record reviews

Arcade Fire - Funeral
Yes more 80s retro. Listening to bands these days has totally become an exericise in 'name that alternative 80's band'. Again, I'll reiterate, I'm totally down with this. Arcade Fire is easy. The Pixies and the Talking Heads. These are two bands that I wouldn't want to be influenced by. Sounding like them is the aural equivalent of an Evil Knieval stunt. It either works and you've got a hit record on your hands or it fails and flying pieces of motorcycle and open chest surgery are involved.

The Pixies are a little old hat now as an influence. There aren't many alternative bands that don't sound somewhat like them. Then again it's like adding salt and pepper to any recipe. You just do it. Fortunately they pull it off. The lead singer is sort of a margerine equivalent of Frank Black's butter. You can in fact believe it's not butter. But it does have the right flavor. Half yodelling and half yelling but with much less forcefulness than Frankie can pull off. Fine. The Talking Heads influence is a little newer. I can only hear the Talking Heads in one other band - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - that I'm listening to right now. CYHSY by the way are the shit right now in New York. I'm giving them 2 months before everyone hates them because they're overhyped. That's how it works around here. Do I like it? Yea I think it's good. I'm not blown away. They seem to be the rage around here but I just think it's good.

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
I like this A LOT. And you know what? I'm not even going to review it. I'm just going to point you to what can only be the most over the top review from the most jaded of music review sources to convince you to buy this. It is good. It is really good. Check out Lover's Spit for a taste. Here's a taste of the review

"I've been listening to this disc for months on repeat-- sometimes just this disc for days."

Favorite quote recently:
"We never had a hit record - We had a hit lawsuit." - Negativland