Los Campesinos! -- ROMANCE IS BORING

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Almost two years ago, the PopMatters review of Hold On Now, Youngster..., the debut LP of Cardiff-based septet Los Campesinos!, ended thusly:

"Los Campesinos! are the first band of my own generation I have ever had real, honest-to-goodness faith in. I believe in these guys, and I swear to you that I have the standard issue Internet-scribe pragmatic shield against hype. Like a lot of contemporaries, overly explicit proclamations of ambition/belief/love tend to make me squeamish. But I have started buttonholing friends and making them listen to this album. Cynics and those who just don’t feel it may claim instead that this is, at best, just a collection of good songs, with witty lyrics, without much dynamic variation; but I tell you today, five or ten or 20 years from now, the only way we won’t be speaking of Hold on Now, Youngster… as a classic will be if Los Campesinos! have already topped it."

The band very nearly DID top it, of course, a mere six months later. The second album (or "release," as they called it) was We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed.

Now, the band is getting set to release their third album--Romance Is Boring. Details are here:

Romance Is Boring ? LC!

They have released a phenomenal single with a shitty video. It is called "There Are Listed Buildings." Here:

VIDEO: There Are Listed Buildings ? LC!

They also put out another song from the record as a kind of teaser, along with a less-shitty video. That one is called "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future." Here:

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future ? LC!

Like last time, much to the dismay of u2pm, I am starting up a new thread to talk about the new album "with the same four people who post in the other one." It is now that I bid a fond farewell to, by FAR, my most successful thread in my 5 years on Interference:

http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f221/los-campesinos-we-are-beautiful-we-are-doomed-189615.html

I'll be quite pleased if this one is even half as much fun, and the music is even half as brilliant. Let's go.

If you inexplicably don't already love the band, you will after these (played at full-ass volume, mind)...


YouTube - Los Campesinos - We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives


YouTube - Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing!


YouTube - The International Tweexcore Underground


YouTube - My Year In Lists


YouTube - Death To Los Campesinos!


YouTube - Los Campesinos! - Miserabilia


YouTube - Los Campesinos! - You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing


As usual, a coda:

And I always get confused,
because in supermarkets, they turn the lights off when they want you to leave,
but in discos, they turn them on.
And it's always sad to go. But it's never that sad,
because there's only so many places you're guaranteed on getting a hug, when you leave.
And then, on the way home, it always seems like a good idea to go paddling in the fountain.
And that's because it IS a good idea.
And we're just like how Rousseau depicts man in the state of nature:
we're undeveloped, we're ignorant, we're stupid.
But we're happy.
 
One thing I love so much about "My Year in Lists" is how much it always leaves me wanting more. You'd think that's a bad thing, but the fact that it clocks in at under two minutes only makes it even more captivating to me. Definitely on my Mt. Rushmore of LC! tunes.

And just for shits, let's take a look at that Mt. Rushmore:

"My Year in Lists"
"You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing"
"Miserabilia"
"The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future"
 
The brevity thing worked pretty well for The Beatles, and it works just as well, these days. You are right to mention it, re: "Lists."
 
I've been trying to convince myself I can like this band for a while now.

:sigh: It just isn't happening.
 
I've sorta grown bored of these guys, and feel like I drastically overrated them last year, so the album title is a bit ironic for me. Regardless, I'm sure I'll buy it and give it a shot when it comes out, but I'm not even interested enough to listen to the single at this point.
 
Says the guy with the Calista Flockhart avatar.

But you should seriously at least listen to "The Sea..."
 
My THE CAMP! Mt. Rushmore:

We Are All Accelerated Readers
Death to Los Campesinos!
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1
 
I'd like this to leak immediately, but I'll tell you who is no fan of that album cover:

Charlie_Kelly.jpg



"Cover your knees up if you're going to be walking around everywhere."
 
Interview with Tom:

2010 Preview: "Death and football" Los Campesinos! new record / In Depth // Drowned In Sound

Pretty good, actually. ...Well, apart from when the interviewer seems accidentally to introduce LC!'s guitarist as Slash. Whatever. Getting excited. And curious/anxious. More curious about how I'll react to the record than anything else. I spoke in the random thread and have made many references to how much different-for-me music I've been taking in, this year, and it couldn't be much further from the LC!iverse. I wonder how it'll sit with me. All I know, so far, is that I've not listened to one of the LPs, from start to finish, for months (though my adoration hasn't actually waned...just been busy with other shiz), and that, love them as I do (and I do), I have also failed to spend too much time with the two new songs.

Time will tell. So, yeah...getting very excited.
 
I didn't want to listen to the songs too much because I don't want to be bored by them when the album does come out.

So I've only heard them each like twice.
 
Also, that interviewer gets a major FAIL for not mentioning Aleks and her input in what could be her last sessions with the band.

Idiot.
 
You are a stronger man than I, sir. By the time Youngster came out, thanks to Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, I'd already listened to "You! Me! Dancing!" 76 times on iTunes, alone. I remember this because it was terrifying, and because it happened in just a few months. I mean, it was on the EP first, but there you go. I feared burning out, as well, but then I listened to it again and again and again and again, once the record came out. One has to measure the number of iTunes listens with powers of ten, I think, at this point.
 
I've been keeping the LC! chastity belt locked myself actually, having not even listened to "There Are Listed Buildings" yet. But that's sort of negated by the ridiculous amount of spins I've given "The Sea..." since I love it so.
 
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