Best Coast - Crazy For You

Paul's Choice:

Best Coast - Crazy For You

Friend Review:

Hey guys! Sorry for all the delay, this Sunday I moved into my dorm at Texas A&M University! So woo for that, but the downside is I’ve been really really busy since I moved. So unfortunately, updates may be a bit more sparse now, but I’m gonna try my best to keep my grades up while still staying in touch with the world of music!

But anyways, I first listened to this album before I actually went to college and all I could really think was, “Blah.” But that was a while ago, so I gave it another listen today. For the first few songs, I was actually surprised (“Boyfriend” and “Crazy For You” are golden) and was planning on changing my rating to something better than originally intended. But after the first four tracks, everything gets really boring really fast. The one thing I absolutely love love love about this album is the lyrics. Very simple, while still creative, and they can get the point across so yippee for that. I also think that’s the first time I’ve used yippee on this blog so yippee for yippee. But oh right, I should be talking about the music… Well, it’s just a slow-paced album, all the songs have very similar tempos and overall there’s just not enough to keep a casual listener interested. Best Coast has potential, but there definitely needs to be a lot of improvement before I become a fan. Each track on its own is decent enough, but listening to the album as a whole is just a big dull dud. Also, put another tally on the count for “Hipster Albums With Absolutely Awful Cover Art” (yes, there is a count). I don’t care how much you like cats, Miss Cosentino, drop your joint long enough to realize that crap suuuuuucks.

Friend Rating:

6.7

Hipster Review:

Best Coast is a relatively new group (they're about a year old) who has gathered a sizable following with a string of EPs and catchy singles. They follow in the lo-fi movement, alongside such groups as Wavves, and when you're part of a grouping such as this, it is of the utmost importance that you find some way of distinguishing yourself in order to keep yourself from just blending in with your peers. Gladly, Best Coast takes a more relaxed, chill vibe to their songwriting, which makes the music more accessible. The band is clearly inspired musically by 60's pop music, which contrasts effectively against frontwoman Bethany Cosentino's drowsy vocal delivery. So what you have here is a nice, fun, reverb-soaked summer garage pop record. And it's pretty good; however, I'm just not all that crazy about it. I mean, its good, and there's not anything terribly wrong with it. It's just a bit samey at times; too often I found myself not noticing a song going into the next, as a song would just kinda drifted right into the other without much change. But it's not bad by any means; if love 60's pop, the current trend of lo-fi rock, or if you just like some sunny music with a healthy dose of distortion, you'll dig this.

Hipster Rating:

8.0

Coming up next, Interpol!

The Books - The Way Out

Taylor's Choice:

The Books - The Way Out

Hipster Review:

The two-piece electronic/folk vocal-sampling group The Books are in a league of their own; they're one of those bands, like Animal Collective, that literally makes music that's unlike anything you've ever heard before. They've created and developed a unique and singular sound, altering slightly over the course of their career, and whether you like the music or not, their ingenuity cannot be denied. The Way Out is the band's fourth LP, and after three albums of using that same formula, the most important goal of this release is to distinguish itself from their previous work.
The music is a bit more pop-minded this time around, though you'd be hard-pressed to call this album accessible; the album's lead single, "A Cold Freezin' Night," with its unsettling vocal recordings of children making death threats to one another, is disquieting to say the least. The band is, in fact, being more experimental here by using their samples for creating actual tunes. "I Didn't Know That" samples various voices exclaiming just that, backed up by a spare funk groove, and "Beautiful People," the album's other single, is a perfect example of abstract artists putting a good pop song together. Each song has a different feel, which separates this record from the mostly static feel of the group's past albums. However, this is not the band's best album by any means, though it is a great, well-put together work. If you're looking to get into The Books, this is not the best starting point; look to their debut Thought For Food or their last release Lost & Safe. If you don't dig The Books' music, then this isn't for you. But those who enjoy the group's eccentric and unique brand of electronic sound collage will be plenty satisfied.

Hipster Rating:

8.4

Friend Review:

I typically try to stay away from Pitchfork, but occasionally I’ll read their reviews just to see how they feel about a specific in work. In this case, I checked out their review of The Books’ The Way Out and found this:

“Imagine if a blog had posted these clips of goofball hypnotherapist and meditation consultants, or found a tape of a boy and a girl swapping violent threats with each other: You'd chuckle and move on. But when the Books use these samples, they give them integrity.”

