Random Music Talk LXVIII: Antipodean Sporting Edition

[LemonMelon]

What I've been wearing all winter

At least you took the sticker off

 

[djerdap]

Am I a bad person if I think this is my favourite Boner moment of the last decade?

U2 Live - Bono Angry: Madison Square Garden - YouTube

 

[Joey788]

For all you fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, they just announced their first new album in a decade.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Announce First New Album in a Decade | News | Pitchfork

 

[PhilsFan]

What I've been wearing all winter

You literally have the worst two Major League Baseball headwear items you could possibly have. Friggin' Cobbler.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I mean, the only alternative to him leaving the woods voluntarily is if he was chased out of it by a bear or something, which is a far more interesting idea for a song.

dragged out of the woods and thrown into a volcano

 

[cobl04]

You literally have the worst two Major League Baseball headwear items you could possibly have. Friggin' Cobbler.

I don't actually have the Yankees beanie, just wanted to gauge the reaction

 

[u2popmofo]

For all you fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, they just announced their first new album in a decade.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor Announce First New Album in a Decade | News | Pitchfork

Even though I find them a bit overrated, this still excites me.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

Am I a bad person if I think this is my favourite Boner moment of the last decade?

My favorite Bono moment of the last decade was that time he had sex with Penelope Cruz.

 

[lazarus]

My favorite Bono moment of the last decade was that time he had sex with Penelope Cruz.

Watch it, GAF.

 

[bono_212]

Agreed. But every time I hear it now, I see Bill Clinton on the Arsenio Hall show. Thanks for that.

Same here, except, for some reason it makes me like it 100% more.

Is Cee Lo Green really coming out with a Christmas album? Is there still a market for Christmas albums from pop figures? So many questions.

Blake Shelton is too. When will Christina and Adam jump on board?

 

[IWasBored]

Yes.

You know what isn't worth anyone's money? The new Mumford & Sons album. Good Lord, what a useless pile of crap. I enjoyed their debut, but that album exhibited, like, subtle differences between the songs. I truly can't tell the songs apart on Babel. They're all exactly the same in every way, and none of them come close to the overplayed but decent singles on Sigh No More. It's like they just took Little Lion Man and wrote it 12 more times, with greatly diminishing results. And the lyrics are so fucking terrible, which is a shame because it's fucking psuedo-indie folk rock, which means the vocals are up way too loud and you can hear every word muttered.

Seriously, pick any song on the album and the word "heart" will be in there somewhere. Could be an icy heart, could be a warm heart, could be a wooden heart, could be a steel heart. Even Bono would blush at their shamelessness. And none of the lyrics make sense. Like, "I can take the road and I can fuck it all the way" is nonsense, but then there are entire verses of this crap:

You heard my voice
I came out of the woods by choice
The shelter also gave the shade
But in the dark I have no name

What the hell does that even mean? Read it, think about it. It's barely English. It reads like something a poet would write, but it's basically word salad, only utilizing words that are typically associated with earnest, poetic feelings, but in this case aren't. At all.

Fuck this band.

You weren't surprised, though, right?

Maybe it's just because I thought the singles off the last album were 1) terrible 2) trying too hard 3) being undeservedly hailed as something new and creative, but the image I was getting was that the band and their fans believe that they're the exact opposite of those things. When a band like that puts out its next album, and their fanbase is primarily a crowd of mindless zombies who get their new music from the radio, of course they're going to put out something that is the very definition of sophomore slump.

I don't really know anything about the band. I've heard the lion man song, I've heard the other one that sounded exactly like it, and some third song recently that I'm assuming is the new single that did indeed sound like an even more lifeless version of the other ones. Hey, maybe there was some merit to the previous singles since at least I could hate them. This new one was too boring to waste the energy caring positively or negatively about its existence. I saw some clip of them covering the national, and I guess from that I can't make any real evidence-based judgement as to whether the dude with the banjo is diabolical or naive, intentional or a tool, designing the band in a certain way for maximum profit or an earnest puppet for someone else more cynical...either way, I would have been more surprised if they had done an album that wasn't a direct rip off of the one that made them popular. It's not a strategy that works on people who actually listen to music, but it sure does work on thossezombies.

