We missed a quarter or two, but who’s counting? The infinite playlist has been a Sputnik tradition ever since I can remember, and we’re back baby! Jom was kind (or cruel?) enough to let me organize the playlist this year. Some coercion may have been involved, but it made for 30 creative and biting blurbs this time out. With such a diverse range of tastes among the staff, this edition has a little big of everything to sink your teeth into…
Don’t forget to check the Spotify playlist below in addition to skimming through the blurbs! The best part about this whole thing is branching out and listening to something you wouldn’t normally stumble upon.
All The Luck In The World – “Golden October” A Blind Arcade Listen if you like: Frightened Rabbit, Elliott Smith, Horse Feathers
Perhaps no better example of A Blind Arcade‘s beauty could be cited than “Golden October.” The album’s third track offers up poetic melodies that experiment with time signatures, as well as wintry effects that instill an absolutely breathtaking atmosphere. The whole thing commences with some simply strummed chords, introduces strings, slowly emphasizes the force of each drum beat, and eventually alters the vocal melody to rise and meet the intensity that the rest of the song has already arrived at. The way it all happens so subtly is a thing of beauty, and by the song’s final minute you’ll be totally spellbound. –Sowing
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 30, 2018. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.
Featured Release
Augury: Illusive Golden AgeGenre: Technical Death Metal // Label: The Artisan Era
Great technical death metal that is able to show off all the skills while still managing to be memorable, heavy, and even occasionally melodic. The bass player, in particular, deserves a mention here because he is definitely the star of the show, even if he is sometimes buried in the mix during the more chaotic moments. If there is a flaw, it is the vocals. They’re just a little too two-dimensional for me, but they get the job done.
“The Living Vault”:
– Full List of Releases: March 30, 2018 –
Alena Bernardi: Beautiful Moment
Genre: Pop/Singer/Songwriter // Label: Community Records
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Augury: Illusive Golden Age
Genre: Technical Death Metal // Label: The Artisan Era
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Barren Earth: A Complex of Cages
Genre: Progressive Death/Doom // Label: Century Media
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Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite: No Mercy In This Land
Genre: Blues/Rock //…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Paper Lace – “The Night Chicago Died”
23 September – 11 November 1974 (8 Weeks).
It’s difficult to be enthused about Paper Lace in the retrospective; their other hit, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” is a relic, and proof enough that chart success does not always signal timelessness, or any measure of ongoing interest. It’s also not very good, but a lot of that can be attributed to production that has naturally deteriorated over time. You can forgive them, but you can also forget them.
Much like “Billy,” “Chicago” found more fame when Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods’ rendition topped the US charts. However, in doing so, they also managed to piss off Chicago mayor Richard Daley, and make an assortment of geographic and…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Stevie Wright – “Evie”
12 August – 16 September 1974 (6 Weeks).
I don’t much care for nostalgia; I especially despise nostalgia that puts the burden of ambition on the present because, supposedly, those in the past were the only ones brave enough to pave the way for ill-thought, impulsive, and indulgent expression. In the context of “Evie,” it’s nostalgia for the plodding, mammoth rock songs of yesterday, and the particular way in which extended suites are apparently not attempted in this modern scene (although the success of songs like “Runaway” certainly challenge that notion, but rockism is only a minor point of contention in this dialogue). Rock songs— specifically, ridiculous and unnecessarily long rock songs— have always had an audience, as “Stairway to…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Paper Lace – “Billy Don’t Be A Hero”
17 June – 5 August 1974 (8 Weeks).
In the heat of Vietnam, “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” became associated with a reflexive opposition to the condemned Indochinese conflict; pop culture had gone to such great heights to illustrate the crude, imperialistic, and toxically masculine overtones of the war, and, at least for Australia who had contributed more than 7000 military men and had approximately half of them return dead or injured in 1971, the opposition resonated. Not least of all because Vietnam vets were soon being spat on and excluded from RSL clubs and parades; hostility toward military presence in Vietnam lingered long after the conflict, as it did in the US and elsewhere.
On the third round of interviews, I’ve received the opportunity to pick at ‘ol Young Bloon, resident Ween fan #2 and devoted Goofcore (what is it???) follower. I proceeded to stuff my face with chinese food as he told me his life story and then some, but when it came down to it, Bloon was just like me: another dude on his computer on a Friday night. How did this turn out? Wonderfully…as wonderful as Billywitchdoctor.com showing up at your front door, perhaps. If you want to know Bloon some more, just peep his stellar review for Deen Ween’s Rock2 here.
