Neon Indian : Era Extraña

Neon Indian's Era Extraña is long overdue for a review (you can't blame me though, I hadn't started this blog until a couple months after this album came out).

Gaining popularity quickly, Neon Indian has released two albums since its conception in 2008 and toured with numerous acts, including Phoenix, Chromeo, and Sleigh Bells. The three bands I chose to mention were chosen for a reason. I personally view Neon Indian as a bit of a cross between all three. Here's a simple math equation for you to illustrate Neon Indian's style.

Neon Indian = synth(Phoenix) + attitude(Chromeo) + vocals(Sleigh Bells - Alexis Krauss' femininity)

Era Extraña is Spanish for "It was strange."
Probably the most literal
album title from an indie band in years.

For those of you who aren't good at math (or are good at math, but don't know how to read made-up equations), that means you take Phoenix's synth, Chromeo's attitude, and the vocal style, though male instead of female, of Sleigh Bells, mash it all up and you have yourself an Era Extraña.


The equation works.

Neon Indian is an eclectic and unique band--two words that are vastly overused in the music business, but are very much true in this case. Poppy synth is topped with a layer of creepy, dark vocals to create songs with a mixed message that confuses and excites.

The first single off the album, and by far the most popular song since the album's been released, is "Polish Girl." This is a great example of this confusion. The song begins, "oh, did Phoenix release a new album? I must have missed it," only to move on, "wait, is this being produced by MGMT?," and finally the vocals, "who is this?" and then you just give up and Google it.

It's a confusion, though, that you like and appreciate. It's exciting and scary at the same time. It's like eating something that tastes really good, but your mom won't tell you what it is. You're hesitant to dive in, but you can't stop and you're in too deep now. Okay, so it's a crummy metaphor, but it's the best I've got.

Some people label this music as chillwave or New Wave or noise pop or synthpop or dream pop or psychadelic pop or shoegaze or ambient or chillout or lo-fi or glo-fi or neo-psychadelia or space rock or just about any combination of the words wave, chill, synth, or gaze. I think that's stupid. Let's be honest. Nobody knows what the difference between any of these are, because there isn't one. All that work that goes into labeling this album, or genre for that matter, is wasting precious time that you could be listening to the album in the first place. So just forget about all that. If you really need a genre, flip a coin. I just did and I'm calling it "wavegaze." It's going to be a thing. Spread it around.

On second thought, I can't support that. So don't. And don't flip a coin either.

Listen to "Polish Girl" instead:

Silversun Pickups : Bloody Mary / Single, Album Preview

Full disclosure: Silversun Pickups may be my favorite band. I always hate answering that question, because I feel like it changes a lot. However, if I had to choose one, it might certainly be them. There's just something about Brian Aubert's unique voice and heavily distorted guitar, the simple often simple, but always powerful drumming by Chris Guanlao, and the complex, even confusing lyrics.

Even Neck of the Woods'
album art is a departure from
their typical abstract images

So when SSPU announced a new album, I couldn't help but get excited. While the announcement (like two or three weeks ago) for Neck of the Woods isn't news any more, all the interviews and tweets surrounding its upcoming release on May 8th have just gotten me too excited to not write a blog post about it.

Aubert describes the album as something "like a horror movie." Personally, I think that this is a great direction for the Pickups to take, considering their already heavily distorted, even dark sound. All I can say is, if it's anything like their recent EP release Seasick, I already approve.

The release of the first album's single has stirred some waves in the online sphere already and for good reason--it's good.

"Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)," as it is called, is a new direction for Silversun Pickups. While it maintains the distorted guitar that has come to define them, it certainly is much darker than their previous endeavors. It's chilling. It's creepy. And it's a great listen. I think Aubert and the crew have really tapped into a really cool sound for this album.

Here's to hoping that the rest of the album will hold up to the standard the single has already set.

Haven't heard "Bloody Mary" yet? Here. I've just saved you a Google search. You're welcome.

Another Post About Music & Marketing: Why Music Shouldn't Be One Way Communication

If you didn't catch my post about music commercialization, that's cool, but here comes another one in a similar vein.

Bands don't need to be a one-way vehicle of communication. Fifty years ago, that wasn't much of an option. Bands would play at huge venues and walk off the stage, not interacting with the crowd aside from the stereotypical "THANK YOU, BOSTON!" followed by crazed fans going wild. Yeah, technically there was a response there, but it's shallow and doesn't mean a whole lot.

