This is a guest post by Robert Greenberg, author of “How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart” WE were told as children, “sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you.” Wrong. In truth, words have the power to inflict tremendous hurt: spiritual, emotional, and intellectual. Among the worst offenders are terms of classification: those handy-dandy words and phrases that allow us lump things together…
Album name: In Love With Oblivion Artist name: Crystal Stilts Genre: Noise Pop Released: April 11, 2011 Label: Sumberland Records/Fortuna POP! ZME Rating: 7/10 Website: myspace.com/crystalstilts You remember the 2003 film Lost In Translation don’t you? Yeah. Fantastic wasn’t it? Too flippin? right it was! The film was directed by Sofia Coppola and starred the greatest actor (although perhaps not technically) in the history of American cinema: Bill Murray. Fact. If you can also remember…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Portishead – Third (Island Records) Muscular synthesizers, drum breaks and abrupt endings keeping the tension high. In a few words this is how Portishead’s third studio release, suggestively titled “Third,” sounds like. An amalgam of noise, distortions and Eastern Bloc minimalism is what the first listener might…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Bat for Lashes – Fur & Gold (Parlophone/The Echo Label) Captivating and mystic, Natasha Khan’s bristling debut “Fur & Gold” is like a never-ending fairytale crossed with the gripping, heart breaking reality. The whole album is wrapped around this aura that you wont be able to unravel…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty) At the beginning of the decade, one of the nation’s most talented songwriters Sufjan Stevens endeavored in a project as ambitious as it was preposterous, called The Fifty States project. Sufjan intended to share his vision on American life and culture…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Scissor Sisters – Scissor Sisters (Polydor/Universal Records) Like seeing Barcelona play soccer in their homeground, listening to the Scissor Sisters’ eponymous debut album was all about experiencing a showy spectacle in Nu-Camp. Do you see? As much as it sounds like laxy journalism (Who, me? Never!!!) it…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell (Interscope/Fiction Records) On their first full length record the NYC art-punk trio managed to overcome all the hype built up by their previous astonishing two EPs, and deliver one of the best debuts of the decade. Messy, punk, loud, sexy…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – Source Tags & Codes (Interscope Records) Remember when rock bands made albums and not just a collection of songs? Yeah, I don’t either. Except for Trail of Dead’s third outing, Source Tags & Codes. Not only…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American (Dreamworks) There are 10 other tracks on Jimmy Eat World’s fourth effort besides “The Middle” but you’d be hard-pressed to find any average music fan who could name one. Which is a shame because the others are just as good –…
This post is part of our “Top Albums of The Decade” series. Follow the series to read about the best music to grace our ears in the 2000s. The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mint Records) Hailing from the snowy Canadian plains, The New Pornographers shook everyone from the ground up when their incredible blend of contagiously joyful pop first hit record shelves. The band simply oozed of freshness, delivering stunning melodies, amazing riffs and…
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