After Night Ripper I was sold on Girl Talk. (How awesome is that wikipedia pic?). Was listening to his newest, Feed the Animals, yesterday at work and really dig it. It’s toned down a bit but still great. I was laughing out loud at some of the samples (Drink and my Two Step over Ace of Base’s All That She Wants. ha.) Anyway, no straight up review here, just a solid recommendation. They are also pulling a Radiohead and allowing you to pay whatever your stingy heart feels like on their website, Illegal Art. (Full Disclosure: I paid $0.00… I’m a stingy bastard). Enjoy.
Picked up Conde Nast’s new business mag Portfolio the other month and was really underwhelmed. I remember Tom Wolfe’s article on hedge funds that read just like the millions of you-wont-believe-how-rich-these-guys-are, human interest stories. OK, yeah, do well in finance, get into hedge funds, and make unimaginable cash… I’ve read this article like 30 times already. (Slate mag has a great write up of it here). So, anyway, I am always looking for a cool biz mag and just figured that Portfolio won’t be it; nothing unique in writing about hedge fund managers.
But then the 3rd issue came out the other week and had this giant crazy article on Nigo’s Bape (the Brilliance beat me to it here), how free youtube-esque porn sites are ruining the online porn industry, $3 flights, and a number of other pieces that are def worth the read.
Wrote about Monocle the other month and how its minimalist design really overwhelmed its lackluster content. Portfolio is, in a way, on the other end of that spectrum. Its layout is pretty standard fare for magazines while its content, thought not always great, is at least relevant and usually interesting. Anyway, check it out, Portfolio’s Nov. 2007 issue.
And here. Love Stop Smiling.
This album is really good. How’s that for an opener? I mean really damn good. It baffles me that groups like this aren’t more well known. In that respect they remind me of a Devotchka, a really solid outfit with really catchy tunes that simply have a hard time breaking that fame ceiling. Its strange… hmmm…. Also pitchfork pretty much panned it with a 6.9. (OK, its not a pan, but… a 6.9, c,mon.) And though stereogum claims they have “A BIG thing” for them they don’t bother reviewing the album. feh! OK, well the album is beautiful. There are a few tracks that kind of fall flat, but with 19 tracks (one being a minute of silence) you are bound to lose a few. If you don’t know the back-story I am not going into it, but it’s sad; involving the death of the lead singers child. The songs center around this fact, which makes for some moving stuff. Chain Reaction and Dance for the Dead soar. Chemicals Collide and Take Your Medicine are also great… They are all great. Why don’t more people like them?… I don’t know. Wierd. One day you will pay for that shitty review Pitchfork… dearly.
In love with MIA. She is cute as hell (damn that diplo, though that is a Philly claim-to-fame) and this new CD is totally crazy. And I kinda like it better than the previous one, which is sayin’ sumfin’. It was the first time I listened to a CD that was pop and international and felt ok for an American audience (read, myself). Afrikan Boy only reinforces this. His flow is so unamerican, but works so well and is totally acessable; think awkward in a good way. Virgil Abloh of the brilliance has a cool write-up on him. He references this thing Vice Mag is doing with Spike Jonze; a kind of documentary that involves following around M.I.A. and fucking around. If you are obsessed, like myself, its worth a watch.
Favorite Tracks: Bamboo Banger, Boyz, Paper Planes
Also, watch some vids at supertouch…
For me Black Sheep Boy was easily a top 10 of 2005. The Stage Names is really good and just as accessible, but doesn’t quite soar to the same heights. Get it.
Favorite Tracks: Girl in Port and A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene
I’ve followed monocle through its first 5 issues or so and I really want to say that I love it. I do love the presentation. The page layout. The Believer-esque unglossed finish. The heft of the thing - 200-some pages an issue. The unassuming photos. The whole feel of the magazine is both kinda’ retro and progressive at the same time - and is definitely a breath of fresh air. But this style, and you really have to check one out at the bookstore to see what I mean, completely overwhelms the substance of the thing. Upon opening, Tyler Brûlé tried to bill his brainchild as ‘the trendy economist’ and the about section on their site claims it delivers “the most original coverage in global affairs…” Wow, yeah, not at all. More of like an inconsequential economist. You read these obscure articles on something like bike-friendly cities or narcotecture in Afghanistan and you are like, huh, that’s mildly interesting, now why did I drop $10 on this?… oh yea, because of how it looked and felt in my hands at the store - the presentation.
Also, while it is chock full of beautiful people and exotic European locales, for a mag that wants to have at least something to do with word affairs, any mention of poverty is conspicuously absent. I guess it’s ok to leave out the developing world from your reportage but you pay the price of having the whole thing feel contrived and unnatural. You begin to feel like the world is made up of white, good-looking Europeans making over two hundred thousand dollars a year. (Easy way around this Monocle, don’t even feign a connection to the economist, or any other world affairs mag. How about global culture magazine? That works.)
Eye magazine recently critiqued Monocle on the eco-unfriendliness of the globetrotting lifestyle that they advocate. It was a truly bizarre attack on the magazine, but fair at the same time. I guess I would have expected it from Mother Jones and not Eye.
Never really gave Spoon’s previous release, Gimme Fiction, much of a chance. Though everyone loved it, I felt like it passed me by and I’m OK with that. Which brings us to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It’s like Wilco reincarnated. And in some ways it feels like yankee hotel foxtrot in how palatable it is; it takes three or four listens but then you are hooked. But though the record is really well rounded, consistent (is there a bad track?) and a few steps above the standard fare I can’t help feeling somewhat underwhelmed. Perhaps it’s all the hype surrounding it. As I see it this album is really good, but not quite great.
Fav. Track: The Underdog
Instead do yourself a favor and get this. (8.8/10)
I know this is so eay to say, but OK Computer is one of the best albums of one of the best groups of the last 20 years. Easy. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Radiohead’s now legendary OK Computer, Stereogum has asked a bunch of its favorite musicians to cover one track from the album. The result is pretty cool. I am a fan of John Vanderslice’s Karma Police. They note on the site: “we did this all legal and everything, so we can’t keep these up forever”. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Anyway, get ‘em here.
UPDATE: So now you can only stream the tracks. I am sure this is all over bittorrent though.
Pharrell’s last album - In My Mind - wasen’t that bad, thought it received some pretty meh reviews. Anyway, he felt there was a dream that wasen’t realized. He talks to ?uestlove who decides to remix it with him. The result… Out Of My Mind. I really wanted to love this album, but I didn’t. Find it on bittorrent. I felt like trading the clean, stripped down beats of Pharrell for the Acid-rock-y Roots band, or whomever they used for the live cuts, took away from the whole Pharrell thing. Dont break the mold Pharrell, just do it better… Sheesh…
