We broke out of the shackles of our free wordpress blog and stepped up into the real world of online music publication. Check out the new digs. A lot of changes will be happening there over the next few weeks, mostly because I can’t decide on a proper theme for the life of me. Anyway, our first major post will be our Tops of 2008 post. Dont miss it!
21
Dec
08
Ready to Make the Move
Alright, good news, everyone. The domain is mine, the hosting is up and running, I just have to wait for the DNS to propogate itself (24-48 hours, ugh, I know), and work on the new website will commence. Expect posts on FidelityCastro.com to begin with the week. Exciting!
21
Dec
08
Winner and a Loser
Erlend Oye has pretty much pegged the entire experience of a college house party, and tied it up into a nice little 4 and a half minute package behind one of the smoothest electronica beats I’ve heard.
(Make sure to appreciate how awesome the lyrics are)
There is only one other song in my collection I believe it can be said is about throwing a badass house party, and I find the contrast between the two interesting. Listening to LCD Soundsystem’s track, Daft Punk is Playing at My House, is so infectiously dance crazed it doesn’t even feel like your at a party, bitch, you are the party.
Erlend’s song, on the other hand, is more existential, like watching a real shitfest go down from behind a two way mirror. Appreciative, but indifferent.
Erlend Oye – Every Party Has a Winner and a Loser
LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
(To be honest, though, I hesitate to post this track of LCD Soundsystem because it doesn’t show you how awesome they really are. Look up their well documented awesomeness in their new((ish)) LP, Sound of Silver)
20
Dec
08
Back Home
I hate flying. There’s always some crying baby, or some person lookin’ at ya funny, or some asshole in front of you jerkin around in his seat every five seconds so you can never concentrate on your book because your knees are dug so far into the back of the seat because of the airlines complete incapacity to seat a person over 6 feet tall comfortably….
sigh…OK. Well, I’m back home in Houston now, and I just couldn’t resist the tempation to post this song. Not only is it perfect for the moment, it’s my favorite track off of the 2006 album The Loon by Tapes ‘n Tapes. They have a real interesting brand of Indie Rock that is definitely all their own.
Site move to FidelityCastro.com coming soon!
50 Ponytail – Ice Cream Spiritual
49 Crystal Stilts – Alight Of Night
48 High Places – High Places
47 The Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Grave
46 Beach House – Devotion
45 Lykke Li – Youth Novels
44 Marnie Stern – This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
43 Shearwater – Rook
42 Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Lie Down in the Light
41 David Byrne and Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
40 The Very Best – Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit are the Very Best
39 Times New Viking – Rip It Off
38 The Bug – London Zoo
37 Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
36 Wale – The Mixtape About Nothing
35 Girl Talk – Feed the Animals
34 Arthur Russell – Love Is Overtaking Me
33 Frightened Rabbit – Midnight Organ Fight
32 Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
31 Fennesz – Black Sea
30 Los Campesinos! – Hold on Now, Youngster…
29 The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
28 Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
27 Max Tundra – Parallax Error Beheads You
26 Atlas Sound – Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
25 Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances
24 Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna
23 Hot Chip – Made in the Dark
22 Santogold – Santogold
21 Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak
20 Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing
19 The Walkmen – You & Me
18 The Mae Shi – HLLLYH
17 Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life
16 Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls
15 Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
14 Air France – No Way Down
13 Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
12 Lindstrøm – Where You Go I Go Too
11 Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
10 DJ/rupture – Uproot
09 Hercules and Love Affair – Hercules and Love Affair
08 M83 – Saturdays=Youth
07 Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
06 TV On The Radio – Dear Science
05 Deerhunter – Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.
04 Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours
03 No Age – Nouns
02 Portishead – Third
01 Fleet Foxes – Sun Giant EP/Fleet Foxes
Wow. Portishead SECOND? really? No age? Cut Copy? Look, these are all great albums, no ones arguing that. And the burden of Pitchfork putting out a top albums of the year list is they have to try and please everyone while still trying to make the list seem edgy and unpredictably tasteful. But if things were my way, there is a lot of artists between 20 and 50 that should be in the top 20.
Luckily, MY top albums of 2008 list will be here soon, then we will see whats what. Just thought you should know what the big boys think.
19
Dec
08
Waiting for Something
When you’ve been sitting in this room for hours and hours, just waiting for the day to pass by your window, listening to the best and most confusing blistering fuzzy noisy thick sounds 2008 has to offer all day, sometimes you just need some punk revival to kick you in the ass and make you bang your head alone in your room until you get a headache.
You didn’t know? That’s what Jay Reatard specializes in. The first time I listened to his album, Blood Visions, my face literally melted off. Had to get skin grafts.
Seriously.
Also, that’s the undisputed most awesomely disturbing album cover ever.
In all seriousness though, anyone who knows about this guy knows hes been doing his thing for years and its about time he got recognized for the legendary status he holds in a lot of our minds. Check him out.
19
Dec
08
Subterranean Homesick Alien
Quickly becoming a ghost town all around me. Everywhere except my living room at three o’ clock in the morning, when my room mate decides to come home with four drunk friends. Awesome. I was only going to sleep for another hour anyway. I’ll be home tomorrow, to the things and people (person) who know me best. Refreshing. I’ll be able to put a good amount of focus into getting the new site up and running, hopefully before the new year hits us.
