American Lyrical Prowess

Let us not forget America's number one for the last 6 weeks has been the exemplary, thought provoking - 'I Kissed A Girl' 

I will personally take Dizzee Rascal

Soundtrack to this post: PNAU feat. Ladyhawke

Highbrow Lo-Fi

Having a lazy Sunday, and picked up The Observer. In the review section there's an article on American bands intelligent lyrics and music, and berating the lack of English 'representatives' in this field of clever music

Sorry, that's not a great description, I am not great with words, and articles like this make me very angry. You can find the article online here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/03/popandrock

 It's articles like this, that over hype, good but not amazing bands, and totally fail to acknowledge the existance of many a fine band. The bands mentioned are all pretty good, and some of them do write pretty fine lyrics. But they're not the greatest, please mention Will Oldham, Nina Nastasia, Jason Molina... absolutely no need to bring up Vampire Weekend. Infact all the article does is pander to a trend of in vogue American bands - see my point below about how US bands are making the Mercury trendy albums of the moment

The fact is, America's 'music industry' is big enough to support a relatively self sustaining alternative to the mainstream. The UK isn't, and with Myspace diluting the pond of 'diehard' fans over a million decent bands, it's even harder. But that's fine to a certain degree, it actually means there are probably even more great bands from the UK, though relatively undiscovered. What completely stunts the growth of these bands is the media's insistence that bands only exist over a certain level and in a certain framework

Soundtrack to this post: The Good Life, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

The Decemberists + Me

I got back from Luxembourg this weekend to find my dad had burnt me copies of the new Colin Meloy Sings Live! album and the first two Decemberists albums - Castaways & Cutouts and Her Majesty. Which was a nice surprise, and was just what I wanted

Everyone around me became a fan of The Crane Wife on it's release last year, but I only thought it was 'alright.' My Dad quickly became a big fan of all things Meloy and it wasn't long before I heard Picaresque ( their last independent album) and I too got pretty obsessed. We were out the other day and talking about the new Meloy live album, which prompted the lend.

There was also a great article with Meloy in The Guardian, describing the process he goes through to write songs, check that out HERE

So I'm on tour with Forward, Russia now, so that's why there's even less posts. Will try and be back soon though

Soundtrack to this post: The National - Alligator