And then the internet was born.

What did that do for bands? It could have potentially done a lot, but music has remained a pretty one-way street in terms of communicating to listeners, even after the rise of sites like MySpace and Facebook. Most bands will frequently post something on Facebook, but I hardly see any interaction on their end.

Twitter's proliferation has certainly reversed this cycle a bit. Some bands frequently respond to questions, post photos with an end goal of inciting a response, and retweeting comments. This is a vast improvement for communicating with listeners on a somewhat more personal level. I still have yet to see a response for something like "this album sucks," but it is still a good development. I have one complaint though: I hate bands that just retweet a string of positive things about them. Do you not have to say for yourself or are you really just that self absorbed (I'm talking to you Sam Adams, and no, you don't get a pass for being a half-baked college rapper).

Other than Twitter, I've seen one great attempt to reach out to listeners and get them involved in something I don't really think has ever been attempted before: production. Manchester Orchestra, an indie band with an epic sound that I love to death, went beyond the traditional Facebook and Twitter blitz surrounding their new-ish album Simple Math (though they did that too). 

Manchester Orchestra's
Simple Math

They created a microsite called webuiltthishouse.com where listeners can log on with their SoundCloud accounts and record themselves singing the chorus of the single "Virgin," which sounds like a children's choir in the official version, off the album. After an undisclosed period, Manchester Orchestra will collect all the recordings, mash them together, layer it into the song with the band, and then release it as a free download. Is that not cool or what? Listeners not only have an influence in how it turns out, they get to be a part of the recording!

This site was nominated for the 2012 Music Interactive Award at SXSW, which is pretty sweet. It definitely should have won, in my own semi-professional (I'm pursuing a career in advertising, but alas I'm still in college) opinion.

By giving diehard fans a special treat like this, Manchester Orchestra is creating an open environment for creativity and socialization, something largely absent from the music industry at this current time. More bands need to hop on this train. The possibilities go way beyond having a MySpace page that you never update anymore.

Here's a video of the original song. Keep an eye out for the free download and, if you're interested, you can still get your voice in it:

Remark-worthy Revisit // Band of Horses : Everything All The Time

So, I decided something today: why do I have to always review something relatively new? I don't. I thought it would be fun to talk about an album that deserves a revisit.

With that in mind, let's all rewind to 2006.

Everything All The Time

I've been binge-ing on an album that is particularly close to my heart this past month. I'm not proud of the number of times that I've listened through it. But it is just that good. The album is Band of Horses' Everything All The Time.

It is great for the same reason that I liked Of Monsters and Men's album that I reviewed yesterday. It has a great natural ebb and flow. The band itself has even had some highs and lows over the years, going through members like nobody's business. Band of Horses' fivepiece has seen ten other band members come and go, all leaving for a variety of different reasons.

Personally, I think the band, though it didn't necessarily get bad in subsequent albums by any means, was strongest at its beginnings, before all the drama of new members coming in and out (and, yes, I realize they got a Grammy nomination from their latest album--that one's pretty good too). 

My favorite song on the album, as with many people's, is the first single "The Funeral." The song is just too great. It starts off slow with lots of oohs and ahhs, not picking up until a minute and twenty seconds in and then all of the sudden... BAM! A chorus of drums, guitar and vocals to match. Equally as abrupt, the song instantly slows down again about a minute and a half. I love a song that keeps you on your toes and this does just that. It's a flurry of highs and lows that really makes an impression. If I had to be on a desert island with only one song to listen to, I don't know that I would pick this one, but I wouldn't be unhappy if it's what I was stuck with.

Another fun song on the album that sports some silly writing and an upbeat rhythm is "Weed Party." Even more humorous than the name of the song is that it's followed by a beautiful, tragic love song entitled "I Go To The Barn Because I Like The." I don't think you ever figure out what he likes and why it makes him go to the barn, but it's a great, melodic tune.

Enough of me talking about this album. Go out an revisit it. And if you haven't revisited it, visit it for the first time. It's well worth it.

See what I'm talking about? Here's the official music video for "The Funeral."

