As my work really started to pile up in the last few months, even my newspaper column started to take a dive. This one was completely phoned in, but I still stand by my recommendations, so here it is.
Just when you think the warm days are here for good, the cruel mistress that is Maryland weather gives us another stretch of rainy days. One gorgeous 85-degree day, then the same old gloomy cloudy awful days. Well, at least the snow's over with. (Probably).
In memory of that one delightful day of sunny awesomeness we got on Monday, I've decided to present of that warm-weather music I promised to write about way back in September. So without further ado, my spring recommendations:
Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls
This is the album I was personally blasting all day on Monday. Vivian Girls play delightful bubble gum pop at a blistering pace through a wall of feedback, resulting in what you could ultimately call “noise pop,” in the purest sense. It's nice, simple music at its core, but you can still rock out uncontrollably to it at any given time. Perfect music for those long, windows-down drives on the backroads off 140.
Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Seemingly-depressing album title aside, this is perfect music for just lounging around and enjoying a nice afternoon after class. There are a few upbeat tracks to pique your attention from time to time, but most of it is simply lush guitar melodies over perfect instrumentation, music to drift off and get lost to. One of my favorite albums from a band that's been making incredible music for twenty-five years.
Das Racist – Shut Up, Dude
Das Racist is frat-house hip-hop with brains. “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” their most well-known song,” is an addictive slacker anthem that you'll be reciting in your mind for days on end the first time you hear it, and the album is chocked-full of similar hook-laden tracks. The lyrics have a Lil Wayne-esque random of quality—only they're actually really funny. I keep waiting for these guys to blow up, and it's bound to happen at some point.
The Beta Band – The Three E.P.'s
The Beta Band gained some notoriety from the movie High Fidelity, which used their song “Dry the Rain” in a classic record store scene, and this album is that song times twelve. Laid-back, trippy, hypnotic, funky—there's no way to properly describe the amount of sounds the Beta Band packed into this collection, and yet it's all still immediately accessible and instantly enjoyable. For my money, the best chill-out record ever made.
The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
I'm well aware that I might be alone on this one, but hear me out. These guys invented the whole “playing doo-wop songs really loud with ridiculous amounts of feedback” that's become a genre in itself over the last decade. (Hell, Vivian Girls are a part of that very genre.) They aren't a Christian band, despite the title—they're more likely to sing about staying up all night on drugs than mentioning Jesus—but the music is so mind-meltingly loud that you can't tell anyway. There's something about spring that makes me want to here intolerable screeches of noise in my music. Maybe I'm just crazy.
Bunnygrunt – Jen-Fi
Yes, there is really a band called Bunnygrunt. And yes, they are as adorable as their name suggests. Allmusic famously dubbed them “the world's cutest band,” and numerous other publications have called their brand of music “cuddlecore.” The band hates the label (as they should), and besides, I wouldn't really call them the cutest band in the world. (That would have to go to The Boy Least Likely To.) In any case, these guys are a big ol' bundle of loveable fun, playing their sloppy brand of twee pop that's designed to make you go “aww.” Who could resist a song called “I Just Had Broken-Heart Surgery, Love Won't Bypass Me Again”?
- 4/12/11
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