Rock + roll progress report, spring semester 07

[rockmarooned]

Lots of passing grades this year but few overachievers so far.

Arcade Fire
Last Album: Their first, the awesome Funeral, one of those albums that would've been in my top two or three of the year had I actually listened to it the year it actually came out.
This Album: I admit it: Neon Bible isn't as good as Funeral. The lyrics strive to face

Comments

[sortahuman]

My take (like you asked)

Arcade Fire-own, but haven't listened to at home yet. Still a little weirded out that I had to sit at a table at Virgin Megastore the day it was released and listen to it over and over while I gave away Warren Haynes tickets.

Kaiser Chiefs-Had a co-worker send it to me via IM. Like it much better than I thought I would, considering I thought "Employment" was boring. as. hell.

Bjork-Bought the album. Haven't gotten the chance to listen to. Lately, in between the stuff I buy for myself and the stuff I'm sent to review on Popmatters, there's like a three-week delay, which means I'll get to Bjork...sometime within the next two weeks.

Fountains Of Wayne-Not as good as "Welcome Interstate Managers", but still damn good. I, too, read the Voice article and was a little disturbed by it (although I also think the music writing for the Voice has gone tremendously downhill since they fired Christgau), and was also a bit perturbed that I missed that show. For what it's worth, I dig "Planet Of Weed" plenty (but then again, I *do* smoke a lot), but "Strapped For Cash" is my favorite track on the album.

(get me on a topic I like and I won't shut up!)

[rockmarooned]

Ooh, yeah, "Strapped for Cash" is good -- love that Billy Joel-ish "ack-ack-ack-ack." But I don't really get their weird obsession with hippie culture. Sometimes I think they're making fun of it and sometimes I think they're half-buying into it. Like on Utopia Parkway there's "Go, Hippie" which is this really sharp character song, good job. Then on Managers they have "Peace and Love," which may or may not be sarcastic (I usually don't think their songs are sarcastic but this one would otherwise be so meaningless that I assumed it probably was)... and now "Planet of Weed," which, again, sounds like it might be sarcastic or that they might be indulging their hippie side. But if they are being sarcastic, they aren't saying anything very incisive about pothead culture. And if they are trying to be hippies, they're not doing it a very convincing job. I find that whole situation very odd.

Let me know what you think of Bjork when you get to it..