1. Tokyo Police Club may have ushered in the era of the blog-buzz band, but that doesn’t mean their first mini-album doesn’t hold up. These Canadians, who weren’t even old enough to drink (in Canada!) at the time, brought a lot of energy to their post-punk stylings, if not a lot to say. Unfortunately, the Black Kids/Pitchfork fiasco can probably be blamed partially on their success. 2. In 2006, TV on the Radio finally lived up to the potential of their first EP thanks to their amazing second album, “Return to Cookie Mountain,” which is on the shortlist for best album of the decade. “Wolf Like Me” is on the shortlist for their best song. If “Staring at the Sun” didn’t already exist, there’d be no contest. 3. While Girl Talk’s “Night Ripper” is definitely of a single amazing piece of cloth, “Hold Up” deserves mention simply because it features the best single use of a Weezer song since 1997 – including by Weezer themselves. 4. The great thing about The Thermals? They sound like a bunch of goofy grown-up kids playing punk rock, but (unlike Tokyo Police Club) the subject matter they tackle is dead serious. On “A Pillar of Salt,” Hutch Harris tackles religion with lyrical book smarts but with the energy of a six-year-old. 5. If girl-group pop was slowed down to just before the point where the life was completely sucked out of it, you’d have Grizzly Bear’s “Knife,” their calling card into the top tier of indie rock.
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The decade’s most consistently awesome band has another likely solid album, “Transference,” coming out in January. Get ready to swoon over Britt Daniel again.
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1. We admit that we’ve been quite excited about Monsters of Folk, mostly because of our boy M. Ward. (Nothing against Conor Oberst, but he seems to have lost his edge lately.) The leadoff track, “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.),” certainly doesn’t scream folk, but there’s certainly a lot more going on here than an indie equivalent of the Traveling Wilburys. 2. What if you took the most experimental part of Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago” and built a whole album around it? You’d have Volcano Choir‘s “Unmap,” which features frontman Justin Vernon with Milwaukee’s Collection of Colonies of Bees, proving that he’s not the only interesting musician currently coming out of Wisconsin. 3. Lots to love here. The Big Pink’s “A Brief History of Love” has at least one killer chorus in the form of “Dominos,” which gives a nice sheen to their best shoegaze intentions. 4. Rain Machine, a.k.a. TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone, had one of the year’s most-highly-anticipated releases. The album itself isn’t nearly as amazing as the billing, but the vocal theatrics of the otherwise-simple “New Last Name” certainly live up to the pedigree. 5. On “Higher than the Stars,” The Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to be ready to cut back the massive amounts of guitar distortion that defined their earlier releases. Even without it – relying more on a cheery synth instead – the formula still works.
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I’m at a point where I no longer have a deep desire to share my music with anyone, having spent many years imparting my songs to the public. … I now feel something personal is irrevocably lost in this process.
Sufjan Stevens • In an interview he did with Shannon Stephens, a former bandmate of his who’s releasing her first album in a decade on his label, Asthmatic Kitty. He was doing the interview, but he said something more poignant than anything she said. We could be misunderstanding, but it sounds like Stevens has little interest in keeping up the Fifty States Project based on this statement. Gah! • source
Noisevox has been submitting stuff about their interviews for a little while now, and we haven’t really found the right one that fit with the site. But we admit it – we’re big Deerhunter fans (we also would like to big-up Atlas Sound too), and the interview itself is really intriguing. John Norris reportedly got laid off from MTV last year, so it’s great to see him doing what he does best elsewhere.
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1. Back in our noise-addled 2002 minds, Idlewild’s “You Held the World In Your Arms” was that explosion of R.E.M.-esque bombast that should have been huge in the U.S., but instead remained on the fringes. 2. Consider this a placeholder for both the Roots and Cody ChestnuTT, who both released killer albums in 2002. (Lala, sadly doesn’t have ChestnuTT’s only album thus far, “The Headphone Masterpiece.”) A lot’s changed since this song came out – The Roots are on Jimmy Fallon, and ChestnuTT is … somewhere. Where did you go, man? 3. When everyone was going gaga over Interpol (we didn’t get the hype), we were putting The Notwist’s “Neon Golden” on repeat. A slice of IDM+pop, “Pilot” is the German band’s best song. 4. It wouldn’t be 2002 if we didn’t give due credit to Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” so here we are, giving it. They haven’t been as weird as “Radio Cure” since, but it was weird enough to get everyone to pay attention. 5. Iron & Wine’s success was a starting point for 21st-century indie folk. The fact that Sam Beam’s been improving ever since doesn’t negate the fact that he wrote the template with songs like “Upward Over the Mountain.”
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The thing I want to say to everyone – I hope this happens because it will push rap, it will push hip-hop to go even further – what the indie-rock movement is doing right now is very inspiring. It felt like us in the beginning.
Jay-Z • Regarding Grizzly Bear specifically (he was recently spotted at a show with Beyonce) and indie rock in general, and how what they’re doing inspires rap. He says that if they can break really big (well, Grizzly Bear did go top-ten on the Billboards earlier this year) “it will force hip-hop to fight to make better music.” • source
In our continuing effort to try new things, here’s our latest: Band coverage! This time, indie-pop stalwarts Wheat
(fresh off a solid 7.4 on Pitchfork) discuss their love of music, coffee … and coffee. Want to see your band here? E-mail us or bug us on Twitter!
Listen to them
Q1: In 15 words or less, describe your sound:
Syrup with cream. Maybe some caffeine, maybe some alcohol. Many mistakes kept.
Q2: Name three influences that inspire you, with three words each on why they’re awesome: Family: I try harder Music: I feel lighter Coffee: I keep going
Q3: What’s a recent song you’ve been digging? Write ten words explaining why: Bon Iver: “Woods” Amazing smash of lullaby and bad hip-hop vocoder awesomeness!
Q4: In 140 characters or less, how do you use social networking to get the word out: We use Myspace, Facebook, the regular wheat website, and e-mail. (Is that social networking?) And we still use postcards. I know that might seem old school, but we love the tangible object.
Q5: In 15 words or less, what’s next for you?
Bring our new songs and love to the people. Another song, another record, another coffee.
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(fresh off