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I'm gonna tackle the Hot Albums of July in today's post. And if you make it all the way through, there's a treat waiting for you, promise. First up, local faves The Love Language (allusion to Teddy Pendergrass doubtful) released their 2nd album yesterday, and sorry I'm behind all the dorito-pounding bloggers out there and doing this review a day late. You can still stream it on the Merge website if you're like me with a lot of time to waste. Because let me disagree with everyone on this, and say that's just what this album is - a waste of time. Does anyone not "love" this record? My initial glance at the reviews seems to indicate not (Pitchfork will probably have their review in by the time you read this, so we'll see), but other than their lead-off single 'Heart to Tell', which is just a big rip off of an Elvis song, there's exactly 2 other decent songs on this record. The rest are just a bunch of weak production gimmicks filled with lame white guy hollers drenched in slapback. I wanna help Phil Spector out of his leg irons just so he can come down here and slap these rookies. The thought of people bawling praise all over these dudes and even fathoming bandying the word 'genius' about makes me wanna put my dick in a pasta machine. I mean, I'm glad someone from the hometown is making some noise, but can we get some cooler representatives please? Next!
To the right of our local heroes is another civic representative of sorts, except from a town far, far away... on the - you guessed it - Best Coast. Somehow, when predicting the bands to watch in 2010 earlier in the year, I left this chick (Bethany somethingoruther) out. My bad. Her album isn't due out until later this month, but you can stream it here. It's going to be big, and thankfully I've pre-reviewed it for you, because yer gonna get mighty sick of the term "pop gems" used to describe these songs in the papers. To make one thing clear, I don't hate Best Coast*. This girl has one of the most unique styles in the underground right now, which isn't saying much, but it's saying something. She released a string of singles, EPs, cassettes, and polaroids of beachlife last year, and each one made me feel good. Her music is like candy; a bag of Laffy Taffy, let's say. They have slightly different flavors, but all of them taste basically the same. You could eat them forever, and be totally happy doing so, but then you'd get sick and die. Best Coast's songs give you that same tingly, unfulfilled feeling as a good Laffy Taffy. You eat one, you crave more, yet you don't really want any more. That said, Crazy For You will be one of the best albums released all year, which says something about the state of pop music, don't it? When candy is king... you'd be better off not wasting your time with any of it and just head straight to the links below and hear where Paul Simon gets his shit! (Hint: he's not listening to the Love Langauge!)
*We here at TNRR endorse you, Best Coast. We are your friends - provided you are a Lakers fan and you don't get ANY fatter, capice?
And now for something you busters totally DON'T deserve. These songs represent a cross-section of traditional Bolivian music. I was just going to post a couple of these tracks, but they're all so damn good I decided to wet you with the whole album.
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