What MUSIC are you listening to?

Apropos of all the nostalgia talk, I've been listening to The Prodigy's Music for the Jilted Generation over the last week. It doesn't feel nostalgic, it still feels fresh and full of energy, the same as when I first heard it when it came out. No Good (Start the Dance) epitomises the era for me, though Poison gave a strong hint of what was to come.

Of course nostalgia could just be cleverly disguising itself, maybe because I heard these songs when they were new and I'm re-experiencing that in some obfuscated way. After all, the tracks on this album are as old now as the Stones' Brown Sugar was when they came out.

As a result of watching through the three tv mini-series eras of Shane Meadow's 'This is England' saga recently, I'm trying to listen to the Stone Roses. The last series, This is England '90, is set during the Madchester/Baggy era. I dunno. I'm just not really feeling them. I didn't so much at the time and besides a little background music I don't see myself reaching for them too often now.

Maybe they'll grow on me....but at this point do I really need to force myself to like a band?

I've been jamming on the Baby Driver soundtrack of all things.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen
Right now, I got to tell you about…
The fabulous, most groovy, Bellbottoms
[Uh!]
Bellbottoms
[Uh!]
Yeah
[Uh!]

Michael Barnes wrote: I saw them at the peak of their late 90s popularity in the US. It was insane. I think every fire code was broken. Do they still do the thing with the flamethrower gauntlets? That was so cool. Of course, that was al before the Great White tragedy, back when you could go to extraordinarily dangerous club shows with lots of ill-advised pyro. I will say that the only other show I've ever been to with as many shirtless men was Pet Shop Boys.



Maybe I'll take a listen to "Wollt Ihr Das Bett un Flammen Sehen" for old times sake.

The whole shebang. The angel getup, the bomb vest, the flame throwing guitars. There was a speaker tower about 50 yards from the stage maybe farther. The thing was towering maybe 30 yards and these giant mushroom cloud explosions start pouring out. I was 30 40 yards behind these and I was hot as hell even though it was 1am outside.

Jon Spencer? I saw him once. After every single song he hollered "Blues Explosion"!

Stone Roses suck. They have one PHENOMENAL song ("I Wanna Be Adored", of course) and maybe two or three OK singles ("Elephant Stone" and "Love Spreads",
But everything else is BORING. There was much better Madchester stuff. For some reason they just turned into this cult thing.

Tripe. She Bangs the Drums is amazing.

Michael Barnes wrote: Jon Spencer? I saw him once. After every single song he hollered "Blues Explosion"!

Yes, good stuff.

There's only one Stone Roses song I might include on a mix tape or something. It's been the early standout for me.

The Prodigy right at that time remind me of when I started to really fall into electronic music. Great times. I considered catching them recently when I was in Miami but too many acts I didnt care for playing at the same time resulting in an expensive ticket.

Speaking of music, they were giving away tickets to Guns n Roses on Howard Stern, and one of the contents was Richard playing drums of various GNR songs on Sal's bare ass. It was hilarious.

...technically, a music story so it goes here

anyway, not safe for work obviously...

I don't usually hang out in this thread, so I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but I've been listening to the new Fleet Foxes album, Crack-Up quite a bit. Their first two albums, particularly Helplessness Blues, have been favorites of mine for a number of years, so I was naturally willing to put in the time to get into their new release. But I was not quite prepared for exactly how much time it would require to get into Crack-Up. It's a very difficult album, and I imagine a lot of people here will think it's way more trouble than it's worth.

I kind of see their point. It gives off a pretentious vibe, like a Crosby Stills and Nash version of Kid A. It's got all these lyrical allusions, and the melodies are subtle and understated, so that everything kind of runs into the next song without one noticing. There are definitely distinct songs there, but they are laced with obtuse references to the Civil War, Greek mythology, Beowulf, stuff like that. It all comes off as a distinctly grad-student vibe. Besides that, if you never really liked Fleet Foxes in the first place this will definitely be the album you hate the most.

But it works for me, and it works well. The grad student vibe is definitely there, but I get the feeling that lead songwriter Robin Pecknold is putting those things in not to look smart, but because he actually relates to the world through those allusions. If you've ever heard or read an interview with Pecknold, he actually does seem like the kind of guy who wants to communicate in weirdly abstract prose, almost like this is the only way he can ground the ideas in his head. Whether they actually are grounded at all is up to the listener, but the whole thing comes off as weirdly personal, which helps it a lot. It's also lovely, even when it feels like it meanders like a lazy river.

So year, Crack-Up has ended up on rotation a lot over the last few weeks. It's possible that I'm giving it more chances than it deserves because I am predisposed to like Fleet Foxes, but the end result is that I think it's a very rewarding album.

This is not my usual kind of music, but it's useful reminder that good music can be found in any genre:

Playing a bunch of Man O War this weekend, the fellas wanted Alestorm. A lot of Alestorm...

I've been getting CDs from the library lately, either buying surplus stuff or checking out new releases. I listened to The Mountain Goats' new album, "The Goths" and didn't like it that much. I'm too much of a fan of his old stuff, I guess, and have listened to enough that I can see repetitions of the same tricks. He sounds like a combination of Leonard Cohen, with his speaky-singy thing going on, and They Might Be Giants. I listened to it three times and returned it the next day.

I also pick up "The Smiths: the best...vol I" It was too scratched to play, so I torrented the album an put the shiny new copy in the CD sleeve with the liner notes. I also picked up Brian Wilson's "Smile" for $1.50. Interesting stuff.

One review:

SMiLE [Nonesuch, 2004]
There are many things I don't miss about the '60s, including long hair, LSD, revolutionary rhetoric, and folkies playing drums. But the affluent optimism that preceded and then secretly pervaded the decade's apocalyptic alienation is a lost treasure of a time when capitalism had so much slack in it that there was no pressing need to stop your mind from wandering. Brian Wilson grokked surfing because it embodied that optimism, and though I considered the legend of Smile hot air back then, this re-creation proves he had plenty more to make of it. The five titles played for minimalist whimsy on Smiley Smile mean even more orchestrated, and the newly released fragments are as strong as the whole songs they tie together. Smile's post-adolescent utopia isn't disfigured by Brian's thickened, soured 62-year-old voice. It's ennobled--the material limitations of its sunny artifice and pretentious tomfoolery acknowledged and joyfully engaged. This can only be tonic for Americans long since browbeaten into lowering their expectations by the rich men who are stealing their money. A+

@Cranberries

Is that a Christgau review?