This is total crap. I don’t care if it’s me taking a dump or Jenna Fischer taking a dump, a dump is a dump. The Books made a piece of crap song. It's not saved by the fact that it was made by The Books. It's crap. But anyways, that’s the end of my Pitchfork rant.

My main gripe about this album is the use of samples. Yeah, samples can be cool at times (see The Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now” or M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”) but when 98% of your music is samples, well that’s not very creative is it? A perfect example is their song “A Cold Freezin’ Night”. There’s basically two elements of this song, a loop of a drum machine beat thingy and two children threatening to kill each other. As far as drum machines go, **** drum machines, they suck. Especially using the same beat over and over and over again, boring. For the two children, well, why? It’s annoying, pointless, and stupid. The whole album sounds like the duo just found a bunch of samples and said, “Sure, this is weird let’s do it.” But other than the drum machine with whining children, there’s nothing on the album that’s completely unbearable. Yet, I still have no desire to listen to this again. There’s no feeling or soul to their music.

Friend Rating:

4.6

Coming up next, Crazy For You by Best Coast!

Be At Leso

Hi guys, so I'm not sure if you know this or not, just trying to get the word out there. Taylor and I are in a band called Be At Leso and very recently we released our first EP! It's called Four Faces. Now there's two ways you can get this crap, the first and coolest way is to tell Taylor or me you want to buy a cd (you can even just leave a comment on the blog). If you go this route, it will cost you $5 and we can meet up with you or ship it to you. I like this method the best because we put a lot of effort into the booklet that comes with the cd and that way you get the whole package. The second way is to download it from the internet. I know for sure, right now, the EP is available on iTunes for $5.94. In the coming weeks it'll be available on Amazon, Myspace Music, Zune, and a whole bunch of other crap, but I'm not sure about those prices, but it's for sure on iTunes.

Now, I know nobody wants to go off and buy music without getting a taste for it first so I want you to get your skinny little ass here:

myspace.com/beatlesoband
facebook.com/beatleso

Also, there's a little widget to the right of the blog -> where you can listen to the tracks on the EP.

Anyways, I'm done with the shameless self-promotion, maybe I'll do a bit more later or something.

Hope you like what you hear!

New Politics Interview!

Hey! Here's the interview! Interviewing New Politics was seriously one of the greatest moments of my life so far. The guys were super easy to talk and really fun to basically just hang out with for a few minutes. Unfortunately, since this was our first interview (hopefully we’ll have more!), I wasn’t sure of how to record it so I just used my phone. Maybe in the future I’ll use my video camera or something, but for now the sound quality is relatively low so you’ll have to turn up your speakers as high as they go, sorry! And I was planning on writing out the whole thing, but that would take me ages, the interview is over twenty minutes long. So if there are any questions you have about it, feel free to ask, I should be able to clue you in!

New Politics - New Politics

Paul's Choice:

New Politics - New Politics

Friend Review:

So, you probably may know (or you may not, jeez what do I know) that I got to interview New Politics and then watch them play live later that night. THIS WAS EASILY ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS I HAVE EVER GOTTEN TO DO. But I will get into all of that later; right now I’m going to talk about their recently released self-titled album.

I’m going to start out with the opening track and the band’s debut single, “Yeah Yeah Yeah”. I’ve heard people say that LCD Soundsystem’s song “Drunk Girls” is the song of the summer. That’s crap, don’t listen to those people. Another nomination is Wavves’ “King of the Beach”. Definitely runner-up, but no cigar. People, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” is the song of the summer and there is no better song blast on full volume as you roll down Beltline feeling awesome. Maybe that’s just me, I dunno. But this is pretty much a perfect song, it combines a ridiculously catchy chorus, a march-style bridge, and great instrumentation (the guitar solo and each drum fill are very appropriate and awesome). The lyrics of this opener set a theme regular throughout the rest of the album: rebellion. New Politics’ lyrics are witty and powerful and as a result the album as a whole packs a pretty powerful punch. This is album is pure good alternative rock composed of all the right parts great instrumentation (despite lacking a bassist, all the songs sound full and have catchy melodies), great vocals (the band finds a good balance between rapping and singing, it’s definitely not overdone in anyway), and great lyrics (any middle-schooler looking to get out of the MTV phase needs to listen to this album). This is the best debut album I’ve heard from a band in a while and I’m definitely expecting to hear more from these guys in the future (“Give Me Hope” and “Dignity” are just waiting to get popular).

