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1/31/2012
One Model Nation — TOTALWERKS VOL. 1 (1969-1977) (The End)
The first thing I’ll tell you about One Model Nation is that they aren’t actually a real band, and they didn’t put out records from 1969-77. They are, however, an homage to Kraftwerk, Can, Brian Eno and Laibach, and it’s all from the imagination of The Dandy Warhols’ Courtney Taylor-Taylor. Yes, even his name is pretentious, but I’ll give him this—he nails the homage like nobody’s business. The disc comes with an accompanying graphic novel and the fictional backstory of a radical krautrock band embroiled in guerrilla warfare in 1970s ...
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1/16/2012
Lana Del Rey — Born to Die (Interscope)
Lana Del Rey’s breathless doe-eyed naivety has been the subject of major scrutiny in the blogosphere. It seems extraordinarily early in Del Rey’s career for the inevitable backlash, but here it is anyway. She came to prominence this year with the undeniably beautiful “Video Games—a song so atypically a single, with it’s detached, crooning lyrics, half-dead tempo and five-minute running time, it took a full year for the song to really launch her career. By the time it did, Del Rey had most of this album in the can. Does Born To ...
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1/4/2012
Black Taxi — We Don’t Know Any Better (Black Taxi)For sophomore release We Don’t Know Any Better, the Brooklyn-based quartet Black Taxi does what bands do once they get a little success: they get better. A revered live act in New York, their 2009 debut Things of That Nature was a solid introduction to their jagged, punky post-pop. Yet, like many debuts, it was always more likely to appeal to fans who wanted a souvenir of songs they loved in concert. It’s scattershot, but often inspired. (Check out the jumpy groove of “Up Here for Thinking, Down There for ...
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12/2/2011
Amy Winehouse — Lioness: Hidden Treasures (Island)
It’s a bittersweet experience, listening to this ‘new’ release from the late, great Amy Winehouse, and it bears the question, ‘What if?’ What if Winehouse had survived, fully realizing her potential? What if she’d continued on her healthier path, to dig in and make a flawless new record? And while this collection of 12 songs is by no means terrible, it’s quite clear it was cobbled together. Having said that, there’s no denying that the original version of “Tears Dry On Their Own” packs an emotional wallop not heard on the Back To ...
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11/22/2011
Rihanna — Talk That Talk (Def Jam)
Rihanna must never sleep. On Talk That Talk—her sixth release since 2005 (she released nothing in 2008, the slacker)—the Barbadian who’s never been shy with beats goes balls-out on a thumping club record. Of the 11 tracks, seven are dipped in dance-floor sweat. The first four tracks—“You Da One,” “Where Have You Been,” the Calvin Harris track “We Found Love” and the title tune’s Jay-Z duet—are a quadruple knockout. Harris’s deep Euro-disco cut is an especially gymnastic treat, full of jumping major chords on the synthesizer and a skipping, elastic rhythm created to ...
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11/4/2011
Florence + the Machine —Ceremonials (Universal)
Take a look at the cover to Florence + The Machine’s second album Ceremonials. Look familiar? It bears a striking resemblance to her 2009 debut, Lungs. Thankfully, that’s not where the similarities end. Just like its predecessor, Ceremonials is bursting with heavily produced, overblown, stadium-worthy anthems that are impossible to shake from your head. The album opens with “Only If For a Night”—an odd choice, as it starts and stops, breaks patterns, adds a choir halfway through. It’s more challenging than “What The Water Gave Me” and the excellent “Shake It Out,” which ...
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10/25/2011
Coldplay — Mylo Xyloto (Capitol Records)
How I wish I was too hip to enjoy Coldplay. It’d save me many conversations with hipster-atti concerning “integrity” and “credibility” and other concepts impossible to discuss with a straight face to someone wearing a wool beanie in summer. (On top of which, I remember back when they were championed by the same crowd.) I get it. Chris Martin’s too nerdy. His lyrics are facile. The music is mainstream. All true. But what I think really irks tastemakers is that—for all their flaws—Coldplay’s sincere. They don’t hide behind irony. How dare they, you know, ...
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10/11/2011
Aqua — Megalomania (Universal)
As a band, Aqua makes no sense. Rife with contradictions, the “Barbie Girl” band writes songs that sound as though they’re geared towards toddlers, only with lyrics that regularly employ the “F” word, brimming with sexual subtext. This was only lightly explored around the turn of the century, when the Danish/Norwegian quartet were enjoying their heyday. “Barbie Girl” only scratched the surface of their intentional naïveté. Now, 10 years after their last release, Aqua has reformed with Megalomania. While the last decade allowed the band to get a better grasp on the English language, it also ...
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9/27/2011
Thomas Dolby — A Map Of The Floating City (Venice In Peril)
Thomas Dolby is best known for his 1983 hit single “She Blinded Me With Science.” Unlike his many ‘80s contemporaries, there was a lot more behind the one-hit wonder. Dolby’s second album was an experimental mélange of jazz, new wave and soul—experimental and only seven songs long. Dolby lost a lot of his followers with that one, but the hardcore few stuck through for two more brilliant releases. Nearly 20 years after his last release, Astronauts & Heretics, Dolby has returned with A Map Of The Floating City. ...
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9/16/2011
Erasure — Tomorrow’s World (Mute)
Prick up your ears! One of pop music’s most enduring and endearing duos are back sounding completely reinvigorated, and they mean business. While their 14th disc is no retro rehash, much of it has all the magic that first hooked us. And by enlisting Brit buzz-boy Frankmusik—born in 1985, the year they formed!—as producer, Erasure re-enters the 2Ks with a shimmering vengeance. As with all their albums, Tomorrow’s World contains bittersweet introspection and sophisticated melancholy. Grand breakup anthem “What Will I Say When You’re Gone” wobbles in dubstep, staccato sonics, while the relationship post-mortem “When ...
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