You won’t like Bloon when he’s angry…
I’m gonna start this off relatively simple, something everybody’s gotta a story for: how did you find Sputnik? Were you forced to sign up one day at gunpoint or were you feeling ~experimental~ in your teenage curiosity? Although, I could be entirely off the mark and you may be some 40-something roleplaying as a teenage boy on the internet….just like my Dateline VHS!
Well, it’s probably more close to the first one. A very good friend of mine, on Sput as BBGames, called me one day on Skype and told me to make an account, saying we could keep track of the albums we listened to. I joined the same day and started rating my CD collection. I’ve only been on the site for a little bit but I am very glad he told me…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 23, 2018. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.
Featured Release
McCafferty: YarnGenre: Post Hardcore/Indie/Pop Punk // Label: Triple Crown Records
Mixing pop punk, post hardcore, and a little bit of indie rock, McCafferty are back with their latest release, Yarn. Picking up right where they left off, “Loser” is short, catchy, and features everything the band is known for; twisted, humorous lyrics and catchy, upbeat poppy post hardcore.
“Loser”:
– Full List of Releases: March 23, 2018 –
The Absence: A Gift For the Obsessed
Genre: Melodic Death Metal // Label: M-Theory Audio
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Blessthefall: Hard Feelings
Genre: Metalcore/Post Hardcore // Label: Rise Records
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Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 16, 2018. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.
– Full List of Releases: March 16, 2018 –
Alva Noto: Unieqav
Genre: Electronic // Label: NOTON Records
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Bill Frisell: Music Is
Genre: Jazz // Label: Sony Masterworks
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Bishop Nehru: Elevators Act I & II
Genre: Rap // Label: Nehruvia LLC
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The Crown: Cobra Speed Venom
Genre: Thrash/Melodic Death Metal // Label: Metal Blade Records
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The Dean Ween Group: Rock 2
Genre: Alternative/Pop Rock // Label: Schnitzel Records
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The Decemberists: I’ll Be Your Girl
Genre: Alternative // Label: Capitol Records
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Earthless: Black Heaven
Genre: Psychedelic/Jam Rock // Label: Nuclear Blast Records
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Eyes Of The Sun: Chapter I (Reissue)
Genre: Doom/Sludge // Label: Metal Blade Records
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The Fratellis: In Your Own Sweet Time
Genre: Alternative/Indie Pop // Label: Cooking Vinyl
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Hot Snakes: Jericho Sirens
Genre: Punk/Post Hardcore // Label: Sub Pop Records
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Yet again, the review competition featured some fine entries in which I had to sit for a moment to evaluate my options. This time around, I had the pleasure of chatting it up with granitenotebook, who won the competition with his review of DJ Taye’s Still Trippin’, which you can read here.
(And to anyone interested in future iterations of the competition, I’ll further emphasize this aspect of the game: it’s bi-weekly. The next competition will take place on the week of March 16th. This allows for a week’s time for all entries and for me to not get burnt out on the process. A winning strategy hopefully? Now, on to the interview…)
Look, I could make a shitty joke here but I got nothin’.
…uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so to start things off (along with congrats on winning this review comp) how did you stumble upon the website? Was it by curiosity or was it due to Wikipedia citing some bad 2006 staff review?
Thanks, I actually don’t remember. I got here around 2013, lurked for a while, and then made an account in 2014 when I wrote a review I thought was good enough to publish (a tbt of Since I Left You (Avalanches), which kind of destroyed the point), but I don’t actually remember what led me to finding a website that didn’t even focus on the kind of music I liked at the time. it happened…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 9, 2018. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.
Featured Release
Between the Buried And Me: Automata I Genre: Progressive Metal/Metalcore // Label: Holy Roar Records
Background:
Between The Buried And Me is a progressive metalcore band that has been wowing the easily wowed for years. If BTBAM is your thing, then prepared to be wowed once more because Automata I is definitely the best thing they’ve done since their last thing.
