Author: Tanner
New Releases
REM – Collapse Into Now
For anyone wondering what Michael Stipe wants after all these years, Stipe has chosen R.E.M.’s 15th album as the place to run down his wish list. “I want Whitman proud!” he declares in the superb finale, “Blue.” “I want Patti Lee proud,” meaning old friend Patti Smith, who’s there in the studio making gorgeously guttural noises. “I want my brothers proud,” probably meaning Peter Buck and Mike Mills, who cut loose with a country-feedback guitar groove. “I want my sisters proud! I want me! I want it all! I want sensational, irresistible! This is my time, and I am thrilled to be alive!” And he sounds it. Read the full review on Rolling Stone
Jonny Greenwood – Norwegian Wood Original Soundtrack
Greenwood (formally noted for such scores as There Will be Blood) approaches the score with the same sincerity that Murakami writes with; there seems to be a genuine respect and appreciation among both Greenwood and Murakami, particularly heard on ‘And I’ll Come and See’, and it is beyond speculation to say either were informed in the participation of the other, but it is a complementary and successful partnership nonetheless. As the film follows Toru Watanabe through his nostalgic freshman university days, developing relationships with Naoko, a beautiful yet emotionally troubled women, and lively and outgoing Midori, the score evokes these themes of alienation and loneliness that Murakami plays with by the minimal instrumentation and obvious sorrow within most pieces that Greenwood creates. Murakami always seems to gamble with this idea of ‘spiritual emptiness’ within his generation and how, what he believes to be an apathetic and ‘weak-willed’ protest feeds into the work-dominated culture of Japan and its dehumanization of its people. Read the Full Review at Sound on Sight
Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
“On tour, Lord of the Flies. Aw, hey kids, what’s a guuuii-taaaaar?” So begins the sharply titled “On Tour”, a spacious, diary-like explosion nestled just a few minutes into Smoke Ring for My Halo, Kurt Vile’s fourth and finest full-length to date. Strings buzz, strummed patterns double back on themselves and from up above it all, the Philadelphia-native showers everything with cosmic, harp-like harmonics. It’s a song that’s both monastic and vast all at once, the kind of curiously rich work that seems like it was crafted by forty longhairs instead of just one. But Vile has gone great lengths in answering his own question in recent years, finding a way to distill thousands of hours spent with classic American guitar music into one very singular and sublime vision. Whether he’s channeling the energies of John Fahey or Tom Petty or even Bob Seger, Smoke Ring makes clear that the end result is his alone. Read the review on Pitchfork
New Releases
Lucinda Williams – Blessed
“Blessed,” one of the best albums she’s ever released, comes as a relief. Produced by Don Was (who produced Raitt’s “Nick of Time”), the dozen songs on the album tackle complicated emotions with a deft touch to create profoundly moving moments. Whether it’s the sense of loss in “Copenhagen,’ about the instance in which she learns about the death of a friend, or “To Be Loved,” a tender ballad that every mother should sing to her children before bedtime (“You weren’t born to be mistreated/You weren’t born to be misguided/You were born to be loved”), Williams’ writing on “Blessed” is seamless. Read the full review on LA Times
Mike Watt – Hyphenated Man
Musically, Hyphenated Man consists of short songs in a guitar-bass-drums configuration, similar to the Minutemen. In fact, Watt said he was inspired by the making of the Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo.
“I had to listen to Minutemen a lot while it was going on,” Watt said. “We drove around Pedro and I answered questions and showed them around and we listened to music.”
That process gave Watt an opportunity to revisit Minutemen music for the first time in 20 years. “I didn’t listen to it for a long time after D. Boon got killed. It made me sad,” Watt said. “But listening to it was, like, ‘Wow, this is kind of interesting, no filler.'”
