I am confused and excited to say that my favourite under-rated band, the Loud Family, is back in 2006! There's even an MP3 to hear, proving that this is the modern age and not just a whisper from the past.
Rocks Off (Rolling Stones cover)
PS I have updated my charts page to include 2005 and a few albums I caught up with from 2004.
My comics: Bad Machinery - Scary Go Round - Giant Days :: My Shop :: My Flickr Sketchblog :: My Last.fm
10 comments:
I found it amusing that you think Colin Meloy's voice becomes grating over the course of a full LP, yet somehow you found The Hold Steady's vocalist tolerable enough to give them the number three spot this year. I swear to god I gave that album a chance, I even listened to it all the way through, each and every track filling my soul with the insane desire to punch Craig Finn in the mouth. Hard.
I guess I can add this to my list of evidence that you and I are not the same person.
1. John Allison is British. I am not.
2. John Allison likes The Hold Steady. I do not.
I think this is a very valid point, and I can see why that album could be intensely annoying. Craig Finn's voice is a lot like Bob Mould's and I am a big Husker Du and Sugar fan, which is probably why I can tolerate it better than most.
Ultimately though, I think it's the great, swaggering songs on the record that i enjoy. The first Hold Steady record did nothing for me at all.
Colin Meloy actually seems to be getting more mannered and nasal with each record he makes. If you go back as far as Tarkio (his pre-Decemberists band) and the 5 Songs EP, his voice was a pleasure. These days he sings like he genuinely believes he's been lashed to the mast.
I'd like to break with the topic entirely in order to commend you a bit. While you say you have no time for such fickle pursuits as criticising a fellow webcomic creator for the vapidness of their comic's script and characterisation, I know this is not true. I bet you have plenty of time for it. And I love it. Just because I believe that if a writer believes he can get away with nothing but some indistinct characters, masturbatory music references and a little mascot, he should be punished for it.
hi john, just came from your comic site. i thought i should mention that your 1 album, the broken social scene is a CANADIAN band. not just that - the lead singer of stars was/is a member.
there are about 15 bands out of bss that are really great.
oh, and greetings from canada!
www.livejournal.com/users/katrinar
I prefer to think that this is what's known in the trade as self-deprecation, only applied to other people. So just deprecation than. I like QC, and I suspect John A does too. Given that Amy and Shel appeared in a recent strip, I think this is not the punishment for vapidity that Tom Hardy thinks it is, rather a sort of gentle psychic poking.
Also, I never could finish the Mayor of Casterbridge, Tom, could you give me the gist of it?
Hmm... I guess what to you may sound "nasally" and perhaps "overwrought" is, to me, the sound of "going for it." I've heard most of the Decemberists' catalogue (can't say I've heard any Tarkio, however), and Picaresque is by far my favorite. Again, to each his own.
The funny thing about my hatred of The Hold Steady is that most of the time I can appreciate annoying amounts of weirdness in a vocalist. To me, the following fact speaks volumes about Craig Finn's annoyingness: I can easily, and regularly, tolerate a full album's worth of Tom Waits' orc-singing. Yet finishing Separation Sunday was an effort of pure masochism on my part.
Tom Hardy: I think over the past seven years my comics have been guilty of all the things you accuse Jeph of, so I'm keeping MUM.
Wrath Of Kat: I am hip to the Canadian music scene, I own every Pursuit of Happiness record and a Mary Margaret O'Hara disc! And a Ginger and a Sloan. And a Stompin' Tom Connors best of.
S Bernard: I have felt just as infuriated at all sorts of records. I have harboured irrational hatred of bands including Radiohead, Supergrass, the Arcade Fire and many more. But sounds heal, they can turn you around!
All this Tarkio talk got me looking deeper and I got their compilation today from emusic.com. It is called Omnibus and it has the notes and tones to delight!
I'm impressed by the fact that you own a Stompin' Tom Connors record, but it would probably impress me more if you owned any records by either of the Rogers brothers (Stan or Garnet).
John, you couldn't possibly keep my mum. She's just nuts. And I went a little too harsh on QC, I admit. I stil don't like it, but I suppose that in this brave new digital frontier, one must learn to accept the natural hazards of free publication etc.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Tarkio album. Also, thanks to you, I'm going to a Regina Spektor gig in a few weeks :-)
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