(THIS POST ORIGINIALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)
Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, Low, Yo La Tengo, Bleeding Rainbow, & Thomas Kivi & The Immigrants...
Well hello again, mp3 junkies!
Welcome to Songs Of The Week #24!
For those of you who are unfamiliar
with the Songs Of The Week column, here's the deal. Each week we ask
two of our regular contributors to download the songs given away via
The Current's Song Of The Day podcast. After giving the songs a good
listen, we ask them to review the songs and give them a score 1-5.
Unfortunately, MinneSarah's computer
went south on her this week, so, much to the chagrin of everybody
involved, we're left with TCDroogsma flying solo this week.
For those of you who would like to
play along at home, be sure to click here and subscribe to thepodcast yourself. Download the songs (or give them a listen here)
and vote in the poll to the right side of the page for which was your
favorite. The artist with the most votes wins the credibility of
anonymous internet opinions, the most valuable resource this country
has to offer.
Now, on to the songs! TCDroogsma,
thoughts?
01. Sallie Ford &
The Sound Outside – Party Kids (from the album Untamed Beast)
TCDroogsma:
I've been struggling for three days trying to form and opinion on this song and, I'm sorry, nothing's coming to me. I mean, the band works up a nice 'Tilly & The Wall' type of groove, I suppose. The lyrics, as far as I can tell, are an anthem for feminists partying as hard as frat boys? Is that a fight worth fighting? It should be noted, it's possible that I'm missing the entire point and that's not what they're about at all. Seems that Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside set out to write a hip-shaking, good-time-party-time, indie rock jam. Mission accomplished. It's all the mindless fun of "Talk Dirty To Me" updated for the indie set.
Final Score: 2.5/5
02. Low – Plastic
Cup (from the album The Invisible Way)
TCDroogsma:
You know the old saying, "It's always the dumbest person in the room that wants to talk politics?" What's that? That's not an old saying, it's just something Facebook reminds me of every day? Oh, regardless...
"Plastic Cup" finds my beloved Low taking aim at the widest possible target: privileged, upper-middle class Americans who have no real concept of the struggles going on around the world. All this set to a pretty straightforward acoustic strum and the lovely Sparhawk/Parker harmonies that we all know and love. Now, if "Plastic Cup" is meant to be heard as some sort of larger critique on the role of America in 2013, I'm sorry for missing the point. Based on the condescension in Alan Sparhawk's voice, though, I don't get that sense at all. Frankly, he comes off like Chan Marshall in that awful "Ruin" single. "You can always count on your friends to get you high, you could always count on the 'rents to get you by..." That doesn't sound like a "universal" critique to me at all.
I wrote about this earlier when I reviewed "Just Make It Stop," but one of Low's best traits is their ability to speak in broad, nearly cliche terms and somehow make them feel both universal and brutally personal. Evidently that kind of approach works much better when it comes to human emotion and not geopolitics. My expectations for "The Invisible Way" keep dropping with each new song that's released. I blame Jeff Tweedy.
Final Score: 1.5/5
03. Yo La Tengo –
I'll Be Around (from the album Fade)
TCDroogsma:
I should note two things before I start reviewing this song: First, I'm not a Yo La Tengo fan. I mean, I'm not anti-Yo La Tengo, I just mean that I don't really know them very well. They have a pretty good-sized cult following and any one of those people would probably be able to give a better perspective on this song.
Second, I never totally got over my initial disappointment that this was not a cover of The Spinners. That would have probably been awesome. (Update: Yup. Awesome.)
So, what I'm left with a slow burning song whose first half consists of Nick Drake stoner poetry and a second half that builds with some acoustic guitars and keyboards to a climax that is ultimately kind of anti-climactic. Now, that may sound like I don't like the song. That's not the case at all. In the right place and in the right mood it's possible that this is one of the best songs I've heard this year. When neither of those criteria is in place, however, this is background music.
Final Score: 3/5
04. Bleeding Rainbow
– Waking Dream (from the album Yeah Right)
TCDroogsma:
After somehow resisting my initial inclination to savage a band that calls itself "Bleeding Rainbow," I was able to embrace the awesomeness that is "Walking Dream." This song drips so much 90's that I wouldn't be surprised if it was written by Juliana Hatfield (note, that is a wholehearted compliment). It always makes me happy to hear a band write some good hooks, go loud/quite/loud, and let the feedback fill in the blanks. Somewhere Levar Burton & Courtney Love are smiling (and barely aware of each other's existence).
Final Score: 3.5/5
05. Thomas Kivi &
The Immigrants – Cops & Crims (from the EP Thomas Kivi &
The Immigrants)
TCDroogsma:
Thomas Kivi & The Immigrants almost had me. Despite the fact that we've all heard this song 100 times in some form or another actually made me like it more. Call it the comfort of familiarity (act like you didn't know exactly how the guitars were going to come out of the chorus. Or what the vocal melody was going to be 15 seconds into this one). This would make a great Nada Surf b-side.
In fact, I was pretty much all in on this one until the same mindless political cliches that sunk Low popped up. "So you see, ain't nothing new, this whole wide world is red & blue, it was made in China, man, and Afghanistan's drowning in the Bible..." I cringed more typing it than I did hearing it the first time. That ham-fisted adding of "man" to make the lines rhyme is even worse than using the term "Crims" to make the chorus work.
Final Score: 2/5
Well there you
have it, everybody! Another week's worth of songs downloaded,
listened to, reviewed, and filed away never to be heard from again.
As always, we'd
like to take a moment to point out that neither this blog nor its
contributors is in any way affiliated with the artists above, The
Current, or Minnesota Public Radio. We're just music fans with
keyboards and little bit too much time on our hands.
For more
TCDroogsma, be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma).
He can also be found hosting our weekly podcast Flatbasset Radio.
Frankly, between those two things, that should be enough TCDroogsma.
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