what are you listening to?

[murlough23]

I love that video, particularly the end.  The end, where the ninjas run by the older individual, is quite funny.

Yeah. I was actually expecting some funny hijinks with the ninjas throughout the video, but for most of it, they just went for cool rather than funny, which I guess is different for them. I love how the punches and kicks match with the little blasts of energy in the audio. Plus anything with taiko drummers is cool.

[ewok20t3]

Listening to the band Pomegranates. Very much recommended if you like early Modest Mouse or the more experimental side of Death Cab For Cutie.

[bloop]

I'm listening to the remaster of The Rolling Stones Exile on Main St., which also happens to be my favorite album of theirs.

[eatenbytehworms]

Black Sabbath's "Heaven and Hell"
singer Ronnie James Dio passed away recently from stomach cancer.

[murlough23]

Paper Route's Absence. LOVE IT.

[ewok20t3]

Paper Route's Absence. LOVE IT.

That album has been on my list of album's I plan on eventually purchasing. Hopefully I'll get around to it soon.

[olivertsu]

The Hold Steady - Heaven is Whenever
Band of Horses - Infinite Arms

Hold Steady's is pretty okay.  The BoH one is awful.

[ewok20t3]

"Change of Time" - Josh Ritter

Does anyone know any folk artists who only make somber and stripped down, yet epic type music? Something in the vein of the above song or "The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron & Wine, or "To Be Alone With You" or "For The Widows..." by Sufjan Stevens, but a whole albums worth rather than just a song or two.

[bloop]

New Arcade Fire!

[RavishingJohnny23]

David Crowder Band

[murlough23]

R.E.M. - Reveal

This album is much more solid than I remembered it being.

[plvarona]

Tenth Avenue North: The Light Meets The Dark (currently streaming in full on JesusFreakHideout.)

One word: Yawn.

[murlough23]

The Light Meets The Dark

Apparently these two blend into a bland, beige-like color.

[plvarona]

Apparently these two blend into a bland, beige-like color.

I'll say.  When I can't tell you anything memorable musically, that is definitely a bad sign.  In fact, the only way I can tell the songs apart are from the cornball lyrics.  Oh wait.  That's not a good sign either.

[Aaron]

Common Children - Delicate Fade

[murlough23]

That album has been on my list of album's I plan on eventually purchasing. Hopefully I'll get around to it soon.

I actually tried to find Paper Route's album at Best Buy the other day and came up empty-handed. They must be on an obscure label or something.

I cannot stop listening to this album. I just slotted it into my 2009 Music Journal at #4, with an "A" grade.

[murlough23]

Vienna Teng & Alex Wong - The Moment Always Vanishing

Excellent live document. Really demonstrates Vienna's gift for rearranging some of her songs live, with the percussive talents of Alex Wong and some creative use of a looping device. Glad to see her cover of "Idioteque" make the cut. But it's the facelifted older songs from her early albums that really steal the show here.

[plvarona]

Right now listening to The Mynabirds' What We Lose In The Fire We Gain in the Flood, which is streaming on their myspace page.  Here's the link:

http://www.myspace.com/themynabirds/music/albums/what-we-lose-in-the-fire-we-gain-in-the-flood-15650208

They're opening for Josh Ritter, whom I will be seeing in concert a week from today, so I figured I'd check their music out beforehand.  So far, I'd say I'm intrigued.

[Aaron]

Right now listening to The Mynabirds' What We Lose In The Fire We Gain in the Flood, which is streaming on their myspace page.  Here's the link:

http://www.myspace.com/themynabirds/music/albums/what-we-lose-in-the-fire-we-gain-in-the-flood-15650208

They're opening for Josh Ritter, whom I will be seeing in concert a week from today, so I figured I'd check their music out beforehand.  So far, I'd say I'm intrigued.

