Reviews

CIRCLE DISTRIBUTION

1852 circles were assigned with an average rating of 2.42 circles.

GHOST BANDS

White Ghost Shivers · Television Ghost · The Black Ghosts · Ghosthustler · Holy Ghost!

ANTHEM

This song by Born in the Flood is inexcusable. Consider: (1) It is called “Anthem,” and it is an anthem. (2) It sounds like Bono and the Edge riding around on Sparklehorses. (3) I can’t understand the lyrics but there’s a crown mentioned. It was heretofore considered impossible for any singer to overcome these cognitive challenges in order to create a distinct and memorable song. And yet this man does exactly that.

Or to put it another way: When you were 23 and living alone without many friends and definitely no girlfriends, did you ever jerk off and cry at the same time? This is your song.

FISH BANDS

Catfish Haven · Fishboy · Lou Lou and the Guitarfish · Rupa and the April Fishes

EXPLAINING THE ARBITRARY RATING SYSTEM

●●●●● Worthy of five circles.
●●●● Worthy of four circles.
●●● Worthy of three circles.
●● Worthy of two circles.
● Kill me.

MUSICAL GENRES

Based on what I believe to be a complete list of 1,955 bands. Some outliers removed.

YELLING

Yelled choruses are very common. Singers should always have a reason before they yell; “our song is boring and lacks hooks” is not reason enough.

VERY COMMON WORDS IN ARTIST NAMES

Black · DJ · Band · White · David · Little · King · Paul · Out · Me · Matt · Man · Kid · Joe · James · Dan · Brothers · Williams · Smith · Radio · Project

ORGAN

I never had this problem before, but the more organ in a song, the more I was likely to hate it. By the end of this experiment the simple peal of rock organ caused me to squint and hunch in my seat, bracing myself for the next three minutes of music. It’s a crutch; when there is an uncertain patch, a musical problem to solve, the band thinks, “I know. We’ll use organ.” Now they have two problems.

PATTERN

When reviewing a band’s web page, if I saw a six-member ensemble with a fiddler, I knew it would have the indie-brigade sound of the Arcade Fire. Three, four, or five young, hairless men straight out of a Gus Van Sant movie means a Strokes/Killers/Kaiser Chiefs/Arctic Monkeys sound—as if there is one platonic album of garage pop rock from which everyone cribs. Beards means Brooklyn.

GOLD BANDS

Golden Arm Trio · Golden Boys · Santogold · Goldspot · The Golden Dogs · Jacob Golden · Solid Gold

SOMETHING I GLEANED

Many bands say they were influenced by Pavement. Very few say that they were influenced by No Doubt.

ANIMAL BANDS

Hearts of Animals · Tiny Animals · Extreme Animals · Plants and Animals

IMPRESSIVE PROMO COPY

“Hello motherfucker!!! Kalashnikov’s a legendary Portuguese band, pioneer of wartime rock ’n roll: music made for the battlefield. Born in Lisbon in 1996 they soon started to play in wartime scenarios to motivate men to slaughter. From Bosnia to Colombia, from Afghanistan to Tchetchenia, from Liberia to Iraq wherever there is war, you will hear the Kalashnikov sound.”

SOMETHING ELSE I GLEANED

Many people don’t write songs for an audience. They write songs for Gray’s Anatomy, for Zach Braff, and for Apple advertisements (Volkswagen if they’re not ambitious). If I was in a band I would write a slow song with an 808, reverb, and a female vocalist, and call that song “Zach Braff’s Eyes Reflected in My Nano.” I would make sure it got to the right people. By which I mean Zach Braff, or one of the leechlike marketing creatures that feed from the skin of Steve Jobs under his mock turtleneck.

FRATERNAL BANDS

The Breakup Society · Great Lakes Myth Society · World/Inferno Friendship Society · Beat Union

I NOTICED

I wanted to like more of the rap here, but I became very tired. Everything was either about acquiring material goods (which includes women), or, alternately, about how all other rap is about acquiring material goods.

On hearing my nth predictable song about how hip-hop is predictable, it struck me that I was witnessing individuals engaged in a formalist exercise where the form itself is the only appropriate lyrical subject; thus rap is, in some ways, the blogging of music. (This is happening to “indie rock” in the Strokes/Killers/Libertines mold, as well.)

CREATURE

Creature is a massive relief from Montreal. For the first few seconds it all sounds like a mistake—perhaps they are the new Waitresses?—and then I realized that they are wonderful and exhaled a long sigh.

Some things that remind me of Creature: dancing with a golden retriever up on its hind legs; jumping on your parents’ bed to FM radio; a treehouse that is also a helicopter. Far and above my favorite of this set; I bought their album immediately and it is just as good as the song linked above. Here they are rehearsing a song about the pleasures of being a senior citizen, which has the lyrics:

I don’t work,
No salary.
I’m done,
That slavery
I get special
Discount rate
When a senior gets a deal
You’re damn right I celebrate.

WHY?

This band is the anti-Creature—narcissistic indie navel-gazing, lyrics that ramble, no women. But the crunching guitar at appropriate moments, the smart drumming and bass work, and assured performance of the vocalist (“I curse the last six months I’ve been hiding behind a moustache...yeah”) as he delivers the lyrics to their song “The Hollows” is captivating; he is fully aware of how ridiculous he is—and thus the song becomes an honest narrative of creative angst. I never expected to hear this in a song:

In Berlin I saw
Two men fuck
In the dark corner of a basketball court
Just the slight jingle of pocket change pulsing. [Guitar]

SOUND BANDS

Sounds Under Radio · Nameless Sound Collection · The Soundtrack of Our Lives · Axel K Soundsystem · Atlas Sound · The Sound of Urchin · The Hush Sound

NEW YORK VERSUS CALIFORNIA