After missing SXSW this year, and with Bonnaroo not a viable option, I’d been holding out hope that Lollapalooza would have a solid enough lineup to warrant my attendance.
I had seen a leaked list of acts Tuesday afternoon and immediately purchased a three-day pass, while holding my breath to make sure it wasn’t fake.
Now, following this morning’s official release of the lineup, I can breathe a sigh of relief and start figuring out all the bands I want to see.
Here’s a list of acts that I really want to see and others that I’d be more than happy to see.
THESE ACTS ALONE WOULD MAKE FOR AN AWESOME FESTIVAL
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, Black Sabbath, Jack White, Florence + The Machine, M83, Franz Ferdinand, Santigold, The Temper Trap, Dr. Dog, Alabama Shakes, The Gaslight Anthem, The Walkmen, Dum Dum Girls, Washed Out, Blind Pilot, Chairlift, Givers, Bombay Bicycle Club, Sharon Van Etten, The War On Drugs, Kopecky Family Band, Dry the River
THESE BANDS WILL TAKE MY WEEKEND TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL
Unlike SXSW, I’m not going to Lollapalooza to discover new bands. I’m going there to see, in person, bands I know I already like. In fact, I’ve already seen a handful of these bands, but I have no problem seeing them again.
So, anyway, who among you will join me? Which bands are you most looking forward to? Feel free to leave a comment below.
Hey, look. It’s a male-female indie-pop duo harmonizing together over sparse, dreamy guitars while singing about alienation and unrequited love.
How revolutionary!
OK, so Big Deal’s formula isn’t exactly innovative. But that doesn’t make their music any less captivating.
The London-based duo of Alice Costelloe, a Brit, and Kacey Underwood, an American expatriate, have drawn comparisons to Wye Oak, Beach House and The XX.
There is no filler among the 12 tracks on their recently released debut, Lights Out. With an acoustic guitar accompanied by a fuzzed-out electric axe, the duo puts forth some solid shoegazy pop that works well both as a main course or simply as background noise.
In addition to the above “Chair”, a few other tracks that stood out were “Swoon” and “Talk”.
While you relax to the sounds of Big Deal, be sure to check out their interesting backstory.
If you’re looking for another run-of-the-mill indie rock/pop band from England, you could certainly do a lot worse than The Courteeners.
The quartet from Greater Manchester formed in 2006 and has put out a pair of full-length albums — 2008’s St. Jude and 2010’s Falcon.
The debut, which was loved by at least one blogger, was filled with a lot of songs that sounded like pretty much everything else that was coming out of the British indie scene at the end of the last decade.
While their sound was not very distinct, The Courteeners did manage to put out a couple of solid tracks, including “What Took You So Long?” and “Cavorting”. The best tune on here — and the band’s best one to date — is “Not Nineteen Forever”, which charted rather well and has been used in several TV shows, including Cougar Town.
With Falcon, the band managed to add a little complexity to its sound and kicked up the electro vibe a bit. In terms of solid tracks, it has its predecessor beat, with such ditties as “Will It Be This Way Forever?”, “Take Over the World”, You Overdid It Doll”, “Lullaby” and “Scratch Your Name Upon My Lips”.
While neither album would be considered a must-have, if you downloaded all of the aforementioned songs, it would probably make for a worthwhile eight-track playlist.
When I started this blog, I had grand visions of posting about a bunch of new and newish bands, then posting updates whenever they released a new album. Obviously, that hasn’t happened yet.
But three bands that I wrote about in the past all happened to put out some solid releases at the start of 2012, and I had to make everyone aware of them. Coincidentally, all three were included in “threeplay” posts, so, it seems fitting that their updates would be part of another three-pack.
On their second album, fun. answer the question: “What would Queen have sounded like if they were an emo band?”
Nate Ruess’ signature Mika/Freddie Mercury vocals are still ever-present throughout Some Nights. But this time around, they’re complemented by some very strong, complex instrumentation.
The big single, “Tonight”, which features some backing vocals from Janelle Monae, is a great, slow-building anthemic pop-rock song that has the potential to make some end-of-the-year lists.
The title track includes some harmonizing that conjures memories of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Other strong songs include “One Foot”, “Carry On” and “Why Am I the One” and the bonus track, “Out On the Town”.
On a less-than-positive note, in case you were wondering how annoying Ruess’ voice would sound auto-tuned, just listen to “Stars” or “It Gets Better”. It certainly couldn’t get any worse.
Whatever made me originally think of Joanna Newsom is no longer present on First Aid Kit’s latest album, The Lion’s Roar.
The Sisters Soderberg have taken their folk roots and added several layers to create a richer, deeper sound. On several tracks, they channel their country-folk influences, especially on the big first single, “Emmylou”.
It’s pretty cool to hear a couple of Swedish girls in their late teens/early 20s name-checking Emmylou Harris, Graham Parsons and June Carter and Johnny Cash.
While that song will almost-definitely make my Best of 2012 mix CD, there are several other solid tracks on the album. They include the title track, “Blue”, “I Found a Way” and “King of the World”, which includes backing vocals by Conor Oberst.