For Hyphenated Man, Watt said he wrote the songs on guitar and then built bass lines around them. “Sometimes I’d do that with D. Boon, I’d write a little on guitar, and he would take it and make it real,” Watt said. “It’s just a different thing than coming from the bass straight off.” Read the full Interview on Recoil
Devotchka – 100 Lovers
Devotchka’s triumph on their new album is the increasing synthesis of their many influences. You don’t get to yell “Wheee! Mariachi!” on this first track (and really, do you want to do that anyhow?), but that doesn’t mean the band’s drifting into more radio-typical sounds. All the previous influences still present themselves throughout the album, but more seamlessly than before. Even a more exotic track (to US ears) like “The Common Good” sounds less like one tradition juxtaposed with another and more like, well, Devotchka. Read the full review on Pop Matters
New Releases
Low Anthem – Smart Flesh
It’s too bad the Foo Fighters already called an album “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace,” because that title perfectly describes the new effort by the Low Anthem. To record the follow-up to 2008’s buzz-building “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin,” this Rhode Island-based folk-rock outfit set up shop in a former pasta-sauce factory outside Providence; the group’s goal was to capture an explicitly handcrafted vibe not much in vogue in these days of Pro Tools and Auto-Tune. Read the Full Review on LA Times
Adele – 21
Somewhere in 21, there is an honest, direct, sonically mature record fighting to get out with personality intact. You never would have guessed that a quirky bossa nova cover of the Cure’s “Lovesong” would work, but it does. Read the full review on the Guardian
G-Love – Fixin’ to Die
The enigmatically smooth and uber-cool Garrett “G. Love” Dutton has always ninja’d a few small red herrings of country and classic Americana into his famed and now nearly flawless meld of hip hop and blues, but there was always the sense that he was unwilling (unable?) to outwardly throw it into his mix. Turns out, it took the nudging of Seth and Scott Avett (better known at the Avett Brothers) to get him to really turn it out, and when they got into the studio with him to produce “Fixin’ to Die” after sharing the stage together at last year’s Summer Camp Music Festival in Illinois, they ended up helming one of the most important albums of G’s career. Read Full Review on Sacramento Press
New Releases
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
“The West’s asleep,” PJ Harvey declares on the first line of her new album, Let England Shake, before spending the next 40 minutes aiming to shame, frighten, and agitate it into action. When Polly Jean Harvey burst into the public consciousness in the early 90s, her gravelly voice, outsized personality, and often disturbing lyrics gave the alt-rock world a crucial shot of excitement. That early work is still among the most raw and real guitar music to emerge from the past few decades, so no surprise, it’s a version of PJ Harvey a lot of people still miss. But if you’ve paid attention to her in the years since, the one thing you can expect is that she won’t repeat herself. Read the full review on Pitchfork
Mogwai – Hardcore will never die, but you will.
Mogwai have hardly ever been as accessible as they are on Hardcore…. Only three of the 10 songs break the six-minute mark and when they do, you’ll hardly notice. The vocoded lyrics and steady click-beat of album highlight “Mexican Grand Prix”, for instance, are so enrapturing that the song glides on and on with ease. Track six, “Letters to the Metro”, sees Mogwai take a page from Godspeed’s well-worn book, painting about as movingly evocative a picture as could possibly be put together in just under five minutes. The dirge-like funeral march of “Too Raging to Cheers” again instantly calls to mind Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s signature movie score-like musical quality, but with more than enough of Mogwai’s guitar-oriented sound to avoid sounding too imitative. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound
Bright Eyes – The People’s Key
For every fan of Conor Oberst, there has been a moment when this precocious voice of troubled youth has come of age; to my mind, this really is the one. What sets The People’s Key apart from Oberst’s prodigious output over the past 15 years isn’t its lyrical density or conceptual assurance, but the taut, bright, propulsive vitality of its musicianship. This is practically a pop album – albeit a pop album about time, the universe, life as a hallucination and spiritual redemption. Read the full review on The Guardian
New Releases
Death – Spiritual Mental Physical
n the case of this half-hour release, we get a brief chance to eavesdrop on a band of unique genius at its most raw, its most prankish and its most fun. It almost makes up for the chills, the sweat and the free cans of watery domestic.
The fidelity may be demo-grade. But, clearly, the rhythmically complex, relentlessly urgent math-metal opener “Views” and the unapologetically cheesy Route 66 rocker “Can You Give Me a Thrill??” are greased up and ready for the big time. Loud, proud and catchy as hell. And when it tries a post-Dylan-style electric ballad, we get “World of Tomorrow,” which ain’t shabby. Read the full review on Dusted
Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
The tremendous The Shepherd’s Dog, from 2007, found Sam “Iron and Wine” Beam’s musical muse tugged in turn towards the influences of Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Calexico and African guitar bands. Kiss Each Other Clean is much more focused and homogenous, but there’s still a lingering sense of abundant inspiration, eager to carry the songs… Read the full review on The Independent
Akron / Family – S/T II The Cosmic Birth and Journey Shinju TNT
…A conscious effort to pocket the hacky sack. Songs such as “Silly Bears” and “Another Sky” retain the group’s recent crowd-pleasing guitar work, but a few knob twists put the searing tones closer to the distorted, bracing territory of Liars or Women. It’s on the ballads where the group’s time machine best hits its mark: “Cast a Net” and the album-closing cool-down of “Canopy” and “Creator” find the trio’s voices merging in alien harmonies while acoustic and electric guitars unfold as gently as ancient parchment. Whether raucous or tuneful, Akron/Family’s melodies tend to sink below the music — leaving lyrics such as those of “Silly Bears,” perhaps the first sludge-rock anthem applicable to a future “Winnie the Pooh” movie soundtrack, wisely out of the spotlight.
