One of my favorite phenomena in music is when a band renowned for pristine, flawless production has lesser-known/stripped-down roots. It’s actually a very common occurrence, as typically bands enrich their sound over time when better resources/more expensive equipment becomes available. Nevertheless, I felt that it would make for an interesting set of case studies, observing where a band began, what they ended up sounding like, and whether that journey made them better or worse (in this blog, “before” indicates they were better before polishing their brand, “after” implies the opposite). There are several examples that could be used, but today I’m going to go with a handful of artists that have been making frequent rounds on my rotation of music. We begin with one of my all-time favorite bands, The Antlers:
Case Study #1: The Antlers
In contrasting ‘Palace’ from The Antlers’ 2014 LP Familiars to ‘In the Attic’ off their 2007 sophomore record In The Attic of the Universe, you can hear the development of the band’s sound quite clearly. On ‘Palace’, frontman Peter Silberman reins supreme, his vocals the central focus of everything as the surrounding instrumentation is highly orchestral and elegant. It works wonderfully, resulting in a crystalline, glass-like glaze that covers the album. If you’re anything like me, you got into The Antlers later in their career – probably circa Hospice – so it was quite the aesthetic shock when I trekked backwards to In The Attic of the Universe,…
It’s not always about being on the cutting edge. Sometimes, as hard as it can be to slow yourself down, it’s just about living in the moment and taking it all in.
An interesting thing happened to my perception of music over time. If you were to go back to my heyday on this website – let’s say 2010-2012 just for argument’s sake – everything changed my life. That heartfelt guitar solo. The lyric about overcoming depression. The slow burner that paralleled my own rage boiling beneath the surface. Everything was so relatable. Every moment within the music mattered.
Now, I can barely feel it.
The music plays, and I can discern (certainly to a debatable extent among some of you) the quality albums from the poor ones. Occasionally I’ll get wrapped up in a moment, but then that moment passes and I move on to the next one. Gone are the days where an album would imprint itself upon my life; there’s no Southern Air that defines my marriage the way that pop-punk slice of summer originally did for my most meaningful relationship. There is no The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me that makes me question my faith in 2020. I’ve tried in vain to find an album to emotionally attach to the birth of my son, but I keep coming up empty-handed. Maybe I’m burned out, or maybe I’m just getting way too old for this…
I’m not sure what’s made 2020 crazier for me so far: all this coronavirus & social distancing, or the fact that I suddenly really dig both country and R&B. It’s a weird feeling listening to so much Honey Harper and Mac Miller, only to dive into Psychotic Waltz right after. You’ll find all kinds of variety on my Q1 Mixtape, which I hope will help you pass some isolation/self-quarantining time while also – maybe – discovering a new artist. Here’s 100 songs that stuck with me from January to March, in alphabetical order by artist name. I suggest you click ‘shuffle’ and let yourself get sucked into the weird, swirling genre vortex that is my current musical taste. Hope you enjoy.
Jacob Bannon of Converge performs at Roadburn 2018. Photograph by Wikipedia user Grywnn (Heiner Bach)
Alright, y’all, it’s time for one of Sputnikmusic’s patented giveaway contests. Let’s get down to brass tacks immediately.
THE PRIZE: Two tickets to the second day–April 4th–of the Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Festival at the Fillmore in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. These are $35 each face value and $98.50 total if you purchase them online. Yeehaw. Who will be performing, you ask? Well, Converge is doing Jane Doe in its entirety. And Pig Destroyer is doing Prowler in the Yard. And then there’s fuckin’, uh, Satan, and Necrot, and Night Demon, and Haunt, and Un. Pretty sure that’s all. Please note a few things: this concert is absolutely 21+ no exceptions, so don’t enter this contest if you are under that age maybe. I dunno, can’t really stop you I guess. Secondly, these are not the “Metal and Beer” tickets that cost $85 each face value. If you’re a beer drinker you’ll have to stick with Stella Artois or whatever in this case: no unlimited half pours of Nightmare Brewing Company’s critically acclaimed SCAPHISM beer for you! Oh, and also obviously it’s on you to, like, get to Philly. Sorry everyone, when we’re flush (one day…) we’ll be able to fund the whole experience.