Considering how much hype this album received — or at least on the indie scale of hype — I’m hopeful the band can parlay this into a bigger following.
Plenty of bands change their sound from one album to the next. That’s just natural and to be expected. But the transformation that Cloud Nothings have gone through in less than a year is nothing short of amazing.
After two albums filled with lo-fi pop created on a computer in his parents’ basement, Dylan Baldi hastily assembled a band and hit the road. And after playing countless shows, he apparently realized that his songs didn’t lend themselves to very much improvisation in concert.
So he and his crew headed to Chicago and teamed with legendary producer Steve Albini to create an album full of songs that he could bend to his every whim whilst on stage.
The end result was Attack On Memory, an eight-song disc loaded with grungy, distortion-laced, shoegazing, heavy rock that harkens back to the early ’90s.
Or, as a friend of mine simply described the new sound — “it’s raunchy.”
Personally, this album isn’t exactly my cup of tea. It’s too much fuzz and not enough heart. That being said, there are a few songs I dug, such as “Stay Useless”, “Fall In” and “Our Plans”.
I’m certainly not going to push this band aside. Baldi’s output has been somewhat prolific thus far, and I’m eager to see in what direction he takes his band in the future.
If you’re an avid reader of this blog, then I only need to use two words to adequately describe the music of Craft Spells — “trance mix.”
Alas, you probably don’t come here that often — or ever — and only happened upon the site while searching for SXSW torrents, or you were duped by one of my Facebook posts.
Nevertheless, “trance mix” simply means that Craft Spells would fit perfectly in my correlating iTunes playlist alongside the likes of Wild Nothing, Youth Lagoon, Beach Fossils, Lower Dens and The XX.
It would be very easy to get Craft Spells’ dreamy, shoegazey synth-pop confused with that of the aforementioned bands. In fact, it’ll probably take many more listens before I have any real chance of differentiating them.
From what I can tell from the debut release — 2011’s Idle Labor — this four-piece from Stockton, Calif., plays at a slightly faster pace than its brethren, has a very steady drum beat throughout and mixes in a surf-pop sound from time to time.
Besides the above two videos, other strong tracks on the album include “The Fog Rose High”, “For the Ages”, “Scandinavian Crush”, “From the Morning Heat” and “You Should Close the Door”.
Craft Spells will be hitting the road this Spring, including a stop in Chicago in late April when they’ll open for The Drums. Should be a great show.
There’s always a sense of excitement when a band puts out a strong debut EP. You end up listening to the 5-7 songs so many times that you have them memorized, and, all the while, you’re eagerly awaiting the release of the first full-length album.
If you’re lucky, that first LP will meet or exceed your expectations. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, bands can’t replicate whatever it was that made those first few songs so great. Then you’re left with nothing but disappointment.
Admittedly, that’s not quite the case with The Hundred In the Hands. But their self-titled LP that they put out last year struggles to reach the same levels as their initial EP from 2010.
The six tracks on This Desert only amount to about 23 minutes, but in that short span, the Brooklyn male-female duo managed to show off a great deal of potential.
Songs such as “Tom Tom”, “In To It” and “It’s Only Everything” capture everything that’s great about the recent indie-electro/shoegaze trend.
But much of that is lost on the long play. While This Desert has a full, rich and textured sound, the follow-up just falls flat. Somewhere in between the two releases, Eleanore Everdell’s vocals went from dreamy — and a touch haunting — to bland and, at times, talk-singing. Like a less-talented Suzanne Vega.
That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its positive notes. The electro guitar that plays throughout conjures memories of The Rapture and, to a degree, VHS or Beta. And there are a few catchy tracks, such as “Killing It”, “Commotion”, “Dressed in Dresden” and the big single, “Pigeons” (just try getting the line “Saturday comes, Sunday comes, we go” out of your head).
The Hundred in the Hands are not a lost cause. They’ve shown that they have the potential to be great; but they have simply taken things in the wrong direction. Now it’s just a matter of whether they realize it and are willing to make a U-turn.
I’ll give this to Nurses, they’re a difficult band to pigeonhole. They’re a mix of several different genres, including pop, soul, folk, electronica and psychedelia.
The best description I found for the group was “psychedelic bubblegum pop.”
Their music is an acquired taste, and I’m not sure I’ve latched on to it just yet.
The above track comes from the Portland trio’s sophomore album — 2009’s Apple’s Acre. Those whiny vocals you hear come from Aaron Chapman and can be found throughout the band’s entire catalog. And they’re the fulcrum between loving and hating this group.
In Pitchfork’s review of the album, the writer describes Nurses’ sound as “the shaggy younger sibling of Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear on a tight budget.” That’s certainly better than anything I could’ve come up with.
The group’s most recent release — 2011’s Dracula — is definitely the most well-rounded thus far. While the songs on Apple’s Acre all kinda run together and sound the same, the tracks on Dracula stand out better and have more nuance.
