Crush!

51 thoughts on “Crush!”

1. Is there a more 90 indie twee name than Tobin Sprout?

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   1. Hells yeah Tobin! Never heard that one, it’s a good ‘un.

      As is this:

      Did you ever see his children’s book? The story is just OK, but the art is great (he’s a really accomplished painter/illustrator):

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      1. No, I never saw his children’s book, only heard about it. That’s pretty cool.

         I was looking for “Maid to Order”, but couldn’t find a video of it. It’s another really good indie valentine’s track.Report

      2. And:

         I love the triple-pun of “Standing in the punch line”…the joke is on you, getting clocked while waiting for your drink like that.Report

2. Oh man, “Strange Powers” is such an awesome song.Report

   1. Ain’t it? Here’s another from the same album – what a great metaphor:

      Though I’ve always been a partisan for The Wayward Bus / Distant Plastic Trees…Report

3. I am spending today with the person I love most–myself. I have joked about baking a red velvet cake, buying a bottle of red wine, and consuming both in their entirety, but there are many reasons that is a bad idea.

   I do have my favorite breakup album, Breach by The Wallflowers, on my playlist for today, but that is mostly coincidence. I was talking music with a coworker yesterday, and it came up in discussion, and that gave me a hankering to listen.

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   1. I’m not sure what my breakup album would be….Walking Wounded is a good one.

      But the grass is always greener, eh? What’s the Chris Rock line – life’s a choice between together and bored (or worse), and single and lonely?Report

      1. For a break-up album, I’m probably going with either Taking Back Sunday:

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVaZnBO-YMg

         Or, for that happy-dance-while-you-slit-your-wrists sort of feel, Jimmy Eat World:

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ETmJnpgqs

         Yes, I’m still a bit of emo kid at (broken) heart.Report

      2. I’m not sure any genre term went through as many permutations in such a short time as ’emo’. It’s a name, like shoegaze, that nobody in any of the scenes wanted, and it just kept getting passed around like a hot potato.

         When I first heard it, it was being applied to Rites of Spring – basically, stuff that wasn’t full hardcore, musically and lyrically. Post-hardcore, essentially.

         Then, it was being applied to early Green Day and Screeching Weasel – Buzzcocks-and-Ramones-derived pop-punk, that was safe for girls to listen to because it was melodic and about feelings (mostly apolitical).

         Then, it somehow got applied to these sort of proggier bands, like SDRE etc.

         Then, it was on bands that were again sort of post-hardcore, and edging into straight-up indie rock like Jawbreaker and Knapsack.

         Then it was the bands you name.

         Yes, I think after all is said and done, emo is the worst genre name, worse than “shoegaze” or “chillwave”; even though I quite like some of the bands that have been tagged with it over the years.Report

      3. Funny thing is, I sorta drifted away from punk as we moved from the 80’s into the 90’s, so for me “emo” meant Rites of Spring and not much else. Which I loved.

         I was emo as fuck, bitches!

         Needless to say I was disappointed when I started again paying attention to punk.

         That said, I still love to wear mascara and feel sad…Report

      4. I have yet to decide if “New Sincerity” is the worst or best label ever.

         And I agree on the whole emo thing. It took a strange winding path to get from its “emotive hardcore” roots to Dashboard Confessional-esque bands. There was a path there for a while, but now it’s kind of just splatters on a map.Report

   2. There are NO reasons that’s a bad idea.

      I picked up The Wallflowers first album (I think) mainly off the strength of Sixth Avenue Heartbreak. I could never really get drawn into the album, though. Is Breach much different/better/catchier/etc?Report

      1. If you never got into the first album, I doubt you would get into Breach. It has a different sound, but I do not think it has a different appeal. The track I linked gives a pretty good example of what it sounds like.

         The next album, Red Letter Days, seemed to be an attempt to reach a larger audience, so that might appeal to you. I guess it depends on what you are into.

         Personally, the lyrics are the biggest selling point of The Wallflowers.Report

   3. There are many reasons that is a bad idea.

      You’re going to have to list ’em, ’cause I’m not coming up with any…Report

      1. I am sure it would be great at first, but I think would end in stomach ache and regret (I think there is a metaphor about bad relationships to be made there). It would not fit with my current fitness goals, either.Report

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   1. Hey, that’s not bad! But I am feeling argumentative (actually, it’s just a contradiction):

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      1. They (Temper Trap, not Joy Division) have 2 good, really catchy songs, and a bunch of “meh” to go with them. But those two songs are pretty awesome.Report

5. This might be a little too on point for the post:

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   1. Well, if we’re going literal:

      “When you wish upon a star, that turns into a plane…”

      “If you were a pill, I’d take a handful at my will,
      And I’d knock you back with something sweet and strong”Report

6. I’m so, so sorry if this gets stuck in anyone’s head, but it just occurred to me:

   (However, I dig the animated MTV bumper at the start, and the music’s not a bad little electrofunk tune).Report

   1. Man, I loved The Jets as an 8-year-old with no taste in music.Report

      1. For some reason I associate that song with this one:

         Must be the music – which, again, I think is actually pretty good electro-funk. Someone should strip the vocals and release a record of just the instrumentals on these, it’d be the hip thing for DJ’s in underground clubs today.Report

7. This doesn’t really fit into your theme, but as it is Valentine’s Day, and I’m ruminating Jason’s post, and I love this song, I shall post it anyway:

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   1. Oh, themes are guidelines at best, and I’d say this fits into the lust theme anyway.

