F Ferdinand

Deserves its own thread I think.

No copies at Borders Metro Center (but they think they haven't unpacked 'em yet).

I thought the metacritic reader reviews at the bottom were funny, in the midst of:

9.1 from Pitchfork, "Like all lasting records, Franz Ferdinand steps up to the plate and boldly bangs on the door to stardom. There's no consideration for what trends have just come and gone. There's no waffling or concessions for people who won't get it."

9 from NME, "It marks the dawning of an era of British music that isnâ??t just for the casual petrol shop consumer, but stuff so important that you can give yourself to it completely. This is the album thatâ??s going kick open the door for all the great British bands thatâ??ll sweep through in their wake."

9 from Playlouder, "they have indeed made The Album That Saved Indie."

======================

Tim B. gave it a 0:
Why is it that all these no name bands get great reviews. All these indie/art rock bands are nothing and will never be remembered for anything.

Pet E gave it a 0:
WOW! It's the post-grunge recreation of the Talking Heads. Let me go kill David Byrne so he can roll in his grave.

Well, I know the reviewer working on it for BigYawn.net, and she likes it a lot. I doubt it will be a 9…well at least I hope not. I've heard it a few times, and some of the songs are really catchy, but others are your garden variety garage rock.

DJ Strange found their CD today at the Olsson's downtown (418 7th Street, N.W.). Sale price was $11.99. Apparently there are 2 or so copies left in their shop now.

Cheers

DJ Medusa.

Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks, yet they give any run of the mill shit indie rock album a 6.5. How are they going to have any credibility doing shit like that?

Maybe Pitchfork does suck, and maybe these aren't alt country but they gave yankee hotel foxtrot a 10, a lucinda williams album a 9.2, and the most recent neko case album a 7.9. Exceptions that prove the rule?

Anyway. There are a couple of tracks in the middle of the franz ferdinand album that wouldn't be out of place in any run of the mill garage rock post punk etc revival album, but there are also a lot of fantastic tunes on there. and michael would make even a homophobe "get down". i can't believe i wrote that. oh well.

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks,

Or maybe, just maybe, pitchfork is onto something.

Rhett, I noticed an alt.country music mag at Borders called "No Depression." It looked cool because under the title it noted, "a bimonthly magazine covering alternative-country music (whatever that is)." There's a website, though they note there it's primarily a paper magazine. HEY, maybe you could work with them to start a no depression bulletin board!

Thanks.

They have been around since 1995 in paper form. The magazine actually started as an extension of a no depression chat group (on aol or yahoo or something like that), and got it's name from an Unclue Tupelo album, which had taken the name from a Carter Family song.

Their reviews are actually pretty boring. Almost always positive. Not critical enough. Except for Ryan Adams. They hate Ryan Adams. As well they should.

Originally posted by Bags:
Rhett, I noticed an alt.country music mag at Borders called "No Depression." It looked cool because under the title it noted, "a bimonthly magazine covering alternative-country music (whatever that is)." There's a website, though they note there it's primarily a paper magazine. HEY, maybe you could work with them to start a no depression bulletin board!

Originally posted by Bags:
Rhett, I noticed an alt.country music mag at Borders called "No Depression." It looked cool because under the title it noted, "a bimonthly magazine covering alternative-country music (whatever that is)." There's a website, though they note there it's primarily a paper magazine. HEY, maybe you could work with them to start a no depression bulletin board!

Bags you probably think of this as a good thing, but you just proved how little you know about alt country. ;)

Originally posted by pollard:
Bags you probably think of this as a good thing, but you just proved how little you know about alt country. ;)

1) I don't mind in the least if everyone thinks/knows/swears I know nothing of alt.country.
2) How so? Does everyone know this mag? I peruse music mag racks quite often, and I've never seen it before.
3) Wouldn't moderating a separate alt.country bboard keep balls awfully busy?

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks, yet they give any run of the mill shit indie rock album a 6.5. How are they going to have any credibility doing shit like that?

YHF = 10.0

Summer Teeth = 9.4

Decoration Day = 8.0

Sebastapol = 7.7

Hell Among the Yearlings = 8.7 Her other albums were 8.6, 8.1, 7.7.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road = 9.2

Their reviews are actually pretty boring. Almost always positive. Not critical enough. Except for Ryan Adams. They hate Ryan Adams. As well they should.

they love Alejandro Escovedo though - I think they named him artist of the decade a few years ago

I was referring more to this idiot's review, as well as his general condecension toward alt-country. I've read simliar condescension in other reviews:

This is why alt-country sucks.

