1137 replies to this topic

[James D]

I havn't read any blurbs yet but No Age at #40 with Deerhoof at 40 something is an outrage. Astoundingly catchy rock music played by genius musicians vs two guys who can't play their instruments properly and can't record for shit.

[Paul]

“Somebody better tell these to get a less provocative name or else their thread might get deleted from an NPR MESSAGE BOARD.” - Pavement Ist Rad

#37.




Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
(1666 Points, 31 Votes, One #1 Vote)

US Chart Position: n/a

UK Chart Position: n/a

Charting Singles: n/a

SOMB Says: looking at what constitutes "hardcore" these days, it would be more apt to call all that crusty faux Discharge b.s. TARDcore (and I don't mean Jay, obv.) you want to blame the pitchfork reading indie boppers who ignore the stuff, but in the end it's nothing but the genre's fault. aside from the super obscure lo-fi scuzz punk that is just now starting to generate buzz in the indie world, punk in the classic sense of the term has become a caricature of itself, soiled by the countless teenagers who spend their days decorating their jackets with studs and Oi Polloi patches and adjusting their prissy blonde mohawks, more focused on preserving an image rooted in the past than producing any worthwhile music, hence the existence of Sick Of It All and The Casualties as leading anthemists for the genre. fist pumping hardcore in the post-millenial era just hadn't churned out a work that could be described as its Source Tags & Codes or even its Penance Soiree. enter toronto, ontario's FUCKED UP to accomplish said feat twice in only two years. as if 2006's steamrolling never let up double lp Hidden World wasn't mindblowing enough of a tour de force, Chemistry of Common Life takes the ambitions displayed on that release to creative heights rarely seen in the usually conservative hardcore punk genre and also acting as a step forward for this highly talented group. as far as delivering their rock power with equal amounts of hardcore fury and arena level bombast goes, the DÜ comparisons are perfectly apt, but this is 2008 and it's the highly progressive sonic and compositional choices in between the driving punk rock grooves that elevate these songs to the level of the day's most visionary rock music. first of all, if Spot had had the skills of whoever manned the boards on Chemistry of Common Life then Zen Arcade would be worthier of its distinction as 11/10 classic album than it already is. the album possesses a wide open multitracked sound that reveals just how tinny a sonic masterpiece like Loveless is by comparison, meaning that this is aggressive music that brutalizes your gut, not your eardrums, as there's little else from 2008 that has had this much care put into the actual sound of the music. second of all... it's a hardcore punk album, yeah, but you have isolated flute solos starting and ending the album, the Vivian Girls contributing heavenly backing vox, and a vocal melody in "Black Albino Bones" that sounds closer to Swervedriver than Skrewdriver. the almost comical lack of dynamic variation in frontman Pink Eyes's throat mangling vocal delivery only makes these melodic surprises all the more effective, cementing Fucked Up's place in the pantheon of groups finding that nearly impossible to obtain balance between ugliness and beauty, noise and melody, nihilistic rage and life-affirming joyousness. here's hoping that the rest of the punk rock community will be wise enough to follow suit. - James Iha

Artist's Previous Rankings on Our Albums Lists: n/a

Ranked Highest By: Saskadelphia (#1)

Also Ranked By: blackswede (#3), castaña (#5)

Amazon Link

[swede]

still cant believe glasvegas already placed.... EDIT: alas, FUCKED UP has revived my faith...

[M_Rots]

Astoundingly catchy rock music played by genius musicians vs two guys who can't play their instruments properly and can't record for shit.

The indie ethos couldn't be summed up better - not if Montana had a book.

[Pavement Ist Rad]

Fucking awesome blurb, James Iha.

[Undercooked Sausage]

im awake lets do this

[Waterloo]

nice blurb, mitch! then i see conor oberst though...

[James D]

Fucked Up is good shit, I guess.

[Montana]

Ugh, wtf is wrong with you people?