So, on the eve of my return home, cooped up in my apartment with the blinds closed, I feel this song describes me pretty well. It’s a cover of a track off of Radiohead’s album, Ok Computer, titled “Subterranean Homesick Alien”. The cover is done by the Easy Star All Stars, who are most notable for their complete Reggae/Dub reinterpretations of both Ok Computer (Re-entitled Radiodread), and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (Re-entitled Dub Side of the Moon. The reinterpretation of the album has a lot to offer to Dub and Reggae lovers, and it’s a great way to introduce someone who may be a fan of Radiohead into those genres.
So, in the process of trying to get all my marbles together to write my year-end best albums of 2008 post, I just ran into too many troubles trying to make it as cool as I wanted to. I’ve decided to leave this silly wordpress.com url and invest a little bit of money into some hosting and a URL of my very own. I decided a Best of 2008 post was a better way to start a new blog than to end a failed one. So if anyone out there enjoys what they saw on this site, stay tuned and within a couple weeks (probly sooner) I’ll link this site to the new and improved one.
So, for now, I’ll continue to post this and that, mostly trying to avoid tracks that you might see on my best of 2008 list. This track is from a Scottish band, and (I mean this in the best way possible) you can definitely hear it. Their called The Twilight Sad, and they can put together one hell of an emotionally gut-wrenching song. The great thing, though, is that even though this is probably one of the most depressing albums I’ve heard in recent years, it’s not emo. These guys are extremely talented musicians and make great post-rock/indie songs with some great shoegaze elements as well. The singer is heartbreakingly sincere, but he’s very conservative in the emotion he shows, which makes it all the more effective as a tool in the music. This track is from the 2007 album, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters.
And did I mention, this is also one of my favorite album covers of all time. The same artist did the cover for their EP, Here, it Never Snowed. But Afterwards It Did. Which is also very cool, like another page in the saga.
Anyways, heres the track.
17
Dec
08
Worker’s Playtime
Alright, putting together this list for my top albums of 2008 is beyond difficult. I’ve already upped it to 15 artists from 10, but it’s still hard to cross some albums off the list, much less ordering them. The list will be published either tonight or tomorrow. Then I’ll have to do it all over again on last.fm and on hypemachine….such is the life of a blogger. For now, enjoy this non 2008 track (what a relief!) from The Blow’s album Paper Television (2006).
The album is a great synth/electropop album, but it definitely has a much more polished feel than some of the older stuff. She teamed up with Jona Bechtolt in 2004, but the two albums before that I found more enjoyable, and a little more vocally experimental. Check them out.
Best of 2008 Super-Post Coming Soon!
15
Dec
08
Pop.
Pop. The word really intrigues me. When I was growing up, and pop meant n’sync and every other crappy piece of 90’s crap, pop was synonymous with mainstream bubblegum garbage. I think that meaning is still a large part of the public vernacular. But at the same time, among a more exclusive group of music enthusiasts, we know that there just has to be a proper label for the art that is searching for melodies and lyrics that worm their way around our brain and won’t let go while were in line at the bank, or while we sit at our desk trying to work. Not pop in the sense that its short for popular, but a name for that art.
It seems very interesting to me that pop can be a genre itself, but more often in its more refined more its a prefix or suffix to a more subsantial genre. The point to all this being, no matter how you spin it, distort it, strip it down or process it, a good song is a good song.
So with that lead in, here is a few songs that I don’t think otherwise be put together, but I like hearing the common thread in just how goddamn catchy they all are.
This first track is by Billy Bragg, from his 1988 album, Worker’s Playtime. Billy is one of the most talented figures in music of the last 25 years, and few know how to crank out a catchy tune better (or a quirky love song, to be honest).
Billy Bragg – Must I Paint You a Picture
This second track is by a band called Times New Viking. They are what you would call noise pop, so its like really catchy kind of punkish songs behind a thick smog of lo-fi reverby scratchy noise. God help me, I really like it. They’ve been cranking out albums since 2005, and have three under their belts. This song is off their latest release, Rip It Off.
Times New Viking live, 2006 at Skylab. Taken by Todd Pontius
This last track really puts a smile on my face, because as die hard of a Weezer fan as I am — wait, let me rephrase that — as much of a pre-green album Weezer fan as I am (Maladroit was ok, too), I didn’t know that Rivers Cuomo, Weezer’s lead singer had put out a couple of solo albums. This is off of the first one, Alone: The Home Recordings of River Cuomo. Pretty direct. The stuff definitely has a little touch of the fire that Weezer lost so long ago, and this song in particular I find to be pretty head-nod inducing. River has an intensity and passion I just don’t hear in any of Weezers latest releases. At the end of the day, the bands simple tunes rested on that kid’s earnestness. Well, If you are not sucked in in the first minute of this song, I’ll give you your money back.
Ha, that’s a little blog joke we tell.
Rivers Cuomo – Lover in the Snow
Rivers, looking extra meek
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