THE CONTEST: The year is 2021. The 20th anniversary joint (that’s right you’re getting them as a package) vinyl reissue of both Jane Doe and Prowler in the Yard is fast approaching, and Relapse Records or Epitaph or…
One of my favorite musical sub-hobbies is re-imagining albums as they might have been. It’s not because I think the artist did wrong, it’s more just a way for me to bend the artist’s output to fit around my taste even better. I’ve re-done everything from Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, which was originally tracklisted in alphabetical order, to Brand New’s Science Fiction. However, my favorite album restructuring has to be the one I did years ago for Viva La Vida and Prospekt’s March, which I happened upon while cleaning out some old files on my PC. The LP (VLV) and the bonus follow-up collection (PM) are each superb in their own right, but in blending the best of them, you get a truly special – dare I say perfect – pop/rock record. Chances are if you’re not a huge Coldplay nerd I’ve already lost your attention, so I’ll cut through all the fanfare and just get right down to my playlist and the reasoning as to why I structured it the way I did.
The album begins with “Life in Technicolor II” – I chose this version because it is more fully fleshed out than its instrumental counterpart. The band stripped away the vocals from the original version “Life in Technicolor” in 2008 because it sounded too much like “an obvious single”, but I much prefer the full bodied track with Chris Martin’s stunningly beautiful melodic arc. “Viva La Vida” fits in nicely early…
If you’re excited for the 5th annual SMA’s, you’re not alone.
It’s that time of year again when artists wait with baited breath to hear their name called for the most prestigious award in all of celebrated art. Sure, there are more mainstream ceremonies out there, but this is the one that artists – secretly – take vast pride in. In 2014, Low Roar won the Seriously Cool Shit AOTY trophy [pictured below], for their breathtaking sophomore LP 0. In 2015, it was Sufjan Stevens for his haunting classic folk record, Carrie and Lowell. 2016 yielded us Yellowcard’s tear-jerking finale. Manchester Orchestra swept away the competition in 2017 with A Black Mile to the Surface. 2018 rewarded mewithoutYou for finally topping Brother, Sister with their [Untitled] album. None of them have reached out to me requesting to make an acceptance speech – I find it surprising, if not even a little rude, but I suppose that they’re just so humbled emotionally and spiritually that they can’t muster the words.
The categories are largely the same as they’ve been in previous years, but also a little different. The only EP I enjoyed this year was Mree’s The Middle, so I did away with the EP category (but seriously, if you want to hear an angel sing ambient pop songs, look no further). Gone too is the “best under the radar” category, because it aligned almost precisely with my “best new artist”…
Tuesday November 2nd, 1993. This day marks the release of Frank Zappa’s magnum opus – his terminal triumph. I use the word ‘terminal’ delicately here, given the context of which this very album is surrounded by, but for a man of Zappa’s stature, to have him feel like he’d accomplished something that he’d been striving towards his entire life, that should be more than enough to verify the weighty importance of The Yellow Shark: Frank Zappa’s final album. The sheer scale of Zappa’s works goes beyond even the measures of calling it intimidating. His discography alone is an intricate, sprawling, idiosyncratic maze that becomes a colossal nightmare just to work out where to start. Sitting on a massive 62 albums (over one hundred plus if you include the posthumous releases made from archived material), this is a man that explored every walk and style of music available; deconstructing these boxed and linear categories into esoteric compositions that are as perverted and humorous as they are challenging. Starting out in The Mothers of Invention, a psychedelic rock band from the 60s, he soon ventured out into the unknown reaches of sonic creativity on his own, and quickly began his mission to challenge everything popular music stood for. But for anyone who has done a little bit of research on the man, they will know that for all the good he did in the realms of rock music, his propensity…
I feel a certain sort of pride in knowing that the country I came from produced an artist like Nick Cave. It’s a feeling invariably mixed in with a kind of disappointment towards a lot, though far from all, of the music we’ve produced otherwise, and borderline bewilderment at how a country composed (as Australia is) 95% of quiet rural towns where nothing ever happens and there’s nothing to do produced an artist like this. An artist who somehow drew together like-minded art students like himself to bang out some of the craziest post-punk ever put to record with The Birthday Party; an artist who adapted like a chameleon to the bluesier, folksier talents of Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler and the dearly missed Conway Savage in the 90s to create stunning albums that many justifiably consider his greatest work; an artist who can give us the wounded, desperate baroque love songs of No More Shall We Part in the same decade he hammered out some dirty garage rock with Grinderman and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. In short, sometimes I wonder if Nick Cave was a total fluke.
