December 23, 2011

pregamingforaslumberparty:

That’s Entertainment - The Jam

Waking up from bad dreams and smoking cigarettes

Cuddling a warm girl and smelling stale perfume

A hot summer’s day and sticky black tarmac

Feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away

That’s entertainment!

(via themodculture)

7:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZbAK7yDi0od0
(View comments) 
(Notes: 49)
  
Filed under: the jam punk rock mod revival paul weller 
December 20, 2011
my top ten albums of fiscal year 2011.

If I learned about the anthropology of indie (or alternative) rock last year—its cultural antecedents, its values, its tendency to interbreed, the shape of the genre—I learned about its history this year.  I finally delved into sacred cows and revered indie statesmen catalogued in things like Pazz and Jop polls and Pitchfork Top 100 lists, and considering the crop of music given to us this year, I seized on a damned good opportunity to hop in the time machine.  I got exposed to some of the classics of the last few decades, and like every other year, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that this is my best list yet.

So, without further ado:  wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

The rules:  The ten best albums (plus five ten honorable mentions) acquired in one year, regardless of when they came out.  No two albums from the same band.  No best-ofs.

Read More

11:39pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZbAK7yDZJarm
(View comments) 
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: top ten list indie rock new wave post-punk hip hop Joy Division St. Vincent Mekons ramones TV on the Radio The Replacements R.E.M. Gang of Four the jam Bruuuuuuuuuce Bruce Springsteen 
August 30, 2011

Songs of Innocence and Experience #1:  “In the Crowd,” by the Jam.

Bloom, O ye Amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Work Without Hope.”

.

(Suite of the Week is a five-song playlist built around a theme to give you, dear reader, a soundtrack to the working week.  This week’s theme:  punk rock goes capital-R Romantic.)

12:59pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZbAK7y8xmLTZ
(View comments) 
Filed under: suite of the week the jam samuel taylor coleridge romanticism 
August 22, 2011
On the Docket (8/22/11)

FOLLOW-UPS

—All Mod Cons by the Jam

  • London Calling is rightly lauded for being a panoramic album.  Although I think the results are mixed in places, it’s that experimentation with genre, without altering the character of the band, which makes London Calling essential listening.  All Mod Cons, regarded as something of a vox populi for discontented Englishmen at the pale dawning of the Thatcher era, is similarly panoramic in the sense that its many character sketches show us the layer cake of a fractured English society.  Imagine “Lost in the Supermarket” spread out over an album, and you’ll get part of the picture.
  • All Mod Cons gives punk rock’s concerns a human face and a mod jacket.  Whether or not it’s a better record than London Calling is immaterial.  Like the Clash’s magnum opus, like all the great records, it’s as though All Mod Cons was frozen in amber—inextricably linked to a time and place, but permanent all the same.  Don’t miss out.

—Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

  • One morning on our trip two weeks ago, my mom and I listened to Helplessness Blues in the middle of a south Georgia sunrise.  Through the first five songs or so, I think we had what could qualify as a “moment.”  During our quiet communion, we both connected to the record’s themes—aging and subsequent regrets, feeling entirely too small in a vast world—in the presence of a landscape that might as well have existed only to confirm them.  Then we hit some railroad tracks, the radio went out, and the rest of the album, once we could listen to it, proved comparatively underwhelming.  Repeat listens haven’t really changed my mind; I dislike the band’s tendency to start songs strong and then veer toward meandering, unsatisfying conclusions.  Unfortunately, I suspect that also describes the album as a whole.

Read More

6:48pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZbAK7y8eZoyl
(View comments) 
Filed under: on the docket the jam london calling fleet foxes warren zevon the replacements gary numan the stone roses george r.r. martin h.p. lovecraft 
July 22, 2011
on the docket (the first)

MUSIC

—Album by Girls

  • Jan and Dean meets Elliott Smith
  • It’s not exactly a unique take to point out the cognitive dissonance between the sunny surf rock layers of Album and its melancholy subject matter, but it’s such a defining aspect of the album that you can’t ignore it.  It’s an album of disillusioned late summer, when tans turn leathery, when flings turn into breakups, when warmth becomes suffocating heat.  If you can take Christopher Owens’ Elvis-Costello-after-a-night-of-speedballs vocals and you have half the appreciation for surf music that I do, then you’ll find Album as lovely and moving as I have.

—All Mod Cons by The Jam

  • Elvis Costello meets The Who
  • The Jam is apparently massively successful in its native England, but that fame never translated across the Atlantic.  I think this is partly because, unlike the Clash’s genre-hopping or the one-of-a-kind coked-up mania of Elvis Costello’s Attractions, the Jam combined the Angry Young Man discontent of late-70’s England with a distinctly English sound:  specifically, the Who in full Mod mode.  The sound is less immediately appealing to me—I don’t know if I’ll ever be de-punked enough not to be annoyed by solos again—but the album’s got more than enough critical respect and obvious potential to let it grow on me.

Read More

5:39pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZbAK7y7PYzps
(View comments) 
Filed under: on the docket girls the jam gang of four fleet foxes ride ramones gabo nabokov dashiell hammett john hodgman doctor who this is england wes anderson 
Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »