jrichmanesq

thesinglesjukebox:

ALANIS MORISSETTE - GUARDIAN [4.50]
Katherine St Asaph: Alanis, more than anyone of her time except maybe Jewel or Paula Cole, tends to bring out people’s unconscious genre sexism. If list songs were so easy to write, the Hot 100 would be a cesspool; if this sort of vibrato always distracted, entire genres wouldn’t exist; if earnest or plaintive were bad, Bon Iver would forever be a cabin hermit. You can learn to like this music. There are pleasures to be had if you do: Alanis’s airbrushed vocals on “where was your watchman,” the guitar’s crisp crests in the chorus, the pianos and chimes that sound like each other. I don’t know what’d have to change in music for everyone to start liking this, but whatever it is probably should.[7]
[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox ]

(emphasis added)
I haven’t even gotten around to listening to the song in question yet, but reblogging for the excellent commentary (and the also-excellent essay linked to therein).

ALANIS MORISSETTE - GUARDIAN
[4.50]

Katherine St Asaph: Alanis, more than anyone of her time except maybe Jewel or Paula Cole, tends to bring out people’s unconscious genre sexism. If list songs were so easy to write, the Hot 100 would be a cesspool; if this sort of vibrato always distracted, entire genres wouldn’t exist; if earnest or plaintive were bad, Bon Iver would forever be a cabin hermit. You can learn to like this music. There are pleasures to be had if you do: Alanis’s airbrushed vocals on “where was your watchman,” the guitar’s crisp crests in the chorus, the pianos and chimes that sound like each other. I don’t know what’d have to change in music for everyone to start liking this, but whatever it is probably should.
[7]

[Read and comment on The Singles Jukebox ]

(emphasis added)

I haven’t even gotten around to listening to the song in question yet, but reblogging for the excellent commentary (and the also-excellent essay linked to therein).

Source: thesinglesjukebox

andrewtsks:

screwrocknroll:

Trackshittaz, “Woki Mit Deim Popo,” Traktorgängstapartyrap (2012)

Austria’s 2012 Eurovision entry is a fucking tune. That Europe didn’t see fit to allow it to progress through to the final is the biggest Euro-travesty since Kate Ryan’s “Je T’adore” failed to qualify in 2006. And the Ryan tune didn’t even translate to “wiggle your butt.”

The band: Trackshittaz. Yes, “Trackshittaz,” as in they shit tracks, I guess?
The album: Traktorgangstapartyrap.
The song title: “Wiggle Your Butt.”

OK, so already this is pretty awesome. That’s even before you watch the video—which doesn’t get REALLY awesome until the lights go out right before the 2 minute mark.

It’s like Austria’s answer to 3OH!3

Source: screwrocknroll

Can I live in this room?

yelyahwilliams:

Diamond’s video for “The Feeling” involves some creepy home decor vibes and some seriously good tunage.

I don’t know if DMND are going to end up like Jimmy Eat World or like The Stereo, but this track is ridiculously good.

Source: yelyahwilliams

PropertyOfZack Review : : This Providence

propertyofzack:

For a mainstream act, This Providence have always been a bit of a musical chameleon. What began on their debut, Our World’s Divorce, as angular, progressive emo-punk had, by the time of their eponymous second album, coalesced into a somewhat more pop-oriented emo sound informed by both the twin influences of their Seattle peers (Forgive Durden and Gatsby’s American Dream) and those of their new Fueled By Ramen labelmates (Panic! At The Disco, The Academy Is…). 2009’s Who Are You Now? pushed even further in that direction, with the band dropping more of their technical trappings in favor of straightforward, muscular power-pop. Now newly freed from a decayed relationship with FBR that kept the band in limbo for the better part of two years, Brier EP finds This Providence pivoting yet again.

On Brier, This Providence seem to be chasing down a pure, elemental variety of pop and rock. It’s a journey that leads them from 90’s-era 60’s revivalists like Oasis (“Deep End”) and Kula Shaker (“Trouble”), through power-pop’s formative years (the Big Star-style riffing of “In Or Out”’s verses), and occasionally back as far as the Summer Of Love (the sunshine-y Farfisa on “Trouble” practically screams Strawberry Alarm Clock). It’s a good look for the band, who seem to vibe well with a stripped down production style. Guitarist Gavin Phillips, in particular, has never sounded better, ripping off one guttural, growly solo after another, reaching back to the primal electric blues of rock and roll’s foundation.

Still, while the trappings may change, there has always been a consistent pop songwriting sensibility at This Providence’s core that has tied one album to the next, and it breaks down on occasion here. In particular, “Deep End” feels like one great chorus riff with a solid middle eight surrounded with a layer of padding. Or in other words, the sonic equivalent of those inflated plastic bags stuffed in an Amazon delivery box. It would have made a solid album cut, but as one of only four tracks released by the band in nearly three years, it’s not asking too much to expect every minute to kill. There are plenty of great moments here — “Trouble” ranks with anything the band has done, and “In Or Out”’s chorus, a nugget of sing-songy bliss, would slot in seamlessly on Who Are You Now? — but they don’t always quite add up.

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I don’t usually reblog my reviews and stuff over here, but rereading this one I’m super happy with how it turned out. Might be the best thing I’ve written in a while.

Source: propertyofzack

backleftlitz:

So there’s this weird generational window that you never really hear anyone talking about, kids birthed between say ‘88 and ‘92 whose first shits and steps and birthdays exist not on some cloud or hard-drive but rather in the attics and closets of their childhood homes or maybe some early retirement community, preserved on the decidedly analog mediums of videotape and film that this particular cohort (of which of course I am a member) are constantly accused of fetishizing through like Instagram and that whole curated Tumblr aesthetic that you don’t really need me to describe. And right around the time that these kids first started maybe gaining some sense of life’s complexity/difficulty—via say early romantic rejection, or genitalia grown too large or not large enough, or all that talk on the news about candy-colored threats to our safety—is when digital photography and its dutiful, unsentimental glare really took off, consumer-wise, so that filmic or photographic documentation of this cohort’s youth starts to, around age 11, 12, 13, look a whole lot more prosaic and mundane, the colors accurate and well-balanced but lifeless, unlike those grainy/impressionistic documents of simpler times, and so maybe this is a reason for all of that fetishizing, I don’t know.

a) i think this is spot on

b) i think there’s also a general mistake that “older folks” make in still thinking in terms of generations as large multi-decade segments when in reality (at least for those of us who grew up in the privileged, ever-accelerating west) there are some really massive differences in formative experiences (and the worldviews, and likes, and tastes, etc that grow from those) between clusters of people born only a few years apart. I think the world looks very different to someone born in 87 than to someone born in 91 than to someone born in 95 in a way that goes way beyond the simple age difference.

Source: backleftlitz

Instagram Contest

thereadyset:

Want to be featured on The Ready Set Twitter? Write lyrics from our new song “Give Me Your Hand (Best Song Ever)” on your hand and take a photo on Instagram using the hashtag #GiveMeYourHand We will RT the best ones!! Need the lyrics? Get them HERE!

Do you feel?

Source: thereadyset