A couple in each category.
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I haven’t written anything about Lost since the season finale. Frankly, I’m still digesting it and trying to figure out if I like the latest game-changer. I’m still undecided. Part of that depends on how the final season kicks off. Which brings us to the Lost panel at this year’s Comic-Con.

(Actual spoilers and potential ones below. If you don’t want to know anything about how season six ended or anything revealed at Comic-Con, don’t join us after the jump.)

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Now that everyone with an internet connection has seen her performance on Britain’s Got Talent at least once, and Susan Boyle has begun her stateside media tour, there’s an emerging meme that maybe she’s not all that she seemed. Reports are flooding in: she lied about never being kissed! She was caught wearing a leather jacket! She’s started trimming her eyebrows!

The subtext—and, in some cases, the text—of these reports is that there may be a backlash coming if her fans feel they’ve been snookered. I’d like to go on the record now that if it turns out Susan Boyle knew what she was doing all along, my admiration for her will increase exponentially: she goes from being a dowdy-looking English Scottish** villager with a good singing voice to a dowdy-looking English Scottish villager with a good singing voice and an amazing ability to exploit pop-culture media expectations. The latter is much more interesting and, yes, even admirable.

Go back and watch that clip again and see Simon Cowell’s reaction. If you look into his cold, dark eyes, you can see him figuring it out. There are very few people more media savvy than Simon, and he knows something’s up. That doesn’t stop him, of course, from giving Boyle a standing ovation—maybe that’s why he gave her one.

**Edited to account for my typical American ignorance of British sensitivities.

And you’re all invited.
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Spoilers Below the fold and all that.

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This past weekend, I went with my wife and two oldest daughters to see The Old 97’s perform at a hometown in-store performance at Good Records in Dallas. The band, half of whom have relocated to the West Coast, was in town playing the House of Blues at the front end of the tour in support of their new album, Blame it on Gravity. I picked up the new album at the store and have listened to it through a couple of times. It’s a good mix of Old 97’s twang and power-pop. I think fans will like it. I’ll post a few songs to the Radio.blog. If I have time, I might write a full review after I’ve had a chance to listen to it more carefully.
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Two great releases this year.

They both happen to be bands that I’ll get stuck on one song by and have trouble listening to their entire albums. Right now, it’s “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” from the Moutain Goats Heretic Pride, and “I Don’t Always Know What You’re Saying” from Ladyhawk’s Shots.
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Who you got? I’m gonna talk about three: Iron & Wine, Gillian Welch, and Low.

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I want to make a mix of songs in a minor key for a road trip to Vegas next week. Any suggestions?

I’ll post a couple to the radio.blog that I *think* are in a minor key. Correct me if I’m wrong:

“Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key” – Billy Bragg and Wilco featuring Natalie Merchant
“Gold Dust Woman” – Fleetwood Mac

Most of today’s indie bands are 80’s throwbacks. Pride Tiger isn’t. They’re a 70s throwback.

Very Thin Lizzy-ish. I can sort of hear Boston, as well. So much so that they could be considered a total rip off.

I don’t care. I love it.
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The Next Hundred Years are a rock band that really rocks. That’s about all I can say, except I’ve been listening to their new album non-stop since I got it. And their guitarist, who answered the questionnaire below, is one of the funniest men in music.
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Lay it on us!

Commenter Jennifer requested a Halloween soundtrack thread. The radio.blog has her contributions:

Some Days it Might Be Dark
Spongebob Scaredy Pants
Everyday is Halloween

Plus a couple of mine:

Bollocks Brothers – Horror Movies
Agents of Oblivion – Wither

I saw a commercial on MTV for MTV’s website that featured them. I also saw their video on AOL’s Music on Demand tv channel. (I went there specifically hoping to find it.) Are they getting popular?

Their latest album is just so good.
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Up until recently, I would’ve listed the top four thusly:

1. The Monkees
2. The Patridge Family
3. The band on Happy Days with Leather Tuscadero
4. The Brady Bunch

But all that’s changed.
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It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Low live, and I can’t believe I forgot just how incredible they are. I was blown away all over again.

