rearview mirror are older than they appear.
In terms of sheer size, the only thing larger than "…Earth to the Dandy Warhols…" is Courtney Taylor-Taylor's massive ego. It would be irresponsible to credit the growth of said persona to past experience this kind of megalomania you're born with but those once-coveted Seth Cohen playlist adds and the exposure in 1960s revivalist doc Dig! couldn't have helped matters. Having since mistaken Sundance for the Academy and obscurity for fame, Taylor and his Dandy band shed the limitations of their modest guitar rock orientation, and with this latest paralysis-inducing, hour-plus space jam, permanently shoot to hell any lingering pop flirtations in favor of misfired trance drones, none of which will be featured in a K-Swiss commercial. "Earth" is the kind of brazen kiss off you'd expect from a man with two last names.
A blustery force of innate headwinds faces every incoming freshman at UF, and that's before you count the crappy weather. For starters, there's the budget deficit strangling the liberal arts program (hope you're good at engineering!) and, for those who get hosed by the lottery system, the impossibility of scoring football tickets without selling a kidney. These challenges may seem daunting but manageable with determination and a spare organ.
Feeling the pinch yet? Getting squeezed at the pump? Gouged at the grocery store? Not to worry. While Congress waffles over another round of stimulus checks and Sen. John McCain whets the collective petroleum appetite by dangling a gas tax holiday just out of reach of this nation's penny-pinching fingertips, Nine Inch Nails is actually offering a whiff of wallet-sparing practicality.
For all those who don't get their nightly fill of Entertainment Tonight, let me recount the story of Miami native and fast food enthusiast Tamien Bain. A self-described "up-and-coming" rapper, Bain penned a Big Mac chant (a la "two all beef patties…") and was one of five finalists contending to replace the sandwich's original jingle by way of an online 40th anniversary contest. Here's the rub: Bain held up a McDonald's when he was 14.
Life isn't fair, and you need not tell this to The Hold Steady. In any justice-esteeming society, 2006's critically adored "Boys and Girls in America," an album crammed with hook-filled sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll throwbacks, would have landed the band the fanatical arena, following its unofficial designation as the scraggly incarnation of The E Street Band. Instead, they got a few nods in year-end polls and a billing on last year's Lollapalooza poster that was only slightly more visible than The Fratellis.
For most, 38th birthdays come and go with little cause for contemplation. For Beck - alpha loser, fifth Beatle, fourth Beastie Boy - 38 means finding himself knee-deep in a mid-life crisis, contemplating worldly ills and taking stock in a self-destructing society that's making a beeline for the pit of hell.
David Berman, you've got to hide your love away.
Fleet Foxes isn't your father's Seattle band. The five-piece Puget pioneers avoid flannel, regularly bathe and - here's the real departure - seem genuinely happy to be alive. These guys have aesthetic taste, favoring 16th century cover artwork over naked babies (Nirvana) and mangy farm animals (Pearl Jam). Of greater importance, the group's brand of Brian Wilson-flavored folk lullaby makes more noise in blogs than in stadiums, a telltale sign that they are out of place and time.
"We are young despite the years we are concern/ We are hope despite the times." So sings Michael Stipe on R.E.M.'s classic "These Days," the band's statement of purpose and a tune that had been rattling in my head a full week prior to an early summer gig at the University of California, Berkeley campus. The song rocks, no questions asked, but it's also slightly cringe-inducing, should you picture it played by three middle-aged hipsters - one frumpy (Peter Buck), one bald (Stipe) and one timelessly nerdy (Mike Mills). It also begs the question, are these guys full of it? Twenty years on, are once-ballsy claims now as hollow as one of Buck's signature Rickenbackers? In short, does R.E.M. still matter?
Not many guitar heroes make it through their high school years without getting slapped with the dropout tag, so it's even more impressive that Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo gets to flaunt a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University. A decade-long stint with the Ivy League's finest must afford one all kinds of vital knowledge, and yet Cuomo still can't wrap his horn-rimmed head around the law of diminishing returns.
British trance-rocker and Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce nearly died in 2005 because of - get this - pneumonia. Go figure. When you've had addiction problems with heroin, landing in the accident and emergency (A&E) ward because of respiratory complications is kind of like tiptoeing through a minefield only to contract tetanus from a rusty nail. Irony aside, the near-death experience yielded "Songs in A&E," a rock 'n' roll record that could very easily be confused for an electric requiem.
In hindsight, the Woody Allen films should've been a big, waving red flag. Scarlett Johansson simply doesn't care anymore - not about her image, not about her career and not about the poor bastards who will actually spend money on "Anywhere I Lay My Head."
Anton Newcombe isn't your run-of-the-mill cult figure.
Blame it on the blogs. Blame it on the fickle keyboard elitists who promised us that Tapes 'n Tapes was the second coming of Pavement, the perfectly refined seed of Frank Black and Kim Deal, the revolution that would reclaim the Minneapolis post-punk high ground long abandoned by the Replacements.
After the Raconteurs got burned a few years back for proclaiming to NME that "Broken Boy Soldiers" would be their answer to Nirvana's "Nevermind," they apparently decided to dial down the hype machine.
First, the rationalization.
Canada is on a roll. "South Park" cracks are down, hockey attendance is up and their dollar is making ours the new peso.
Being single sucks. Just ask Stephen Malkmus.
It's hard to take Austin, Texas, duo Ghostland Observatory seriously.