18 September 2006

EAR FARM checks in with the Elbo.ws top 10

Hello again...hello. EAR FARM coming back at you with the trusty regularly scheduled Monday visit to Elbo.ws to check out what all of you music blog readers are listening to. Is it good? Does it suck? Please let it suck so I can use this forum to make fun of the music you're downloading and thus make everyone laugh at the follies of our collective compulsive music obsession.

"Ohhh, look at me. I'm making people happy. I'm the magical man from Happyland, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane."

Elbo.ws top 10 'hot' artists - 18 September 2006 @ 4pm EST

TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me" is getting stuck in my head without permission rather often lately. Their new album as a whole is just as fantastic as you've heard. Definitely makes sense that TV on the Radio is tops here.

Grizzly Bear - Another widely acclaimed album which is just about as good as you've been reading. Are you going to check them out on their big fall tour? You should. That way you'll feel a personal connection with the band, and the album, when you come across Grizzly Bear on 10-12 year end best album lists. I challenge you to listen to this song here and NOT be impressed.Junior Boys - They just released a new album, yes? I bought the last one from them and found myself unable to get into it no matter how much I tried, yes? This makes no sense given that my tastes can tend towards synth/electro-pop at times, therefore I'll give them another chance, yes? The song "In The Morning" makes me want to make-out with a trust-a-farian on a dance floor in the West Village, yes?Sufjan Stevens - Blah blah blah, this dude has more and more great songs coming out and is a genius. It sucks when an artist's musical greatness becomes boring simply because there's just too much of it being produced and thus being talked about. Does it degrade the value of their work for Woody Allen and Bob Dylan to put out sooo darn many new films and albums? I think so.Teddybears - Teddybears gots buzzzz! I heard that the super-cool DJ dude from EAR FARM even played this one song of theirs during his "set" at Friction. Ya? Ya. Fun time!The Rapture - The Rapture's new album Pieces of the People We Love is pretty good but didn't hit home like I hoped it would. Maybe it'll grow on me? Maybe so and maybe not. Tell you what though...it's a HELL of a lot more difficult to karaoke Blondie's song "Rapture" than you might think. Try it and get back to me.Of Montreal - Why are these guys showing up...ohhh, I see. Because some tracks for their 2007 release Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? have leaked. Well, I'll leave it up to you to find them. From me you'll get an average cover of the Velvet Underground song "I’m Beginning to See the Light".The Long Winters - I really like this song. Why should I attempt to write about it when Hannah's already done so so very well? "...it strikes Roderick's best songwriting, the sort where you lose for a moment whose thoughts he's even narrating, but it's more striking for the confusion...the lyrics and music work because the singing becomes its own wall of sound; it's more immediate than all that winding and tinkering and producing, without making this great song so hard to find underneath the clutter. It's emotive in a way that you find for yourself and isn't handed to you. And clean, too, like the voice itself."The Flaming Lips - A story of stupidity. Once, in 1999, I left a fantastic opportunity to see The Flaming Lips at The Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill simply because I had gone to the show to see Sebadoh and Robyn Hitchcock, who played before The Lips. I was happily impressed by Cornelius as the opener so once all three of these bands finished their sets I took off. I figured...after such excellent bands, who wants to see that silly band who did that 'Don't Use Jelly' song?Xiu Xiu - This band's okay by me. No, better than that. I think I like what they do with their music a lot more than I admit to myself. They exist in that special place where experimental rock and haunting soundscapes intersect. Cripes, I forgot that they just had a new record come out this past Tuesday. Best go back to the record store today!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

glad to have this feature back! the 9/11 post last monday was good but this roundup of hot bands is where its at. now get back to making fun of them again!

omg, like that lemonheads one a few weeks ago.

Anonymous said...

I'm like you for wolf like me.