I heard their song on NPR's All Songs Considered.  I love that group.


np: The National - "Fake Empire"

[murlough23]

Once in Hawaii, I heard a TV spot for a local lawyer who apparently advertised on those kinds of shows that only get watches by housewives and the unemployed. He asked if the audience suffered from various maladies worthy of a lawsuit. One of his questions was "Do you suffer from minor burns?", but since his English was a bit accented, it sounded an awful lot like, "Do you suffer from myna birds?" This amused me greatly. So now when someone mentioned myna birds, this is what I think of.

NP: "Come Back", Pearl Jam

[Wildcatblue7]

Eminem, Not Afraid

also a lot of Outkast.

[Silvah]

The Radio Dept.
Musinah
The Foreign Exchange

[murlough23]

Listened to R.E.M.'s Monster for the first time last night. Based on other people's criticisms, I expected not to like it. My expectations were wrong. There quite a few surprises that I'm guessing R.E.M. fans at the time didn't react favorably to. (And that's even after having heard almost half the album on alternative rock radio when it was new.)

[ewok20t3]

Listened to R.E.M.'s Monster for the first time last night. Based on other people's criticisms, I expected not to like it. My expectations were wrong. There quite a few surprises that I'm guessing R.E.M. fans at the time didn't react favorably to. (And that's even after having heard almost half the album on alternative rock radio when it was new.)

"Bang and Blame" is one of my favorite R.E.M. songs.

[murlough23]

"Bang and Blame" is one of my favorite R.E.M. songs.

I have weird favorites when it comes to R.E.M. Out of the albums I've heard so far, I'd say my favorites are...

Accelerate: Mr. Richards, Living Well Is the Best Revenge
Around the Sun: (Was there anything good on this album? I need to give it another try.)
Reveal: Saturn Return, The Lifting, I'll Take the Rain
Up: At My Most Beautiful, Lotus
New Adventures in Hi-Fi: Leave, New Test Leper
Monster: Crush with Eyeliner (which I've liked for a while), King of Comedy (on first impression, at least)

[ewok20t3]

I have weird favorites when it comes to R.E.M. Out of the albums I've heard so far, I'd say my favorites are...

Accelerate: Mr. Richards, Living Well Is the Best Revenge
Around the Sun: (Was there anything good on this album? I need to give it another try.)
Reveal: Saturn Return, The Lifting, I'll Take the Rain
Up: At My Most Beautiful, Lotus
New Adventures in Hi-Fi: Leave, New Test Leper
Monster: Crush with Eyeliner (which I've liked for a while), King of Comedy (on first impression, at least)

I seem to be the opposite when it comes to R.E.M., I tend to gravitate towards their singles and radio friendly songs. On the other hand, I only have four of their albums and I've not yet given most of them the time that I should to become real familiar with the songs, so it's not really surprising that I favor the songs I'm familiar with.

[murlough23]

I seem to be the opposite when it comes to R.E.M., I tend to gravitate towards their singles and radio friendly songs. On the other hand, I only have four of their albums and I've not yet given most of them the time that I should to become real familiar with the songs, so it's not really surprising that I favor the songs I'm familiar with.

Some of the favorites I listed were singles, though many aren't conventional by R.E.M's older radio single standards. Many of my older favorites by the band (from albums I haven't heard in full yet) were radio singles. "It's the End of the World and We Know It" and "Stand" are good examples. On many of their newer albums, throw a dart and you're bound to hit a weird track, so the folks at the label must have done some real head-scratching when trying to choose singles.

Also, I've known some of the odd-man-out tracks from some of these albums for a while, since Josh sent me an R.E.M. compilation of his favorite tracks a few years ago. (He intentionally left out "Shiny Happy People" - which I still haven't heard yet - and "Everybody Hurts". Burn!)

The more I listen to Reveal, the more I realize that there isn't a track on it that I dislike. Since the band is given to experimentation, this is surprising.

