Tag Archives: Elvis Costello

Top Ten Thursday: Album Three Peats

16 May

Top Ten Three Consecutive Great Albums

 

The great Chicago music podcast “Sound Opinions” had a really good baseball themed episode about music “Grand Slams”, where a band released four excellent albums in a row. While we won’t rip them off directly, since it’s the basketball playoffs, 2/3rds of LxL is in Chicago, and MJ won 2 three-peats, we thought we would give to you the best three-peats to start a career, or the top ten artists who started their career with three great-to-perfect albums. Not to mention Vampire Weekend just released their third and best album, making them a wonderful candidate for this three-peat list. So here we go.

 

10. TV On the Radio

The Albums: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, Return to Cookie Mountain, Dear Science
TV On the Radio, Album, cover art, dear science, cookie mountain, youth
In my opinion, the Brooklyn noise-rockers got severely underrated at 10. TV On The Radio released three of the best albums of the aughts, albums that howled, swooned, burned, and celebrated in front of their apocalyptic sound.
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Top Ten Thursday: Worst Grammy Offenses – or How We Learned to Loathe the Grammys and Love Music Again

9 Feb

Grammys are worthless

It’s no secret, or even a matter of opinion at this point. It’s just a cold hard fact. The Grammys suck. Everyone knows and understands this, yet somehow, they still exist. Not only do they exist, but they exist on a larger than life scale. Yet not once have I ever heard someone in real life or media claim that the Grammys have ever held any sort of relevance in the music world … Ok, I take that back … I DO remember hearing hipsters last year claiming that Arcade Fire was “breaking barriers” and “proving something for indie musicians” when they won that worthless hunk of fake gold for whatever bull-spit category they won it for. In contrast, I also remember hearing Nickelback fans rant and start a blogspot called “Who the F*$k is Arcade Fire”. I think it’s fair to say that neither of these stereotypes should represent music anyways. Anyone who cares about music realizes that Grammys hold as much value as my MC Hammers savings account. It’s quite literally a song and dance put on by the record companies to maximize profit in an industry that isn’t very good at making profits anymore. So they do what they can, and exploit what songs made money in television commercials that year, and pray that people still think their input is worth anything.
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Craig Finn Review: Clear Heart Full Eyes

24 Jan

Craig Finn

Clear Heart Full Eyes

Craig Finn's Clear Heart Full Eyes Album Cover

So you caught me. I’m actually reviewing this album because I love the title so much since the wife and I have been watching heavy doses of Friday Night Lights. Even though I really love a couple Hold Steady albums (the primary band that Craig Finn reigns from), their last couple albums didn’t exactly strike excitement out of me as Craig Finn’s sing-talk can wear on you over time. For those who don’t know, The Hold Steady are hailed by some as “The Best Bar Band in America”, as their brand of guitar-driven classic rock mixed with Tad Kubler, Craig Finn, and Franz Nicolay’s balls-to-the-wall playing style makes for a really fun live show. Finn in a very Springsteen-ian way, interweaves stories of troubled boys and girls in America (a la the album, Boys and Girls in America), with lines of great insight and some of great humor.  This makes for an odd but alluring mix of straight-forward rock mixed with complex and often poetic story-telling.
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Wilco Review Royale: The Whole Love

28 Sep

Wilco
The Whole Love

Over the years I have made an affirmative effort to try to get into certain bands or albums that my friends have raved about.  These efforts have been met with varying degrees of success.  While inorganically force-feeding myself a certain album or band is not the ideal way to begin to enjoy a band, I have learned that it sometimes leads to rewarding results.  Due to my efforts, I fell in love with early Kings of Leon (which has led to crippling disappointment in their more recent work). I also have been able to enjoy a fair amount of Radiohead (when Thom Yorke’s voice is not sodomizing a track).
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