Read the full review at The LA Times
New Releases
The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
Recorded in a converted barn on Oregon’s Pendarvis Farm, The King Is Dead eschews the high, mystical wailing of British folk for its North American counterpart. Rustic and roomy, the record nods to Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, early Wilco, the Band, Neil Young, and especially R.E.M. In places, it almost feels like a disrobing: “Let the yoke fall from our shoulders,” frontman Colin Meloy bellows on opener “Don’t Carry It All”, his voice loose and easy, freer than he’s sounded in an awfully long time. Read the Full Review on Pitchfork
Cage The Elephant – Thank You Happy Birthday
Having gained notoriety a couple of years back for intense live shows and memorable singles like 2008’s slouchy, sexy “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” Shultz and his pals, including brother Brad on guitar and secret weapon Daniel Tichenor on bass, stand at a crucial juncture. Can Cage the Elephant survive the scrutiny of jaded aficionados who call its drum kit-toppling yet sweet-toothed approach to guitar bashery nothing but a rehash of flannel rock? This set of ripping rave-ups and effortlessly tasty singalongs answers YES, in all caps. Read the full review on LA Times
Madlib Medicine Show 11
Funkadelic, psychedelic, jazz infused break-beats mixing influences and sounds of electronic, soul and a whole lot of Hip Hop – Madlib’s eleventh installment to the Medicine Show series, entitled Low Budget High Fi Music, is a welcomed addition to this multi-instrumentalist’s repertoire of work. With the longest track of the album being 4 minutes and 37 seconds long, the rest of the songs fall in the realm below the 2 minute mark. Each track is laced by Madlib’s incredible ability to capture a motivating groove accentuated by melodies whose instrumentation drives its listeners forward. Combined by great pacing, seamless jumps between tracks (and at other times intentional abrupt stops to melodic flowing sounds), the hilarious skits, commercial-styled breaks, interesting samples and ear-perking interludes excuses the fact that some may be turned off at the length of the entire album (42-tracks long). Read the full review at allhiphop.com
Guess Pure Pop’s Top 10 Selling Albums of 2010, win the respect and admiration of millions, 15$ gift certificate.
We love a good challenge, we know you do too (you wonder why we’re always moving the sections around…to keep you on your toes.) Well, here’s another one for you, intrepid pure pop fans – guess the top 10 selling albums for 2010 here at Pure Pop Records in proper order, and win a 15$ gift certificate. It’s that simple. We’re even gonna make it easier for you and give you a pool of 30 potential artist/albums to choose from. Submit your numbered titled list on The facebook to be entered into the competition.
Choose your top 10 from the following 30
(these are in alphabetical order.)
Arcade Fire – Suburbs
Avett Brothers – I & Love & You
Band of Horses – Infinite Arms
Beach House – Teen Dream
Black Keys – Brothers
Broken Bells – Self Titled
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Deerhunter – Halycon Digest
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Go Go Bordello – Trans-continental Hustle
Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Jimi Hendrix – Valleys of Neptune
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – I learned the Hard Way
Ray Lamonagne – God Willin’ and the Creek don’t rise
LCD SoundSystem – This is Happening
MGMT – Congratulations
Anais Mitchell – Hades Town
Mumford & Sons – Sigh no More
The National – High Violet
New Pornographers – Together
Joanna Newsom – Have one on me
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals – Self Titled
Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
The Roots – How i got over
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Up from Below
She & Him – Vol. 2
Spoon – Transference
Vampire Weekend – Contra
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
xx – Self Titled
YearEnders: Jason Cooley
My Pure Pop Top Ten Of The Year List
by Jason Cooley
Well, it was a better year for me this year than it was last year. That acne problem that kept threatening to explode on my face finally just packed up and went away to wreck some other kid’s complexion. Whew! Sophomore year has been a lot cooler to me than Freshman year, that’s for sure. On to the list…
(in no particular order)
Depeche Mode, Violator
This record is just killer, man. I know people talk a lot of shit about Depeche Mode, but Music For The Masses was a pretty great album and this one is even better, especially for the one-two punch of “Blue Dress” and “Clean” at the end. The CD single extended mix of “Personal Jesus” is awesome, too. 95 Triple XXX had this stupid thing where they put two new songs up against each other and people call in to vote for which one is good/bad. “Personal Jesus” went up against “Cherry Pie” by Warrant. Guess who won? Some dumb redneck chick said the breath-break on “Jesus” was “gay”.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F72xD4cU8Qg
Faith No More, The Real Thing
Where the fuck did this album come from? The CD says it came out last year, which is weird. “Epic” is already a goddamn…well, epic song, but then the rest of the album is epic, too. There’s a fantastic instrumental at the end called “Woodpecker From Mars” that blows my mind. I made a mixtape for this girl I’m trying to steal from my best friend and I’m having a hard time deciding which tune should close it out: “Woodpecker” or “Clean” from the aforementioned Violator. Apparently Anthony Keidis is angry with them for stealing his band’s funk-metal stylings. I keep forgetting that the Chili Peppers invented funk when they were swimming in their daddy’s balls.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYyK-ZvpR_M
Jane’s Addiction, Ritual de lo Habitual
Goddamn! Finally, the new Jane’s comes out a few days after my 17th birthday! What an album! After I got it I took it over to my buddy Chris Lentz’ house and we listened to it on his back porch, particularly marveling at side two. The “erotic Jesus” part of “Three Days” had us rocking our asses off, happily.
