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Thursday, December 08, 2005
Music To Torment Customers And Coworkers Myself With
Robbie Williams: Intensive Care: It's a bit of a different beast from his earlier albums. It's still, at its best, unashamedly pop, but he's getting a bit of a harder sound here. It's more heavily rock-tinged than his previous efforts and, dare I say, perhaps even just a bit more self-involved. Yeah, I know, what a shocking revelation, Robbie Williams betrays a large ego through song. All in all though, it's a strong work, and possibly already my favorite, as a whole, of his albums. The particular songs to look for are "Make Me Pure," "Advertising Space," "Sin Sin Sin" and, of course, "Your Gay Friend."
Of particular note to comic fans, and as I'm sure you're all sick of hearing by now, this is also the album with cover art conceived by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. Unsurprisingly, touching this:
At the same time you touch this:
Does absolutely nothing. Go ahead and try it for yourself if you don't believe me.
Thumbsucker Soundtrack: Or, as I prefer to think of it, a new Polyphonic Spree album, with unnecessary and depressing songs by Elliott Smith interrupting the flow of choral voices from time to time to depress you in an unnecessary way. So, if you're a Spree fan this is still worth it (I'm not going to get into whether or not this is necessary if you're a fan of the film because I haven't seen the film-and, well, what I've seen of the film leads me to believe that it's of the type that takes itself far too seriously and will appeal primarily to folks who take themselves, movies and music far too seriously). The stand out track is "The Call of the Wild," a song improvised in a Unitarian Church. That's right, Unitarian! That's how hard-core! the Spree is M-Effers!
Grandaddy: Artist's Choice: Is quite possibly the emo-est thing I've ever heard. It's almost all songs precisely designed to make you sad. It makes me want to track down a college student with coke-bottle glasses, slap him around a bit and shout "Listen to happy music every once in awhile!" That being said, it's all actually quite good. Well, except for the Beck song that opens it. Beck pretty much epitomizes that whole "self-conscious hipster who takes themselves far too seriously" musical vibe (and see, you were probably expected a cheap Scientology joke, weren't you?). Stand out song is the only Grandaddy song on the disc, "The Nature Anthem," which most of you probably know as the music from either as "that weird furry video" or "that creepy car commercial."
Franz Ferdinand: You Could Have It So Much Better: It's a brilliant follow-up to their last album. There's not even a particular good or exemplary song. They're all on that level. Seriously, just go and get it.
Stephen Lynch: The Craig Machine: Lynch's albums just keep getting better. This is almost a general audiences album in comparison to his last works. There's much less of a feel of esoteric jokes to this one. Of course, there's also a couple of songs that have a vague feel of "we need a couple more songs to fill out the album because the songs are too short," so it doesn't quite have the feel of a "perfect" album (but then, what does?). The songs to look out for are "Baby," "Craig," "Beelz," which contains the best slam on Charlie Daniels I've ever heard, "Little Tiny Moustache" and "Classic Rock Song." "Voices in my Head" is brilliant as well, but you really do need to be familiar with Lynch and his work to really enjoy the joke as much as it should be.
(Be honest...how many of you touched your screen?)