Franz Ferdinand: No You Girls & Twilight Omens from 'Tonight: Franz Ferdinand'
This is the third album by these Scottish rockers. It is a loosely conceptual album around a night of partying and the morning after effects. No You Girls is infectious and since I put together this album I hear it in commercials and just about everywhere else now. Katherine Kiss Me is the last song on the album and is basically the acoustic reprise of No You Girls. The band explained the concept as No You Girls is about the first time two lovers kiss and how awkward it is and how they don't really understand each other. Then Katherine Kiss Me (last song on the concept album remember) is how that moment is later remembered. I just plain like Twilight Omens and I am not entirely sure how it fits into the concept yet. Lucid Dreams and Ulysses are other great songs from this pretty top notch album. It is a bit more electronic and dancey than their first album, but that seems to fit the mood and concept of a night on the town. They definitely always do well to set their moods.
Verdict: Not a good as their self-titled debut, but more polished than their sophomore release. They set the mood and it really comes to life as you listen to the entire album. There are lots of remixes out now if you are into the dance stuff. Listen to No You Girls then Katherine Kiss Me. If you enjoyed the two songs I picked, then just get the album because you will enjoy it.
Queens of the Stoneage: Burn The Witch & Tangled Up In Plaid from 'Lullabies To Paralyze and 3's & 7's from 'Era Vulgaris'
I pulled from my two recent Queens albums. I agree Burn The Witch is in their signature sound. Tangled Up In Plaid continues to play on the dark tone of 'Lullabies'. The vocals go into fuzz mode which livens up the song a little bit. The title, 'Lullabies To Paralyze', is to tie this album to its predecessor 'Songs for the Deaf' since it is a line in the last song from that album. While it isn't quite as inspired, it is a solid album with more of their distinct sound. Little Sister is my favorite song but I don't think I put it on here because it was their big hit single and figured most had already heard it. I Never Came, Someone's In The Wolf, & You've Got a Killer Scene There are good songs. I love the riff to 3's & 7's the second I heard it. 'Era Vulgaris' is a departure from their mellow brooding sound to something much grittier, driving, industrial sounding. I think that is what turned me off at first, but the album continues to grow on me. This is probably the same reason the album garned such mixed reviews. Sick, Sick, Sick, Make It Wit Chu, Into The Hollow & River In The Road are pretty good tracks.
Verdict: 'Lullabies' is basically 'Songs for the Deaf 2'. 'Era Vulgaris' is a different sound to more industrialized, metallic music while the former are the more organic, Desert Rock sound. I guess take your pick or like them both.
Serj Tankian: Lie, Lie, Lie & Saving Us from 'Elect The Dead'
I knew Red's feelings about Serj going into this album creation. I knew 'Elect The Dead' was marginally good at best and not really a departure from anything Serj did with SOAD. Yet for some reason I put it on here. Mostly because I really like Lie, Lie, Lie. I think it is a little demented. I remember the first time I heard it on shuffle and was like did he just say what I think he said? The whole album sounds pretty much the same with the same mix of politically charged lyrics and just crazy crap. Sorry to offend people's ears, but the album is a decent listen if you dig SOAD (which I know Red doesn't). So probably in my subconscious I was trying to torture him a little bit.
Verdict: Not gonna set the world on fire, and basically giving his fans more of what they like. The whole album mostly sounds like these 2 songs over and over again. I am pretty sure I put this on here just to force Red to listen to it at least once.
The Raconteurs: Intimate Secretary & Hands from 'Broken Boy Soldiers'
Side project/Supergroup for Jack White & Brendan Benson gets better every time I listen to them. Intimate Secretary is a neat song in the styling and the normal White wit with lyrics dealing with Free Masonry. Intimate Secretary being the 6th degree of the Scottish Rite. Hands has more of Benson's influence and is well put together. Steady As She Goes is the hit single and probably the closest sounding song to the White Stripes. Level is a great blues tune in the classic Jack White tradition. Together was a song Benson was prepping for his own solo project and is a nice slower love song, at least as nice and slow as Jack White could get. Broken Boy Soldiers, Store Bought Bones & Yellow Sun help round out this amazing album. I have since bought their follow up, 'Consolers of the Lonely'. So if I do another album, you can look forward to that.
Verdict: Best of this group by far. Most consider it a great side project, which in fact it hasn't lasted as White as moved on to make the Dead Weather. A little bit of White Stripes with a richier sound that will come from having 4 members of a band. Every song is a winner in my opinion.
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Something I've noticed with some of the Jack White side projects (since I don't follow the music scene close enough to know his new bands and their names and their songs) is that I can listen to it and think about music without necessarily it jumping out at me that this is Jack White. I am pretty sure I listened to The Ranconteurs songs a couple times before that occurred to me. Once it did, it was obvious. But when you're coming to music cold, you're not necessarily concerned who's singing or who's playing the guitar. It's more "Do I like this?" or "What's going on here?" type stuff.
Before you posted this comment I was even thinking that if I wanted to try to make a point with my reviews it is that most of the albums I came in with certain expectations or a mood of what I want to hear and most of the time I end up thinking the album is crap and quit listening to it. Then it takes awhile for my mood to change or to just devote myself to listening to the entire album and most of the time I find what I like about it. Singles can do that to me too cause i want all the album to sound like that single. But how crappy would that be. So my moral would be to try to go into new music with no expectations (which is almost impossible to do unless you know absolutely nothing about the group). Like I often think that I could get you to listen to SOAD songs or some other band that you "hate" and remove that pre-existing expectation and wonder what would happen.
I feel like I started this comment with a solid point in mind and it got lost in my ramblings again. Upcoming birthdays start to get me obsessed with my age. Is it over yet?
Singles can be misleading, that's for sure.
Birthday's don't really bother me, except that I sometimes remember how excited I would get for them and I miss that enthusiasm.
i miss caring about them, what happened to that, everyone wants me to care, but i dont, after 21 there is no point until you get up to like 60's and are looking forward to social security and retirement, of course that probably wont exist by the time i get there. i digress.
Back to my original point. I didnt like The Racontuers at first and wrote off that album cause i wanted to hear another White Stripes album. But this is better for how it is different. Era Vulgaris didnt sounds like Queens that I knew so I wrote it off as garbage and now am slowly getting back to that record and embarrassing those changes. Elect Dead sounds just like everyone other SOAD album which is probably while I liked it at first and now dispise it, except that it doesnt have the other singer mixed in there that makes for nice changes of pace on Hypnotize & Mesmerize.
Tonight: Franz... doesnt sound like they original release but for some reason at the time i was very ok with that so it made it easy to get into it. Maybe I just agreed with the extended direction they were going.
what is wrong with me today
I would say you cared about bands and such more in the past because you had relatively little else to care about.
Right now, you're caring is going to much more important and personal things. It's hard to see that sometimes, but you're not working 40-plus hours a week because you enjoy it. You're doing it cause you have to. Why is that? Probably, the two little girls you got looking up to you.
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