SO/SN/SB/SB Wk. 2

Something Old
(an album that came out before 2016 that I’ve been listening to)

An old friend suggested that I give Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation another shot. Not that I haven't given it many shots in the past, and not that I necessarily disliked it. It's a really good album! It has one of the best songs of all time on it—"Teen Age Riot"—and a bunch of other rippers. Two problems, I'd argue. One, the pacing is thrown off by the fact that "Teen Age Riot" is the first, and by far best, song, so the album really has nowhere to go but down afterward. It's not a huge dip in quality, but it's a dip nonetheless. Two, some of the songs stretch for way longer than they should. When it's hitting the gas, the songs on Daydream Nation are going full-throttle. When it's in neutral, however, it stays there a little too long. Still, despite its flaws, this album is a classic, and warrants at least a few tries. Glad I gave it another spin today.

Something New
(an album that came out in 2016 that I’ve been listening to)

I only got into Andrew Jackson Jihad last year via their 2011 hit Knife Man. Since then, they’ve changed their name, and also... well no, that’s about it. AJJ's The Bible 2 is still the same cutting folk/indie rock that we all know and love. The album’s lyrics are witty as hell, and often times hilarious, and other times depressing as shit. The opening "Cody's Theme" is a great opening showcase for the band, combining a catchy chorus and a story about violence and hallucinations. Another stand-out is "White Worms," which, given the title, you can probably guess isn't sunshine and rainbows, and yet still, you can tap along to it. Something tells me I should dig into this band a little more.

Something Borrowed
(an actual music critic talks about an album better than I can)

Pitchfork’s Stuart Berman reviews Thee Oh Sees' A Weird Exits. And yes, this is Pitchfork, so it's pretentious as fuck, but in this particular case I agree with what they are saying—Thee Oh Sees are a one-trick pony, but shit, that trick is pretty neat:

"In stark defiance of pop music's "don’t bore us, get to the chorus" maxim, John Dwyer believes the best antidote to boredom is getting rid of the chorus altogether. Rather than introduce a rousing, anthemic melody to elevate a song to the next level, Dwyer takes the shortcut to ecstasy: after riding a relentless robo-punk rhythm through a couple of creepily cooed verses, he simply screams "wooo!," and uses his fuzzbox as a springboard into the stratosphere. At this point in the band’s 11-album run, you can pretty much set your watch to this maneuver—A Weird Exits’ pulsating opener, "Dead Man's Gun," dutifully triggers its strobe-lit squall at the 40-second mark. But the trick never fails to exhilarate, because Thee Oh See’s blast-off moments never feel like smooth, assured ascents—they’re more like riding a whirling fairground attraction and realizing your safety belt has come unlatched."

The full review.

Something Blue
(an album I will NOT be listening to this week, or probably ever?)

I apologize if it feels like I’m piling on. I honestly don’t know if I am. The diehard fans said her VMA appearance was pretty good, and the critics panned the hell out of it, so I'm not really sure if it was a true comeback or a weak attempt at one. Still, I know enough to stay away from aging pop star Britney Spears' Glory. It's currently sitting at 73/100 on Metacritic, which is... actually a lot higher than I expected. As I learned with Nick Jonas this week, it's childish and wrong to shit on a pop album just because it's a pop album, but that doesn’t mean I'm going to waste my time looking for something to like here. Let's just trust that it's in there somewhere and move on.