Of Monsters and Men : My Head Is an Animal

One criterion that I personally factor when deciding whether a holistic album is a success is whether it has a good ratio and mix of high and low moments. While there are exceptions to this rule, such as The xx's XX (yeah, that's a lot of x's in a row) which is charming because it blatantly breaks this rule and succeeds at being a largely monotone album that's still fun to listen to, I think that, for the most part, albums need a sort of ebb and flow. I think a lot of "real" reviewers (and by that, I don't mean that their opinions matter more than mine or anyone else's, but that they get paid to do so) would agree with this. This can take shape in two different ways: the songs within the album are highs and lows themselves (i.e. Track 1 is loud and exciting, track 2 is slower and melodic, track 3 is lively--it doesn't have to be this sequential, but you get my drift) or that the songs themselves have natural highs and lows in them (think Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"). It's not often, though, that you find an album that does both, especially both very well.

My Head Is an Animal

Of Monster and Men's first production does just that.

This quirky band from I-don't-know-the-key-commands-required-to-let-me-type-the-name-of-their-hometown in Iceland is new to the music scene. Though they've been getting air time on local indie radio stations for some time now, their first album My Head Is an Animal came out earlier this month and it is quite good. They began their North American tour earlier this year at South by Southwest and have been blowing up ever since, with a slew of sold-out shows coming up along with appearances at Toronto's new music festival Osheaga and, of course, Chicago's Lollapalooza.

This band has such a fun, upbeat sound that reflects their Icelandic counterparts Sigur Ros, without the language barrier and more importantly without feeling like they're piggy-backing off their success. I'd throw in some Band of Horses and Manchester Orchestra in there too, not necessarily in terms of style, but in their overall theatricality.

If Iceland is the one that's
actually green, then why do
they all look so cold?

As I talked about before, Of Monsters and Men does a great job of mixing up highs and lows within songs and the songs within the album. Songs like "Yellow Light" showcase the lyrics with a simple, melodic background tune, while listening to songs like "From Finner" with booming drums and a chorus that crashes like a waterfall only to flow seamlessly into the verse that follows.

The album's single is also a really strong song within itself, highlighting the voices of both Nanna Hilmarsdóttir and Ragnar þórhallsson (don't ask me how to pronounce either of those names) as they playfully carry out a conversation throughout the song on top of a layer of equally playful instrumentation.

I highly recommend you check out this album. It's a great listening experience and you'll be glad you took the time to do so. Though I haven't taken this album out for a spin in a car myself, I think that it would be a great album for driving around in the increasingly beautiful weather this summer. I know it will definitely be playing for at least part of the way as I'm driving to Lollapalooza this summer.

Check out this legit music video for My Head Is an Animal's single "Little Talks" here:

Fun. w/ Miniature Tigers @ Myth

After a dramatic string of events that led to two different venue changes, Fun. made their return to Minneapolis (well, Maplewood) last night. Anyone that's been following this blog loosely within the past month knows Fun. by now. I gave Some Nights a less than glistening review last month and I briefly talked about them in my post about indie bands making it big. This will have been the third time that I've seen them live (What? They come to Minnesota a lot) and I've been impressed with them each time, but last night blows the other two performances out of the water.


I was severely disappointed when the venue changed from Varsity Theater to the Brick, which has gotten a lot of bad press since it opened, and even more disappointed when it moved from the Brick to Myth, which has gotten a reputation of being a high school club because of the number of 16+ shows they host. And may I say, the tween hipsters were out in full force.

Charlie Brand of
Miniature Tigers

Waiting in line, I could see the armies of little hipsters setting up camp outside Myth. I, along with all the other seasoned concert-goers, were outnumbered, not vastly, but enough to be a little worried. The older crowd did show up, but it was much later, which was a relief. Once we got to our spots for the night, which just happened to be front row, we practically spent the whole night trying to defend them. So many of these teeny-boppers lacked concert-etiquette, blatantly making snide comments about a girl that came back from the bathroom to claim her spot, awkwardly groping me and my friends from behind, cheering things that were meant for a high school pep rally rather than a concert, and making fool-hearty attempts to get in front of us by claiming they needed to lean on the railing (why do you need the railing when you've been awkwardly leaning on me despite my polite requests to stop?). I don't know whether this was a problem for the other people at the concert or if it was just the people around us, but it certainly put somewhat of a damper on an otherwise flawless night.