“Condemned To The Gallows”:
– Full List of Releases: March 9, 2018 –
Albert Hammond Jr.: Francis Trouble
Genre: Indie Pop/Indie Rock // Label: Red Bull Records
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August Greene: August Greene
Genre: Rap/Hip Hop // Label: August Greene LLC
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Between The Buried And Me: Automata I
Genre: Progressive Metal/Metalcore // Label: Sumerian Records
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Conjurer: Mire
Genre: Technical Death Metal // Label: Holy Roar Records
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David Byrne: American Utopia
Genre: Post Punk/Pop Rock // Label: Nonesuch Records
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Drowse: Cold Air
Genre: Ambient/Shoegaze/Electronic // Label: The Flenser
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Drudkh: They Often See Dreams About the Spring
Genre: Post Black Metal // Label: Season Of Mist
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Hello fellow once-a-year-birthday-havers and welcome to a post that will answer how old people on this website are (or at least those that willingly posted their ages on a sputnik list). So, I surveyed you all to give me more ideas for Statnik, and many of you suggested things I had already done. No worries, the statnik/macman76 cannon is long and it bends toward being sometimes overly detailed and boring and, thus, easy to forget. One thing many of you did not suggest was letting me analyze data you had already collected.
In stepped our hero, Dewinged. He stalked my request list, waiting for the right time to spring on me… that he had asked the sputnik userbase what their birthdays were. So, I scraped the data from his twolists and will definitively answer once and for all what the average age for those 129 users is. And what the median is. And the range. And the standard deviation.
(Data cleaning note: Dewinged seemed unsure of some of the birthdays but I used whatever was listed, I threw out one entry because it involved googling a date, and added the 15th for the day of another since it only listed month and year).
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of March 2, 2018. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors. As our staff post reviews of these albums, links will appear below the art work so that you can read about the release, see how we scored it, and more.
Featured Release
Tech N9ne: Planet Genre: Rap/Hip Hop // Label: Strange Music
Background:
Tech N9ne has been delivering his rapid-fire lyrics over a dark and twisted version of hip hop since 1999. After nearly twenty years of solid releases, Tech N9ne returns with his twentieth release, Planets. First single, “Don’t Nobody Want None”, drops the twisted darkness and delves straight into the classic 80s scene, sounding like a blend of Tech N9ne and Debbie Deb. Throughout the rest of the album you get exactly what you’d expect… Tech’s rapid-fire delivery, multi-faceted, twisted hip hop, and a slew of guest appearances. The difference is Planet is delivered with more conviction than anything he’s done since All 6’s and 7’s back in 2011.
“Don’t Nobody Want None”:
– Full List of Releases: March 2, 2018 –
Andrew W.K.: You’re Not Alone
Genre: Rock/Metal // Label: Sony Music
Check out our Contributor Review of You’re Not Alone.
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Anna Von Hausswolff: Dead Magic
Genre: Experimental/Dream Pop // Label: City Slang
Hello, fellow numbers in a weighted average, and welcome to an investigation of how much weight this site really has. It may come as a shock to you or for some reason you’ve never even considered it, but metacritic collects the ratings from the staff reviews of this very website to make their average scores. Specifically, they convert the rating in the reviews, and they scale them to 100 by multiplying them by 20 (i.e. a 4.6 review becomes a 92 on metacritic). Then, for each particular album with more than 4 scores, they calculate a weighted average. Weights for each publication are assigned “based on their quality and overall stature“, and these weights are not revealed to the public. They include this question in their FAQ:
CAN YOU TELL ME HOW EACH OF THE DIFFERENT CRITICS ARE WEIGHTED IN YOUR FORMULA?
Absolutely not.
I’m fond of weighted averages. For instance, my user-usage adjusted means are weighted averages. They are simple mathematically and conceptually. “Imagine if you got 2 votes and everyone else had 1.” Boom. Weighted average. “Imagine if you got a vote proportional to your wealth.” Boom. Politics around the globe (and a weighted average). The problem with weighted averages (relative to, say, statistical models) is that assigning weights is an arbitrary exercise. For my user-usage adjusted average ratings, I assign a weight of 3 to the count of a user’s reviews, 2 to lists, and 1 to comments
So, with the blessing of those who will not be named though know who they are, our lovely expose on the users of Sputnikmusic shall make a bi-weekly return to no remarkable avail; with little haste on my end, the first of the revived series ended in a crossfire of three reviews that all took a trip to the ~features~ queue, but in the end, TheBoneyKing won an all-expense paid trip to meet yours truly for a one-on-one interview that ultimately revealed Boney’s level of thinking to be far superior to my pea-brained self and by proxy, all of Sputnik. In a way, he really made me think! And with such a fierce appetite for knowledge, Boney has an equally voracious hunger for Indie and Americana (or alt-country idk); his review of Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You can be read here.
