Writing about a fictional Le Corbusier retrospective in my novel. Is there any other writer MORE attuned to what the people want?
Writing is lonely. At the end of the day, it’s just you and your inexorable desire to make somehow concrete the ineffable and inexpressible. Everyone with a creative mind knows what I mean. These guys, for instance. Such pain, such poise.
cool picture or COOLEST picture?
Los Campesinos!
—Hello Sadness
Hello Sadness had the misfortune of a release date right in the middle of the internet’s cyclonic Best-of-2011 maelstrom. (At PopMatters, we’d already submitted our ballots by the time the album dropped — the same day, by the way, that Drake’s Take Care saw physical release. So, neither record made the year-end list, which I think is as embarrassing as spraying milk out of your nostrils at the lunch table in 5th grade.) In a backward sort of way, though, that omission makes sense for Los Campesinos!. Not because the band doesn’t deserve the recognition — they’re one of the most consistent acts of the last five years, and Hello Sadness is their best work yet — but because they’re a group of outsiders in the indie scene, anyway.
Other writers have already noted LC!’s guitar-driven, hyper-emotive pop isn’t exactly fashionable in 2012, and I suppose that’s true. I’d be embarrassed to be caught singing a line like, “I christen all the ships that sail / On your little kisses’ saliva trails,” in front of certain friends of mine. But Hello Sadness the record, and its strongest moment, “Hello Sadness” the song, give me the kind of rush that has been increasingly hard to chase down since I was 16. And it doesn’t do so in the kind of purely guilty pleasure, ironic way all those Vagrant Records bands on my iPod do. It’s Gareth Campesinos!’s famously sharp self-deprecation that saves his band from becoming the self-serious, adolescent dreck of the Jared Leto variety. Somebody photoshop Gareth into Fight Club, instead. (No, he doesn’t deserve that. Fight Club is the worst, you guys.)
My list of the Best Indie Rock Albums of 2011 is up on PopMatters! It has arbitrary limitations and is probably not even the only list like this on the internet! What a perfect opportunity for you to tell me I am a total blowhard! Check it out!
I made a list for PopMatters of the Ten Best Fugazi Songs. AS USUAL, the New York Times PIGGYBACKED ON ME and posted this awesome article today about Fugazi’s live documentation series. Are you a Guy or an Ian?? Take my quiz to find out! (There is no quiz.)
I am an ordained minister in the Church of Future Islands. At services, conducted during the band’s unparalleled live shows, I can be seen dropping to the floor to speak in tongues, handling snakes, baptizing attractive women in sweat, and generally helping to save the souls of all those who have not yet dedicated themselves to the Church. The band’s new album, On the Water, is the best record of 2011. Before it was released, I had Bon Iver in the top slot, but rudeness trumps politeness in my book, nine times out of ten. (That’s why I am a great date, ladies — look it up.) On the Water scales back the bombast of In Evening Air, and I miss Sam Herring’s freakouts, but understatement suits Future Islands just as well. A record to break your heart and put it back together again. My review.
“I’m still here.” — Rivers Phoenix. Tumblin’ has taken a backseat to other ways of wasting time, but I’ve got a few reviews for you. I don’t like telling people I like We Were Promised Jetpacks, because that name is the worst name in the world. It is like the name of a band in a Michael Cera movie, where Michael Cera and his band We Were Promised Jetpacks have to save the world from Zooey Deschanel’s bangs before midnight. Still, WWPJ’s first record had a handful of mega-jams, and the follow-up has about the same ratio of 1:1 for jams to filler. Skip around on your Zune. Here’s my review.
The best thing about this new Drake track, “Make Me Proud,” is at 2:20 when Nicki Minaj slows down her usual mile-a-minute flow to do her best Rick Ross imitation. So funny! Nicki gets it.
Gabe Delahaye: Excuse Me, Gawker
In the War for the Internet, which will one day consume us all in a storm of LOLCats and OK GO! videos, there are only two sides: the forces of evil (Gawker) and the forces of good (Videogum) and no other sides because there is no room for gray area in such a titanic and serious conflict (has there ever been a more serious conflict, no).
As it turns out, I have been covering the story of Hugh Jackman peeing his pants on stage in a musical theater performance of Beauty and the Beast for three years (originally published November 13, 2008). He is apparently telling the story again this week on Raecleh Ray, so it’s coming…
