Don't we have a "What are you listening to lately?" topic?

[jjreason]

Heading back to Tool for 11 minutes, I somehow found a video of Danny Carey playing Pneuma live.... and my mind hasn't yet recovered. I'm not sure if Neil Peart is watching or not, but I think he would appreciate this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FssULNGSZIA

[jjreason]

Run the Jewels 4 just came out on CD so I treated myself. It's a very good modern hip hop album.

I find the delay in releasing the physical copies.... disconcerting.

[Diabolical]

Listened to Garbage's "I Think I'm Paranoid."
I looked up Shirley Manson on Wikipedia.
She's 54.
I feel old.

[anarky]

I've been seeing a lot of hype about a band called Wet Leg, and almost unanimous GLOWING reviews, so I gave them a spin (metaphorically speaking).

Usually, this sort of thing will elicit a "that's pretty cool" response, where I kind of like the group and promptly forget them.

This might be the best new band I've heard this century (or at least since the White Stripes). These ladies could've released this album at any point since 1977 and it would've been one of the best albums of its decade. No joke.

Here's a taste:

[Diabolical]

Did you catch the original covid?
One of the symptoms is losing your sense of taste.

[Ran]

They sound like a more pop version of Veruca Salt.

[Diabolical]

Vinyl anyone?
For the past 2 years or so, I've been slowly buying some records, mainly the albums I really love, as this can be an expensive hobby.

Recently I've found a few for cheap.
Art Alexakis' (Everclear) solo album, Sun Songs. I djdn't know it even existed, but I loved Everclear back in their prime, and it was only $10.
Today at work we had some records on clearance.
Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett's Love for Sale ($7.49) and Demi Lovato's Dancing with the Devil... the Art of Staying Over ($11.99). I've heard good things about both, and for under $20, I said sure.

Just have to find time to spin them.

[jjreason]

With new 1hr commute to work I've been staying awake with some hip hop from various eras. In rotation most recently have been the following:

Kanye West: Late Registration - I realize I shouldn't like Kanye these days, but I like this record. The first 3 records are actually pretty good - but 808s & Heartbreak is absolutely terrible. I'll keep working my way through his discography.

Kendrick Lamar: Mr Morale & the Big Steppers - new double album from Kung Fu Kenny... it's his "4:44" - so intimate it's disconcerting. Some good tracks though.

Also threw on Shangri La Dee Da for you, RB (and to cleanse my palet from all the hip hop) & enjoyed it tremendously as per usual.

[Diabolical]

Also threw on Shangri La Dee Da for you, RB (and to cleanse my palet from all the hip hop) & enjoyed it tremendously as per usual.

Appreciated. It's a great fucking album.

Although I still wish they'd have stuck to their guns and made it a double album.

[jjreason]

I often think about trying to convince someone to check out an act by playing them just one song - if it was me trying to convince someone to try STP, Too Cool Queenie is the song I would go to.

[Diabolical]

Wow, that's a tough one.
They could go from hard rock with Sex Type Thing and Down to nearly pop-rock with Cinnamon or Sour Girl and everything in-between.
I would have to make a long list and slowly narrow it down to one song, but Too Cool Queenie is a nice choice.

[anarky]

Nobody's listened to music in two years?

I was curious about Cowboy Carter, but completely turned off by the wave of "this is the best thing ever, fuck sliced bread" reviews within the first minutes. Even my sponsored ads for Jack in the Box were bandwagonning that shit. But, finally, after a week or so, I tried to listen to it.

It's fucking terrible. I couldn't finish it.

I cannot understand the Beyonce phenomenon. I won't say I don't understand the appeal; she's an excellent singer. But her music is consistently boring as fuck and hailed as genius. This was an album of mediocre pop bullshit with some minor nods to what passes for country these days. Her cover of "Jolene" had rewritten lyrics so bad, she had to have had one of her kids write it. While drunk. And in a coma. "Texas Hold 'Em" is somewhat catchy and, God help me I never thought I'd say something like this, Miley Cyrus actually forces Beyonce to sing or look like a dipshit in their duet. The rest is just fucking bad. Not just "not good," fucking bad. It's enough to make me believe in the Illuminati conspiracy theories because I cannot find a logical reason she's a billionaire and, say, Alicia Keyes isn't.

And I don't say this because she's a black woman claiming to sing country. Ray Charles put out a few of the best country albums ever recorded, and Rhiannon Giddens is the genius people are acting like Beyonce is.

[anarky]

This might be my new favorite song. I want to time travel back to the mid 90s and tell my younger self that Morello would record a track with Def Leppard and it would sound like 70s T Rex.

