Tallest Man on Earth
The sad tale of tallest man on earth starts with will call and ends with will call. I thought our passes would be fancier than they were, but instead we had to wait in the way-too-long-line with all of the other lowly “ticket buyers.” What made the experience undeniably better was that Kristian Matsson’s music, who is tallest man on Earth, wafted over the wrought iron will call tents. Unfortunately we were not able to get in time to see the Swede, but he did sound quite nice.
?/10 (doesn’t really count didn’t truly see him)
Liars
Unlike Greg Kot, I thought these cats were very high energy and despite the 100+ heat thing goin on, they could really rock. Liars had the captivating strange British lead man style, although the rest of the band was pretty captivating as well. Liars were feeling particularly math rocky to me on Friday, which is was awesome.
7/10
Robyn
This girl likes to dance, and was super excited to be there. Sadly, I was far away waiting for broken social scene, so I could hardly get my dance on, but if I were to dance her group was playing sweet electro-pop like man men. They all looked very Swedish and played many synths and multiple drum kits. Even from far away, it was a good time.
6.5/10
Broken Social Scene
Although BSS were looking a little aged and fretted over the sound for quite a while, these veteran rockers really seemed to take over the festival’s first day. In my mind, they were the best performers by a longshot, and the way they created a Phil Specterish wall of sound is great for live performance. My favorite part of the set was in the final song, a big crescendoing instrumental rock piece, that had everyone coming out and banging on something. Even their stagehand who had been tuning guitars and handing instruments throughout their set, grabbed a guitar and started jamming out with the band.
9/10
Real Estate
The main thing I can say about these guys is that for 1:45 in the afternoon, they played just what I wanted to hear: Lazy, breezy, beach-pop that still managed to be chalk full of energy. A really, really nice show to prep me for the upcoming festivities.
8/10
Kurt Vile
There is something to be said about ugly rocker frontmen with harpists in their band. Overall, pretty tight, except it felt a little bit like I was hearing the same song many times through. Probably not a performance I would seek out, but I’m not sorry I saw them.
5/10
Dåm Funk
This band resonated with my soul. Despite the extra 30 minutes spent setting up the various synthesizers, when Dåm Funk began their set, I knew they would kill that motherfucker and have everyone throwing their funk signs in the air. Keytars, Check. Moogs, check, angry pacing drummer, check. This band had it all. A stones throw and James Pants favorite, Dåm Funk laid down what they considered funk in a considerable fashion.
10/10 fun/funny scale. (3/10) musically imo
Smith Westerns
Hailing from my rival school North Side Prep (booo) these young rockers play poppy, indie folk love songs. They have a very loving and dedicated fan base, which is great, however I thought their music was a little in the ordinary if you know what I mean. Props to the lead guitar for his tone and style, which I thought were pretty hip. Front man definitely going for the dreamy whiny rocker if you are into that kinda thing
4/10
Why?
The truth as to why I was hanging out and seeing bands such as dåm Funk and The Smith Westerns, is that I was waiting for my beloved yoni and is ragtag group of musicians called why? (they actually weren’t that ragtag, I’d say yoni was the most ragtagish of all) Why was all that I hoped for. What got me on to why, were the stream of consciousness lyrics and phrasing of the singing/rapping. It wasn’t until I saw them live that I appreciated the musicianship of the group. These guys had five part harmonies, multi-instrumentalism, crazy time signatures and more flying out of their fingers and mouths. Yoni himself was captivating in his eccentricity and intensity, and as lyrical as ever.
8/10
Panda Bear
I respect Panda Bear’s set. Sure, it would have been pleasant to hear the haunting/catchy melodies of person pitch, but I truly respect him from breaking that mold and exploring more noisy/experimental routes. It was quite daring, as the crowd was clearly not excited, but logically, it seems to me, that hearing new exciting material is > than old familiars. Its similar to my requesting songs qualm on the radio. In this day and age, one can easily reproduce the songs that they know, but instead of using a disc jockey or performer to show them new material, they would rather hear the same things over and over. Panda Bear broke the mold and a lot of peoples hearts, but not mine!
7/10
LCD Soundsystem
Exciting! Energy! Long songs! All my friends! Very enjoyable even from far off, and I was feeling strong talking heads vibes.
8.3/10
Allá
Briefly caught one song. Sounded pleasant!
