While I would agree with the majority of so-called “hardcore” fans of Radiohead that this was a ploy by Capitol Records to squeeze out their last album for contractual reasons (gee, we’ve seen this happen before, haven’t we), for casual fans this is a great album to pick-up. With the hope of inducing rabid fandom, and after you listen to hits like “Creep”, “Karma Police”, “Paranoid Android”, “The National Anthem”, “Knives Out”, and “I Might Be Wrong” how couldn’t you be subject to that ear-riddled disease, I think that the “hardcore fans” should unite. After uniting like some quasi convention at the U.N., they should announce in unison, “yes we’d prefer to have the pop kiddies listening to Radiohead than spend another millisecond considering who to vote for on American Idol or which Cyrus was better, Billy Ray or his multi-millionaire underage daughter better known as Hannah Montana”. If you can’t find yourself on the right side of that argument, than you’re so ‘emo’ and ‘underground’ that even your mom will puke at your very sight and Scott Tenorman clearly must die.
Forget the tragically angst-riddled lyrics and the even more tragic band name, “Rotation” is an array of surprisingly decent pop-punk and emo anthems wrapped in a catchy enveloping hug. But all hugs and disses aside, Cute is What We Aim For is Fueled By Ramen’s latest mall-driven pop that features a single “Practice Makes Perfect” that soccer moms will be singing along to, despite any irony whatsoever. On, tour with Powerspace, Danger Radio, and Ace Enders, Cute is a band that will no doubt be unheard of in another couple of years but who knows, maybe they’re the second coming of Dashboard Confessional. I mean there’s flooding in Iowa that hasn’t been seen for some 500 years, anything is possible. Enjoy their new video that MTV is spewing out whenever MTV tries to remember what the “M” stands for in their acronym.
Not since I first heard Statistics have I been this impressed with an indie rock outfit; Moving Mountains’ “Pneuma” will not only burn the charts but be the very top of so many “best of”’s that it seems as if it’s the very first essential album of this new millennium. Greek for “breathe”, the album features airy ambience and complex arrangements that take the term post-rock to a whole new plane of existence. Beautiful textures and dominant guitar arpeggio collide to forge a happy union between emotional rock, math-oriented punk, and the epically melodic. Space rock ventures are found on songs that are as deep as the Northeastern woods. Perhaps the best song on the album, “Grow On, Grow Up, Grow Out”, ends with crashing crescendo lapping at your feet like cold wet waves, building things up to smash it all down amid storied layers of intimate and intricately woven harmonies. Simply said: riveting.
While I would agree with the majority of so-called “hardcore” fans of Radiohead that this was a ploy by Capitol Records to squeeze out their last album for contractual reasons (gee, we’ve seen this happen before, haven’t we), for casual fans this is a great album to pick-up. With the hope of inducing rabid fandom, and after you listen to hits like “Creep”, “Karma Police”, “Paranoid Android”, “The National Anthem”, “Knives Out”, and “I Might Be Wrong” how couldn’t you be subject to that ear-riddled disease, I think that the “hardcore fans” should unite. After uniting like some quasi convention at the U.N., they should announce in unison, “yes we’d prefer to have the pop kiddies listening to Radiohead than spend another millisecond considering who to vote for on American Idol or which Cyrus was better, Billy Ray or his multi-millionaire underage daughter better known as Hannah Montana”. If you can’t find yourself on the right side of that argument, than you’re so ‘emo’ and ‘underground’ that even your mom will puke at your very sight and Scott Tenorman clearly must die.