Not sure what I'm doing wrong but the YouTube function doesn't like me. Here's a link.

https://youtu.be/MUTI7Ck8VaQ?si=WOBjj1Ib8jcdyBSr

[Ran]

I'm going to see Sammy Hagar's birthday bash on Friday. A guy I work with has a friend who won tickets on the radio and can't go. Got 2 tickets for only $100. The cheapest seats are over $200. Michael Anthony is playing bass. There are supposed to be "special guests". I've seen videos of his other birthdays, and usually the special guests are pretty good. I'm excited, and I'd wager Newsbot is too.

My dog is staring at me right now, so I won't add anything about him getting punched in the dick.

[anarky]

I had a pretty long drive to make today (long story short, we go to a dentist about two hours away because the office manager is a family friend and cuts us excellent deals, and I needed a replacement for the repeatedly broken and finally unsalvagable tooth that was removed in April). I decided I'd make myself listen to albums by some current acts. And, as I remember someone (Mr. Foolery) posting ages ago on this site to "keep our eyes on" this teenaged country singer named Taylor Swift because she was "going to hit it big" (can't find the post, but I doubt even you, be ye Foolery or someone else, anticipated how big), I figured I'd post my thoughts here.

YUNGBLUD. Everything about this guy screams weak poser shit, from the stupid name to collaborating with the living abortion Machine Gun Kelly. But both Ozzy and Geezer spoke about him like he's the second coming, and he recently released a song with Aerosmith that was pretty good. I listened to his most recent album, followed by his non-album covers of "Changes" and "I Was Made for Loving You." Most of the time, when rock gods point to some rising star as being their spiritual heir, you listen to them and wonder "What the fuck are you thinking?" for the ten seconds before they vanish into obscurity. YUNGLUD's most recent album actually lived up to the hype. It was damned good, and his covers were excellent. I enjoyed this so much, I listened to his second album (he's released three, not counting a few million non-album tracks, since albums are kinda a holdover from the physical age) on the way back. Yeah, not as good. Not bad, by any means, but not nearly as solid as his most recent one. If that means he's taking a turn away from pop and shitty white-boy hip hop, he's got a solid future in my book. (The second did have a duet with Willow Smith who, Ronnie James Dio forgive me, has already proven to be a surprisingly listenable pop metal vocalist.)

Chapell Roan. My daughter listened to a mix of music on heavy repeat over the summer, with a few Roan songs mixed in, so it's not like this was totally new territory. And I assume you're not living under rocks like me, so this is unlikely news to you. I happen to like (not necessarily love) Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, and, well, she fucking crushes them both. She'll never be as popular, but, fuck, she's good. But definitely not one to play if your parents are in the car, even if you're 50. This girl likes fucking (I've heard only girls, but her lyrics imply anything with a pulse), and is going to sing about it.

Lola Young. I heard "Messy" on the radio a few months ago. I really liked it. The rest of that album, well, she's not un-talented, but it's not great. She basically sings about fucking and being fucked up. To be honest, looking at pictures of her, the fucked up part is easy to see, the fucking part not so much. She strikes me as one of those one-hit wonders where everything else they do is good, but not great, and you listen to the whole album and think for a moment, "Why didn't they hit it big?" And the second the last song fades out, completely forget everything but their hit. We're talking The Outfield or Deep Blue Something here, not a-Ha or A Flock of Seagulls.

Sabrina Carpenter. My daughter's mix was heavy on Sabrina. I already had an impression of her. Listening to all of Man's Best Friend confirmed it. She's dull as fuck. The lady has a beautiful voice, but "sex kitten" is her only mode. I'm no prude by any means, but all her lyrics scream, "I'm twelve, and I just learned these cuss words, and also I learned that a ding dong goes into a coochie and adults like that and I'm going to repeat it so the rest of the seventh graders think I'm cool." It's like an attempt to create shock value to a world that's already seen the likes of Madonna, L7, etc. Which is a shame, because, like I said, the woman can sing. There's a lot of genre-hopping, but I got the impression (and a cursory online search backs this up) that she's not in control of her production, so I can't even give her credit there. Coincidentally, going from Chapell to Lola to Sabrina was like a degrading spiral of "woman who like to sing about fucking" that starts with "doing it right" and ends with "actually making sex sound boring as... well, not as boring as fuck, since fuck is cool."

Liz Phair. Okay, not new. But I had to break the cycle and listen to Exile in Guyville to hear one of the queens of singing about fucking taking even Ms. Roan to school.