My Big, Gigantic Drum Kit

stevenhyden:

Oh man, this Joy Formidable song! Why is this band not huge yet? And how haven’t I seen them live yet?

According to their mailing list (which I just signed up for to get the MP3 of this tune), they’ve finished the new album already!

Full albums listened to:

• John Vanderslice’s White Wilderness. A new batch of Vanderslice’s songs with orchestral backing seems like a pretty sure bet. The guy’s overlooked as a straight-up songwriter sometimes, the attention focusing on the inventive production touches he puts on his own work. So this seems like the perfect opportunity to highlight his talents for descriptive details and plot without the layers of percussive effects, etc. to distract. Unfortunately, this is a mushy batch of Vanderslice tunes on both musical and lyrical fronts. Maybe the idea was to leave them open-ended to accommodate the orchestral arrangements, but the backing doesn’t do enough to prop them up. What’s worse is that they actually need propping up at all.

• The Joy Formidable’s The Big Roar.  Discussed here and here. Top ten of the year material for me.

• Justice’s Audio, Video, Disco. Hey. Remember ’80s videogames?  Remember they had music? Well, that music’s back, and it’s called “Audio, Video, Disco by Justice”!
  
  Yes, yes, prog, disco, whatever—this doesn’t sound like Yes or King Crimson or Dream Theater or Chic or Giorgio Moroder half as much as it sounds like a Mountain Dew-fueled struggle to make it past level 8 with three lives left and enough power to beat the giant robot what-the-fuck and save the princess. This is a negative in my book, but I’m not really into videogames anymore.

• Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger. With the limp “Mr. Know It All”* the advance single, it was pretty clear that Stronger wasn’t going to be the kickass power-pop album that Clarkson has in her, but it throws a few winners on my imaginary Kelly Clarkson kickass power-pop album. “You Can’t Win” is about as close as she’s gotten to Paramore territory, which is wonderful, since it supports my “Paramore=Kelly Clarkson+Bleed American-era Jimmy Eat World” equation. “I Forgive You” is solidly in the “Since U Been Gone”/”My Life Would Suck…”/”I Do Not Hook Up” mold, which she can continue to mine for as long as she likes, as far as I’m concerned. On the non-power poppy front, “Standing in Front of You” is sweet and Jets-like; and “The War Is Over” is a fine ballad. The big standout isn’t the title track (a little too rah-rah positivity for my taste), but “You Love Me,” on which Clarkson the mature artist doesn’t imitate, but steals from The Police and Def Leppard for what may be her most mature breakup song yet.
  
  * Mostly a matter of arrangement choices, as the spirited big band AMA version demonstrated. The lyrics are fine, the basic construction is fine; the ’90s adult contemporary loop on the single is … not fine.

• Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring for My Halo. In trying to figure out why so many people love this album, I’ve listened to Smoke Ring for My Halo a fair bit. It’s never been a chore; I like it. Vile has a smooth, Thurston Moore-like delivery, and he’s able to write songs with repetitive melodies that manage not to grate after numerous iterations. But I know the album pretty well by now, I’ve read through the lyric sheet. And I still have no idea why people love this.

Individual songs by:

• Jessica Lea Mayfield (2) - one of these is an oddly lovely cover of Nirvana’s “Lounge Act.”
• Jesu
• Joan of Arc
• John Maus (2)
• Julia Holter
• Julianna Barwick
• Katy B
• Kid Sister
• The Kills
• King Krule (2)
• King Louie
• Kyle Bobby Dunn
• Lady Gaga (3) - This year, I finally came around to Lady Gaga as a phenomenon (the Jo Calderone thing might have done it); still working on Lady Gaga as a musician. I’m fairly confident I’ll never understand the appeal of “Poker Face” and “Just Dance,” but Born This Way has its fair share of goodies, despite not having the ideas to justify its substantial length. I’ve listened to it in full a few times, but only have three tracks, two of which I like quite a bit (“Hair” and “Edge of Glory”), one of which I dislike, but am told I should like (“You and I” - not a Shania Twain fan).
  
  Incidentally, “Edge of Glory” doesn’t sound like Bruce to me; it’s so Jim Steinman a la Streets of Fire that I just checked to make sure he didn’t get a credit somewhere. Then again, Steinman was basically doing Springsteen-as-musical theater, so I suppose it’s natural that Gaga’s Boss tribute would sound like an updated Ellen Aim and the Attackers.

For whatever reason, I tend to listen to more new music in the second half of the year.  That said, I’ve seen a bunch of midyear mixes and lists showing up in the last few weeks, so I thought I’d give it a go. Playlist and song-by-song writeup (part 1 of 2) after the break.