(Goes to watch most popular videos of bands mentioned)
Yeasayer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GziH8s7ksMo) Seem more like my parents than my children, and leave me wanting strongly to rebel against them. Terribly adult, serious and dull; older than me, whatever age they are.
TV on the Radio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GziH8s7ksMo) The funkiness makes this better. I don't find it sonically or lyrically terribly interesting, though. You really have to do more with the moribund -- I mean really seriously moribund -- format of pop music to stop it dying. I mean, you really have to tweak it HARD, otherwise you're just going to make people say "It sounds a bit like..." and name something made in 1986 or whatever. The basic sonic grammar here is not being re-invented hard enough. The medium rests on its laurels, which rest on the edge of a cliff of oblivion.
Grizzly Bear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjecYugTbIQ) This sounds like ELO fronted by Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet. I don't mean that as praise. Again, if you sound more conventional than, say, Black Dice, IMHO, you might as well not exist. Unless you're incredibly hooky and adorable, like MGMT. In which case you get a pass, but don't necessarily guarantee the survival of pop-rock as anything vital and essential.
I don't think Baraclough can guarantee that either, but they do something clean and startling in my ears. That second vid I linked has sounds you can actually listen to, rather than merely recognize from some ancient release.
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Date: 2009-11-01 05:19 pm (UTC)Yeasayer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GziH8s7ksMo)
Seem more like my parents than my children, and leave me wanting strongly to rebel against them. Terribly adult, serious and dull; older than me, whatever age they are.
TV on the Radio (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GziH8s7ksMo)
The funkiness makes this better. I don't find it sonically or lyrically terribly interesting, though. You really have to do more with the moribund -- I mean really seriously moribund -- format of pop music to stop it dying. I mean, you really have to tweak it HARD, otherwise you're just going to make people say "It sounds a bit like..." and name something made in 1986 or whatever. The basic sonic grammar here is not being re-invented hard enough. The medium rests on its laurels, which rest on the edge of a cliff of oblivion.
Grizzly Bear (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjecYugTbIQ)
This sounds like ELO fronted by Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet. I don't mean that as praise. Again, if you sound more conventional than, say, Black Dice, IMHO, you might as well not exist. Unless you're incredibly hooky and adorable, like MGMT. In which case you get a pass, but don't necessarily guarantee the survival of pop-rock as anything vital and essential.
I don't think Baraclough can guarantee that either, but they do something clean and startling in my ears. That second vid I linked has sounds you can actually listen to, rather than merely recognize from some ancient release.