The Year in Music 2003: Where Are They Now?
So I went for a little run this morning on the apartment treadmill. I pulled out my Rio mp3 player that I bought in 2003 -- an mp3 player that is so obsolete two years later that most people think it's a heart monitor. To go along with this 2003 theme that I created for myself, I decided to open up my Best of 2003 playlist that I had created in 2003 and copy that onto my mp3 player. The results were astounding, and left me pondering: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ALL'A Y'ALL?!
THE RAPTURE
You bastards! Where the HELL have you gone? Their 2003 album Echoes two years later is still just as genius (and potentially MORE genius than ever.) The cowbell of "House of Jealous Lovers" has perhaps never been as relevent as it is in music today. Okay, that may be a bit of an overstatement. Regardless, these bastards have somehow been usurped by the DFA, just because they're, like, their "protege's" or something pretentious like that. Well, screw that. C'mon, monkeys with crazy hair, put out another damn album, or at least announce that you self-destructed after your debut album to prove that it's impossible to improve upon perfection. Or, maybe they just watched Interpol crash and burn with their sophobore album Antics and decided that they didn't want to suffer the same fate. Regardless, send the word to me, monkey boys.
t.A.T.u.
I'm not gonna lie -- I love this duo, and it has nothing to do with their kitchy faux-lesbian act. Okay, it has pretty much everything to do with that. But damn! Try running to a blasting techno beat with two of Alvin's backup chipmunk singers shrieking about how "they're" not gonna "get us" and see if you are not convinced of their brilliance. Where are they now? I guess they put out a new album this year and cut out the lesbian action. Yawn. When you look like that, you don't need to make artistic statements. Where are Tegan and Sara when you need them?
THE POSTAL SERVICE
"Whoa! Dudes! Have you heard of this group called The Post Office before? They sound like some of that weird techno stuff, but they have a guy that sounds exactly like that O.C. guy singing! It's craaaaaaazy! I'm putting it on at this frat party right after my Jack Johnson CD is done. That dude is so freaking DEEP like the ocean that he surfs on!" In my skewed perception of my selfishly-contained musical obsessions, this is what the masses are generally saying about The Postal Service, the band of this group that has aged the best/worst of them all. First off, Mr. Jimmy Tamborello is continually being re-inforced as a genius. A trip through this record a few times on headphones will reveal about 18 gajillion layers of sounds that all coalesce to create magic. It's true. And he's recording a new album with Dntel right now, so he's TOTALLY off the hook (both in the sense of not being in trouble by a grouchy pretentious blogger and in the "off da' hook" sense.)
As you might have guessed, though, Mr. Gibbard is totally NOT off 'da hook. Frankly, I've realized that Gibbard's vocals do, indeed, sound pretty and are generally well performed. But, if you take the words of his songs (and especially the Postal Service songs) out of context and put them in paper, what you get is a train wreck, especially the lyric "I will block the door like a goalie tending the net in the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry."
First off, as I have previously mentioned somewhere in the blogosphere before, if it is indeed HOCKEY that Gibbard is talking about here, here's a tip: HOCKEY OPERATES IN PERIODS, NOT QUARTERS. THERE ARE THREE PERIODS. YOU CAN'T HAVE THREE QUARTERS. (Whew, that felt good.) Secondly, these lyrics on this album are, at best, trite high school musings. We all know where he is now, so maybe we can all point to this album as the beginning of the end for Gibbard's loss of touch with his lyrics. Regardless, the new album that is supposedly in the works looks to be an absolute disaster.
ON THE NEXT "The Year In Music," scheduled to air in 2007, Qualler tackles 2005 superstar Sufjan Stevens and his collaboration with Moby and their subsequent techno-folk-rock album "Come On! Feel the Corporate Sponsorship!"
THE RAPTUREYou bastards! Where the HELL have you gone? Their 2003 album Echoes two years later is still just as genius (and potentially MORE genius than ever.) The cowbell of "House of Jealous Lovers" has perhaps never been as relevent as it is in music today. Okay, that may be a bit of an overstatement. Regardless, these bastards have somehow been usurped by the DFA, just because they're, like, their "protege's" or something pretentious like that. Well, screw that. C'mon, monkeys with crazy hair, put out another damn album, or at least announce that you self-destructed after your debut album to prove that it's impossible to improve upon perfection. Or, maybe they just watched Interpol crash and burn with their sophobore album Antics and decided that they didn't want to suffer the same fate. Regardless, send the word to me, monkey boys.
t.A.T.u.
I'm not gonna lie -- I love this duo, and it has nothing to do with their kitchy faux-lesbian act. Okay, it has pretty much everything to do with that. But damn! Try running to a blasting techno beat with two of Alvin's backup chipmunk singers shrieking about how "they're" not gonna "get us" and see if you are not convinced of their brilliance. Where are they now? I guess they put out a new album this year and cut out the lesbian action. Yawn. When you look like that, you don't need to make artistic statements. Where are Tegan and Sara when you need them?
THE POSTAL SERVICE"Whoa! Dudes! Have you heard of this group called The Post Office before? They sound like some of that weird techno stuff, but they have a guy that sounds exactly like that O.C. guy singing! It's craaaaaaazy! I'm putting it on at this frat party right after my Jack Johnson CD is done. That dude is so freaking DEEP like the ocean that he surfs on!" In my skewed perception of my selfishly-contained musical obsessions, this is what the masses are generally saying about The Postal Service, the band of this group that has aged the best/worst of them all. First off, Mr. Jimmy Tamborello is continually being re-inforced as a genius. A trip through this record a few times on headphones will reveal about 18 gajillion layers of sounds that all coalesce to create magic. It's true. And he's recording a new album with Dntel right now, so he's TOTALLY off the hook (both in the sense of not being in trouble by a grouchy pretentious blogger and in the "off da' hook" sense.)
As you might have guessed, though, Mr. Gibbard is totally NOT off 'da hook. Frankly, I've realized that Gibbard's vocals do, indeed, sound pretty and are generally well performed. But, if you take the words of his songs (and especially the Postal Service songs) out of context and put them in paper, what you get is a train wreck, especially the lyric "I will block the door like a goalie tending the net in the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry."
First off, as I have previously mentioned somewhere in the blogosphere before, if it is indeed HOCKEY that Gibbard is talking about here, here's a tip: HOCKEY OPERATES IN PERIODS, NOT QUARTERS. THERE ARE THREE PERIODS. YOU CAN'T HAVE THREE QUARTERS. (Whew, that felt good.) Secondly, these lyrics on this album are, at best, trite high school musings. We all know where he is now, so maybe we can all point to this album as the beginning of the end for Gibbard's loss of touch with his lyrics. Regardless, the new album that is supposedly in the works looks to be an absolute disaster.
ON THE NEXT "The Year In Music," scheduled to air in 2007, Qualler tackles 2005 superstar Sufjan Stevens and his collaboration with Moby and their subsequent techno-folk-rock album "Come On! Feel the Corporate Sponsorship!"
This entry was posted by Unknown, on
Tuesday, November 22, 2005.
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You can have three quarters. It's three out of four.
But the point is there are only three time periods in a hockey game, and they are not divided into quarters. If he said the third "third" he would be more accurate.
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