Now that I'm done complaining, let's get to the flawless part.

Fiero T-Shirt? Sold

Brooklyn-based synth-pop act Miniature Tigers had an overall great performance. I wasn't graced with hearing them before the performance last night, but they were really great. I couldn't help but like them as soon as they entered onto the stage, with a guitarist that looked like Lenny Kravitz, a bassist wearing some of the most obnoxious argyle socks I've ever seen, and a drummer that was wearing a Fiero t-shirt, drinking a Summit Great Northern Porter, and jamming out on a drum kit sporting a shoddily-painted on strawberry.

The set started a little slow. It took them a while to realize their frontman Charlie Brand's microphone wasn't nearly loud enough. I don't know that I actually comprehended a line from his sassy, sometimes even raunchy, lyrics until about half way through the set. The singing, and with it the rest of the performance,  made vast improvements when they bumped up the vocal mic. Despite this, the lively guitar riffs and simple, but thundering drum beats were high-caliber. It just made the entire crowd want to dance. And that's what we did. I'm not usually a dancer when I go to concerts, but their poppy, upbeat music was just too perfect to not at least jump around to a little bit.

The stage is set

After a great performance and about a forty-minute wait, Nate Ruess and his bandmates took the stage with a fiery energy that resonated with the entire audience. Opening with "One Foot," a song off their new album, they proved that they are much better without the auto-tune (the main thing that killed their new album for me). The set continued with a solid mix of songs from both their albums, perhaps even more from Aim and Ignite, which was a surprising considering they were touring to promote Some Nights. I was hoping for a song by the Format (they played "Dog Problems" the last time I saw them), but alas it never came.

Fun. takes the stage

Sporting a Celtics jersey, he brought a lot more energy to his performance than they did against Toronto last night. Nate's stage presence, vocal range, and obvious love for what he's doing never ceases to amaze me. They all looked like they were all just having a ball up there. The energy that they all put into the performance was just palpable throughout the venue. Nate made the enthusiastic audience the star of the show on more than one occasion. I always love when performers make the audience an integral part of the show.

Highlights included an anthemic performance of the song that put them on the map "We Are Young," Nate and Jack's witty exchange about how their dads were both probably high in the audience ("Isn't it sad when your dad smokes weed and you don't?"), a powerful, emotional performance of "The Gambler," and Nate having to wait a good ninety seconds to squeak out the last line of his first encore (there were two) over the roar of the audience.


Overall, a standup performance and proof that Fun. is a remarkable band to see live. Trust me. I've now got three shows under my belt. We'll see if I end up seeing them at Lollapalooza again this summer. Miniature Tigers were a great opener and a great match for Fun. While Miniature Tigers were danceable, Fun. proved belt-able as always. Also, Nate informed us during the show that last night was the largest show they've ever headlined for. Congratulations on your most recent step to stardom. You deserve it.

*All photos for this post courtesy of Heather Roos

Lollapalooza Lineup Announcement

As much as I'd love to give the new Shins album the respect it deserves, I have to post over it right away in order to stay current. I meant to get the Shins review out sooner, but internet issues kept me from doing so. So, I apologize James Mercer. However, I'll make it up to you by promoting one of your shows (not that it needs it).

Can I just start this post by saying: Holy _______! (insert expletive here, really any will apply)

Lolla has been officially announced. Consider my socks blown off. I bought tickets last week without knowing how was playing--a risk that paid dividends.

You're telling me I get to see The Black Keys and Jack White in the same weekend?! Note to Lollapalooza staff: If you put these two at the same time, I'm going to do something irrational that you will not appreciate. Abide by this rule and we'll get along.

Other bands that I'm super excited for are as follows: Florence and the Machine, The Shins (even though I'm seeing them in June), Bloc Party, Santigold, M83, Franz Ferdinand, Metric, The Head and the Heart, Dawes, Fun. (could potentially be the fourth time I see them live, don't ask me how this keeps happening), Band of Skulls, Neon Indian, Trampled by Turtles, Polica, White Rabbits, Doomtree, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and Thenewno2.

Two years ago would have been my dream lineup (you could have taken 8 out of my 10 favorite bands at the time and they were all there). I couldn't attend that year, as you can guess. But the Lollapalooza committee has given me a second chance. A second chance at one amazing weekend full of great music.

