So much has been written about Bitte Orca, the newest album by indie rock’s Dirty Projectors, that it’s an almost daunting task to find something worth bringing to the table that hasn’t yet been discussed at length. In the digital age, it’s akin to reviewing, like, Thriller or Revolver or something. The immediacy and over-saturation of the Internet has rendered my thoughts typical; discourse is redundant. What’s left to be said about an album released three weeks ago whose Google search results in well over 1 million hits?
After 2008′s The Bedlam in Goliath, it seemed as if guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala had painted themselves into a corner. This is not to say that Bedlam was necessarily a bad album – but it was dangerously close to crossing the fine line between controlled, progressive sound and total confusion and mess. [...]
Reunion albums, let’s be honest, usually suck. They’re typically excuses to tour, although on rare occasion they may be the outcome of legitimate attempts at writing good music. (Keyword: “attempts.”) I needn’t point any further than The Stooges’ abysmal Weirdness, from 2007: an album that seemed like a genuine effort, and more than just a [...]
Much like Robbie Williams and the Manic Street Preachers, Simple Minds were a band that always found themselves constrained to European fame, never quite making an impact across the Atlantic. In the early days of their union, the band was set up against U2; but as U2 pushed beyond their boundaries and achieved global recognition, [...]
“Wilco will love you, baby,” Jeff Tweedy reassures us on his new album’s title track. But will fans love Wilco (The Album)? Or even Wilco (the band)? Since the release of A Ghost Is Born in 2004, the group seems to have been slowly but surely alienating portions of its fanbase — those who admired [...]