Fugazi, Repeater
The new tape by Fugazi is just plain fucking awesome and that’s that. Nobody can or will deny it. “Shut The Door” and “Blueprint” are just…oh God help me.
Pixies, Doolittle, Bossanova, Here Comes Your Man CD single
So after a few months of trying to figure out who plays that “Wave all through the nation” song I taped off of WRUV last year, a TV ad for the new movie Pump Up The Volume had the song! I took the bus to Pure Pop to look at the soundtrack and there it was: “Wave Of Mutilation (U.K. Surf)” by The Pixies! Yay! A new band to get into. I initially ignored them because Rolling Stone kept pushing them on me, but alas, I have found The Pixies and they are great! Bossanova is their new tape and I listen to it a lot in my room with only Christmas lights on. It makes my room look like the cover. Fuck, everything this band does is awesome. They’re kinda edging Jane’s out of their position as my favorite active band…
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvi4iA3PnKE
Public Enemy, Fear Of A Black Planet
Wow, this tape is fucking insane! Some of it is impenetrable. It’s just soooo fucking dense. It came with a little fold out page with all of the rhymes. Jesus, Chuck D. is the greatest rapper alive. It starts with the holy fuck “Brothers Gonna Work It Out” (I wonder what 1995 is going to be like) and ends with “Fight The Power.” God fucking DAMN.
Sinead O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
I kind of fell in love with her last year when she sang “Mandinka” at the Grammys with the PE logo shaved into the side of her head, but when I saw the premiere of the video for “Nothing Compares 2 U” on 120 Minutes, wow. I really fell in love with her. Gorgeous, so gorgeous, especially her eyes. Mmmmmmm. Here I am, 16 years old, crying to a Prince cover. The rest of the album is pretty great, too.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0
Sonic Youth, Goo
Well, they’re on a major label now: Geffen. We’ll see how long that lasts. I don’t like Goo as much as Daydream Nation, but it’s still on the fantastic side of things. My favorite song off of this so far is “Disappearer”. It reminds me of when I lived in Manchester, NH and would ride my bike around various tall apartment complexes on overcast days. The video for “Dirty Boots” is pretty funny. I wonder if I’ll ever get to see them live.
The Velvet Underground, ALL
Last year I got New York by Lou Reed and dug it a whole helluva lot. I did some reading up on him and found this band he used to be in called The Velvet Underground. Everything is starting to make instant sense now. I know where so many bands are coming from, what inspired them, etc. It was this! Luckily, all their tapes are cheap as hell. I asked for them all for Christmas and got them except for Loaded, which I’m getting next. What an amazing band! How did I not pick up on them earlier instead of listening to all that hair metal? Fuck. I don’t really know where to begin with all of this, but I can say that “Sweet Jane” is now probably my favorite song of all time (it’s on a greatest hits thing). I’m still trying to figure out: is their drummer a boy or a girl? I honestly feel bad for not being able to tell.
Wild At Heart, Twin Peaks Soundtracks
This year has been the year of David Lynch. After four years of silence after Blue Velvet, he’s just suddenly all over the place. First Twin Peaks came along in April (on TV!!!) and rocked my fucking world weekly, and then Wild At Heart showed up in August to blow every movie I’ve seen so far this year out of the fucking water. The music is great, too. Angelo Badalamenti is a fantastic composer. The Twin Peaks soundtrack is creepy and awkward at times, but in a totally good way. The Wild At Heart soundtrack has some of his stuff, but also Chris Isaak’s AWESOME “Wicked Game”, Koko Taylor (she’s even in the movie! Wow…), Them! (with Van Morrison), and even some speed metal by a band called Powermad (they’re in the movie as well). Go, angriest dog in the world. Go.