The Shins : Port of Morrow

The Shins have been around for a long time, since 1996 to be exact. While that was well before I was listening to indie music (and almost before I was in grade school), I've been a fan of the Shins for a long time. As a big fan, I, like most fans, thought a new album was well overdue.  Wincing the Night Away, an album that featured great tunes like "Australia" and "Phantom Limb," was released way back in 2007. Yeah, that's right--the last time the Shins released an album was the same year that the iPhone was released.

Okay, so 2007 wasn't that long ago, but five years is a long time for a big Shins fan to go without a new full-length, or any-length for that matter.

The Shins are back

The year after Wincing's release, James Mercer, Shins frontman and vocalist, announced that they would be splitting from Sub Pop Records, where labelmates included Iron and Wine and The Postal Service and opted to create an independent label Aural Apothecary. Other announcements followed regarding a new band lineup. Mercer replaced the rest of the lineup, citing the need for new bandmates to achieve new production goals.

This is the part of the story where, after having heard the album numerous times now, I start to get confused.

Port of Morrow
- classic Shins album

Port of Morrow is a Shins album, through and through. Did these new production goals really warrant a lineup change? No. Not in this guy's humble opinion. If the real reason was "artistic differences" (an ex-bandmate's polite way of saying they're no longer on speaking terms), then fine. But if Mercer is telling the truth in all his interviews and it really is about taking the band in a new direction, I'm not seeing it. This album is hardly a departure from what they have been doing since 1996.

That being said, it's a great album.

Port of Morrow starts out strong with "The Rifle's Spiral."  This song is light and airy and it features Mercer's typical saucy, playful lyric writing. "May this rail unfurl. / As you rise; rise from your burning Fiat, / Go, go get my suitcase, would you?" Following this is the album's first single, "Simple Song," a great tune within itself. I could go on and dissect each song, but that would be pointless. Each song features that same classic Shins flair that we all have come to know and love.

If it were just about any other band, I'd say that this was a bad thing. It's a shame to lump all the songs together and make a generalization that they're light, airy and witty, but it's what I have to do to keep this review from getting too redundant. The songs aren't similar enough that you can't tell when the song changes. I've run into that issue before and it doesn't make for a good listening experience. Each song deserves its respect, because each song on the album is good. The Shins know what they do well and I don't think that they really strayed from that with this new venture. Take that comment how you want to.

Gems on this album include "The Rifle's Spiral" and "Simple Song," as I mentioned before, but also the second single "Bait and Switch" and the powerfully melodic "September."

Give the whole album a listen though. You'll be glad you did. As I've said before, I think that listening to an entire album is much more rewarding than listening to a single song. While some might think the Shins need to evolve and get out of their element, I think that they're still making great music where they are. But who knows? Maybe the five year lull has made me too excited for new music to give a fair review.

Selling Out or Moving Up?: Why Hipsters Need to Shut Up

Well, the header at the top of my blog says "Weighing in on independent and alternative music," which means I'm not obligated to solely reviewing music. I'm entitled to the occasional rant or two about the industry as a whole, aren't I? I think so.

The car that launched a career (and itself)

This was inspired by a great Adweek article about the rise of indie bands being used in big brand advertising. It talked a lot about how the Chevy Sonic commercial played a role in Fun.'s success, which I touched on in my review from last week. I have to say it felt pretty good to scoop Adweek (kind of).

Hipsters around the country will probably read this article and be up in arms about the rise of indie bands being used in ads, but I say good for them. Accusations of "selling out" get out of hand. I kind of touched on my opinions regarding selling out a little bit in last week's review of Fun.'s Some Nights (I'd put a link here to it, but are you really too lazy that you won't scroll down a little bit?), but here are three reasons why people should be hesitant to use the term sellout:

1. There are plenty of good indie bands out there and they deserve recognition.

Bands are in the music business to entertain people. No right-minded frontman dreams of playing for ten people at a bar like the Zooey Deschanel's character from Yes Man. He dreams of playing for a packed house at Madison Square Garden. Musicians want to play for a large crowd and gain a large following. How can they do that without a little radio play or a Cheer Laundry Detergent branded music video? No band is realistically going to gain a following with a Myspace page and a Bandcamp site. They can certainly start that way, but bands like Fun. and Strange Talk had a lot more going for them than just that stuff.

