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[Carlos del Vaca]

It's been awfully slow around here lately.  Here, make fun of my musical purchases.

Doves, Lost Sides.  Largely a wasted purchase, because I already own most of the songs in some format or other.  Still, I enjoy it.  Doves are such a good band that their B-sides and cast-offs make a better album than most.  I freakin' love "Hit the Ground Running."

the Shins, Chutes Too Narrow.  Yeah, I'm in that buying a few things off critics' year-end lists phase.  I didn't like this at first, but it grew on me.  Oddly enough, my favorite song is "Gone For Good," the twangy number that's little to nothing like the rest of the album.

Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism.  Having heard tracks here and there, and on the recommendation of some on this very board, I picked this one up and was quite pleased.  When I was a sophomore in college, I would have thought this was the greatest thing ever.  I'm not depressed enough any more for that, but it's still really good, esp. "Title & Registration" and "Expo '86."  On the other hand, I can't believe he actually wrote a song with the lyric "we learned how our bodies worked."

Beastie Boys, To the Five Boroughs.  OK, let me see if I have this right:
1.  Mixmaster Mike lays down a marginally cool track.
2.  The three MCs in turn rhyme the similes, metaphors, and pop culture references.
3.  Then they all three yell something at the same time, to the effect of "Let's Party" or "We're Dope."
4.  Also, they mention how great New York City is.
5.  Repeat steps 1-4 fourteen more times.

What a disappointment.  Yeah, this has always been their thing, but the past few albums have always managed to make it interesting.  This one sounds mailed in, like it's gotten formulaic.  Sure, it's better than 95% of what passes for hip-hop these days, but that says more about the total crap that passes for hip-hop these days than anything.

The Beatles, 1.  When this came out it was, what, $28?  I found it at Costco this week for $13.  Rah, rah.

[Gimpson]

My most recent purchases:

Jolie Holland - Escondida:  Kind of in that Norah Jones jazz singer vein, with a little more Billie Holliday lilt in her voice.  I saw her play in town here last week, but it sucked because the venue was outdoors next to a busy intersection and a train crossing.  

Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy:  I like happy music these days.

[Bozack]

Oh man, I am in  love with Jolie Holland; check out her old band, the Be Good Tanya's. Tasty. I may be sneaking into a Jolie Holland show later tonight.
I've been actually buying tons of CD's lately. First off, I'm addicted to alt-country compilations, so I grabbed Down to the Promised Land: 5 Years of Bloodshot Records, which is real good. Also, I've been frequenting this really shitty shitty Book and Music Exchange place, where you get 3 used CD's for $20, so I've managed to find:
Israelites: The Best of Desmond Dekker
Wrong-Eyed Jesus, by Jim White
A Thousand Leaves, by Sonic Youth
Kill Bill Soundtrack, Vol. 1
Kerosene Hat, by Cracker
and this random garage rock album by the Soledad Bros. that I'm gonna go trade in for a best of Lee Scratch Perry.
Add to this some Pogues acquired via eBay, the new Old Crow Medicine Show, and about a billion live Yo La Tengo and Cat Power shows, and my iTunes has swelled recently. I think it's time for a new mix swap.

[andalucia]

Oh man, I am in  love with Jolie Holland; check out her old band, the Be Good Tanya's. Tasty. I may be sneaking into a Jolie Holland show later tonight.
I've been actually buying tons of CD's lately. First off, I'm addicted to alt-country compilations, so I grabbed Down to the Promised Land: 5 Years of Bloodshot Records, which is real good. Also, I've been frequenting this really shitty shitty Book and Music Exchange place, where you get 3 used CD's for $20, so I've managed to find:
Israelites: The Best of Desmond Dekker
Wrong-Eyed Jesus, by Jim White
A Thousand Leaves, by Sonic Youth
Kill Bill Soundtrack, Vol. 1
Kerosene Hat, by Cracker
and this random garage rock album by the Soledad Bros. that I'm gonna go trade in for a best of Lee Scratch Perry.
Add to this some Pogues acquired via eBay, the new Old Crow Medicine Show, and about a billion live Yo La Tengo and Cat Power shows, and my iTunes has swelled recently. I think it's time for a new mix swap.

A Thousand Leaves is usually considered a fairly disappointing album... I find it's got all the rambling beatnik pretention of more recent Sonic Youth without really pulling it together into Awesome Music, as did Murray Street.
But yeah, Cracker is fun, as is the Kill Bill Soundtrack, which really made me love Ennio Morricone with, if not all my heart, then at least a good deal of it.  And oh yes, I curse you daily for introducing Desmond Dekker into my life, because he has even infiltrated the mixes I make for my friends, all causing them to dance around the kitchen with their parents in intergenerational appreciation of extreme awesome catchiness.

I haven't listened to any new English music in a month, which kind of kills me.  I did bring a few mp3 discs with some bare essentials, and I have found some French music that's enjoyable enough (particularly Jacques Dutronc).  Oh wait, actually, one of my friends mailed me a Jonathan Richman CD to which I have become slightly addicted.

[jough]

Oh, man, I gotta disagree with your appraisal of the new Beasties album.

Think about it - they're from NYC, and this is their first album since 9/11.

They could've side-stepped it completely, I guess, but how could they?  So instead they put out an "old skool" album that has all of these references to things that were around in 1984, using old skool beats and the hip hop musical vocabulary of that more innocent time when they were just starting out in hip hop.

Marry that with anti-Bush and "love letter to NYC" sentiments and you get a classic album.

I have been really enjoying it, and completely agree with David Fricke of Rolling Stone, who gave the album five out of five stars.

Seriously, give it a chance.

They're not phoning it in - they're at the absolute top of their game and are playing it cool.

[V-Adore]

I finally acquired a copy of TMBG's The Spine and am loving it. It's been getting mixed reviews, which I think is in part because it's very much an album for the fans -- casual TMBG listeners will probably not enjoy it all, and it straddles their classical and modern styles in a way which probably will leave fans without a full appreciation of their catalogue lukewarm.

But for me? This album kills. It utterly eviscerates. About the only thing it's missing is a solid edu-rock song, and I can't fault them for that. Otherwise, it's pure TMBG satisfaction, a pleasant mix of their older "abstract surrealistic lyrics and horn-related space noises" style and the modern, "we like guitars too!" style. Some tracks drag, sure, but others are spots of pure gold; "Experimental Film" may be all on its own worth the price of admission, and on the same disc as "Thunderbird," "Museum of Idiots," and "Memo to Human Resources?" Worth. Every. Penny.

So... yeah. I'm enjoyin' it.

[CortJstr]

TMBG had been playing Au Contraire live for over a year so and I always dug it (except the end, kind of like most variants of Spy) so for me that the song that made the album.

[V-Adore]

TMBG had been playing Au Contraire live for over a year so and I always dug it (except the end, kind of like most variants of Spy) so for me that the song that made the album.

"Au Contraire" is also a perfectly valid album-maker. Me, I was just thrilled that they finally released "Thunderbird" -- I've been listening to a tinny, bad-resolution MP3 of it for a year now, and now I own it on a CD and can make out the words. Hooray!

[sailor]

I would suggest to anyone to pick up the new modest penis. It beats the shit out of the shins and death cab anyday.