Accentuate the positive, that's what I always say...
Phoenix - "1901"
New song from a band I completely missed the boat on last time around. 2006's It's Never Been Like That is a great album. How I screwed up so royally, I don't know. In sports terms, me letting Phoenix past me in 2006 is like Carlos Beltran letting strike three go past him against the Cardinals in the NLCS. Inexcusable.
Anyway, what I've heard of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix has sounded just as good. It's exactly what MGMT does, but they've been doing it longer and they have all the kinks worked out.
As a remedial Phoenix-is-awesome lesson, here's the audio to "Napoleon Says":
Metric - "Gimme Sympathy"
Seems like Canada hasn't been mined for all its sunny pop yet. This is the catchiest song I've heard in ages. I seriously can't stop hearing it. I'm hearing Cylon activation messages. IT'S IN THE FRAKKIN SHIP!!!!! It's incredible how jacked up I get about one teeny, tiny alteration in the synth riff, where it goes way up high towards the end of the chorus. Totally eating that one part up.
I feel like I say this a lot about a lot of bands... but why aren't chick-driven bands like Stars and Metric HUGE bands? Why isn't Gimme Sympathy all over the radio and prime-time chick shows?
Here's why: their kickass alt-rock sound is very late-90s. It only furthers my theory that Canada is just like America, but 12 years ago. Metric should be the Letters to Cleo of this era; Emily Haines should be its Kay Hanley.
Röyksopp - "Happy Up Here"
The song is pretty simple and fun. The video is fucking awesome. That's all I got to say on that.
Thanks for the recommendations and for the reminder of Letters to Cleo, which I loved back in the day and still do. Paul Y. turned me on to them freshman year -- guess they were much bigger in Boston than nationwide. Their last album, "Go" from 1997, rocked hard, in a fizzy pop kind of way. You should be digging the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs record, if you haven't already...
ReplyDeleteI haven't, but I will.
ReplyDeleteLetters to Cleo was indeed HUGE up here. Peter Gammons is a big fan! But I never got a CD of theirs. WBCN played them constantly so I guess I got enough of them from the radio. They're one of those bands I liked a ton but never enough to buy an album. (Until college, Radiohead was one of those bands for me.)
If you like Go! you should check out their other albums, Aurora Gory Alice and Wholesale Meats & Fish. They're a bit more representative of what they did. As is my favorite song of their, the cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" as featured in the Seattle-centric film 10 Things I Hate About You, heard here.
I have "Wholesale Meats and Fish" and like that one, too, but I like "Go" better. And they were one of the tolerable parts of "10 Things," which wasn't nearly as good a music-filled representation of early-90s Seattle as "Singles" was. I mourn LTC, as I also mourn the late, lamented 'garden from my hometown.
ReplyDeletePhoenix is tits.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I had It's Never Been Like That back when it came out, and took one listen to "Napoleon Says" and "Consolation Prizes." And I was booooored. I don't know what I was thinking. Every time Phoenix comes up on shuffle, I scoot immediately over to those two songs and play them.
ReplyDelete