Week in Review

What you missed in case you were rushing out to grab one of the new Zunes:

• Jay-Z tops the charts, moving over 400k copies of American Gangster.
• Oasis aren't as cool as Radiohead: An In Rainbows-style release could only happen over Liam's dead body.
• Meanwhile, Thom is apparently too cool for Sir Paul.
• This week's recommended music: The Little Ones and The Thrills.
• 2008 Watch: Radiohead (Happy New Year!) and Weezer set release dates.
• Hanson are finally accepting pre-orders for their updated Middle of Nowhere but decide to inexplicably leave out three tracks while overcharging for what is essentially a novelty item. Oh well, I'll still get "Madeline," and they'll still get my 25 bucks.

Finally, RIP Donda West. "Hey Mama" no doubt gets a few more spins from Kanye and his fans this week.

Hey, hey, hey, hey oh!

“Buy this. It’s awesome.” Handing me a copy of The Little Ones’ Sing Song EP, my brother, Dan, cemented a spot in the “Great Moments in Older Brother History Hall of Fame.”

If it sounds like the “Great Moments in Older Brother History Hall of Fame” is something I made up about twelve seconds ago, it’s because it is. While we’re here, I might as well induct a few other moments to the Hall’s inaugural class: Dan taking me to my first concert (Pearl Jam on May 2, 2003), Aaron giving me my first bowl of Cookie Crisp (the whole “cookies for breakfast” thing never flew with our mom), Dan drawing up a 26-play play book for our two against nobody front yard football games as the hypothetical "Ridgeview Rockets," and Aaron taking me to Boston in the bitter cold of January. Thanks for humoring me.

Anyways, back to the point. It’s not that The Little Ones are my favorite band, or even anywhere close to the top five. It’s not that this was the best recommendation I’ve ever received from one of my brothers, either. What made this recommendation great was the boldness of it. I’d never even heard of The Little Ones, let alone heard any of their songs, and here was my brother suggesting, nay, demanding that I buy their EP.

The Little Ones are, as my brother knows, awesome. In conversation Dan will occasionally and without provocation ponder aloud when they will release a proper full length. I agree; they need one. If you like guitar-pop that you can clap your hands to, you’ll like The Little Ones. If you love joyous shout-along-able lyrics such as “hey, hey, hey, hey oh” you’ll really like The Little Ones.

The Sing Song EP starts in full sing-along mode, with its multi-voice "whoa-oh-oh-oh" kicking off the opening track, "Let Them Ring The Bells." Rolling percussion drives the first minute or so before giving way to bass, keyboards, and glockenspiel (at least that's what it sounds like to me). Next up is the standout track, “Lovers Who Uncover,” a guitar-driven song that squeezes the maximum handclap and sing-along potential from its four minutes and fourteen seconds. Although there is a bit of sadness to the tune, it is overpowered by the playfulness that characterizes the Sing Song EP. The songs may get a bit somber at times, but the lively guitar + synth + bass + sing-along formula is never abandoned along the way, and that's not a bad thing.

That's enough from me; I could give you a track-by-track retelling of the EP, but it's always more effective to show people something awesome rather than to tell people about it. Enjoy:

The Thrills - Teenager

Unlike some people I know, I don't own a Zune, so I have to discover music the old fashioned way: by going to the record store and listening. I try to make it a point to get to my favorite record store at least once a month to check out whatever is on the listening station for that month. Sometimes this means wading through multi-disc compilations of Brazilian folk music, or albums by underground emo bands that make you wonder how any emo bands manage to get aboveground. But every once in a while I'll discover a great new band, or an old but heretofore ignored band, and my record collection is all the richer for it. All told, the twenty or so minutes I spend tucked inside the listening station headphones is time well spent, and almost always yields at least one new discovery.

I consider this time spent listening to be an essential component of the ongoing search for new music, and I thoroughly expect to find something worth buying every time I step into the record store; in fact, I'm not sure that I have ever left a record store empty-handed, with the possible exception of my multi-week quest to track down a copy of Girl Talk's Night Ripper album. What I live for, though, are those moments when I discover an album that's not just the next in a long line of purchases, but that becomes an essential record, a linchpin in the collection. These are the "where have you been all my life?" moments. These are the albums that, thirty seconds into the first track, you already know you're going to buy. Pretend You're Alive by Lovedrug and Punches by World Leader Pretend fall into this category. Listening to these albums was like opening that box on Pulp Fiction and seeing the glow of what may or may not have been Ving Rhames's soul.

