Snap Judgements on Music I Just Downloaded

New Stuff

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Um, "Best New Music," I disagree. Maybe if I was into drugs. Since I'm not, I'll keep my weird music a bit more musical and a bit less computer generated.

2. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
The bands single "Knife" from Yellow House caught my ear the first time I listened to it, the rest of the album, however, took much longer to be memorable. Similarly "Two Weeks" has stuck itself in my head but the rest of the album is still digesting. Jury's out on this one still.

3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
I dig the danciness of this album. That is not a word, but I figured it best described what the New York group has done with this album. It's a bit like an American, chick-fronted Bloc Party album. The only thing about it I don't like has nothing to do with the music. My friend Pat pointed this out: it's called "It's Blitz" but it's not a loud record. This discrepancy causes a bit of mental anguish on my part, and Pat's too I would surmise.

4. Wavves - S/T
I get it, it's kitsch, aggressive and fun. It's loud and there are something like four songs with "goth" in the title. Good hooks and a bit of studio experimentation, it's an alright album. Not great though.

5. Manchester Orchestra - Mean Everything To Nothing
Solid sophomore effort. Not much else to say. I like it but again, I don't love it. I loved their first album for a brief period of time, but it grew old. Hopefully this one goes in reverse of that.


Stuff I Missed Out On

1. Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
This is the deluxe edition which I read a review of on Pitchfork. Since I enjoyed Kind of Blue quite a bit I figured I'd like the follow up as well. Since it raises the question as to whether or not this is even jazz music, I'm sure that I will dig it, and so far no qualms.

2. Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um
Nineteen fifty-nine was the golden year of jazz, with Davis and Trane collaborating on Kind of Blue and Monk putting out three albums and also working with Trane it was a year that produced some great music. Mingus, the great bassist and band leader put out this gem and I couldn't pass it up. So far so good.

3. Tom Waits - Incomplete Discography
I selected several of Waits best albums from the past thirty years ranging from Closing Time to Alice. I've got the classic, the strange and the obscure. On this current jazz kick and my long-term love with punk, blues and rock music Waits just makes sense. I'm enjoying his music, not all of it, but I'm listening and finding the gems.

4. No Age - Nouns
I don't like it. I think the reviews of this album were off. It's no longer in my iTunes.

5. The Dodos - Visiter
I should have listened to this sooner. It's been mentioned to me before, I just hadn't gotten around to listening. My mistake, it's good.

6. Brian Wilson - Smile
Good but not the best album ever like so many reviews would have you believe. The one thing I don't like is the new "Good Vibrations." Why change a classic even if it was never properly released on a full length.

7. Frightened Rabbit - Sing The Greys
I loved (understatement) Midnight Organ Fight so I had to download this one as well. Haven't listened to enough of it, but I haven't been disappointed.

8. Josh Ritter - Discography
I got The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter a couple months back and loved it so I had to get all of his older material (see a theme emerging?). I love it, anyone who enjoys a good folksy, country-rock singer-songwriter would love all of this as well.

9. Velvet Underground - V.U. & Nico
It's like the first indie record ever. It's an important album, it's not my favorite, but I do like it.

10. Decemberists - 5 Songs and The Tain
Five Songs is the bands first material they ever released and for being early Decemberists it still has all elements that I love about the band. The Tain is eighteen plus minutes of Irish-folk, progressive indie rock that I love. I'm sure I'll have this one on vinyl soon.

That's all for now, I still need to listen to Matt and Kim, Mos Def, Wilco, Kid Cudi (if it ever comes out), etc. etc.