As far as I know, I'm the only member of this here Collective that really loved Sunny Day Real Estate-- although I did note the presence of Jeremy Enigk's emo-prog record World Waits in Tex Plush's iTunes library last summer.
Anyway, Enigk is back with a new solo album that's a big rebound from World Waits, which sounded more like late-period Peter Gabriel than Sunny Day Real Estate. The new record, called OK Bear, has a lot in common with the last SDRE album and the Fire Theft album Enigk released during a transition period.
It doesn't quite reach the high points of SDRE/Enigk's career (How It Feels to Be Something On, Return of the Frog Queen), but that's an extremely high bar in my opinion.
Either way, it's just nice to recall a time when "emo" referred to dynamic, musically progressive acts like Enigk instead of Conor Oberst or Dashboard Confessional sounding like they're about to pass a kidney stone.
1) I was going to post this blog post/story in the comments to the Animal Collective post, but figured I'd highlight it more because I love it. It combines so many things I love discussing: indie rock, internet memes, today's young music fans' obnoxious sense of entitlement, the complete forehead slapping studipity of record labels and pranks!
To read all about it, follow the link (and note the brilliance of "Animal CoLOLctive"):
(In short: girl uploads 11 tracks of Rickroll and says it's the Animal Collective leak, catches fire on google, humorless kids wish death upon her, clueless record labels demand removal of links (the web sheriff gets involved too!), and hilarity ensues!)
2) Another blog post that I found amusing: Do you know there is an entire subculture of teenage emo-girls that sit in front of their web cams and play songs from Neutral Milk Hotel's IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA accompanied by acoustic guitar and then post the videos on youtube? Well, it's true! This blog post alone gathers more than a dozen. Go figure:
3) Best of 2008 Follow Up: -I finally did listen more seriously to the TV on the Radio, which despite being number 1 in several publications did not make a single kittybrain's list! In the end, I do agree with Tex-- this is definitely my favorite of their records. Much tighter and more focused songwriting (aided in no small part by the Antibalas horns). Given my lack of enthusiasm for the records I did list, I would have included this for sure, as I actually really like it a lot.
-The new Portishead, which was also on lots of lists: It's unrelentingly dark and cold, but on the other hand, has that kind of warm analogue synth feel of Kid A. In fact, that's actually a decent reference point for this record. I didn't know Portishead's old stuff at all, nor do I listen to any trip hop, but this is definitely not trip hop. It's kind of all over the place stylistically, with lots of interesting rhythmic and textural elements (though always quite bleak). I'll put up my favorite song, which reminds me of Radiohead. It's a really beautiful song: (Because record labels are really smart, I can't embed the official one, so you can enjoy this one, which sets the delicately picked acoustic guitar moving into menacing analogue synth sounds to some Hugh Jackman movie):
And lo and behold, Thom and Johnny apparently agree with me because they covered it. Compare and contrast!
In another nice bit of downright bizarre synchronicity, the Portishead album has a brief interlude in the middle-- a ukulele based song that has the exact same chords and structure (but different melody) as....."Tonight You Belong to Me" from THE JERK! I'll include the link rather than the embed so the post isn't too cluttered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-gEqlxWP0
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