Feb 9, 2009

My first success, and the Grammys

First.. a disclaimer: I don't have the music vocabulary that a great many of my friends do. I love music, and I'm an enthusiastic consumer, but I am not good at coming up with intelligent-sounding analyses of songs, fraught with insightful comparisons to past music.  

I just know what stuff sounds like to me... which sometimes makes perfect sense to others.. ( as in the case of  Aerosmith's  Living on the Edge   having the same intro as The Kinks' Have Another Drink) And sometimes it makes sense only to me..  -   The White Stripes Hotel Yorba completely reminded me of The Kinks'  Muswell Hillbilly  (Wow.. two Kinks references and I'm not even that much of a fan)

I bring this up  because my er.. reviews? (if you can call them that).. while sometimes elaborate,  will more often than not be  something like "gee.. I liked this song".  

Which brings us to the first thing I liked..  Glasvegas - Flowers and Football Tops
This came off the CMJ top 20 album chart (its on one of those albums),  and I REALLY liked it.
Granted, the CMJ chart is an easier sell for me, than say Billboard's Hot 100, but I figured I deserved a break from the more mainstream stuff after the 11 hours of Grammy's last night (more on that below)

I had a passing familiarity with Glasvegas because their cover of  Be My Baby made it into the last Coverville podcast.  

Flowers and Football Tops  sounds like (to me) what would happen if the Jesus and Mary Chain did a U2 vocal impersonation and set it to a late 50s pop sound.   It is way too long,  I really didn't need nearly 7 minutes of it, but the good news is that if you picked out any 3 1/2 minutes of it, at any point in the song,  I would have liked it.     Between  Be My Baby and this.. I think I am well on my way to liking these guys.

Now, here are my few Grammy related points
  1. Sugarland blew me away.   I had no expectation that I would like them, and their performance was riveting.  
  2. I liked Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift together. I thought the two unusual voices melded very well.  I was surprised, but by no means alone in this, it was everyone's guilty pleasure of the night.
  3. I don't care what M.I.A. looked like in her  non-maternity wear, I love her!
  4. The only thing T.I. has done so far that I've liked is the Chevy commercial from a year or two back.
  5. Estelle was awesome.
  6. I liked Lil Wayne.  Particularly on the New Orlean's thing.

3 comments:

Yo Scott said...

Hey, I read your last entry yesterday and was thinking about it this morning in the shower.

I made that same promise to myself, that I wouldn't "become a square," but I have long since given up. I defend it by saying there just hasn't been any good music out the last 10-15 years, with a few notable exceptions.

I know that's probably not the truth, but in terms of mass-marketed music that could actually make it to my neck of the woods, I haven't found much good. I have even kept an open mind about it. At the end of each year, inevitably, the music press publishes the "best of the year" albums. I generally do a quick informal review of a number of reviewers, and those albums that show up on a few of these lists, I try to check out, or at least attentively listen to them when I come across them. This is how I discovered Fountains of Wayne, and Kanye West.

I have tried to listen to Lil Wayne and T.I. because someone I know is into them, but I just cant do it. I have a baseline of good rap music thats somewhat still underground like "People Under The Stairs" and I feel like the overexuberant rap stars these days just push it beyond a level of tolerance I am willing to put up with. But these are just my opinions.

I applaud you for doing this undertaking, and I wish I had the time and patience to join you in this and have discussions about different albums we've both listened to. I look forward to hearing some "reviews" or recommendations you come across. If you have any genres you are unfamiliar with you'd like to explore, hit me up and maybe we can talk music! Or hey, just hit me up.

and crazy, the "captcha" word i have to type in is "hanta" as in hantavirus. Perhaps you should get checked out!

Anonymous said...

What the heck? Using italics for song titles instead of quotes? What are you, British?

Please see if you can review something by Bitey and Oofey. They are a new, racially mixed duo who usually sing separately. They don't get along all that well - they can barely stay on the same bed together. Oofey is addicted to tap water, of all things!

weaselrina said...

Heh.. even if i hadn't recognized Oofey and Bitey, I'd have known it was you by the use of the word "heck" ;)