Category: Music

Spoon Playing SXSW

I’m very excited that my favourite band, Spoon, are from Austin and always play SXSW. This year, they play at the Mercury on March 15. I’m supposed to fly home that morning, but I’m seriously considering changing my ticket to see them. I think it would be a blast. My other experience seeing them was, well, interesting. These guys are just an amazing band, and they have a new CD coming out February 20 on Merge Records, entitled Girls Can Tell. Check them out sometime!

Guilty Musical Pleasures

Ok, time to ‘fess up. What are your guilty musical pleasures? You know, the music you know you shouldn’t like, but you just can’t help yourself. Don’t get all shy on me now. Just to get things rolling, I’ll share some of mine:

  • A-Ha – the CD with “Take on Me” is actually pure pop bliss. I liked it even then, but couldn’t tell my friends. Now I am not ashamed. Well, only a little bit anyway…
  • The stylin’ rhymes of Mr. Will Smith – I know, he’s got no street cred. He’s just perpetuating “minstrel” show stereotypes. Spike Lee doesn’t like him. But I just love his harmless positive “rap lite.”

See? That wasn’t too bad. Help me out here. Click on “Comments” and away we go.

In other news, no anti-Bloggie™ either. Seems like Consolation Champs is living up to its reputation. I’m going home to bite my pillow…

Male Singers

I’ve been thinking about music again. I tend to like male singers only if they have strange voices (ie. speech impediments, lisps, falsetto, whatever) whereas female singers with these characteristics just annoy me. That is, the women have to be good singers, and the men, preferably not. Not sure why these distinctions. But for proof, here’s a partial list:

  • Isaac “Not the Canadian colonial war hero” Brock (Modest Mouse) – extreme lisp
  • David Gedge (The Wedding Present) – strangled sounding
  • Black Francis/Frank Black (Pixies) – screams, barking noises
  • Britt Daniel (Spoon) – gravelly
  • Billy Bragg – outrageous accent
  • Elliott Smith – almost a falsetto
  • Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) – just not very good
  • Steve Malkmus (Pavement) – lazy, off-key
  • Iggy Pop (The Stooges) – sneering, half-spoken
  • Thom Yorke (Radiohead) – falsetto, strangled, paralyzed
  • Martin Tielli (Rheostatics) – often falsetto
  • Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo) – robotic, just plain weird
  • Fred Schneider (B-52’s) – loopy accent
  • Shane McGowan (Pogues) – drunken, strangled, slurring

What quirks exist in your musical taste?