That Thee Oh Sees song is spectacular.
Huh. I’m really trying with this album, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m listening to an unreleased Don Henley and Bryan Adams collaboration circa 1985.
I’ve literally never heard TWOD before, so maybe I’d like their earlier stuff better.
Ha! That might be why I like it. Growing up, Boys of Summer and Summer of '69 were two of my guiltiest after-church-Casey-Kasem-Top-40-radio pleasures.
I certainly didn’t expect to like this album, can’t explain it, and won’t even try!
They kind struck me as a knockoff Dire Straits.
Ah, that may be it. Henley was my 80’s radio bete noire. Never could stand the guy.
Hard not to like “Summer of '69” though! Unfortunately, TWOD is much heavier on the Henley than the Adams.
They do seem to love extended loud guitar solos on every song.
Remember, they’re the band that cranky geezer Mark Kozelek notoriously mocked saying he hated their beer commercial guitar sound. He was ticked off about sound bleeding through from a nearby festival stage and then a big deal was made so he wrote a song about it!
Remember I’m Too Sexy? This was from a few months ago.
Simon Bates played I’m Too Sexy on Radio 1. Gary Crowley at Capital Radio said, “I don’t know if this is good or crap,” but suddenly, we were besieged with requests for interviews. A tastemaker DJ from Miami heard the song on holiday in Europe and took it back and played it. Our promotion budget for the whole of America was $25,000, but the song just sold itself. When we had the US No 1, Madonna announced that she wanted to go to bed with me. I never met her, but she’s got great taste.
Everyone thought we were a couple of sad gym queens who’d been put together and got lucky, but we were proper musicians who’d been on the circuit since 1977 under different names. As the Actors, we toured with Suicide, supported Joy Division at the Factory and played a punk club in Leeds where someone urinated on my clothes. Fred played guitar for Bob Dylan in the Hearts of Fire film in the 80s, while I worked with Mick Jagger and was in three videos with David Bowie.
[…]
I came up with the “I’m a model, you know what I mean” stuff because I was dating a model. It was the start of the supermodel era, things were very hedonistic and I was thinking of big hair and dressing to impress.
[…]
Every label turned us down. Our booking agent sacked us when he heard it. Island Records went to the trouble of sending a fax telling us they hated it and no one would play it. One of the DJ responses was: “Don’t waste money on this shit.” Then we played it to a radio plugger, Guy Holmes. He quickly turned it off, but he had some girls in the car at the time and after he switched it off they started singing, ‘I’m a model …” He thought, “Wait a minute, if they can remember that …”
[…]
In America, “I’m too sexy for school” became the most commonly used excuse for truancy. A politician in the House of Representatives actually said, “I can’t comment on this, I’m too sexy.” In Texas, there was a fight in a bar because some girls played the video for eight hours, and when a guy tried to turn it off, they attacked him
Best video (2006 version, Vevo): https://www.vevo.com/watch/right-said-fred/im-too-sexy/GBBRL9290469
Same version on youtube, poorer quality:
Yeah on the catwalk.
So I just read the Pitchfork review of that War on Drugs album and they referenced krautrock and Talk Talk so perhaps my indie cred hasn’t suffered a fatal blow. Phew!
LOL. Now that’s quite a stretch.
Kanye West: Shoegazer (apparently).
that Kanye photo is amazing.
OH, and since we’re new music here, anyone want some Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile duet?
You bet you do!
I know I want however much of this they’re willing to give me.
My two favorite things that make sound: Telecaster meets Jaguar!
That was so shambolic, I kept expecting it to fall over completely, but it never quite did. Brilliant duet…now you’ve added another album I can’t wait for!
Ran across this while surfing through sounds this evening and really like it. It’s a remake of a song by Drake that apparently has been top ten in a lot of countries, including the US, and yet I’ve never heard it. I guess my echo chamber has some thick walls. House is not my usual genre, so she/it could be huge and I just don’t know it, but I thought I’d share it anyway.:
Daughter has taken the score pieces and songs they wrote for Life Is Strange: Before the Storm and released them as a new album.
I’m far from disinterested here–this is the video game my studio is making–but collaborating with Daughter was amazing and, they did a spectacular job and I think it makes for a great album. On the most recent All Songs Considered, they said this might be Daughter’s best work.
You can hear the whole thing on Spotify. Here’s the lead single that they released a week or two ago:
Cool! Thanks for that one.
The new LCD Soundsystem album is out which is a good opportunity for me to post the picture of the time I saw James Murphy on the subway.
I’m curious to hear the Rostam debut album coming soon. Bike Dream is an interesting tune but I think I like him best when he’s collaborating with better singers.
oh hai Ted Leo! Welcome back!
Oooo, that Ted Leo is good. It’s been too long Ted!
Oof. This probably doesn’t need a whole thread of it’s own, so I’ll stick it here:
Holger Czukay has died at age 79. One of the great bass players and experimentalists and just all-around musical genius and man-about-town.
Saw that yesterday and went on a late night Can romp.