My first music post of 2007

Well, Eddie Murphy ruined this year's "the Oscars are predictable" rant by making Norbit and reminding everybody of the kind of crap he's been doing for almost two decades. Plus, putting Eddie Murphy in that sort of spotlight apparently started reminding people that he's kind of a dick. Or at least creepily eccentric. So I was glad to see that upset happen.

And now, after a break of sorts, back to the regularly scheduled music-related posting. I could break this thing up into a half dozen posts, but I'm too lazy to do that much writing. So instead, here are:

Music Reviews That Are So Short That They Are Pointless: 2007 Edition

Yaaay! Excited? Here we go.

Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity - I've never really understood a lot of what people write about Deerhoof. For one thing, having a Japanese woman singing has inspired a lot of weirdly misguided descriptions of their sound. "Yoko Ono meets the B-52s." Whaaa? Also, I don't really buy the conventional wisdom that they're only now, with their last couple albums, becoming "accessible" or whatever. They've always had the "pop" side and the "weird" side, as far as I can tell. Anyway, Friend Opportunity is really good. "The Perfect Me" is one of the best songs I've heard so far this year, and a hell of a way to kick off an album. It's a great explosive album opening song in the vein of... *racks brain* "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2? "Baba O'Riley?" "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" from Thriller? I'm having trouble with this one. Anyway, the whole thing is good, but I don't feel like writing much about it. "The Perfect Me" has a cute li'l video which can be viewed here.

Dr. Dog - We All Belong - West Philly dudes getting bigger by the day. Dr. Dog will never be anybody's favorite band, and they'll never release any great albums, but they'll probably have a solid career releasing charming lo-fi throwback pop and encouraging drunken sing-alongs at their shows. This is another one for my "ridiculously derivative music is ok if it sounds like 60s pop" collection (and now that I'm reading that item, I see I actually mentioned Dr. Dog in it). Here's my suggestion to Dr. Dog: for the next album, hire Darian Sahanaja to produce, and he'll clean up that sound and sharpen those harmonies. Then those string and horn flourishes won't sound so out of place, and I'll really like ya.

Deerhunter - Cryptograms - Here is what the birth of this album sounded like: "Hey guys, I just got this delay pedal, you think we can use it for anything?" Apparently all it takes to make music that is considered "experimental" is to surround a bunch of generic "indie rock" songs with a bunch of echo-laden guitar. Oh wait, I guess they crammed those boring "soundscape" things in there too. Those are no more or less interesting than the stuff I do when I'm screwing around with my guitar (and my delay pedal) by myself when I'm bored. The whole affair is mind-numbingly average.

Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? - This is supposedly Kevin Barnes' breakup album, except he got back together with his wife, so... whatever. It starts shaping up like the best Of Montreal album I've heard, then it runs smack into a brick wall 'round about track 7, a 12 minute exercise in repetition called "The Past is a Grotesque Animal." It is beyond boring. It completely kills the album's momentum, and by the time the damn thing finally wraps up, I have a hard time actually paying attention to the remaining five songs. I could go on about why that track is so stupid, but I don't feel like it. The rest of it is fairly good. If they cut out that one song, they'd have a damn good album on their hands.

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone - Most discussions of Explosions in the Sky start with acknowledging that the stupidly named genre of "post rock" lends itself by its nature to a sort of repetition and sameness, which makes it ok that this album sounds exactly the same as the last one. I call bullshit on that. Let's think about what most people consider to be the biggest names in the genre. Have Mogwai ever released two albums that sound the same? Have Do Make Say Think? Tortoise? Even Godspeed You Black Emperor! has managed to vary it up, and when they found themselves unable to do so they went on an indefinite hiatus. So with that said, the new Explosions in the Sky album sounds exactly like their last one. And all the songs sound the same too. I think it's boring and pointless.