 

[bono_212]

Well anyways, again, as a fan of the band, and not a zombie, I'm really really upset by how horrible their new album is.

 

[bono_212]

Um...Guys....so, this just happened:

GWAR covers Kansas | Music | A.V. Undercover 2012 | The A.V. Club

 

[HeartlandGirl]

IWB, you pretty much summed up exactly how I feel about Mumford & Sons. To the letter. If I'd ever cared enough about them to write it down.

Agreeing completely with LeMel: Fuck that band.

 

[LemonMelon]

Just so I don't feel like I'm throwing around unfounded claims about shitty bands, I went back and counted, and 8 of the 12 songs on Babel had the word "heart" in it.

Also, I found this great, great verse in the process:

But oh, my heart was flawed
I knew my weakness
So hold my hand
Consign me not to darkness

I can hear the bloomers peeling now.

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

For the northern hemisphere audience:
Here is a song for the upcoming Winter:

Zola Jesus - Skin - YouTube

 

[IWasBored]

Well anyways, again, as a fan of the band, and not a zombie, I'm really really upset by how horrible their new album is.

Of course you're not a zombie. Mofo would have destroyed you by now.

 

[IWasBored]

Just so I don't feel like I'm throwing around unfounded claims about shitty bands, I went back and counted, and 8 of the 12 songs on Babel had the word "heart" in it.

Also, I found this great, great verse in the process:

But oh, my heart was flawed
I knew my weakness
So hold my hand
Consign me not to darkness

I can hear the bloomers peeling now.

Haha. Do they all end in dark/darkness? The last one your quoted did too.

 

[IWasBored]

Um...Guys....so, this just happened:

GWAR covers Kansas | Music | A.V. Undercover 2012 | The A.V. Club

That is amazing.

 

[u2popmofo]

Sufjan Stevens Announces New Christmas Box Set | News | Pitchfork

It features guest appearances from the National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry, Age of Adz collaborator Cat Martino, Inlets' Sebastian Krueger, Gabriel Kahane, Vesper Stamper, Raymond Raposa of Castinets, and members of Danielson, among others.

I was just hoping for a one disc EP, very nice.

 

[Popmartijn]

Well anyways, again, as a fan of the band, and not a zombie, I'm really really upset by how horrible their new album is.

Thanks for saving me money on buying that one.
*thought the last one was pretty good, with a couple of excellent tunes*

 

[HeartlandGirl]

For the northern hemisphere audience:
Here is a song for the upcoming Winter:

Zola Jesus - Skin - YouTube

Very pretty. And very wintry.

Thanks for posting.

 

[corianderstem]

I thought the Mumford & Sons album was nice on first listen. Yeah, "nice." That's not a raving compliment, but honestly, I do not understand what it is about the band that inspires such love or such hate.

 

[IWasBored]

I thought the Mumford & Sons album was nice on first listen. Yeah, "nice." That's not a raving compliment, but honestly, I do not understand what it is about the band that inspires such love or such hate.

They probably wouldn't inspire too much hate on their own, because the music is too bland and boring. I don't think it would be memorable if it wasn't for them being overplayed and overhyped. And I hardly ever listen to the radio. If I could remember to bring my iPod to work every day, rather than forget it at home every couple weeks, I'd probably have forgotten they ever existed. But since overplaying and overhyping has destroyed bands for me that I've liked, with bands I disliked initially it becomes loathing.

 

[PhilsFan]

Yeah, it's simply hate for the hype.

 

[cobl04]

Yep. I have a friend who considers them the greatest band of the past decade.

 

[LemonMelon]

Mumford & Sons getting credited for reviving traditional folk music or some shit is what really drives me up the wall. I hear at least 3-4 new albums a year that sound just like their music, except better.

 

[Dalton]

I love the new album.

 

[Dalton]

Then again, I have almost supernaturally good taste in music.

 

[LemonMelon]