11.9.15
Jens Lekman, "Postcard #42":

This opens with a sad saxomophone leading into generic 80s slow jam, but it gets better when Jens starts singing. Still not a great song, but better than I thought it would be after the first minute. Removing the saxophone entirely would provide an immediate, vast improvement.

11.10.15
Jens Lekman, "Postcard #43":

Jens and an acoustic guitar in a minor key. Surprisingly upbeat for a song whose main lyric is "We're all going to die someday."

11.12.15
Bought a bunch of random stuff from Amazon's $5 MP3 albums deal (which used to refresh once a month, and then refreshed every two weeks, and now seems to refresh pretty randomly). There's some stuff here that I really should have already owned but never got around to purchasing, some stuff that was intriguing from artists who are new to me, and a couple of things from artists that I like or used to like that I probably wouldn't have picked up if it weren't at this price point.

Stuff I should have already owned: Bauhaus' The Sky's Gone Out and Blondie's eponymous debut. New-to-me artists: Bashed Out's This Is the Kit and Regina Spektor's What We Saw from the Cheap Seats. Stuff from artists I already own albums from: of Montreal's recent live album Snare Lustrous Doomings and Soul Asylum's Delayed Reaction.

I really, really liked Soul Asylum for a few albums there——Made to Be Broken, Hang Time, and And the Horse They Rode In On were a nice trilogy that showed their progression from snotty metal Replacements wannabes to the catchy rock/pop of Grave Dancers Union, the album that would make them rich and somewhat famous but which also made them lose direction and focus.

I wasn't expecting a lot out of this record, but if I could find a moment or two where I was at least reminded of some of the best tracks from Hang Time or Horse, I would be satisfied. And I got that from the first couple of tracks, "Gravity" and "Into the Light (Breaking Horses)", but the album is strangely out of time——there are some bands whose records could have been released at any time in rock history and they would still be instant classics, but this is a different kind of being divorced from any particular trend or style. Soul Asylum could have never existed and the history of rock wouldn't really have been affected, and they have no real imitators, either when they were at their peak or now, more than two decades later, when many newer artists are starting to co-opt the sounds of the early 90s and refashion them for this century.

The record that has made the biggest impresion on me is the Regina Spektor album. I've never really listened to her before, but I like this record a lot——it fits somewhere between Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright, and Eels——which means it might be fun to see her make a record with Jon Brion at some point. As much as I like this album, I'm not sure if I'll go back and buy the rest of her catalog, but I'm much more open to that idea now——especially if any of her other records happen to show up on Amazon for $5.

11.13.15
Paul Westerberg has teamed up with Juliana Hatfield for a new group called the I Don't Cares, and they have shared a track from their upcoming debut called "1/2 2 P". Annoyingly, they have only shared it on Spotify, so you'll have to search for it yourself because I'm not embedding their terrible widget on this page.

This sounds mostly like Westerberg's songwriting, although Hatfield sings harmony for most of the song. This could be a post Don't Tell A Soul casual rocker if the Replacements had learned to chill out together instead of breaking up, which makes you wonder why, given the band's recent very successful reunion tour, he didn't decide to record this song (and others) with the Mats for a new album that would undoubtedly get more press and sell a ton more than this project.

Whatever. You could spend decades trying to unravel Westerberg's puzzling decisions over the years, but it's nice to hear some new music from him, so I'm not going to dwell on it.

11.16.15
Chance the Rapper has released a new single, and of course it's free, because why ever make fans pay for anything? It's called "Angels", and you can download it from iTunes, etc.:

Although I thought there were some good tracks on his Donny Trumpet album from earlier this year (also free), I instantly like this better than anything on that record, and it makes me hopeful that his official follow up to Acid Rap will come sometime in 2016.

I still don't get his business model——he has yet to release a record that he's asking people to pay money in exchange for listening to, and presumably all the time he spends in the studio is costing somebody some money——but he seems to be making a go of it, so who am I to complain?

11.17.15
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead frontman Conrad Keely has announced his first solo album, Original Machines, and has shared a track called "In the Words of a Not So Famous Man":

Since Trail of Dead is essentially a Conrad Keely vehicle at this point, in the same way that Smashing Pumpkins is essentially Billy Corgan and whoever else he feels like should be at the band at a given moment, I have to wonder way Keely feels the need to create a new brand for himself. This song doesn't give us many clues——it wouldn't be surprising to find this on a Trail of Dead release——but there are also enough subtle differences in tone and instrumentation choices that if you carried this sound through an entire record, it wouldn't feel quite like any other Trail of Dead record.

Still, Trail of Dead is Conrad Keely and Conrad Keely is Trail of Dead, so heading off in a slightly new direction still could have been done under that brand name, so we'll have to see if the actual album helps us understand why he's differentiating this project from Trail of Dead.

As for the song iteslf: not really what you would think of as the lead single, which either means he's just sharing something for the sake of fans of Trail of Dead who will already be investing in hearing/buying this record, or that there aren't any songs that are better singles. The latter would likely be a bad sign, as this track feels like an interstitial and not even a proper track in some ways, much less a representative sample of the album that's supposed to make you want to hear the rest of it.

11.18.15
Jens Lekman was on the verge of catching up to his song-a-week promise for 2015, but it's now been three weeks with nothing new posted, so he's got some serious making up to do if he's going to meet his goal.

