TUESDAY NEW RELEASES: Neil Young’s Psychedelic Pill vs. Toby Keith’s ‘Girls That Drink Beer’
Popular Fall Hits
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9/25: As I Lay Dying – Awakened (Metal Blade)
Awakened, the sixth studio album from the San Diego metal band, fell just shy of the Billboard 200’s top ten in September. AbsolutePunk writes: “With a little less of a death metal approach and more leniency towards the theatrics of wall of sound metalcore, the massive melodies and thunderous production make for some swift shifts and interesting moments.”
9/25: Frightened Rabbit – State Hospital EP (Canvasback / ATL)
9/25: The Soft Pack – Strapped (Mexican Summer)
9/25: Ricardo Villalobos – Dependent and Happy (Perlon)
10/2: Iris DeMent – Sing the Delta (Flariella Records)
No one’s going to call Iris DeMent prolific with only five studio albums in the last two decades to her name. She’s peerless, however, in the Americana world, having worked with John Prine, Ralph Stanley, Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, among many others. The title track features her distinctive vocals, setting the tone for the rest of the album.
10/2: Beth Orton – Sugaring Season (ANTI Records)
10/2: Heart – Fanatic (Legacy)
10/2: Tift Merritt – Traveling Alone (Yep Roc Records)
10/9: Why? – Mumps, Etc. (Anticon)
Berkeley’s Jonathan “Yoni” Wolf (better known by the name Why?) lays claim to the most innovative hip-hop fueled experimentation even while clinging to the fringes of alternative music. “Paper Hearts,” off Mumps, Etc., showcases his sound in all its twisty glory.
10/9: Papa Roach – The Connection (Eleven Seven Music)
10/9: Hidden Orchestra – Archipelago (Tru Thoughts)
10/9: Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)
10/16: Jason Aldean – Night Train (Broken Bow)
Jason Aldean’s fifth album serves as “a well-crafted, elegantly produced record that takes risks, flirting with musical boundaries and occasionally tackling tough topics, but in a way that preserves the integrity both of the artist and the genre,” says Music is My Oxygen Weekly. The album debuted at #1, knocking Mumford from their throne, only to be obliterated by Taylor Swift.
10/16: Mac DeMarco – 2 (Captured Tracks)
10/16: Martha Wainwright – Come Home to Mama (Cooperative Music)
10/16: Anberlin – Vital (Universal Republic)
10/23: Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City (Aftermath)
Kendrick Lamar’s debut earned the Compton rapper raves, with critics praising his vivid lyricism and rhythmic skills. One of the best hip-hop albums of the year, says PopMatters: “Lamar concentrates the ideas of hip-hop narrative and nonfiction into such a form that’s shocking for how simultaneously accessible yet full of depth it is.”
10/23: The Amazing – Gentle Stream (Subliminal Sounds)
10/23: Talk Normal – Sunshine (Joyful Noise Records)
10/23: Black Moth Super Rainbow – Cobra Juicy (Rad Cult)
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With few “new release” movies set for DVD / Blu-Ray treatment this week, plenty of room remains for The Campaign to fill the void, if you’re not already too busy salivating over the treatment being given to Hitchcock’s greatest films (The Masterpiece Collection) or hunting down Rosemary’s Baby in its ultimate Criterion form. The less said about the direct-to-video bastardization of A Christmas Story which also comes out this week, the better.
Actually, the song is “I Like Girls That Drink Beer”.
And yes I do.
Neil Young, proving that though Father Time remains an unbeatable foe, he can sometimes be negotiated into a holiday truce.
Quit peddling the Rap and the Hip Hop. It’s crap and you know it. It doesn’t make you seem edgy, it makes you seem like a person with zero taste.
I keep trying your suggestions in music and keep encountering the same tired arrangements without ambition or innovation or originality.
Andrew Bird, no, Iris Dement, no, Gainsbourg no. Whatever imperatives that once fueled an alternative to Top 40 in America seem long since spent. I’ve heard this stuff over and over and over. It’s fine for a coffee house.
I don’t blame the new generation. They’re up against an older generation who used to customize their amps, build their own electric guitars, and basically make up their own guitar tunings. And that’s just for starters. That kind of brash and authoritative artistic eccentricity seems lost in favor of eccentricity of personality and dress.
You are right. Many of these new, hip singer-songwriters are to popular music what the young writers who used to publish their clever short stories–during the seventies and eighties–in the little magazines (before moving up to the New Yorker) were to fiction. Yes, there is often some very real talent on display, and sometimes brief flashes of lyrical or musical originality, but not enough to keep you interested for long. Like the earlier group–who often spawned imitators– they seem to be performing exclusively to other aspiring singer-songwriters.
Folks need to check out Chris Duarte- a phenomenal guitarist/songwriter with a range from blues through psychedelic rock. . and NO mainstream pop crap. Also for those of a surf bent- the Mermen.