I have decided to throw up a few review type thingies and just avoid (well, almost) the subject of the war for a day.
Blur - Think Tank
It's been leaked months before its release and am I glad it was. For starters it's a great little disc that builds a more coherent picture than 13 did. The departure of Graham Coxon seems to have had the same liberating effect Bill Berry did when he left R.E.M. and the band seems to be thriving. Albarn's outside work on Gorillaz and Mali Music also are easily identifiable and obviously inform much of the proceedings. The songs are layered in such a way as to reveal new nooks and crannies with every listening and the album feels more coherent as a whole. One of the problems with 13 was that while it was sonically interesting and a few tunes carried a bit of emotyional weight the album as a whole felt more like a Frankenstein's monster cobbled togethger from disparate sources. Think Tank's songs also manage to change and sometimes turn in completely unexpected directions but even these parts sound organic and natural even if a bit unexpected. I hope the band leaked this on purpose because it's not the easiest album to get into initially but it definitely gets better with repeated listens and the advance buzz on it when it finally comes out in May should be terrific.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
Okay, this rocks the fucking house as well. A few songs, and I'm thinking primarily of the track "Maps," are almost pretty. The rest of the bunch is a bunch of thudding, cavernous, primeval rock. This was a band slow to grow on me -- much like the Liars who I consider to be stylistic cousins -- but after listening to this I think the reason behind that was that they had scant released output and I had problems justifying the deafening buzz around the band with what I had actually heard. Well, I've heard this and I dig it.
The White Stripes - Elephant
What an apt title for this heavyweight contender. Slam Jack and Meg all you want but you have to admit they can write some kick-ass songs and are a pretty potent band. This is especially evident when they tackle Burt Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" -- most famously performed by Dusty Springfield -- and turn it into a song that sounds like Jack White was meant to sing it. To me the ability to make anything and everything sound as if you invented it is one of the earmarks of a solid group. Fuck the backlash and embrace this album.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Stretched"
I finally tracked down a copy of this old Red Hot Chili Peppers b-side from their Dave Navarro days and it is certainly not your general Chili Pepper type fare. This song kicks the ass of anything included on One Hot Minute (except perhaps "Transcending") and the ambiguity of the lyrics that allow the song to lean heavily into homoerotic territory display a band definitely exploring the outer boundaries of their collective personality. Hard to find but worth a listen if you can find it.
Sadly I am still slogging through Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief since most of my reading has been The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, The Guardian and an unhealthy addiction to both the Reuters and the BBC web-sites. I am currently crying because my subscription to The New Yorker ran out and I currently can't afford to renew it. Boo hoo.
...and, tangentially, a comment or two on the current world situation...
First CNN does a story on themselves and the "CNN Effect" -- namely the effect CNN has on the economy via consumers who choose to stay in and watch the news rather than consume and spend money -- that I had hoped to avoid since I don't have cable and wouldn't be sucked into the dark spiral that is twenty-four hour news in times of crisis. Well, lucky for me my local PBS station has decided to run the CNN feed in the overnight slot thus ensuring that my current insomnia only worsens over the coming weeks. Yay!
Oh yeah, this is kind of creepy too.
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