Willard Grant Conspiracy
Regard the End
[Kimchee; 2004]
Rating: 3.9
Have you ever wondered whether alt-country is representing its electorate? All these sorry tales of murder, blood-spilt love and the dead cow skulls scattered by gravel roads have become so synonymous with the music of the Midwest and the songs of the South, that it becomes easy to lose perspective. Are the likes of Houston and Omaha really the barren, backwards dustbowl towns you hear of in songs? Are there no people who wear suits, drive foreign cars, sip lattés and read the New York Times while making snide remarks about Bush? Yes, of course there are. So why doesn't the music ever reflect that?
The Willard Grant Conspiracy is another clichéd country band, another bunch of blues-ridden, fire-and-brimstone missionaries whose opaque, gothic hymnals add to the myth of Americana. They've never been great, even back to 1998's sort-of well regarded Flying Low, a record that, in retrospect, seems virtually identical to all their others. Now on their fifth record, the band has shown no signs of growth, and the fact that their core partnership of frontman Robert Foster and guitarist Paul Austin is augmented by an alumni of assorted waifs, strays and passers-by (including Kristin Hersh, and members of Lambchop and The Walkabouts) does nothing to alleviate the sameness of what is essentially another set of safe, formulaic ballads for the No Depression set.
By all measures, Regard the End is a conventionally "beautiful" record. Robert Fisher's bass-tinged voice can stretch from meek and tender to intense and bellowing, with an aged wisdom that adds grace and gravity to tracks like the near-Celtic lament "Beyond the Shore". They've also got the knack for "tasteful" arrangements. On the pompously titled "Ghost of the Girl in the Well", guitars strum and shimmer in line with Foster's voice while a bored rhythm section reminds the band to stay awake. Strings sway, shiver, and flail helplessly, reaching for a heartstring to grab.
Yet, for the most part, The Willard Grant Conspiracy are grabbing at thin air. On tracks like "Rosalee", you're stunned by the utterly formulaic approach to some of the songwriting. As an acoustic guitar sparks up its folksy strum, Foster dictates a tale of a girl that refuses to speak with all the melodic distinctiveness of a Dave Matthews tune, before a violin takes its cue, embellishing the song with some unnecessary attention-seeking. This cycle repeats itself for 3½ minutes before stumbling to a failed, idea-drained finish.
And then there's the suffering– lots of it, all over the album– not all of which belongs to the bored-to-tears listener. On closing track "The Suffering Song", Foster moans about how "mother's got a few days left/ She thinks it's time we all learnt to pray." And as the song climbs to its climax, with the rousing chorus of "suffering's going to come to everyone someday," you certainly get the sense that, well, he might be suffering a bit.
But suffering from what? What infuriates most about this record is not its rigid predictability, its absence of invention or its reliance on tired-out alt-country clich̩s; it's the fact that throughout Regard the End, the songs rely on only the vaguest utterances of emotion, amounting to little more than a bad landscape paintingРall grand brushstrokes, no substance or detail. It seems that the band is fully competent of evoking a mood, but incapable of articulating why.
Rarely has a genre sounded so tried and tired, so forced, formulaic and reliant on its own mythology as country music is made to sound on Regard the End. Though its application and musicianship is admirable, its lack of lyrical argument or narrative leave us with a canon of paceless funereal laments that conjure endless feelings of enforced sadness without explanation. In a field full of fellow lovesick souls, these are failings we simply shouldn't have to accept.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks, yet they give any run of the mill shit indie rock album a 6.5. How are they going to have any credibility doing shit like that?

YHF = 10.0

Summer Teeth = 9.4

Decoration Day = 8.0

Sebastapol = 7.7

Hell Among the Yearlings = 8.7 Her other albums were 8.6, 8.1, 7.7.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road = 9.2

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
I was referring more to this idiot's review, as well as his general condecension toward alt-country. I've read simliar condescension in other reviews.

Condescension is the new Irony.


You're just pissed that this pretty-boy couldn't muster anything above 6.7

Originally posted by brennser:

Their reviews are actually pretty boring. Almost always positive. Not critical enough. Except for Ryan Adams. They hate Ryan Adams. As well they should.

they love Alejandro Escovedo though - I think they named him artist of the decade a few years ago

Is he *puts both hands up with two fingers wagging* alt country? *puts them down again*?

I've heard quite a few of his songs on xm and liked them all. Ryan Adams is utter bobbins though.

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks, yet they give any run of the mill shit indie rock album a 6.5. How are they going to have any credibility doing shit like that?

6.0-6.9: Has its moments, but isn't strong

A score of 6.X is hardly much of a recomendation.

I was referring more to this idiot's review, as well as his general condecension toward alt-country.

so you're making a sweeping generalization based on a sample size of 1….and you call yourself a statistician….

Originally posted by mark e smith:

Originally posted by Venerable Balls:
Pitchdork is populated by a bunch of idiots. They think all alt-country sucks, yet they give any run of the mill shit indie rock album a 6.5. How are they going to have any credibility doing shit like that?

6.0-6.9: Has its moments, but isn't strong

A score of 6.X is hardly much of a recomendation.

Unless of course it's from the French judge, at which point the Canucks will start belly-aching about it.

Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Condescension is the new Irony.

ha ha

I really like that Willard Grant Conspiracy disk that he shat upon.

"Being There," Wilco's last "alt-country" album only got a 6.8. I still think this is Wilco's best album.