6.1/10
Cave
To my despair, we only got to stage b for these spelunkers with three songs to go. Three psychedelic jamming masterpieces if I may say so myself. Even though I only caught 3 songs, their newish album Psychic Summer has been playing on repeat in the ol’ iTunes. +, they are Chicago based so I might be able to keep following them around. This band was one of those I think I can, and really want to do that kind of music (but I need some damn pedals)!
8.2/10
Best Coast
Gonna go with not my favorite. Admittedly it picked up at the end when she started playing wavves covers (she’s dating wavves guy), and her last song legitimately had some pizzazz, but I’m really not into the cutesy rocketta with fairly bad backing musicians. She does have a nice voice, but I think that the sister drummer was just good enough for the part (sort of played the same slightly off thing the whole time), and the guitar player shoulda bought a bass because he was playing bass anyway with his guitar.
3.7/10
Beach House
I’ve heard mixed reviews from Beach House fans, but this performance gave them a clear yes in my book (blog more like it...). From the homemade sets to the heartfelt playing, to the substantial appreciation and love for the festival and other performers, these cats struck me as genuine. They were tight, dark, and I could feel emotions reverberating through the crowd. Nothing felt forced or acted, all the way to the climactic end.
8.8/10
LIGHTNING BOLT
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (I fuckin started that mosh-pit)
9/10
St. Vincent
Musically, the best in the whole fest. Everyone in this group plays at least two instruments, and from what I hear, the arrangements change almost every time they play. Fantastic sounding vocals, superb stage presence, and Annie is quite attractive as well if I may say so myself. Great cool down from lightning bolt/fish and chips, really dug the set. St. Vincent is up there on my see again very soon list.
9/10
Pavement
Vets play the show I wanted. Stephen Malkmus is so carefully composed, he coulda been Harrison Bergeron. Spiral stairs rocks out, guitar player rocks out, the drummer guy holds it down exactly how I’d expect, and the one dude who yells and plays cowbell was awesome. They played songs everyone recognized, and the crowd (almost completely pavement oriented based on the amount of grey hair) gleefully shouted along to almost every word. A satisfying end to a very satisfying fest.
9/10
GOODJOB PITCHFORK!
Overall: 9.2/10 and coming back next year.
In an attempt to recuperate from three days in 90+ degrees temperatures at this year’s p4k, I have decided that my reflections will take a more synoptic, non-linear approach. Last week, the NY Times ran a feature on my friend ‘David’s’ (not jeopardizing your anonymity) blog, Pitchfork Reviews Reviews which among several things, suggested that PRR’s existence means that Pitchfork has evolved into a veritable cultural arbiter/benchmark of all things ‘alternative.’
Does this very notion of becoming ‘establishment’ run counter to the core essence of what it means to be alternative? I think David touches upon this issue a lot in his writing, particularly when he assesses how the heretofore edgy discordances of punk music has become so ingrained in our culture, that they are in effect now safe, or what we are to make of ventures like the Creator's Project. I guess what I’m trying to say is, can I consider a festival in which I spent time sitting on an Air Conditioned Greyhound Bus in order to receive a free tee-shirt, dropped an embarrassingly high amount of money on European microbrews and vegan ice cream cones, and browsed a Whole Foods tent remotely counter-cultural? Should I feel badly about buying into the alt-establishment or view it as a natural progression of this century and a testament to the very power of youth culture?
Looking at this Festival from a very macro perspective, I am tremendously impressed by what I participated in. Despite sweltering heat, the festival was completely sold out and about 18,000 individuals attended each day. The three headlining acts of the festival provide a very neat encapsulation of indie music as it has stood in my life: Modest Mouse, Friday’s headliner are an infinitely fascinating crossover story who were sort of beautiful losers/underground favorites the first half of the 2000s and then were accidentally catapulted into the mainstream by 2004’s “Good News For People Who Love Bad News, and have made a very different kind of music ever since; Saturday’s headliner LCD Soundsystem have probably shaped alternative music/culture more than any other act in the aughts as evidenced by the eternal freshness of 2002’s “Losing My Edge,” the uplifting anthem “All My Friends,” and the recent Billboard Success of “This Is Happening” – the likely final album by the band, James Murphy is the scenester par excellence and is seemingly unassailable right now; lastly the entire festival was closed out by Pavement the defiantly slipshod icons of the nineties whose reunion was probably the biggest selling point of this year’s event, Stephen Malkmus is a demigod in a very different way from Murphy and he lets us know that it’s okay to be empty and not feel okay and be fully aware that you may dress for success while simultaneously knowing that success will never come.