A blog post involving hipsters
and beer couldn't be complete
without a PBR reference

2. Indie bands need beer money.

Somebody needs to pay the bills. Indie bands don't make very much just playing local gigs. People that go into music as a career need to make a living. As much as I respect someone for working two or three jobs just to support doing something they love, something's gotta give eventually. The hipsters that accuse bands of selling out in the first place probably aren't eating Ramen three times a day trying to get by. Plus, beer isn't cheap. How do you think they're able to support their play-music-and-party-all-night-lifestyles that hipsters glamorize so much? But in all seriousness, small shows don't put food on the table. Bands need to make money, just like everyone else.

3. Good music on the air will drown out the generic pop music that you complain about so much.

The only thing that hipsters complain about more than bands selling out is Top 40 radio. More indie pop on the radio means less Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga on the radio. Penetrating the market with good music means less airtime for bad music. Simple as that.

As much as I don't like Green Day, Mike Dirnt summed up my view on selling out when he himself was accused of selling out in 2001. He told reporters:

 "The fact was we got to a point that we were so big that tons of people were showing up at punk-rock clubs, and some clubs were even getting shut down because too many were showing up. We had to make a decision: either break up or remove ourselves from that element. And I'll be damned if I was going to flip fucking burgers. I do what I do best. Selling out is compromising your musical intention and I don't even know how to do that."

Music is an art and musicians are artists. I don't think that one should give up "musical intention" for money. That, to me, is what selling out really is. Making money, getting on the radio, and having people know who you are is not selling out. Selling out is what the Cheetah Girls did in that Disney Channel movie (no worries, they came around in the end).

If there are any hipsters out there that want to contest me on this, feel free. You can stop listening to your favorite band because they got on the radio. It's a free country. Just don't complain about it to me.

Fun. : Some Nights

Q: What do you get when you cross Nate Ruess' voice and T-Pain's overuse of auto-tune? 

A: A failed experiment, entitled Some Nights.

I've been looking forward to the release of Fun.'s (I've been arguing with myself about how you punctuate the possessive form of a name that ends in a period for a while and this is what I came up with) new album that debuted a couple weeks ago for a while now.  I've been a fan of Nate Ruess' first band The Format for a long time and was upset when they broke up in 2008.  Around that time, I must have just missed all the press about his new project that started up the next year, because I was at a Motion City Soundtrack concert where a little band named Fun. was opening.  They put on a great show and left me thinking "Wow, that sounds a little like The Format.  They're pretty damn good."  A quick Google search after the show told me that Nate Ruess teamed up with Andrew Dost of Anathello and Jack Antonoff of Steel Train, released an album, and started touring all within a year and a half of The Format breaking up.  Busy dude.

I downloaded Aim and Ignite, their first album, when I got home and loved it.  I saw them live again last year when they headlined a tour promoting the album and they put on another great show.  Their sound, vaguely reminiscent of an indie-pop Queen, translated very well live and they had a powerful, fun (pun intended) stage presence.

After a lot of build-up on the Twitter-verse before Some Nights was released, I couldn't help but get a little excited.  The release of their first single "We Are Young" on Youtube built my anticipation up even more, especially when I found out that they teamed up with soul-infused vocalist Janelle Monae.  The song was a little bit more mainstream sounding, but still had the Fun. flavor that I had come to love.  The song got huge very quickly, largely due to the fact that a lot of mainstream radio stations had picked it up, a Glee performance of the song (this admittedly irked me a little), and a well-produced spot in a Super Bowl ad for the Chevy Sonic.

Good for them.  I'm not one of those pretentious hipster indie-listeners that accuses a band of "selling out" when they start making money (isn't that the point, anyways?).  I think selling out is just when a band changes their sound just to fit the mold.  I don't think that Fun. really sold out.  They always had a poppy sound that was fit for radio.  I do think, though, that they failed with this one.

There are a couple of gems on this album: "We Are Young" is a good song (so hipsters can just shut up when they start complaining about hearing Nate Ruess' voice on the radio), "Some Nights" works well (though I don't give it a complete pass, but I'll get to that in a second), and "Stars" has a great balance of high and low moments.