Regardless of whether he actually makes his 52 song goal by the end of the year, I've enjoyed this experiment immensely, and will miss it tremendously when he stops doing it. Hopefully, though, the source material he's produced will have enough quality songs that he'll be able to whip the ideas into shape for a new album in 2016.

11.19.15
I still have never been to a show at the world famous 40 Watt Club in Athens, but tonight I'll be attending a show at a venue right next door called the Caledonia Lounge. I'm going to see PWR BTTM, whose name I can't stop being annoyed by but whose music I've absolutley fallen in love with.

They're the opening act on a triple bill that starts at 9 p.m., and since they don't have that much material anyway, I'm guessing that there's a good chance I'll be home by 11 even with the hour-plus drive. I haven't heard of the other two bands, and I may stick around to see at least a few songs of the second act, but this show is all about PWR BTTM for me.

11.20.15
The PWR BTTM concert was everything I could have hoped for, and despite driving a total of around 3 hours for about 35 minutes of music, I was completely happy with the time trade off. Not only were the songs as great live as they were on the record (a record that has ended up being one of my favorites this year), they two band members were charming and adorable, constantly chattering between themselves and with the audience in between each song. They also play three or four new songs, all of which were fantastic, so I can't wait for the next record now.

Something I learned watching them live that I didn't know before: they not only trade off on vocal duties, but they also trade instruments, and on at least one song they switched lead vocals mid-song ("West Texas", which is probably my favorite song of theirs).

They also did something interesting that is probably the result of them being relatively unknown: unlike more established bands with loyal fanbases, they didn't save their best known songs for later in the set, they led off with the one-two punch of the two singles from the album, "West Texas" and "Dairy Queen". I thought it was strange at the time, but as I've thought about it more, it makes sense: they're trying to win over a crowd that's not there to see them (well, excecpt for me, I guess) and they only have one chance to make a good first impression and get the crowd into what they're doing, so it makes sense for them to lead with their strongest material.

Anyway. Very glad that I made the trek to Athens to see them, and I would highly recommend their live show (and their debut album).

11.23.15
Since I didn't know what the parking situation would be at the PWR BTTM concert, nor did I know about how crowded the venue might be (lesser known bands, but also a very tiny club), I ended up getting there very early, about an hour before PWR BTTM took the stage. I got a beer and was prepared to sit and think by myself until the music started, but then I noticed that there were three other people who had also shown up early: a man and a woman who looked like they were at least as old as I was, and with them a young girl who looked no older than her early 20s.

Since I'm usually far and away the oldest person at concerts like this (the PWR BTTM band members are literally half my age), I was curious enough to go and start a conversation with the couple to see what had brought them there. As I suspected, the girl was their daughter, and they were bringing her to see the second band on the bill, Palehound. But they were also big music fans themselves, and the girl was more than just a young fan: she was in a band with her sister called Femignome and had opened for Palehound before when they played Atlanta.

I ended up talking to the father, Tom, for quite a bit before the PWR BTTM portion of the show and again between PWR BTTM and Palehound, and really enjoyed that conversation. His daughters' band was actually playing in Atlanta a few days later, and although I wasn't able to arrange my schedule to go, they are also playing in December. I've listened to them on Bandcamp, and they're interesting enough to me that I'd like to check them out in person, but I'm also sure that I'd run into Tom again at their shows, so I'm doubly motivated to catch them sometime soon.

11.24.15
Ra Ra Riot have announced a new album, Need Your Light, and have shared a track from the record called "Water":

I bought Ra Ra Riot's debut album, The Rhumb Line, back in 2008, and they reminded me of sort of a Vampire Weekend lite. I liked that record enough that I bought the follow up, The Orchard, which I didn't like at all, and I ended up not buying or even listening to their last record, 2013's Beta Love.

I was intrigued by this song/album because it was when they were sounding like Vampire Weekend that I felt like they were at their best, and this song was a collaboration with a Vampire Weekend band member, so I thought maybe they would be returning to what I liked about them in the first place.

I'm not sure that's going to be true——this is a heavily electronic track, and although vocally you could imagine this might be what an electronica side project from Ezra Koenig might sound like, it doesn't really sound like Vampire Weekend. I suppose it's interesting enough to make other shared songs from this release worth investigating, but it's not enough to make me preorder the albumm at this point.

11.25.15
The I Don't Cares (Paul Westerberg and Juliana Hatfield) have posted a new song to iTunes for purchase (they haven't shared it through traditional sharing channels, hence no embed link) called "King of America".

This one feels more polished than the previously shared track, "1/2 2 P", but that's not saying much——this one is still pretty raw and gritty, a slightly-less-than-midtempo rocker that doesn't do much to distinguish itself other than be sung by Westerberg.

I'm intrigued by the upcoming record by this band, but not hopeful that we're going to get a great album out of it. But new music from Westerberg holds the same allure as the new Star Wars film: both of them might end up being not-so-great, but I'm still going to watch/listen to them many times.

11.30.15
Animal Collective have announced a new album called Painting With and have shared a track called "FloriDada":

Animal Collective certainly have their share of exuberant tracks, but this is one of the few that I would call genuinely bouncy. Although I loved the dense, layered textures of their most recent release, Centipede Hz, as it showed me something new from a band who I wasn't sure had anything really novel left to give, I like this song's return to an earlier sound for them. They've always been a bit goofy, but it's been a while since they were really fun, at least in the album context. So if this is a harbinger of a looser, punchier Animal Collective album, I'm all for it.