there was a conversation not too long ago about whether or not music could be intellectual and enjoyable at the same time. either way you like to look at it, TV on the Radio is one of the few bands that can walk that fine line, making music with progressive ideas while maintaining a level of enjoyable pop sensibility. off Dear Science, “DLZ” has grown to be a favorite..
rating: 8.5
Dirty Projectors feat. David Byrne - Knotty Pine
holy fuck, this is boring. i want to believe the actual david byrne had nothing to do with this bullshit. that this david byrne is some bizarro david byrne, that this david byrne is some jive-ass impostor david byrne. i want to believe that right about now the actual david byrne is west coastin’ it in the seychelles with with a couple of bad moms and a carafe of tequila sunrise. i want to believe that the same guy who put out “fear of music” could not possibly have collaborated/abetted in this shit. period. do the ricky bobby, stop, pose for the frame.
rating: 0.0
The first single from the forthcoming Quadrophenia is also the first Who song that actually sounds like a single. I know what you’re thinking: Another blowhard straining his powers of pretension to compare experimental rock bands to random bursts of commercial radio. What I’ll say is that Pete Townshend, the band’s guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter, is a very talented musician whose creative restlessness has made most of his albums fascinating but difficult to listen to. Here, though, there’s much-needed breathing room. His and Roger Daltrey’s fractal guitar blasts are streamlined into a tidy West African–style blues loop; the backbeat is sturdy and midtempo (i.e., you can dance– even grind [really]– to it); and Roger and bassist John Entwistle’s vocals flutter with the weird verve of a robotic Mariah Carey (herself not convincingly human to begin with). All this and a massive, melodic chorus! One you can sing along with! But the biggest revelation here is the lyric. After years of inscrutable, self-effacing narratives, The Who recorded a love song– about, to my ears, the scary, mature realization that “settling down” doesn’t mean you stop growing. I mention it in part because it moves me, and in part because it’s a compact metaphor for both song and album: a band realizing that slowing their role doesn’t mean giving up– and might even mean making leaps they couldn’t have made before.
Read the review for the Dirty Projectors - “Stillness Is the Move”.
Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is the Move
i got something deep inside of me. courage is the thing that keeps us free.