If so, I’m happy to number one of the greatest living songwriters as my country’s lucky dice roll; it’s a distinction I’d award not just for the sheer breadth and consistency of his back catalogue, but because of Cave’s peerless ability to conjure an entire world with his words. Cave’s worlds aren’t a dark mirror reflection of our society or any cliche like that.…
Out of Brand New’s lauded canon, it’s easy to forget about the red-headed stepson that is Daisy. Everything about the album is just a tad off. It begins and ends with a very out-of-place hymn; the album cover features a demonic looking fox in the middle of a beautiful forest; the band shifts rather abruptly from the broodingly existential emo-rock of The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me to frantically screamed mantras that clash against fiery, grunge-inspired guitars like dueling swords. Even for a band that developed a penchant for reinventing itself with each release, Daisy was…out there. At the time, fans who were spoiled by greatness hailed the album as disappointingly good; a take that has not necessarily aged well. Over the next decade, Daisy‘s legacy would grow considerably as fans began to recognize its unique atmosphere and appreciate the fact that it was going to be – until the unexpected release of Science Fiction in 2017 – Brand New’s final recording.
Ten years later, the whole album still feels crucial. “Vices” is the ideal opener, with the opera-like curve ball of an opening verse serving as a perfect snapshot of Daisy‘s wiry unpredictability, while “Sink” and “Gasoline” prove how grainy and visceral Lacey’s shouts/screams could become in a hopeless emotional vacuum. “You Stole” and “Noro” are still spine-tingling creepers, painting illusions of deception, mystical forests, and hellfire. …
I felt like making a low-effort post to bring attention to 12 songs that I absolutely adore from this year, but that have managed to evade conversation due to inaccessibility or a direct lack of public knowledge. Last year I had an entire blog series dedicated to “under the radar” artists, which this year has been replaced by my decade top 100 songs project. So anyway, if you’ve been laying in bed at night and wondering what beautiful indie gems that Sowing has been secretly hoarding, I’m here to bring you up-to-date. This playlist could be 50 tracks long if I wanted it to be, but because I value your time, I narrowed it down to only the best.
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(1) Plastic Mermaids – 1996
A psych-pop summer jam about a person who falls in love with a robot.
RIYL: The Flaming Lips, MGMT
(2) Sarah Louise – Chitin Flight
Gorgeous, ambient pop that sounds like it belongs floating in outer space.
RIYL: Julia Holter, Lisel
(3) Big Wild – 6’s to 9s
80’s influenced pop with a massive sing-along chorus.
One of the very first things I remember loving was blink-182’s “The Rock Show”. Yeah, I was like five at the time, young as shit blah blah blah, but that put me right in the targets of blink’s music. I was the archetype of the demographic that found “The Rock Show” a refreshing change of pace from MTV’s usual fare, which at the turn of the millennium was Coldplay’s “Yellow”, Coldplay’s “Trouble”, a few spins of U2’s “Beautiful Day” and then “Yellow” again. “The Rock Show” was nothing if not a gear shift: it was short, brash and stupid, it demanded to get stuck in your head, Tom spat on the camera in the video. To me it was cool as all fuck.
I lead with this partly because “The Rock Show” is blink’s best single – one of the best singles of the 2000s, really – and partly because there’s no other way to broach the topic of Enema of the State than via what it means to the listener personally, subjectively. From the outside, it’s not hard to see why this is disposable, trashy music to some: pop-punk in general is the most maligned genre, outside of those that actually deserve it like fucking nu-metal. Pop-punk wants to get inside your head and stay there at any cost – the best pop-punk bands understood that it was a multi-approach task, pulling together not just the best hooks but the best production, the best instrumentals, and every now…
This project is a collection of the very best individual tracks from the decade spanning 2010-2019. All tracks have been linked to this homepage for ease of navigation. If you’re less in the mood to read, and would rather just jam the entire playlist, a spotify link has been embedded below for your convenience. The homepage will be updated as additional songs are chosen, so you can always navigate to this page to find the latest updates. Enjoy!
Click a thumbnail to hear a selected song of the decade and read more about it.
I used to be so sure “I Could Be Anywhere in the World” was the one. I mean, who wasn’t, right? As far as stadium-ready, skyscraper-chorus bangers go it’s downright flawless, and George Petit’s trapped-animal screeches never ceded more gracefully to Dallas Green’s highschool-fantasy of a voice. I also nearly gave the spot to “Boiled Frogs”, putting aside for the moment that Crisis is borderline perfect and any song could have made it. But “Rough Hands” has its praises sung less frequently than those songs despite arguably deserving more.
First off, it’s as perfect a closer as you could ask for on Alexisonfire’s most balanced album. Unlike “Happiness by the Kilowatt”, which is basically Petit featuring on the first City and Colour song, “Rough Hands” sees the whole band getting in on the fun. Within the first few seconds, a gentle piano tinkle gives way to a brooding guitar which chugs underneath the whole song, though the keys return to accompany Green as he establishes the scene. Petit’s entrance in the second verse is a downright heartstopper – partially thanks to the lyrics which I’ll address in a minute – but once again Alexisonfire go all out on a hook with all three vocalists jostling for attention. It’s like a well-scripted and extremely yellable play: Green, our honey-throated voice of reason, desperately explains how his heart’s been sealed with rust while the gravel-and-whiskey-stained tones of Wade provide a balanced, harshly objective assessment of the situation – “two people too…
Inspired recently by some quality discussions in the Leaked Demos 2006 review thread concerning possible variations of the 2006 alt-rock classic The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, I decided to piece together this little beauty. It’s not “The Best Possible Version of TDAG” – as in, the best demos subbed in for the worst album tracks – but rather: The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me: Reimagined. It’s what the album might have sounded like if they took a stripped back, acoustic approach. I realize that (1) it is not better than the actual album and that (2) this is more or less just the 2006 Leaked Demos, but it provides an intriguing twist on the album’s overall aesthetic. It’s got a (mostly) chilled out vibe, like TDAG stretched out as to feel less abrasive, and more soothing/flowing/whimsical. There are a handful of alternate takes on the traditional songs, and I feel like this works together exceptionally well as a cohesive whole, in the order I’ve selected below. I’d encourage anyone who’s willing to go ahead and give this a listen. If you’re not comfortable with it, and/or are not okay with listening to this band anymore, I understand – but for fans who still can’t tear themselves away from the music behind all the drama and misdoings – I do think that this will strike a chord that perhaps no other personally-curated Brand New playlist could. Many of these songs are not available on Spotify or…
I don’t really know what the impetus for writing this was, but in case you were at all curious: one of my favourite late-era Weezer tracks sounds like Rivers Cuomo spent a couple hours dissecting millennial tumblr blogs then tried to write a Killers song. If that sounds like a recipe for absolute trash, well, fair enough – and “Trainwrecks” hails from the much-maligned (and half-great) Hurley, which means I’m starting off on the defensive here. But, like all great late-era Weezer songs, “Trainwrecks” isn’t hobbled by it’s potentially bad aspects but all the better for rising above them.
A stomping one-two rhythm section sees Pat Wilson and Scott Shriner largely out of the limelight, and while Brian Bell keeps the guitar-work simple, he supplements it with a fantastic warbling synth that’s less “Take On Me” than mid-era Cure. But it’s a genuinely great Rivers vocal sells the whole thing; he snarls “you don’t keep house and I’m a slob / you’re freakin’ out cos I can’t keep a job” with the vitriol of an actual 20-year-old, and sells the blink-and-you-miss-it joke – “we don’t update our blogs, we are trainwrecks” – with the deftness of a guy who’s been making jokes about being a dumbass kid most of his career.
When Rivers pushes up into to a scream, leading into an honestly moving climax of “that’s the story of our lives, we are trainwrecks”, it’s a forcible reminder that the man’s indomitable stream of crazy good melodies…
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