They need more teen angst Beatles parodies.

[Pavement Ist Rad]

Nice, dude.

[Elemeno P.T.]

Ugh, wtf is wrong with you people?

Thankfully something different is up with us then with people who can't at least appreciate, if not like the music, the fact that the guy's a great songwriter.

[Undercooked Sausage]

paul, i have to run out to dekalb at some point today(about 40 min away) and drive back, are you taking a break anytime today or am i going to have to miss some of the countdown like is there a halftime show.

[Pavement Ist Rad]

Ugh, wtf is wrong with you people?

Thankfully something different is up with us then with people who can't at least appreciate, if not like the music, the fact that the guy's a great songwriter.

He's not.

[Burz]

Damn Montana, you really dunk'd me there with that spot-on assessment of Harvey Milk.

[Mitchell]

great write-up, mitch... like the "hurculean love affair" ref...

nice blurb, mitch!

Thanks, it was a constructive way to spend a post Christmas Monday back at work I felt.

[Montana]

Damn Montana, you really dunk'd me there with that spot-on assessment of Harvey Milk.

Not much better than Conor Oberst writing about fucking coconuts.

[Elemeno P.T.]

Ugh, wtf is wrong with you people?

They need more teen angst Beatles parodies.

You obviously haven't heard the album, much less read RadioHitchcock's blurb- no teen angst whatsoever in this album.

[Paul]

“This is like southern disco.” - Gluehead

#36.




My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
(1695 Points, 29 Votes, Two #1 Votes)

US Chart Position: #9

UK Chart Position: #126

Charting Singles: "I'm Amazed" (#6 Triple A)

SOMB Says:
December 31, 2018
As My Morning Jacket prepares to ring in the New Year with another marathon show, I’ve decided that now is a good time to look back on their lost classic, 2008’s Evil Urges. Largely written off by fans at the time as the band abandoning its traditional sounds of alt-country, southern rock, and heavy-synth-space-rock, most of the album other than “I’m Amazed” was ignored live on subsequent tours. But over the last couple years, Jim James and his gang of bearded weirdos have slowly reintroduced the songs into their live repertoire, much to those same fans’ delight. Of course, it helps that the last ten years have seen the release of five new studio albums, each one expanding on a specific sound from Evil Urges that a lot of people hated at the time. We’ve seen full albums of what would appear to be genre exercise in AM soft rock, Sec Walkin’s country album, and space funk. Even “Highly Suspicious” now makes sense in the context of the follow-up to Evil Urges, a live album of funk and soul covers from the likes of Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, and Kool and the Gang. Ten years on, Evil Urges no longer looks like an attempt to freak out their audience or an embrace of extremes. It now plays like a band trying to match the recklessness of their live shows in the studio. In retrospect, it also makes sense as half of it being the next step from It Still Moves that Z didn't deliver and the other half being the logical progression from Z. Does it matter that following Evil Urges most of the excitement around a new My Morning Jacket release was that it meant a new tour? Kind of, considering that they’ve continued to release interesting material. But nothing has come close to pushing their musical boundaries and their fans’ expectations since Evil Urges. I’ve got to get to the show. I heard a rumor that as the clock strikes twelve, they’re going to play a version of “We’ve Only Just Begun.” - Paul

Artist's Previous Rankings on Our Albums Lists: “Z” (#14 of 2005)

Ranked Highest By: MuteSuperstar, Paul (#1)

Also Ranked By: Dread (#5)

Amazon Link

[Burz]

Ugh, wtf is wrong with you people?

Thankfully something different is up with us then with people who can't at least appreciate, if not like the music, the fact that the guy's a great songwriter.

Why would I appreciate the songwriting of someone who writes songs I don't like?

[Pavement Ist Rad]

You obviously haven't heard the album, much less read RadioHitchcock's blurb- no teen angst whatsoever in this album.

He wasn't talking about Conor Oberst.