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For me, it’s the Mountain Goats’ “Oceanographer’s Choice.”
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This is my album of the year.
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I could name any number of them (could easily name about 5 by Queens of the Stone Age, alone—and probably won’t be able to resist including them as a footnote*)—but the song I’m stuck on this morning is by a band called Wellwater Conspiracy. It’s called “Right of Left Field” and I’m listening to it on repeat.

If you don’t know who the Wellwater Conspiracy are, there’s some great info about them here. I’m pretty sure on this song it’s Matt Cameron, drummer of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, on vocals. It’s posted to the radio.blog.

What songs do you consider perfect?

* If Only, Mexicola, How to Handle a Rope, The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, Better Living Through Chemistry, In The Fade.

David J suggested a post on CD box sets. I only have a handful, but if I had to only limit myself to one, it would definitely be the Who.

My husband is a huge Who fan and has all their records on vinyl—some he has more than one copy of. He never replaced them all with cds, just bought the box set, called Thirty Years of Maximum R&B. I love it because it includes some live tracks and some early tracks before they were even called the Who—they were the High Numbers. I think the Who may be the only band who never wrote a bad song.

Another great box set is The Police – Message in a Box. I can listen to the whole thing and not get bored. I just marvel at how many great songs they wrote.

I’m getting nostalgic for some vinyl box sets now. As a teenager my brother had all of Nick Drake’s albums as a box set, used to listen to it all the time. I also have a Sub Pop compilation box set on vinyl from way back in the day with a bunch of early grunge stuff on it (called Sub Pop 200).

What are some other good box sets?

Old gits like me watch the Reading Festival on the telly. This sad situation is made especially depressing by the sight of the teenage crowd singing along with the Chili Peppers. I mean, these kids were in nappies when Under the Bridge first entered MTV rotation. Said young whippersnappers included my nephew this year, who, dammit, is cooler than me.

Sigh.

Anyway, from the vantage point of my clean Ikea sofa, and wearing my new slippers, here are a few acts I enjoyed this year (CSS, The Gossip, New Young Pony Club): (more…)

OK, the radio.blog is back up, let’s get some music posted. What have you been into lately?

I recently discovered a band that I saw open for Pelican called Your Black Star. Kind of a stupid name, but I haven’t been able to stop listening to their albums I picked up at the show. Very 80s influenced but in a way that I love. They don’t sound like any one band in particular, like some current indie bands I could name. (*cough* Interpol *cough* Joy Division wannabes *cough*) They have a swirling guitar sound that is sort of like the Cure/Chameleons/U2—any number of 80s bands.

I’ll post a couple songs to the radio.blog. What have you been into? If I have it, I’ll try to post songs to the radio.blog.

What are some of your faves?

I like the attention-grabbing ones.

Looking up from your wayside ditch now…
“All New Low” – Hellacopters

‘Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream’ she said
“Just Like Heaven” – the Cure

It’s only the end of the world again…
“Endsmouth” – Agents of Oblivion

I don’t mind you coming here, and wasting all my time
“Just What I Needed” – the Cars

Brown Sugar, The Rolling Stones, 1971. My experience in listening to this song is entirely dominated by its horrifying lyrics, which draw on imagery involving the slave trade, including slave owners’ violence toward slaves, for erotic purposes. Clearly, there is a (very successful!) effort at violating taboos at work here. Yet the deliberate taboo-breaking in this song creates its own terrible consequences, since it suggests that the lyricist sees interracial sex — the central topic of the song — as fundamentally as taboo a topic as slavery and sexual violence. I think it is, and perhaps should be, impossible to really get past this racially-loaded material and appreciate the music through which it is presented. (more…)

Back in November of 2004, Rolling Stone committed a characteristic act of hubris by publishing a list of the so-called “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” Terrible distortion, of course; the list really doesn’t include a lot of, say Gregorian chants, arias from operas, Himalayan folk tunes from the third century B.C., etc. Really, it’s a list of a bunch of really good, or at least really popular, songs from the rock-and-roll era. The list was generated by a democratic process: 172 musicians, critics, and other professionals in the music industry voted. It would be easy to pick the list apart — so easy that it’s probably not too interesting. And anyway, it’s not such a bad list. Or at least the songs from the list that I recognize at first glance aren’t all that bad. There are a bunch on the list that I don’t recognize, although I almost certainly know them. You do, too. These songs infest our society like the imaginary aphids from William Friedkin’s new film. (more…)

What an entertaining show. (more…)