NP: "Myriad Harbour", The New Pornographers

[ewok20t3]

The more I listen to Reveal, the more I realize that there isn't a track on it that I dislike. Since the band is given to experimentation, this is surprising.

Document is my favorite of the albums that I have (Monster, Out of Time, and Lifes Rich Pageant being the others), but I haven't heard Reveal.

[murlough23]

Document is my favorite of the albums that I have (Monster, Out of Time, and Lifes Rich Pageant being the others), but I haven't heard Reveal.

It's pretty good, as long as you don't automatically associate drum machines, synths and anything electronic with turning into old farts and running out of ideas and failing to bring the RAWK. (I'd give Up a similar assessment, though that album's more of a grab bag.)

NP: "Two Weeks", Grizzly Bear

[bloop]

Shiny, Happy People

I love "Everybody Hurts".

I have their 80s albums on vinyl (on the cheap) and they could just about do no wrong in that era.

[murlough23]

I wanted start exploring Doves' back catalogue, and I found out they just released a best of (with the band actually involved in the selection process, what a concept!), so I'm starting there.

In related news, Doves' Jimi Goodwin is reportedly going to record some music with Elbow's Guy Garvey. Couldn't either of them just double-track their vocals and save some time? Maybe Peter Gabriel should produce.

[RedcoatJones]

Grabbed some new albums for recent travel:

Mumford and Sons: Love it. Similar to Avett Brothers with songs that wrestle with faith, redemption, love, forgiveness and grace.
Band of Horses: Good, but too many of the songs blend together.
Janelle Monae: Interesting, but not all the songs work for me. First half is very strong
Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street: Never been super familiar with the Stones' work (outside of the big hits everyone knows), but I'm very impressed by the gospel and blues sounds on this album.

[plvarona]

Right now I'm listening to some new demos that Monarch just put on their myspace page.  I'm liking what I hear a lot.  For those who aren't familiar with their music, I'd describe it as relatively mellow and electronically-tinged with falsetto vocals.  Their lead singer toured with Kevin Max several years ago (around the time The Imposter came out), and that's how I was introduced to their music. 

Here's the link to their myspace page if you want to check them out:

http://www.myspace.com/monarch.band

[murlough23]

Doves - "Andalucía"

LOVE this song. Nice to get acquainted with some of their older material for the first time on their best-of, too. (Even if most of my favorites from Kingdom of Rust got the shaft.)

[Wildcatblue7]

deadmau5--For Lack of a Better Name

"Strobe" is 

[plvarona]

Doves - "Andalucía"

LOVE this song.

That song has actually been growing on me lately.

Lately I've also been checking out some new demos that Luna Halo has put on their myspace page.  Here's the link if anyone's interested:

http://www.myspace.com/lunahalo

If nothing else, the songs are catchy.

[murlough23]

If nothing else, the songs are catchy.

That's about all I expect from them these days. In trying to go mainstream, they might have made their sound current, but they REALLY dumbed down the lyrics. (Not that they were necessarily genius before, but there were several songs on Shimmer that really hit home for me.)

[bloop]

I've been on a bit of a rap binge w/ The Roots and Big Boi.  Eminem's new one isn't as bad as hipstermedia says, but it's not great either, aside from that one song.

Rolling Stones' 3.5 star Big Boi review puzzles me:  "he's less pimp than craftsman, packing more style – and more substance – into his four-minute- long songs than other rappers deliver in an entire album."

Um, does the same person who writes the review determine the star rating, or does rap just suck in general, in their opinion?

[ewok20t3]

Um, does the same person who writes the review determine the star rating, or does rap just suck in general, in their opinion?

They gave Kanye a five star rating once. Rolling Stone are notorious for going back on their original rating and changing it in their books and online database after determining from reading everyone else's reviews and realizing they were wrong.

[bloop]

Well, this is their initial review, and the star rating doesn't match the text of the capsule review very well.  Words like that, 4.5 stars, minimum.