Deerhoof is a perfect example. This band reminds me of the unholy offspring of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and anime for children. It seems amateurish and silly and entirely disposable yet review after review talks about how innovative and amazing they are. They have a song about basketball that Listmaker included on his latest volume and it confounds me just like the rest of their songs do but nothing is as odd as "Panda Panda Panda." This is what melts the heart of cynical critics nationwide?
Panda Panda Panda - Deerhoof
Another group I have no love for is the Hold Steady but apparently I'm an army of one when it comes to the ugliest band in America. I guess people love songs about young people drinking and fumbling around in the back seats of cars, making mistakes that they'll later regret. The Hold Steady allow the audience to relive the ugly and awkward periods of their life while pumping their fists and downing beer after beer. The music is competent but I just don't hear anything special here, especially in the nearly slam poetic vocal delivery of Craig Finn.
Stuck Between Stations - The Hold Steady
The latest group to bewilder and stun me is TV on the Radio. I liked some of their earlier songs but everything I've heard off of Dear Science sounds absolutely terrible to me. When I heard most of the album previewed on Bill Slammon's Saturday Morning show I thought, "Well, they've obviously lost whatever talent they had before and went off and made a crushing disaster of an album." But then it debuted at #12 on the Billboard charts and earned them near universal acclaim. What was I missing? The songs sounds like to many genres thrown in a blender and mixed until undrinkable. They were on SNL this past weekend so I stayed up to watch thinking that maybe the visuals would help. They did not. It still sounded cacophonous and busy for no reason (and I love cacophony and busyness) so I throw my hands up and leave defeated.
Dancing Choose - TV On The Radio
These bands have all bested me. I just don't get it. what am I missing? Maybe some day these will be my new top three as many of my favorite bands began with me not getting it and handily dismissing them. R.E.M., Neutral Milk Hotel and M. Ward all bored or confused me at first but now I have seen the error of my ways. Perhaps pandas and teenage boozehounds are the Anne Franks and auctioneers of the future.
2 comments:
I, for one, certainly hope you aren't wrong. I made it 25 seconds into the first song and 38 into the second and I refuse to listen to the third after Saturday's performance. I don't mind at all if you keep this out of the house.
hold steady - not into them. i've seen them on letterman, etc and they somewhat entertain me live.
tv on the radio - i see what you are saying. i don't quite get the hype either but i like them enough. their snl performance was no great shakes but they were better on colbert i thought and were really good on letterman when they played on a fire escape.
deerhoof- i see why people don't like them. they are quite divisive. i think they are much more talented then you give them credit for though. think of them as shonen knife trying to sound like the dog faced hermans and maybe you'll like them more.
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