As I alluded to earlier, I’m not so sure Nurses are my cup of tea. But their sound is not too far from my comfort zone, and I’m confident that at least one person reading this post will fall in love with the band.
With a recent surge in popularity following the success of the hit single “Somebody That I Used To Know”, the artist known as Gotye has seemingly come out of nowhere as an overnight sensation in the indie music scene.
But, in actuality, Gotye, aka Wouter “Wally” De Backer, has been around for more than a decade. The Belgian-born, Australian-bred De Backer has released four albums and several EPS with his band The Basics and another three full-length albums under the Gotye moniker.
By the way, according to Wikipedia, the name “Gotye” is derived from “Gaultier” (or “Gautier” or “Gauthier”), the French equivalent of “Wouter” (“Walter” in English).
De Backer has been nominated for a slew of awards in Australia for both his solo and collaborative work, and, as Gotye, he has won five Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards — the Down Under version of the Grammys.
He had released two Gotye albums — 2003’s Boardface and 2006’s Like Drawing Blood — but didn’t start receiving international acclaim until the 2011 release of Making Mirrors.
Besides the above two tracks, the album includes an eclectic mix of pop, rock, soul and electro sounds with varying vocals that trace their roots to such forebears as Sting and Peter Gabriel. The disc as a whole is something of an acquired taste, with several throwaway tracks mixed among the better stuff.
Some of the stronger tunes include “Save Me” (electro-pop that calls to mind Owl City), “Giving Me a Chance”, “Bronte”, “In Your Light” (a very poppy tune that’s reminiscent of Steve Winwood) and “I Feel Better” (a very soulful pop song that might conjure images of Cee-Lo Green or Bruno Mars).
He’ll be touring the United States starting in March; unfortunately, many of the shows are already sold out. Check out more songs on his MySpace page.
I’m generally not a big fan of the solo singer-songwriter genre. I mean, there are a lot of great artists out there, but, for the most part, I like songs that have more going for them than just vocals and one or two instruments.
That being said, I was mildly surprised by how much I enjoyed Barchords, the recent sophomore release by Bahamas — aka Afie Jurvanen.
Jurvanen, who hails from Barrie, Ontario, does his best to channel the indie-folk vibe of such contemporaries as Conor Oberst and M. Ward.
The above song, along with other tracks such as “Time and Time Again”, “Be My Witness” and “Where You Go”, does a good job of continuing a tone of soulfoul, heart-on-his-sleeve folk-rock.
The best track on the album is probably the opener, “Lost in the Light”. It’s the most complex song on here and conjures up a number of other artists — especially the Dawes-like chorus.
Bahamas has definitely matured as an artist since his 2009 debut, Pink Strat. On that album, Jurvanen’s vocals sounded a lot like Chris Martin — that is, if you took the Coldplay lead singer and turned him into a slow-grooving, indie-folk solo artist.
The standouts from that album include “Hockey Teeth”, the slightly harder, bluesier “Try, Tried, Trying” and “Whole, Wide, World”, the Wreckless Eric cover.
You can hear that last one, as well as a few others, at Bahamas’ MySpace page.
For several years, the main quote on my Facebook page was: “I hope to live to be 100, so I can experience a whole new round of ’80s music.”
I’ve since replaced it with a plug for this blog. But the quote reappeared in my mind the other day, and it got me thinking about the future of music and how many different waves there would be in the rest of my lifetime.
Then I had an epiphany — musical decades are on their way to becoming extinct, if they haven’t already reached that point.
To clarify, when I use the term “musical decades,” I’m referring to the way that popular music of each decade from the latter half of the last century had its own distinct sound. The ’50s saw the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, the ’60s were filled with psychedelic rock and folk, the ’70s had disco and a more progressive rock sound, the ’80s saw early punk morph into New Wave and the rise to prominence of the synthesizer, and the ’90s was something of a hodgepodge of grunge, hip-hop and forgettable pop music.
Obviously, all of that is a pretty big generalization. There was plenty of other stuff going on underground and outside of the mainstream. But when the average music listener thinks back to those decades, there’s a common sound that permeated and has held strong over time.
That really can’t be said for the music of this young century. If you ask 20 random people on the street to describe the sound of the ’00s, you’re likely to get 20 distinctly different answers. And, undoubtedly, it will be that way for the foreseeable future.
There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but the two that stand out the most are the fragmentation of genres and greater access to more and different music.
For the longest time, popular music was limited in its breadth. Whatever you could find at the record store or heard on the radio was pretty much all you had to choose from. But as technology has opened up the world in all sorts of ways, it’s also enabled people to discover new music from places they never would’ve been able to — even as recently as 15 years ago.
And as more and more people are getting their music to the masses, more styles are being created — several new genres seem to pop up on the internet on a daily basis.
Trying to keep up with it all can be dizzying at times. But it can also be really exciting — you never know, your new favorite band could be just a click away.
The cat’s out of the bag. No use trying to wrangle it back in. Just enjoy the music.
Feel free to share your thoughts below in the comments section.
Infinite Shuffle 