Moreover, the fact that Pavement came back to headline this Festival after being booed off the stage at Lollapolooza in this very city in 1994, shows that Pitchfork is sort of reclaiming the reigns of indie culture and setting it right, and maybe I shouldn’t feel somewhat resentful that Pitchfork was tinged with a distinctly corporate vibe at times. I also think it's inspirational that a band like Smith Westerns (who are all younger than me for crissakes) are given by Pitchfork the opportunity to perform for A&R guys from labels like Matador in front of an appreciative audience and will continue to rise through the echelons of the indie rock industrial complex. To be honest, I feel really great that there’s sort of ‘established’ festival that I can attend annually and have my tastes affirmed and cavort with people like me who “deserve a phd in pop music” (Chicago Sun Times), and at the end of the day it shouldn’t really matter whether I possess these opinions because Pitchfork granted their album an 8.0+ or not.
The fact remains that when I returned from Chicago and attempted to find national press coverage of the Festival – what I discovered was pretty underwhelming, and in that respect it’s fairly remarkable that I was so consumed and felt downright encompassed by this event for three days, when in reality it isn’t really resonating on a decidedly broad cultural level. In this sense, Pitchfork is kind of like rock fantasy camp or something in that in deluded me, Stephen Malkmus, James Murphy, Issac Brock, and 54,000 others into toying with the idea that our preferred form of cultural recreation was a neatly packaged commodity which you could find anywhere in America for those beautifully ephemeral 72 hours and it tasted as delicious as one of those non-dairy chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cones (too bad the Festival melted so quickly) and it sounded as refreshingly modest as those vocal loops on the intro of ‘Cut Yr Hair.”
Ridgewood, New Jersey natives, Real Estate, released an eponymous debut album in 2009 on the tastemaking label Woodsist records, and this largely unassuming subdued record was one of my favorite releases of 2009. The band creatively explores familiar themes of youthful disaffection through humble surf-rock melodies and inspired wordplay.
Yet there is something innovative and refreshing about Real Estate that sets them apart from groups like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday who are equally fascinated by their suburban milieus and who had undoubtedly had a marked impact of my angst-ridden identity formation, but who I struggle to listen to now. The acridity and discontent in these latter bands are mostly tiresome exercises in self-flagellation and efforts to immortalize the self. Real Estate seem so much more sincere and sophisticated, and are incredibly noble in the fact they seek no effort to abandon where they came from. TBS is still fixated on "the scene," whereas Real Estate aims to atmospherically capture and subtly critique the environment that has shaped them. Who can deny the slow-building simplicity of the refrain of "Suburban Beverage," - "Budweiser,Sprite/Do you feel alright?"
sell your songs online on July 19, 2010 @ 4:16 PM says:
I love discovering new music and this group is really good. I am glad I came across this blog! This group seems like it is going to make it big very soon!
Looks to me like Broken Social Scene, some cool cats/close friends who I have recently lost contact with are sittin’ pretty on a Friday near headliner spot. They are in between Robyn and Modest Mouse, and although I admittedly don’t really know bout that red bird band, and I’m sure m&m would put on a good show, I will try hard to get a good seat for indie scene veterans Broken Social Scene.
BSS is essentially everyone who used to be big on the Indie scene thrown into one varying sized melting pot. We have members of Do Make Say Think, Feist, Metric, Stars, Weatherkins, Kevin Drew, and a bunch more making a nice racket on stage. I say they are my close friends, because like many a band, I had a fairly substantial stay where it was BSS and almost nothing else. They’re lyrics, song structure, instrumentation, bla bla bla I could go on… all impressed me. If you somehow catch me unawares and search my computer for songs in 7, you will find a plethora of horrible garageband midi compositions inspired by 7/4 shoreline (not to mention some songs with = signs in the titles a la masterpiece cause = time).
Anyways, I also heard that they kill up on stage and that they change lives, so I think it is worth checking out.