As for their live set, if you ever get a chance to see New Politics play live, TAKE IT! These guys put so much energy into each song, I don’t know how they do it day in and day out. It’s just simply awesome to see David Boyd breakdance, Poul Ameliel drum while standing up (which I try to do constantly and fail at) and Soren Hansen rock out with his cock out (nah, he doesn’t do that, but he is a really rad guitarist). And they sound absolutely fantastic so don’t miss out!

Friend Rating:

8.6

Hipster Review:

I remember Paul coming up to me one band practice, laptop in hand saying, "Check this out." So I watched; what he was showing me was a music video for New Politics' single "Yeah Yeah Yeah." It was pretty good; I mean, granted it wasn't particularly my thing, but it was interesting enough. It was a familiar sound, but it was energetic and catchy. So, I went into the Denmark band's debut expecting that same energetic pull, something distinguishable from the myriad of other Alt-rock groups today.
No such luck. A lot of the songs on this album are very samey, though not in the sense that every song sounds the same; on the contrary, each song has its own distinct feel and sonic approach. What does feel the same, however, is the band's music compared to any number of other Alt-rock bands out there; I just feel like I've heard this many, many times before - and I wasn't exactly a fan of the first few times either. There are some good ideas here, but personally there's just too much here that doesn't really grab me. Granted, it could be a lot worse (Third Eye Blind is better than Nickleback, after all), but it's still just not my thing. I mean, there's definitely a good audience for this band, I have no doubt. I'm just not a part of it.

Hipster Rating:

6.1

Coming up next, The Way Out by The Books!

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway

Paul's Choice:

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway

Friend Review:

So I’m going to have to borrow a phrase I heard my friend say to properly describe this album… Frick, I’m not even going to borrow it, I’m just going to steal it. And I didn’t even hear this friend say it; I saw it posted under my other friend’s Facebook Quotations. Ladies and gentlemen, this is plagiarism at its finest. So here come my feelings on Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin’s Let It Sway: It just makes my heart tickle! Thanks to Bethany for saying that and thanks to Nathan for posting it on Facebook many moons ago.

SSLYBY is a band that I have loved for a long time due to the fun and happy sound that is prevalent in all their songs as well as their simplicity. In their latest effort, the band has stayed true to their roots while venturing into new territory. Overall they have added more complexity to their sound such as what I believe to be improved drumming reminiscent of that on Weezer’s Maladroit as well as more interesting structure and whatnot (check out that time change in “Back On the Saddle”!). The album covers just about every tone from the soft makey-outiness of “Stuart Gets Lost Das Le Metro” to the fun rocker “All Hail Dracula!”. I think the best way to describe this album is to say the beginning is good: the opening track introduces the listener to the soft melodies of SSLYBY as well as their poppy goodness. The middle is good: the album doesn’t get boring by mixing in the faster paced songs among the slower ones to create a medley of awesomeness. The end is good: “Phantomwise” is absolutely genius and I think it deserved to be the closing track but that’s just, like, my opinion, man. The actual closing track, “Made to Last” has some of the sweetest vocals of the entire album and leave the listener content with everything in their life ever. Overall, this album has the entire package and should be appealing to all listeners. In my opinion, there are none better in the world of Indie Pop than Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

Friend Rating:

9.5

Hipster Review:

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is a band that I have no prior listening experience with. All I know is that they're one of Paul's favorite bands, and his excitement for this album was shown even during the beginning stages of this blog's formation. I can see why he likes this band so much; their musical brand is pop in the purest sense (he refers to it as "Paulcore"). The melodies are dreamy, but not in an abstract sense, rather in a free-of-any-subtlety kind of way; this is music that is upfront about it's intentions. The music is at it's core happy and easy-going, which is something I don't usually go for (it's my main gripe about groups like Passion Pit). But, the music is good, that's something I can't deny. It doesn't exactly grab me, and personally I don't think I'll give it many spins, but it is good. Each song has character and spirit, and there's a child-like quality to the music which makes it accessible and easy to approach, but at the same time it isn't juvenile; music that's heartfelt and free of pretension. It is essentially indie pop for the alt-rock crowd.

Hipster Rating:

7.8

Coming up next, New Politics Super-post, which will include the interview!