Now that I've given the album the couple props that it does in fact deserve,  I've got to get the biggest gripe I have about this album that causes the entire album to just fall apart: Nate Ruess's voice shouldn't be auto-tuned.  In fact, I don't really think anyone that isn't a mainstream rapper should be auto-tuned (and that's even a stretch).  There isn't a single time on the album where the auto-tune adds to the songs that it's in.  Even in the songs I said I liked, the auto-tune detracts from the parts that it's in.  I find myself skipping entire songs at a time as I'm listening to the album again, just because there's too much auto-tune.  

Obviously, it wasn't added because Nate Ruess needed it--he's got a great voice.  I don't think it was added to make it more mainstream, because mainstream music doesn't use it the way that Fun. is trying to.  My theory is that they thought it would make a new, unique indie-pop sound.  It certainly is unique, but it also sucks.

Sorry Fun.  I know that you're probably very proud of this album, but it just doesn't work.  I still like you as a band.  Nate, you'll always have a special place in my heart.  I'm still going to see you for the third time when you come to Minneapolis in April, but that doesn't mean I like your newest album.

Here's an acoustic version of "We Are Young" that gives you a good idea of what Nate's unaltered voice is capable of:

Atlas Genius : Trojans

So, why choose to start reviewing indie music with a single instead of a full album?  Well, it either says something about my backwards-personality or it says something about the song.

I'll just give you the answer: It says something about the song.

This band has impressed me in a couple ways.  They reached the top of Alt-Nation's Top 18 without even releasing an album. Scratch that, they reached the top of Alt-Nation's Top 18 without even releasing an EP.

I'll tell you why the song works.  Everything about it is so simple.  The instrumentals are simple, but catchy.  The lyrics are simple, but smart.  Even their Facebook page is simple (their cover photo and profile picture are just "Atlas Genius - Trojans" on just white space and their posts hardly ever go over ten words).  No music video.  And no cost.  Yeah, that's right, you can pick up the download for free on their website.

But I digress.

It's difficult to compose a song this simple and poignant, yet make it work without any other songs on an album or EP to back it up.  Atlas Genius are plenty busy working on their first official EP and, though I eagerly wait for it, this one song will keep me plenty busy for a while (and I don't say that often--I'm definitely a listen-through-the-entire-album-from-start-to-finish type of guy).

Here's a great acoustic version for your listening pleasure:

Reviews? We don't need no stinkin' reviews! (We've got Pitchfork)

Hello world.  I'm James.  It's nice to meet you.

Before I begin diving into reviews, I wanted to give you a background as to why I chose to start reviewing indie music.  Like it says in my "about me," I'm an ad student at the University of Minnesota.  The real reason I'm giving you this tidbit about myself is to let you know that I'm not a music expert.  Why should you care about my opinion then?

I'll answer that with another question:  Why do you care about anyone's opinion?  Why is it that 1,887,475 people (at the time of this post) follow Pitchfork on Twitter?  Why is it that Pitchfork's opinion can make or break Arcade Fire's career?  Ryan Schreiber was just a regular guy with opinions like you and me.

I'm not trying to knock on Pitchfork.  I use it all the time and it's a great site.  That being said, I have a couple of problems with it being hailed as the place to get music reviews (and, to note, these are problems that most similar sites have as well).

The biggest one is inconsistency.  How can Cold War Kids be described as a "non-descript brand of blues" and charged with riding the coattails of The Black Keys when a band like Bear Hands is praised for sounding like MGMT?  The logic baffles me.  I can't blame them for their inconsistency, though.  They have Pitchfork-only-knows how many reviewers writing for them.  Trying to create consistency when you have tons of different people putting their insights on one site as a single voice is impossible.

I think that this inconsistency is not only the result of numerous writers, but also their review process.  Using numbers to review music is, in my personal opinion, problematic.  Quantifying music is impossible because music is inherently subjective.  Believe it or not, some people hate the Beatles.  Does that make their opinion any less valid than mine?  No (please don't leave angry comments saying they have a voice too, John Lennon fans).  What's deserving of a 7.9 as opposed to an 8.4?  I don't think there's really an answer.

And that's why I won't give any.  There's a reason that I'm not going to score the albums I talk about.  I think it's stupid.  I'm going to weigh in and give my opinion on albums and invite you to do the same.  I'm going to tell you what I think of an album and that's it.  That's what the Indie 5000 is going to be about.