Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion
Flaming Lips - At War With the Mystics

Both of whom will be performing on Letterman Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. Both of them had tough albums to follow up, so I'm not mad at them. Back to the drawing board!

On the live performance note, however, I'd still see the Flaming Lips live in a second. The YYYs were pretty good live when I saw them, though my expectations were high. Karen O's a real shrinking violet off-stage, too, which was so strange. Every other word from her was "like" or "um."

Mastodon -- I know it was B-sides and early tracks and demos, but I was still kind of underwhelmed. And I'm such a big Mastodon fan...

The new Streets album=weak, at best. Big dissapointment.

1. Placebo: Meds
2. Belle And Sebastian: The Life Pursuit

Many count the Flaming Lips album as a disapointment. I TOTALLY disagree.

Pretty much everything so far this year, but in order of size of disappointment for me personally.

1. Ballad of the Broken Seas.
2. The Life Pursuit.
3. Arctic Monkeys (Not bad, just not even close to great)
4. Fox Confessor.
5. Cat Power.

Well I think I listened to this one way... WAY past the expiry date but The National Trust Kings & Queens has definitely dropped off the radar for me. One or two really good songs but for the most part... way too cheesy.

Which is weird because I LOVE Kudu's Death of the Party

Well, MusicLifeLiberty, I love Fishscale...

I wish I could say the same about At War with the Mystics. I am trying to like it, but the more I listen to it, the less I like it. ("The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" in particular is so gratingly awful, it makes me sick - and "Free Radicals," while the melody eventually gets interesting, has a really, really pathetic chorus). The album does get better toward the end, but there are quite a few duds here that no amount of stellar production work could remedy. So sad...

I didn't really get into the new Flaming Lips when I listened to it...

"Dani California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is so, so bad. I'm a huge fan and had high hopes for their upcoming double disk, though I knew all along it would suck. I'm afraid they've completely sold out this time. If the album is 25 more tracks of this bollocks, I'll be pretty disappointed.

Mystics has a lot of great tracks, but nothing up to the level of Fight Test or Race For The Prize, and nowhere near the consistancy or focus of Yoshime or Soft Bulletin.

I guess you could call it a dissapointment..

But, Show Your Bones is a bit of a bigger dissapointment. It's like an album full of good ideas that weren't pulled off well. Almost every song just sort of repeats short measures over and over again with lots of jarring staccato beats.

yeah yeah yeah's completely sold out on their new album...

flaming lips are running out of ideas pretty fast...

jenny lewis will never be as good alone as she will with rilo kiley

and arctic monkeys... just an average english band that somehow became the biggest thing out of england in a long while

Not to be contrary for contrary's sake, spudthemagicelf, but...

YYY "completely" sold out? Other than Gold Lion and Dudley, can you imagine hearing any of these songs on the radio? It's a new direction, but it's nowehre near a Liz Phair-style sell out.

Flaming Lips have been around for 11 albums and almost two decades, so I would say they are running out of ideas rather slowly.

Personally, I would take Rabbit Fur Coat over More Adventurous any day of the week.

And Arctic Monkeys don't live up to their hype, but they are still a very good band, certainly far better than other overhyped british bands of recent years, like the cribs, kaiser chiefs, razorlight, etc. They are even arguably better than the libertines, franz ferdinand, and the futureheads. YMMV.

I still haven't gotten past the first two tracks of the new Streets album.

quote:

Originally posted by crabsody:
2. Belle And Sebastian: The Life Pursuit

Many count the Flaming Lips album as a disapointment. I TOTALLY disagree.

well, I TOTALLY disagree with you on The Life Pursuit!

quote:

Originally posted by nathanielkt:
I still haven't gotten past the first two tracks of the new Streets album.

What does that mean?
it's really that bad? I've only heard terrible things about it so far, but I was really excited for this album.

The attitude of some people seems to be 'If a band I like that's indie starts making any money, they're sell-outs'.

I don't see Show Your Bones as a move to mainstream. I just think a whole lot of it doesn't work.

Drive By Truckers is the next one that I have high expecations for..hopefully they won't let me down. I haven't been that impressed this year by a band that's impressed me in the past yet.

Yeah, I am a huge Streets fan, but this is just completely uninspired.

DEFINITELY the biggest dissapointment of the year so far.

Also on the YYY's thing...they sign to a major label, have a single all over alternative radio, perform at the MTV awards, and write a friggin' adidas jingle...

...and then release an album of slightly longer, slower-paced tracks than their debut. And this is when we call them sell outs?

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Drive By Truckers is the next one that I have high expecations for..hopefully they won't let me down. I haven't been that impressed this year by a band that's impressed me in the past yet.

I haven't spun it in a while, but I was really impressed with the new DBT my first four or five listens.

I don't consider the YYYs sellouts.

If somebody offers you money for a gig that's going to be seen by millions of people, and you say 'Yes', that doesn't make you a sellout.

You're only a sellout if you change your music to make it more marketable, and I don't believe they have.

But let's face it, other than "Maps," they've never been as good as they were on their debut EP, which was also when they were at their loudest and Karen O was unleashing on every track. I do think they're trying to make albums with broad appeal, and whether or not that makes them sellouts, it sucks. Not because I want them to be poor, but because the album isn't good.

I second the DBTs rec.

quote:

Originally posted by bonzob:
......
And Arctic Monkeys don't live up to their hype, but they are still a very good band, certainly far better than other overhyped british bands of recent years, like the cribs, kaiser chiefs, razorlight, etc. They are even arguably better than the libertines, franz ferdinand, and the futureheads. YMMV.

They could be better than all those bands but that doesn't make them a very good band. I'd say that among all recent british hypes I can remember the only I feel as a good band is Bloc Party even if their album was a mid disapointment.

British have a very big problem since many years by being obessed by Brit pop that not only kill many creativity but also that creates full of crap hypes.

A days they'll open eyes or ears and will perhaps realized they don't have any music lead since a very long time and perhaps they'll temp down their density of crap hypes.