Happy Day

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy sycophant I feel I must shout from the rooftops my joy at the new U2 album No Line on the Horizon! I can't remember the last time I was more enthralled when listening to an album the first time through. Oh, wait, now I remember, it was when Achtung Baby came out!

Seriously, as most of you know, U2 is my all time greatest guilty pleasure. The rebel in me hates that I love a band that is so commercial and popular, but I just can't stop. With this album in particular my joy is complete. With How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and All That You Can't Leave Behind I was actually starting to think that the band was settling into late-career mode. You know, the period where they all look at each other and say, "You know what? We're old. Let's just write some pretty songs and put out an album to prove we can still play our instruments." However, it is my great pleasure to announce that this seems NOT to be the case with U2. As they have done over and over in the past they have reinvented themselves in a way that is familiar and yet new and exciting.

I'm particularly enthusiastic about Brian Eno's involvement in the album. His influence can clearly be heard (by those with discerning ears) in the strange but lilting organs and blips and beeps that pervade but never dominate the production. While Bono's voice has indeed lost a little of the dynamic intensity that his youth afforded, it has been replaced with the emotional intensity of maturity. Here is a man who makes clear through his lyrics that he has traveled the world, lived the high life as a pop star and yet spent countless hours working for and in behalf of the underprivileged, the wrongfully accused, and the starving and orphaned.

Go buy this album!

Still going

I realized the other day that it's been eons since I posted anything here, and I almost decided to delete the blog. However, I've really enjoyed having a reason to listen to and think about new music, so I'm going to pick it up once more.

Anyone here a fan of My Morning Jacket? I have just recently started to get into them. I haven't decided which album to buy on my limited budget. Any suggestions?

In terms of recent music I feel like I have to comment on The Killers' "Day and Age". I have been surprised at how much I like this poppy-sounding album. I don't know if it's the lyrics or the voice or just everything, but I'm really enjoying it. I don't laud it among the best of the best, but I think I might actually buy the album.

New Tricky!

Finally, something to really get excited about in my random ramblings! Tricky has a new album (this time I'm 90% sure it really is new) called Knowle West Boy. I must say, it is sa-weeet. Tricky is the granddaddy macdaddy father of trip hop, and he does not disappoint with this album. He seems to have taken a slightly different track than other great trip hop groups like Massive Attack and Portishead. His song construction is less experimental and more conforming to early trip hop style. However, his sound production and mixing don't disappoint and he still conveys an unparalleled etherealness and cool vibe in every track. I'm looking forward to exploring every little nuance to this album in the coming weeks. Right now I'm just smiling at having finished the first pass and feeling relieved that this man is still making music.

Too Old

OK, anonymous caught me yet again. I wish I knew who that person was, since they seem to have all the facts that I don't. Apparently I rely too heavily on iTunes to find new music. The Eraser was out for a loooong time before it was available on iTunes, hence my confusion.

Fortunately, this blog really only has two purposes, and neither of them is to alert the public to new and awesome music. First, it helps me stay in touch with a few people scattered around the world; and second, it forces me to listen to more music than my daily grind would otherwise permit so that I have something to write about.

So, what's the music connection of the day? I don't really have any. I spent the weekend camping in Door County, WI where they only listen to oldies and country. I didn't have any mindblowing experiences there musically, but I sure did have a good time. My kids slept in a tent, avoided poison ivy, avoided falling in the lake with their clothes on, and generally made this the first bona fide success in full Kennedy-family vacationing.

AFI and Thom Yorke

Two radically different directions to take today. First, the good news: Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser is out (has been for about a month now) and I don't think it disappoints in the least. It's basically Radioheadish, but focuses on Thom's voice and amazing electronic production instead of the rock sounds of the rest of the band. From what I hear he's not ditching the group, just needed to get some stuff out of his head. I, for one, am happy he did.

Now for the bad news. Apparently I am a closet goth/emo kid. For months now I have been rocking out to a song on the radio and in Guitar Hero 3 without knowing the name of the song, the name of the band, or the content of the lyrics. I was appalled when I finally looked it up this week only to find out the band is AFI, the song is Miss Murder, and it's basically about suicide. Blargh. I feel dirty.

Radio Blues

Ever since moving to the land of never ending drama involving football players with strange, frenchy last names I've been mildly impressed with the quality of the radio stations here. There are at least three stations that don't make me want to cry with their repetitive playlists and poorly concealed editorial allegiances to the corporate powers-that-be, which is three more than most other places I've lived.

But my most favorite radio station 102.1 disappointed me this week. They have a nightly "cage match" between new songs, asking listeners to call in and vote for which song they like more. There are several problems with this style of polling, but it's not at all uncommon in radio, so I just have to grin and bear it. No, my problem is not that respondents are self-selected by their availability and access to phones. Nor is it that the quality of a song can rarely, if ever, be ascertained in one listening (and over such a low-fidelity device as an FM radio). No, my problem is that when the radio station tells me they have a new song I expect it to be NEW.

My knuckles turned white and my eyes got all squinty as I heard the radio DJ announce that the contender in the cage match would be none other than MGMT. The song, sadly, was not a new single, not even the now-available single off their forthcoming album. It was Time To Pretend off of their first album and that also appears on the 21 soundtrack.

On the plus side, the song rocks and I enjoyed myself. If you haven't listened to MGMT, check out this quote from their official site about the band's beginnings:

Andrew and Ben began staging a series of "these obnoxious, noisy live electronic shows -- we never planned on having it be a recorded project -- where we would write these weird techno loops and arrangements that we could play with live. Most of it was running live off the computer and we had a turntable plugged into some guitar pedals, a radio, and a tape player. It was all electronically generated at that point. We would write a new song for each show and our shows would be 15 minutes long."

MGMT is currently on tour with Beck. (this is erroneous - see the anonymous contributor's comment)

More Fair Fare

Got out to see another county fair concert a week and a half ago. It was a triple bill: Blues Traveler, Collective Soul, and Live.

Blues traveler is still traveling, and still kicking ass. That Popper dude sure knows how to blow the old mouth organ. Seriously, it was mindblowing how much air that guy has. Highlight of their show: a rendition of Devil Went Down to Georgia where he played the fiddle parts on the harmonica. Crazy.

I've heard Collective Soul on the radio before and I was kind of hoping they would rock. They didn't.

Live rocked the house, though they didn't rock quite as hard as I would have liked. As much as I was looking forward to seeing Live I think I liked Blues Traveler more for overall entertainment. However, they did play I Alone and a bunch of other old hits and I have to admit I stood next to the speakers and, uh, let loose with my inner headbanger. It was somewhat embarassing, but worth it.

NOW....on to more electronic matters....

I found a great album to run with. Ursula 1000 :Here Comes Tomorrow. It's not the newest thing on the block (released in 2006), but man is it fun. He's got this nice modern twist on old-school funk/soul samples and original vocal recordings that makes him stand out from the million other remixers out there in my opinion. You may recognize the first track "Kaboom!" from a cell phone commercial last year (or something like that). The rest of the album isn't quite as fun/jumpy/pop sounding as that one, though. He does some very interesting and subtle things throughout. For example, "Electric Boogie" (track 4) sounds like some seriously retro trash even before you get past the title. However, to me it sounds like a sweet combination of Prince and Justin Timberlake, both in the production and in the vocal style. I have no idea who he uses for his vocals (it might be Ursula himself) but it hits my workout right around the time I'm getting warmed up (somewhere in the middle of my second mile) and gets me juiced for the run.