Music Reviews Feb 2009 - by, Christopher

So I turn 30 on Feb 25th and I'm online looking for some new music. Birthday gifts for myself, as it were.

Let's take a look at some of 2009's early offerings:

Franz Ferdinand, "Tonight"
I dislike this album for the same reason that I dislike car salesmen; cheesy, insincere, noisy, false, empty, redundant, sickly slick, twisted-up. Unconvincing. Over the last few years I have discovered record after record that requires me to be impishly confused about my gender identity to enjoy. Since I cannot meet that requirement naturally, or am too old to pretend to meet that requirement, or do not know anyone who has time to be impressed with my ability to meet that requirement, I must inevitably *sigh* and wait for something in my demographic. A demographic of people confident, and sometimes even bored with their gender identity. Pity us, for we will never grasp the allure of Franz Ferdinand.

Kelly Clarkson, "My Life Would Suck Without You"
This is, by a wide margin, the most poorly named song in the history of music. But I like this song and I like Kelly Clarkson. She is very difficult to dislike and I know this because I have tried repeatedly. I typically find it absurdly easy to dislike anything that has to do with American Idol (The Lawrence Welk Show, but a contest and dumber). But I cannot bring myself to dislike Kelly Clarkson even just on prinicple. She's too damn good at what she does. But what I'm really jazzed about is her next single, "Sometimes I Think, Dude, Whoa" to come out.

Black Moth Super Rainbow, "Drippers"
This band has definitely captured a new sound and they aren't straying too far from it with their new record. I am very, very happy about that. I like almost every track on this record, I like it pretty much start to finish. Positive reviews are less interesting, aren't they? I guess "It's real good" just doesn't take as much space. Fotunately I'm not paid by the word. Or paid at all.

David Byrne/Brian Eno, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today"
I like the Talking Heads and I like Roxy Music, and pretty much all of Eno's production work (especially Coldplay's Viva La Vida). But after that I've got very little positive to report. This record is something that I'm sure brought a lot of satisfaction to both, pretty much every track sounds completely self-indulgent, so I'm guessing they really enjoyed making this record. I have enjoyed only one moment of the record, the moment when the record was over. Oh, and I like the isometric suburban house cover art. David Byrne's warbling, when set to a collection of leftover loops, doesn't sound very good.