~Boney’s true form~
Let’s start with the beginning of the user known to all as TheBoneyKing: how did you come to find sputnik in the first place? What drew you to this wonderfully outdated music website and its community?
I remember when I was first falling down the wonderful rabbit hole that is music, I spent a lot of time reading about albums on Wikipedia and Sputnik reviews would often be linked on those pages. Usually these were klap or SowingSeason reviews due to the kind of music I was exploring at the time. So I was aware…
That moment when you first hear a song, and you can’t fight the beginning of a smile. Uplifting music has sort of become a lost art, at least to me. I’m always searching for the next earth-shattering revelation, as if a song is going to help me understand the universe or something. I don’t often take the time to stop and appreciate the most basic benefit of music: making you feel good.
For me, I don’t ask for much: I just want something upbeat, catchy, and entertaining. I’m not sure why, but lately I can’t seem to stop finding these kinds of tunes – and in places I wouldn’t necessarily expect. These are not radio staples or bangers from female pop stars…they’re mostly intriguing pop-rock tracks from artists that haven’t really made it “big time” yet, which is perfect because it keeps with my theme of discovering under-the-radar music in 2018. Here’s 3 songs that lately have been making me want to dance through the day – or at the very least, be okay with the shitty realities of everyday life.
![51UWF5LvNAL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51UWF5LvNAL._SS5001-e1521733977116.jpg)
![61RL4uiZsgL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61RL4uiZsgL._SS5001-e1521734118309.jpg)
![819pVciCJoL._SY355_[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/819pVciCJoL._SY355_1-e1521734305101.jpg)
![61Ju3NN7nbL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61Ju3NN7nbL._SS5001-e1521734430672.jpg)
![51vFbKaFEML._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51vFbKaFEML._SS5001-e1521734550240.jpg)
![91BnnYLGS0L._SY355_[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/91BnnYLGS0L._SY355_1-e1521735073617.jpg)
![6150IaZld4L._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/6150IaZld4L._SS5001-e1521735193949.jpg)
![41yIfazMUtL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/41yIfazMUtL._SS5001-e1521735444320.jpg)
![519usMeEMPL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/519usMeEMPL._SS5001-e1521735548793.jpg)
![51KZgJL5TLL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51KZgJL5TLL._SS5001-e1521735660711.jpg)
![21nm1-fVq8L._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/21nm1-fVq8L._SS5001-e1521128930959.jpg)
![81WnZ5xgcaL._SY355_[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/81WnZ5xgcaL._SY355_1-e1521129042676.jpg)
![611weHytmaL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/611weHytmaL._SS5001-e1521129427298.jpg)
![51k6O4Do3iL._SY355_[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51k6O4Do3iL._SY355_1-e1521129532661.jpg)
![61CjO+oQyyL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61CjO-oQyyL._SS5001-e1521129655695.jpg)
![61pgPMkfYgL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61pgPMkfYgL._SS5001-e1521129752990.jpg)
![71+ROZdl3aL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/71-ROZdl3aL._SS50011-e1521130075783.jpg)
![61d2XcdC-9L._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61d2XcdC-9L._SS5001-e1521130156282.jpg)
![31dF3mizQML._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/31dF3mizQML._SS5001-e1521130256180.jpg)
![51i7sjYdqnL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51i7sjYdqnL._SS5001-e1521130495277.jpg)
![61RjN7mQg4L._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61RjN7mQg4L._SS5001-e1521130711796.jpg)
![51ytUJ-+ruL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51ytUJ-ruL._SS5001-e1521130839233.jpg)
![51J4UNcyOjL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51J4UNcyOjL._SS5001-e1521130958239.jpg)
![61V29Jof5RL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61V29Jof5RL._SS5001-e1520358635572.jpg)
![51CV2AduecL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51CV2AduecL._SS5001-e1520358937416.jpg)
![51vKjaAliPL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51vKjaAliPL._SS5001-e1520359330902.jpg)
![61f4gQu6SqL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61f4gQu6SqL._SS50011-e1520359426673.jpg)
![61W5Tu0gGQL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61W5Tu0gGQL._SS5001-e1520359515890.jpg)
![61i4--gAVWL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/61i4-gAVWL._SS5001-e1520359917360.jpg)
![71VLe0i0zpL._SX522_[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/71VLe0i0zpL._SX522_1-e1520360184200.jpg)
![51y6xh3mQRL._SS500[1]](http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/51y6xh3mQRL._SS5001-e1520360294148.jpg)
