If all you know about Rilo Kiley is "Portions for Foxes" you might be a little surprised. There is more of a Southern California '70s pop feel to this album. There are actual disco beats if you listen closely. You'll be like, "This song is great!" Then you'll be like, "Wait, this sort of sounds like ABBA." You won't care, though. You'll love it anyway.
Speaking of ABBA, I'm also enjoying Our Ill Wills by my favorite Swedish band, the Shout Out Louds. It's a more mellow follow up to Howl, Howl, Gaff, Gaff but I think the lyrics are better. I've got tickets to see them in Columbus in October and I can't wait. They're on tour in the U.S. right now and it's worth checking them out.
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Declan's next album today is Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes. While I was listening to it, I kept thinking this had to be a debut album. It's pretty wide-eyed yet pretentious. It sounds like music from someone who's still sure they're going to change the world.
A little Googling, though, told me that's it's actually Bright Eyes' third album (released in 2000). I found that surprising considering the second from last song, "An Attempt to Tip the Scales" is not actually a song but an excerpt from a radio interview in which a crazy (or very high) Conor Oberst tells the radio guy how very sad he is. It's really, really terrible and did I mention pretentious?That said, the album as a whole isn't terrible. "The Calendar Hung Itself" and "Something Vague" are classic Bright Eyes tunes and remind me why I love Conor so. That radio interview at the end brings everything to a grinding halt and leaves abad taste in my mouth. At least Bright Eyes is down to just having talking during the first songs on albums. I'm getting used to that, even though it's still pretentious. I love Conor anyway.
1 comment:
actually, the radio interview is an inside joke and the 'character' pretending to be Conor is in fact a friend of his who played on the album (Todd Baechle of The Faint). the concept behind this 'track' is that Conor Oberst wanted to bring some lightheartedness into the album 'cause he himself realized how down-beat it was. The whole intention of the interview is purely for comic value, and really does diminish any 'pretentiousness' that he may have conjured up in his songwriting. Personally, I think the album is smashing, especially when you consider he wrote most of that material when he was just 18!
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