Ramblings From Justin Penney

Keep in mind that I am not completely timely on these albums. Most of my music comes from eMusic and they are not the most timely. My first review is proof of this.

Despite all the noise, I never listened to Arctic Monkeys. I heard "I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor" but never sought out the rest of the album. It's fine. It sounds like the high school. Poppy with a bounce, a distinct mod/ska influence, and rudimentary, choppy funk beats ... and a little angst. In some ways it's like The Libertines and Babyshambles without the influence of hard drugs. In rock, hard drugs aren't always bad.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien has one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop making Deltron 3030 sound like deja vu, in the future. Del started his solo career just as I was fading out of hip-hop. Sometime around 1990 I developed and allergy to hip-hop which I've recently been able to get under control. Maybe I was just being contrarian but I'd like to think I was driven away by the negative, violent aspects ... either way. I like the hip-hop, and I really like this album. Even if you weren't in to hip-hop in the 1990s you will recognise Del as a member of Gorillaz whose 2001 self-titled album also included Dan the Automator as a collaborator. This is a long album, 24 tracks in 1.2 hours, and the futuristic theme can make it challenging to make it straight through. Fortunately, dropping in anywhere in the album is satisfying.

Hard drugs are just as good for comedy as they are for rock and roll. Unfortunately, they have their fatal downside and brilliant artists like Mitch Hedberg have their lives cut short. (I almost said career instead of lives, but that seems shallow.) The posthumous Do You Believe In Gosh? is sad and hilarious. Mitch continues his skewed view of mundane daily activities, morphing and expanding previous themes. Much like Craig Finn's self-reference in The Hold Steady's songs, Mitch beings back just enough of previous jokes to make the new ones, on the same theme, feel new and old at the same time. I've written about the concept of instant nostalgia before and this album nails it.

Speaking of instant nostalgia, The '59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem is nostalgia. It also sounds like Minnesota, by way of New Jersey. They get a lot of comparison to Springsteen, but there are a lot of times they feel like The Replacements. There is nothing revolutionary on this album but it is an excellent example of driving rock with melody.

I have the latest from The Cold War Kids, but haven't given it an attentive listen and I would feel unfair opining at this point.

# posted by Justin @ 10:18 PM