      Kinda sounds like Metric to me?Report

      1. I’d never noticed the similarity in their voices before, but now that you point it out…Report

      2. As carpe diems go, it’s one of my favorites. Would Carpe Diem! be a video post? Not something I have the brain for right now, but anyone else is welcome to the idea.Report

      3. Carpe Diem would be a good post.Report

8. A REQUEST for commenters embedding YouTube videos: on the YT video’s page, try to click “Share”, then “Embed”, then check the checkbox for “Use Old Embed Code”, and copy/paste that old embed code into your comment here.

   For some reason, pasting either the YT page link, or the newer YT embed code, slows page performance down here a lot. Thanks!

   (I went though each comment with embedded video, and replaced it myself).Report

   1. Huh. I will try that next time. (the YT embed codes never *work* when I use them, but perhaps the “old embed code” will make the difference)Report

      1. Yeah, we noticed recently that pages with a lot of videos pasted the newer ways start to really drag, and this seems to help….it’s not a huge deal if you can’t, but if it’s possible it is appreciated.Report

9. also, EVERY time I listen to Sleater-Kinney, I think “I love them. Why don’t I listen to them more?” Every. Single. Time.Report

   1. Yeah, S-K were awesome. They were like the second coming of Pylon.

      And I knew they were talented, but when I finally saw them live they blew me away. Janet Weiss is an absolute monster on the drums.

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   2. Yes. Like literally one of my favoritest bands evar.

      I recall a friend got one of their early records and didn’t like it. Which, you know, it happens. But the dude immediately called me. “I just got this record. I hate it. You’ll love it! Come over!”

      He gave me the CD. Yay!Report

      1. I adore people who know me well enough to be right about that sort of thing.Report

      2. Corin’s vibrato, I’ve found, is just an insurmountable obstacle for some people.Report

      3. @glyph — Yeah, sadly my wife is among them, we leads to tension during long car trips.Report

      4. Oh, and rather than “vibrato,” perhaps the term “warbling” is more appropriate.Report

      5. Apropos to Maribou’s comment elsewhere, my wife is a PJ Harvey fan, and PJ is one of the rare musical spots where we just…don’t agree.

         So PJ doesn’t come along on joint car rides either.Report

   3. Though – and this is not offered as a criticism of S-K, but perhaps as explanation of why you don’t seek them out as often as you might – S-K were absolute masters at creating and maintaining tension (those voices! those wiry guitars and tightly-wound drums!), but they sometimes (to me) seemed to skimp on the “release” part of the rock equation.

      I first had that epiphany when I saw them live, because I had just seen GbV recently and was struck by the diametric approaches there (GbV live, is just a flood of release after release – kind of like their song- and record-release strategy; but S-K tightly maintained tension for 90 minutes).

      I’ll leave it to others to make sex jokes here.

      But my musical point is, if they make you tense without offering frequent catharsis, that can be hard to seek out. It may be music that makes you just a little bit uncomfortable?

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      1. Yeah, maybe. I think I like PJ Harvey for very similar reasons, but she’s got release out the…

         ahem.

         well anyway.Report

   4. I listen to You’re No Rock n’Roll Fun pretty frequentlyReport

      1. A Quarter to Three is also a favoriteReport

10. I’ve been playing DJ all day on facebook. My choices have been:

    1. Gene Kelley Medley with Muppets

    2. Warm in the Winter by Glass Candy

    3. Sugar Magnolia by the Dead

    4. Romance by Wild Flag

    5. You Better You Bet by the Who

    6. Ain’t No Mountain High by Marvin Gaye

    7. Cupid by Sam CookeReport

    1. Oddly, me and all my friends have basically been listening to the new Against Me! album nonstop.

       Totes can’t figure out why! 🙂Report

11. Might need to put some Fields or Stars or a standard up next.Report

12. I posted this as my last DJing of the night:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDLwivcpFe8Report

13. I just played them all at once. It was neither as glorious as I’d hoped nor as disastrous as I’d feared.Report

    1. If you do that with some of my electronic music posts, you can’t even tell any difference at all.Report

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