The Good …
What can you expect from a band who’ve just released their 12th album ?
If they’re Oklahoma’s The Flaming Lips then you’d better be ready to expect the unexpected. Embryonic is a collection of 18 remarkable tracks, bold, creative and experimental, which leaves you breathless as it takes off in different directions, assaulting your eardrums one minute and soothing them the next. Some may find it too uncompromising and skip past the more dissonant tracks. If they do, they risk missing something rather special. The use of noise and distortion contributes to great driving rock songs such as the album opener Convinced of the Hex, See the Leaves, and Watching the Planets. And Embryonic is all the stronger for its awkwardness and unpredictability and the different sonic worlds it contains, from the chaotic freeform opening to Aquarius Sabotage to the hushed contemplative If via the more conventional rock of Silver Trembling Hands.
So for the 13th album ? We already have the answer. The Flaming Lips have recorded a cover by cover remake of the grandaddy of psychedelic albums, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
The Bad …
Norah Jones is not so much an artist as a commodity. Blue Note Records recognised the marketability of her easy listening mellow jazz influenced style and pushed her debut album into coffee shops, spas and shopping malls with great success. The album sold over 10 million copies, and became staple listening in Starbucks stores all across America.
Her fourth album The Fall has been touted as a change of musical direction. And it’s true that she has dropped her old band, found herself a new producer, and written a batch of songs for guitar rather than piano. But this is not the kind of record that will make rock fans turn their heads. The guitars are subdued and unobtrusive, she sings on every song at the same slow even pace. There’s no risk taking, no fire, and not a lot of personality from the daughter of the great sitarist (and inspiration to the Beatles) Ravi Shankar. As ambient background music for coffeehouses this should prove another hit, but anyone who buys the CD expecting more could find themselves getting bored after a few tracks.
And the Outlandish …
Animal Collective – In the Flowers (Play Video)
Folk indie band Animal Collective, whose Merriweather Post Pavilion has been acclaimed by many as the outstanding album of 2009, say that they’re not a drug band. “A lot of times people would just ask us drug questions, or referred to us as a drug band … it started freaking us out a little bit because it wasn’t something that we wanted to be.”
So we’d love to know how they explain this. Their new video is the most freaked out psychedelic show that you’re ever likely to see. It’s a video that shrieks out “We’re a drug band ! And you’d better get high if you want to appreciate this song !”