(By the way, when was the last time Ving Rhames was in a movie? He pops up every few years in the latest Mission: Impossible in the quintessential "hey, I still do movies" moment, but other than that I can't think of a single thing he's done lately, which is a shame. Imdb claims that he was in seven movies in 2007. Have you seen any of them? I doubt if all seven of these movies actually exist.)

My latest listening station treasure is the album Teenager by the Thrills. I would describe it as a non-French Phoenix, by way of Travis, except that they don't very much sound like either of those bands. They combine generally up-tempo, bright-as-Tatooine's-twin-suns acoustic guitars with the occasional piano chord and banjo pluck, and Conor Deasy's breathy vocals sound like each syllable has been squeezed through one of those Play-Doh macaroni presses. This is one of those albums that constantly reminds you of something else, but you can never put your finger on it. For the briefest moment, for example, I wanted to compare one of these tracks to the Go! Team, as preposterous as that sounds. All told, it's a concise album of bittersweet pop, perfect for those autumn days that look warm but aren't, as summer backpedals into winter and you're starting to figure out that nobody loves you anymore.

Buy this record; you won't regret it.

Rolling Stone Says I'm a Whiz...

But I say that scoring 22 out of 58 on their aptly titled Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz is more a sign of grade inflation than true Whizzardry on my part. For the record, I think I guessed on at least 50 of the questions. I did not, however, have to guess at which Backstreet Boys member has the same name as a "failed reduced-fat hamburger." A.J. McLean, duh.

In other unnecessary and ego-boosting news, one of my teachers has called me a "music guru" in back to back classes. However, he also said today that the only music he likes is "sleepy elevator music," I'm not so sure that's high praise. Maybe he thinks I spend a lot of time in elevators?

Anyways, enjoy the quiz. Score higher than a 22, please. At least one of us here should know something about music.

The Inevitable "I Have a Zune" Post

There are some places I expect to discover good new music from. For some of these places, not only do I expect to discover new music, but I'm downright disappointed when I'm not pointed in the direction of at least a few good tunes. When I flip through one of Dan's old CMJs, or when I start up my In Rainbows - style subscription to Paste, or when I tune in to the only station that matters, I fully expect to discover something good and new. If I don't, I feel let down.

There are other places where I don't necessarily expect to discover music, but I am more than open to the possibility. How I Met Your Mother, for example, gave me The 88, the Violent Femmes' "Good Feeling," and name-dropped Otis Redding. Music discovery isn't the goal of watching a sit-com, I know, but it sure is a great side effect.


Other mediums, however, absolutely stun me when they introduce me to some good tunes. I did not, for example, expect to discover a rapper like K'naan flipping through the pages of Utne. Nor did I expect to find anything good among the preloaded content on my new Zune. Normally I would have assumed any preloaded content to be garbage not even worth dabbling in for a bit, but since I at least recognized the names of some of the bands, I thought an exploratory listen was in order. Still, my hopes were low.

You can imagine my surprise then, as I walked to class yesterday morning, fiddling with my new gadget before settling on Band of Horses for the remainder of my four or so minute walk to class. It wasn't garbage!

In fact, not only is it not garbage, but the song, "Wicked Gil," is pretty great. Not a pantheon song to be sure, but good enough to make me want to listen to more Band of Horses, and isn't that the point? Whoever (or is it whomever? I have no idea about that sort of thing) has the job of creating the playlist to preload onto every Zune has done his or her job well if new Zuners like me are turned on to even one band from the list. For the record, I am convinced that this is one of the greatest jobs ever, not quite as great as owning a record shop, but almost certainly better than any other job one could have at Microsoft (or anywhere, for that matter).

I won't bother attempting a song review because: a) I've only listened to "Wicked Gil" three times now; b) the only person I can guarantee will read this is Dan; he already listens to Band of Horses and, as far as I know, didn't need the guidance of one of the world's largest corporations to discover them, making him infinitely hipper than I am; and c) a much more efficient way to find out if you like it or not would be to simply listen to it yourself. So go buy yourself a Zune. Or, you know, find some other way to listen to it.