{"id":1946,"date":"2007-11-09T10:49:12","date_gmt":"2007-11-09T10:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/11\/09\/new-songs-from-old-singers\/"},"modified":"2007-11-09T10:49:12","modified_gmt":"2007-11-09T10:49:12","slug":"new-songs-from-old-singers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/11\/09\/new-songs-from-old-singers\/","title":{"rendered":"New Songs from Old Singers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Having done a giant weighty physics post, I feel like I should post something more frivolous, so here&#8217;s something about music&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I recently purchased a bunch of stuff from iTunes (yeah, yeah, Amazon has DRM-free MP3&#8217;s, blah blah, blah. 1) I had a gift card, and 2) I&#8217;m not Cory Doctorow), and there was a weird sort of theme to the purchases: new releases by guys whose previous bands I like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria, <cite>Fireworks on TV<\/cite>. The singer and guitarist from <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/09\/buffalo_tom_larkfest_2007.php\">Buffalo Tom<\/a>, playing with a bar band from Boston. This is the best of the lot, and sounds pretty much like a lost Buffalo Tom album. &#8220;My Radio,&#8221; &#8220;One, Two, Three,&#8221; and &#8220;Minutes of the Day&#8221; are particularly good.<\/li>\n<li>Dan Wilson, <cite>Free Life<\/cite>. The singer from Semisonic, with a solo album that pretty much sounds like a slightly quieter Semisonic record. Party like it&#8217;s 1997. The title track,  &#8220;Against History&#8221; and &#8220;Easy Silence&#8221; are very good, and &#8220;Sugar&#8221; is just a bit behind.<\/li>\n<li>Justin Currie, <cite>What Is Love For<\/cite>. The singer (with the sideburns) from Del Amitri, with a solo record that sounds like a collection of the mopier Del Amitri songs. &#8220;Walking Through You&#8221; and &#8220;If I Ever Loved You&#8221; are good, but this is the weakest of the lot. &#8220;No, Surrender&#8221; is passionately political, and annoying as hell.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Any other new solo records I ought to be listening to?<\/p>\n<p>And, lest you think I only buy records from people who were in defunct bands, some other recent releases:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Feist, <cite>The Reminder<\/cite>. Enh. I like that &#8220;1,2,3,4&#8221; song, but other than that, this album leaves me cold. It&#8217;s kind of halfway to Bj&ouml;rk&#8211; the songs are mostly designed to play up her voice, which hovers right on the edge of annoying.<\/li>\n<li>Bruce Springsteen, <cite>Magic<\/cite>. I was initially kind of disappointed in this, as it&#8217;s awfully restrained for an album with the E Street Band. I don&#8217;t want to hear Bruce and the boys giving 80%, I want 150%. It&#8217;s grown on me a bit, though, and they&#8217;re playing Albany next Thursday, so we&#8217;ll see how the new stuff sounds live.<\/li>\n<li>Kanye West, <cite>Graduation<\/cite>. Because I have to know what the kids are into, you know? I didn&#8217;t like this as much as the previous records. The hooks aren&#8217;t quite as good, nor as prominent, and that pushes his &#8220;let me tell you about my awesomeness&#8221; lyrics to the fore, which, enh. It got old, fast.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also picked up a shop-teacher&#8217;s handful of singles: &#8220;Painkiller&#8221; and &#8220;5 Mile (These Are the Days)&#8221; by Turin Brakes and &#8220;Sugar Buzz &#8221; and &#8220;The Magic of December&#8221; by Lil&#8217; Cap&#8217;n Travis. &#8220;Sugar Buzz&#8221; and &#8220;5 Mile (These Are the Days)&#8221; are probably the two best songs out of the whole lot. I&#8217;m not sure what that means, but there you go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having done a giant weighty physics post, I feel like I should post something more frivolous, so here&#8217;s something about music&#8230; I recently purchased a bunch of stuff from iTunes (yeah, yeah, Amazon has DRM-free MP3&#8217;s, blah blah, blah. 1) I had a gift card, and 2) I&#8217;m not Cory Doctorow), and there was a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/11\/09\/new-songs-from-old-singers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New Songs from Old Singers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}