Now, if I did not see Superchunk last night (yea I did), I would say the kids in BSS are sure fathers of indie music as we know it. Nonetheless, I think they could easily be the cool uncles.
It's officially summer '10, so I thought it would be appropriate to talk about Washed Out, since the Life of Leisure EP was one of my favorite records of summer '09. Shimmering, dreamy, and incredibly lounge friendly, Ernest Greene's creations are definitely the creme da la creme of the often maligned, but inescapably infectious grooves of the chillwave scene.
Even though I love the Life of Leisure EP, I had apprehensions about whether this genre of music would be particularly engaging live. Helen and I had the privilege of attending a Washed Out concert in LA in March, and Greene totally defied my expectations. Greene is incredibly charismatic and devastatingly handsome, and Washed Out songs totally transformed in the live setting. Much to my surprise, Greene didn't merely tinker around on some synths and lackadaisically sing/speak for an hour, but really got the crowd moving with a magnetic stage presence. Moreover, in the live setting, Washed Out's songs sounded organically constructed and were even a bit moving. Who know a genre created by the blogosphere could be so moving?
'Get up' and dance with me to Washed Out at the Festival on Sunday at 2:50pm on Stage B.
This time I'm gonna glorify St. Vincent. St Vincent is the badass that is Annie Erin Clark. St. Vincent completely disregards the stereotypical “woman singer who cannot play an instrument” generalization in that she plays a mean axe, and writes all of her own songs. St Vincent comes from the rich heritage of Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, with recent collaboration on the new, New Pornographers album.
Although I have yet to see St. Vincent live, my gut feeling (based off of YouTube and instinct) is that she will be quite the force to be reckoned with. I would characterize her music as complex, meaningful indiepop, exemplary in the fact that she wrote, and can play live, a song consisting almost entirely of guitar harmonics and wonderful singing. Definitely recommended if you like the bands previously mentioned.
Here is where i will convey my excitement for the upcoming pitchfork music fest by using one band a night to represent the whole ordeal. Gonna start with the band "why?" who pick up their instruments Saturday sometime.
Why did i pick why? Was it so i can make annoying puns throughout this review like thing? No, it is because Yoni Wolf, the lead dude, has lyrical prose to match poets of old, and damn catchy music to go along with it. I can't count the number of ideas i've wanted to steal and copyright them into a song of my own. Whether it is the baseline or guitar riff or time signature, there is a lot of good stuff. The material that I am most wanting to hear in person is anything off of oaklandazulasylum (yes it is one word) or alopecia. Alopecia i would say is yoni's Mona lisa, though oak's close.
So, If anyone ever answers my opener, "do you like music?" with no, why, I may just have to take them to see why why? is so awesome at pitchfork.
Tim Carroll, alum of '09, was kind enough to send us some news and photos from this year's Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona...
The Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona will torture you if you let it, so I’ve got some things to get out early. I did not see Wilco at Primavera. I didn’t see Mission of Burma or No Age. I missed Panda Bear and Fuck Buttons, the Fall and the Antlers, Shellac and the Pet Shop Boys. But I promise you I had good reasons for all of them, and I didn’t look back. Really, there’s no time for second thoughts—can’t-miss concerts pile up on top of each other so fast that you feel lucky just to sit down once in a while.
This was the 10th year of Primavera Sound. The first lasted a day and featured eleven performers. This had anywhere between 100 and 180, depending on which staffer I asked; my rough count puts it around 150, and that’s just the three days at the main festival site. The full program runs a week and includes free shows in city parks and the Barcelona metro, plus club dates and a closing party. Suffice it to say, a decade makes a difference.
THURSDAY
“This must be a big show ‘cause we all wore button-down shirts.” –Stephen Malkmus, Pavement
• One of the first things I see: kid wearing a t-shirt with Minnesota’s outline that says THE WORST STATE. The kid disappears before I can get a picture. Is this the irony everyone’s talking about?
• Security is pretty vigilant about pulling down crowd-surfers, but they don’t mess with Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus when he collapses onto us during the band’s namesake song. He’s in no hurry to get back to the stage and gets passed around throughout the shout-along “Your life is over” section.
• The XX, playing the arena-like Ray-Ban stage, draw an absolutely massive crowd. It’s hard to judge how big a group is when you’re in it, so I can’t compare to the rest of the acts, but I’m on top of the arena for this one and it is a crush down below.