11. Madonna, Justify My Love
It’s hard to talk about the song without talking about the video so fuck it, I won’t even try. Me and my friends heard this on the radio on our way to school on one cold fall morning, and I can’t speak for the rest of the guys, but I wanted to beat off so bad for the rest of the day. Sexxxxxxxxxy sexy sex-sex. Then the video came out. Creeeeeeeepppy creepy creep-creep. Why does Madonna always hang out with douchebags (with the exception of Sean Penn)? This Tony guy looks like he got rejected from The Village People for looking too weird. But yeah, Madonna: SEX.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np_Y740aReI
NSFW.
12. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mother’s Milk
I know this came out last year, but the Peppers came to play live in Burlington at Patrick Gym with the Violent Femmes in April. Personally, I thought the Femmes made the Peppers look like a bunch of poseurs, except for John Frusciante. Everything out of Keidis’ mouth was rehearsed. “I must be in Rome…cuz you all look like a bunch of Gods!” What am I, at a fucking Whitesnake concert? The high point of their set was Frusciante playing “Tiny Dancer” between songs. The Femmes played every song from their first album except for “Good Feeling”. They were just great. This should really be a Violent Femmes record, but they didn’t come out with one this year.
—————-
Honorable mentions:
Bob Mould, Black Sheets Of Rain
Iggy Pop, Brick By Brick
The Soup Dragons, Lovegod
Living Colour, Time’s Up*
House Party, soundtrack
*I really feel I should let you know that in hindsight, this record should actually be on the Dishonorable list. One of my biggest regrets as a music fan was being duped into singing along to the chorus of “Elvis Is Dead” when they played at Memorial Auditorium in 1991. I was a PC alt-rock sheepdick that night, and if I could go back in time I’d rip both myself and those guys a new asshole. What an insipid, ignorant, and race-baiting song that was. Since then I’ve learned that good music is good music and shitty music is shitty music no matter what the color of your skin is. The story of Elvis Presley is one of the most uplifting, saddest, and emotionally complex stories ever told. The story of Living Colour? They played crappy metal versions of James Brown and Talking Heads classics, sued the TV comedy show In Living Color for trademark infringement (that’s some solidarity, yo) and finally broke up when everybody realized they actually sucked. Now it’s reunion money gigs. People are still buying Elvis records. Living Colour records? Stick it up your Stain, Vernon.
Dishonorable mentions:
Vanilla Ice, To The Extreme
Prince, Graffiti Bridge
Roger Waters and Various Artists, The Wall Live In Berlin
INXS, X
Gerardo, Mo’ Ritmo
20 Years Later:
1. LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening
and in no particular order:
2. Jay-Z, Decoded (yes, it’s a book.)
3. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
4. Girl Talk, All Day
5. OFF!, First Four EPs
6. Curren$y, Pilot Talk
7. Chemical Brothers, Further
8. Ariel Pink, Before Today
9. Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record
10. M.I.A., ///Y/
11. Gorillaz, Plastic Beach
12. The Sword, Warp Riders
13. Big Boi, Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
14. Four Tet, There Is Love In You
15. Caribou, Swim
YearEnders: Sarah Boutin
1)The Black Keys – “Brothers”
I hadn’t heard of this band in till this year. My friend made me listen to “tighten up” and i fell in love with this band. I Can’t Believe its just two guys. Its not one of those cds were you like a couple of songs and skip the rest, you fall for every song.
2)Mumford and son – “Sigh No More”
The unique sound and amazing lyrics make it one of my new favorite CD’s.
3)Weezer – “Hurley” Switching labels was the best thing they could have done. This definitely makes up for Raditude. They came back to their amazing sound rather then the stupid pop rock they did on that last album also “memories” is an amazing song.
4)Band Of Horses – Infinite arms
3 years spent waiting well worth it! Ben Bridwell’s voice makes this album and this band amazing.The song “on my way back to you” gives me chills every time.
5)Warpaint – “The Fool”
Haven’t really heard anything like them before. Love “set your arms down”. Best female Rockers around!
6)Two door cinema club – tourist history” This album is amazing. Alex Trimble vocals are so good!
7)Ra Ra Riot- “the orchard”
Kind of a mixture of death cab for cutie and vampire weekend.
8)Big Echo-“big echo”
you can tell they really poured their heart and soul into this album
9)Arcade Fire – “The suburbs”
Another Hit!!!
10)American Bang.”wild and young” perfect road trip song!