Fuck yeah JAWBREAKER! I’m pretty sure 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Bivouac are the best pop-punk albums ever.
Guppy by Charly Bliss is one damn fine sounding 90s-ish alt rock album. Got it blasting through the house on a Sunday afternoon and all is right with the world.
This is a good read
That was a good read—thanks for posting it.
At the time, I followed the Blake Babies and Juliana Hatfield out of personal interest, but didn’t pay much attention to the other Boston bands when they were active. About seven or eight years ago, a long-after-the-fact discovery of Throwing Muses and Belly prompted a new awareness. Interesting scene.
I was hoping he’d mention Tribe, and then digress to Looking Glass and Harmonix, but no such luck :)
Yeah Tribe would fit right in along with O Positive who I think also weren’t really mentioned. I’ve seen both of them along with most of the bands in the article. Interesting take on how Clearchannel killed the scene when they bought out the local radio stations and standardized the playlists on a bit more aggressive music.
Thanks for linking. Man, I love me some Buffalo Tom and felt they should have been bigger - probably just a product of the time when the alternative acts getting attention were edgy or quirky and BT was a little more straightforward rock melodies and harmonies.
“But Armandooooo, there’s already a metal thread over thereeee, get it oooouuuuuut,” the thread participants whined futiley. But Armando didn’t give one half of one shit, because a new Ayreon album is out, and it deserves ears.
Ayreon’s particular blend of Hawkwind/Jethro Tull/Pink Floyd/Beatles-influenced proggy space metal/rock opera is rife with Moog synths, noodly guitars, and the voices of a dozen or more hand-picked vocal powerhouses (tragically, Magnum’s Bob Catley isn’t on this one, so I can’t lay out a non-metal vocalist for the thread to appreciate :P) acting out a grand space opera play. Hell, 9/10ths of their output thus far has, in some form or another, linked into the overall “Ayreon arc,” a tale of an alien species overwhelmed and stripped of their emotions by technology, seeding the earth with life in a millenia-long experiment to reclaim their lost mortality, and humanity’s inevitable stumble toward nuclear apocalypse. It’s pretty awesome shit.
The new album, The Source, featuring luminaries like Dream Theater’s James Labrie, Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kursch, Epica’s Simone Simons, and Nightwish’s Floor Jansen on vocals, alongside musicians like Mr. Big’s Paul Gilbert and the unfailingly brilliant Ed Warby on drums (plus project mastermind Arjen Anthony Lucassen on, err, let’s see, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, mandolin, synths, Hammond, Solina Strings, and just about every-damn-thing else), tells the prequel to this story, as the alien world of Y is overwhelmed by technological supremacy as a handful of brave politicians, scientists, prophets, and citizens try in vain to stop the government’s doomed plans.
Plus, hey, the video above features all sorts of fascinating insights into Lucassen’s production strategies as he drops into the music video to explain how he recruited a singer or achieved a particular synth sound. Give it a listen :)
Edit: Oh fuck, the opening to “Everybody Dies” is so good.
(I’m literally listening to the album as I write, as it’s only just come out today)
I’ve been driving a special ed bus for a little over a year as a part time gig and one of my students likes this pop station. I don’t listen to the radio too much and when I do it’s usually NPR, preferring my time machine back to the 80s with classic Ozzy. Every once in a while I hear I song outside what I usually listen to that I like and It Ain’t Me sung by Selena Gomez and written by Kygo is one of them.
There is something about her sweet vocals, the thumping bass and the disjointed ‘broken up’ parts that just jives with me.
This is about as opposite to Armando’s song above as it gets I think :-)
You should write about metal in here. Or jazz. Or whatever. People in this thread posting about non-indie stuff is how I’ve found some of my favorite artists of the last few years. Metal is right in there.
Can’t remember off the top of my head, but whomever recommended JD McPherson a few years ago: THANK YOU.
Oh, I dunno, I think that Ayreon does soft’n’breezy female-fronted pop pretty damn well, too:
:-D
You’re playing a dangerous game, there, Trig. . .
I kinda like the sound of Ayreon.
This music video is awesome - the track is tops but so is the imagery. Love the snipe of the Catholic church via juxtaposition against the normal rap video visuals of obscene wealth.
And Damn is shaping up to a be a top album of 2017 already. Even if I don’t really know what to make of all the Black Israelite stuff. It’s definitely my favorite Kendrick album.
Really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.
Drummond and Cauty stole from the Beatles and Abba, then sneaked illegal-rave culture on to Top of the Pops. They memorably hijacked the 1992 Brit awards as a symbolic massacre-suicide for the entire music industry. In using and abusing graffiti and money as contestable art objects, they anticipated the work of Damien Hirst and Banksy. The raw material of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s esoteric Illuminatus! trilogy fed into their alter egos, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu.
Now as we reach the symbolic 23rd anniversary of the cash-sacrifice on Jura – 23 being a totemic figure in Illuminatus! numerology and thus in JAMMs lore – the KLF are back. Gnomic flyposters promise a KLF book and an event in August “unearthing aspects of the 2023 trilogy across Liverpool”, where Drummond’s career began. The Illuminati, once a private fixation for Drummond, Cauty and the 1970s counterculture, have become a pop-culture obsession (see Beyoncé and her pyramid hand gestures). The KLF, AKA The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, were always agents of chaos. Now the world they anticipated is here.
This appeared on YouTube in January (warning: long and weird, Who fans might skip to 29:50):
I wouldn’t mind if this became a big hit.
Kevin Garcia, the 41-year-old bassist for Grandaddy, apparently had a massive stroke on Monday and died today. Awful news. Founding member of the band, has been there the whole journey. Met him way back when their first record came out and he was a wonderfully nice guy.
I just read that! So sad. And it happened right before they’re heading out on tour with the new album.
I think we can all get on board with this anecdote about Kevin I found in a facebook comment…
"I am so sorry guys. I remember after an in-store at Virgin they let you all pick out music afterwards. I remember Kevin saying “Can I get a video game instead?”
Sorry I’m late to reply, I don’t come in this thread very much. But if you’re looking for sweet cut-up female vocals with a thumping bass, look no further than this song by Caroline Pennell + Felix Snow:
Anyway, this song really snuck up on me, so I hope you enjoy it too. It actually took a couple listens for it to click for me though. :)
One of us! One of us!
New Japanese Breakfast in July. I liked Psychopomp a lot but not sure how I feel about this tune yet
Topical due to the mildly to extremely racist celebration of today:
Errr, not safe for work. Or wives. or Latinx rights :). But how could anyone not love Alestorm’s delightfully upbeat, catchy, pop-inspired brand of pirate metal?
(PS, I still maintain their “cover” of “Telephone” and corresponding video is the greatest metal video since Candlemass’s “Bewitched”)
That one goes out to any Gaga/Beyonce fans in the audience.