• One of the nicest things about this festival is seeing how excited the musicians get about being around each other—like when Superchunk invites Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav out for a song. Harrington is ecstatic (more than usual), shouting “AWESOME,” falling back onto the stage when his part is done, then pulling out his iPhone to record, crawling around chasing Mac McCaughan’s guitar with a mic, and sprinting offstage again before the song finishes.
• Broken Social Scene brings Pavement’s Spiral Stairs (aka Scott Kannberg) out for “Texico Bitches.” Kevin Drew goes out during Pavement’s set later that night.
• There are a lot of legacy bands here, and they aren’t stingy with the favorites. Pavement opens with “Cut Your Hair” and works through “Silent Kid,” “Spit on a Stranger,” “In the Mouth a Desert,” and more. Malkmus switches his guitar out after every song and fidgets with it a lot when he’s not playing, flipping it back and forth and tossing it into the air. Spiral Stairs heads into the crowd toward the end of the set. One of the guys from Monotonix comes and twirls Bob Nastanovich around the stage. It’s a good place to be.
FRIDAY
“I wanna marry—YOU! I wanna marry—YOU!” –Tim Harrington, Les Savy Fav
• In case you hadn’t noticed, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast is interested in marijuana. She mentions this a couple times during the set. She also points out to the ocean and says, “There’s a fucking cruise ship out there and it’s scaring the shit out of me.”
• A lot of bands keep the talk light (probably a good strategy when your time is limited and you’re competing with Spoon or whoever for everyone’s attention), but the best banter probably comes from A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers. E.g. after a five-second false start: “That was a jazz odyssey…it could have been tighter.”
• Legacy bands do play the hits, but some take their time with it. The stage lights are up and tech guys are actually out moving stuff around before Wire come back to play “12XU” as an encore.
• Les Savy Fav… Even after Tim Harrington’s Superchunk appearance, I am not prepared for this. His “AWESOME” mantra is probably the best analysis you’re going to get—the man does not mess around. He surfs as far as he can (big guy), falls, and tries again. He wades way back into the crowd, hugging and high-fiving the whole way. He goes halfway up the arena steps around the ATP stage and climbs a little metal pole to sing. He does all this with a corded mic—frantic techs are following behind, threading out more and more cord the whole time and begging him to stay each time he returns to the stage.
• In a weekend of high points, there is still no comparison to the Pixies set. They barely stop to breathe between songs, burning through most of Doolittle and plenty more in the hour and a half they’re on. It’s a blast. It’s also the best pit of the festival—lots of people, lots of energy, and everyone’s good about lifting the fallen, respecting the fringes, etc. Great show—but do they really need to sell their t-shirts for 25€?
• You know the party at the beginning of the California Love video? Joker could play that party. His 3am set, with MC/hype man Nomad in tow, felt apocalyptic enough as it was among the flickering lights and concrete pillars of the Pitchfork stage.
SATURDAY
“I’m very interested in chicken songs. This is one of the great ones.” –Van Dyke Parks
• I start the afternoon (the Primavera schedule runs from about 4pm to 6am) with ODDSAC, the hour-long video piece by Danny Perez and Animal Collective. I’m not a big Animal Collective fan, but I think this comes together nicely. Shades of David Lynch, Vito Acconci, those iamamiwhoami YouTube videos, and who knows what else.
• Bigott is one of the two Spanish acts I’m most excited about going into this weekend (the other is Delorean). Unfortunately, his set is really the only disappointment of the weekend. It’s not bad, just not as fantastic as the rest—his band isn’t especially tight, and the overpowering, skull-rattling bass that’s characteristic of the festival as a whole isn’t doing his offbeat folk sound any favors. Still, he’s very likeable and closes with “Dancing in the Dark.”
• Van Dyke Parks is 67 years old and adorable. He plays with and without a trio of youngish guys, talks about things he wrote for his children, sings adaptations of Brer Rabbit tales, and gets two standing ovations. Plenty of foreign performers this weekend do the “Hola, gracias Barcelona” thing to open their sets—Parks is the only one I see who does it in Catalan.
• You want an autoharp? Grizzly Bear’s got an autoharp. They use about as many instruments in their set as they do on their albums: aside from the basics, there’s a clarinet, flute, recorder, and more. The smoke machine is really earning its keep on this one; between that and the light show, the stage alternately looks like a sunlight-streaked chapel and the Smells Like Teen Spirit video.
• Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s warped marching-band uniform is all skulls and shininess. Before he comes out, the keyboardist tries to get the crowd ready with a call-and-response. Jamaican accent + crowd of non-native English speakers = this doesn’t work: “Say Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry!” “Yeaaaaah!” “Say Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry!” “Yeaaaaah!”
• As the last act of the festival, Fake Blood kills. A lot more people stick around until dawn than on previous nights and everyone is dancing. The weekend ends with “Mars” and it couldn’t be better.
In Summary
This festival is a really good time. The setup is impressive, the staffers are all very friendly and helpful, the lineup is staggering, the performances are thrilling, and everyone is having a lot of fun. If I can make it back someday, I’ll be there.
“This may sound like a lie, because bands tell lies all the time, but this is my favorite city in the world.” –A.C. Newman, The New Pornographers
Come to the Cave tomorrow night at 8PM and enjoy the final episode of Carleton's version of The Newlywed Game! Featuring, for the first time, an honest to goodness engaged couple! It promises to be an excellent and fitting finale to a great show, quite unlike something that rimes with 'shmost'.
If you can't make it be sure to tune in to 88.1 FM or Krlx.org to hear the laughter and awkward squirms LIVE, around the world, on KRLX.
I want to be the one who actually says something profound and groundbreaking about the new (and likely) final release from LCD Soundsystem, "This Is Happening." Recently I heard "All My Friends" and Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" played in succession on the radio, and I was startled at how downright natural the transition seemed. James Murphy's status as a musical visionary is undeniable and I esteem and scrutinize over any creative choice he makes. In a sense, I feel like every time I listen to music, I'm consciously wondering if this artist has/deserves a retrospective shout-out in "Losing My Edge."
At the same time, I feel like James Murphy is the sort of pudgy guy you're too embarrassed to admit you have a huge crush on. The "This Is Happening" artwork is kind of like an awkward version of a Justin Timberlake album cover. James Murphy has no idea what to make of his own relative "coolness." The record got a perfect score in Entertainment Weekly. Sasha Frere Jones is listening. I put on "This Is Happening" with very eager ears. I very much liked what I heard. "Dance Yrself Clean," is a great gradually building opening track. "Drunk Girls" is hilarious, stylistically surprising, and immediate. "All I Want," is mature, honest, painfully self-deprecating and has an incredible electronic hook. "I Can Change" makes you believe in love, again.
So yes, I really, really like this record, but I want it to do more for me. It is structurally identical to "Sound of Silver," (and even scored another 9.2 from Pitchfork). I want James Murphy to challenge me, I want LCD Soundsystem records to push me in entirely new directions. But perhaps I'm expecting him to do something he can't even do for himself. Murphy says, "LCD is a band about a band writing music about writing music" - is he in effect claiming himself an empty signifier? In "Dance Yrself Clean," moreover, Murphy declares, "Everybody's getting younger
It's the end of an era, it's true," is he tacitly suggesting that he's reached the saturation point of his creative expression? Or perhaps more disconcertingly, this sentiment seems precisely the same as the anxiety rampant in the group's first single, "Losing My Edge." James Murphy is as self-loathing as ever, but his popularity continues to soar.
Yet me and all the other liberal arts nerds with "borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties" persist in our reverence for this unabashedly flawed man. I hear a modicum of truth in "I Can Change," but then I'm right back at the stubborn posturing of "You Wanted A Hit," and realize that my hero worship is misguided. LCD Soundsystem will continue to speak to my youthful capriciousness and will affirm my obstinate views of "what's cool." Furthermore, there's something incredibly pointed/mildly dishonest about the hardly subtle appropriation of the Robert Fripp guitar coda from David Bowie's "Heroes," in "All I Want." I wish I could better suss out James Murphy's frank opinion on his own fame and his power to unleash such contemplative musings in individuals like me. Maybe I need to stop looking for answers in painfully ironical pop songs and solve these problems myself. But then again, "I don't know what I really want," so maybe I'm better off staying in the cocoon of Murphy's chronic indecision for as long as I can. Will we ever find that beat connection?
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i give this review a 7.3
also, wish i couldve been there