Freak Scene

For some reason, "the voice of my generation" became Kurt Cobain. First things first... Nirvana's music wasn't awful. But, Nirvana's music definitely wasn't amazing either! It falls short of the groundbreaking, soul-stopping musical mastery that Rolling Stone and Spin writers would have us believe it possesses.

Sure, I listened to it growing up and so did thousands of other "lost" youth of the day. But, I also listened to Mudhoney, Helmet, Pixies, Superchunk, Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr, Jawbox, Alice in Chains, The Afghan Whigs and countless other angst-ridden, grungy bands of the late 80s and early 90s!

Yesterday, I was driving home after happy hour with my wife and put an old compilation I made into the cd player. The first song was the absolute would-be-anthem 'Freak Scene' by Dinosaur Jr from their 1988 album Bug. This song shreds through three and a half minutes and delivers a heartfelt angst-ridden punch that few bands could ever hope to reproduce today!

However, that song and that album and that band were never noticed by the majority of young people. Neither was Superchunk or their 1990 teen-angst classic 'Slack Motherfucker'.  The same is true of Mudhoney's 1989 offering 'You Got It'. And even though they achieved sincere stardom with 'Under the Bridge', the Red Hot Chili Peppers album Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik had many much better songs than that (The Power of Equality)!

My point is this... stop letting overpaid hipster tools tell you who is and who isn't a pivotal band or a defining voice in music! This is our time and this is our music! Open your ears and listen!

Just a bit outside!

If you'd asked me about Band of Horses before April 1st of this year I would have said "their music is a perfect blend of melodic, hypnotic juvenility. It's addictive. I love it!" With their latest release, Infinite Arms, that may no longer be the case... I'm not impressed. Many of the songs are overproduced.

Despite the fact that the album's producer is long-time Built to Spill collaborator Phil Ek, it lacks the maturity of recent BTS albums. When Built to Spill 'grew up', they made some of the most compelling music of the past decade. I want to like this album. I want to think that they are maturing and this is a new, stronger sound. But, I just don't think it is. It misses the target too often.

This is NOT the work of an underground sensation hitting the big leagues in the vein of Death Cab for Cutie and their record Plans. The album almost seems forced. Very little has stayed the same. Gone are the echoey vocals. Gone are the haunting near-slowcore ballads. Gone are the shimmering layered guitars. Gone is the creativity. This record better become the high-selling VH-1 instant classic that it sounds as though it was intended to be! Otherwise, one of the most promising new bands of the decade may have gone and left us!