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(05/30/16 4:17pm)
You are now listening to Car Seat Headrest
Release Date 5/20/2016
Rating 6/7
Car Seat Headrest is a lo-fi indie rock project from Leesburg, VA, currently in Seattle, WA. It is the brainchild of Will Toledo, who self released most of his albums before this one. This is the 13th released full-length LP in as little as six years, including the breakout album Twin Fantasy, and their album just before this one, Teens of Style--the first on Matador Records. Teens of Denial is 12 songs of pure power-punk, and with the three singles I heard before the album release, I was really excited.
The album starts off with the single "Fill In The Blank," which honestly feels like it's taken straight out of the 90's. The song starts with the quote above, as if to introduce the band like, "This is what this band is all about, this is what you will hear." From the first track I was dancing in my seat. It really sets the tone for the rest of the album with its quick-paced beat and its loud, whaling guitars.
The first song set the tone for the album, the second single "Vincent" carried on this intensity. "Vincent" starts off with this huge ramp up, until you hear Toledo's voice begin as if he was in the middle of a sentence, "And half the time I want to go home." Lyrically this song is amazing. It is about him finding that the place he lives is not his home, finding he may be different from everyone else that he knows. This song never makes you feel comfortable as it changes stylistically throughout. Toledo really knows how to pair lyrics with melodies. I LOVE THIS SONG.
They got a portrait of Van Gogh on the Wikipedia page for clinical depression. Well, it helps to describe it.
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The third single, "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales" is a quiet-core song that ramps up really well into the Killer Whales section.The quiet-core section is very nice and the punk portion is also very good. The song doesn't give off the vibe of being too preachy or pretentious which is a big problem in a genre like this.
Toledo keeps this punk sound throughout the album, not just in these singles. The style of these songs are used throughout the entire album, only switching it up a little between songs to keep the listener interested throughout the record. Songs like "Drugs With Friends," "The Ballad of the Costa Concordia," and "Cosmic Hero" are sort of softer and more introspective, while songs like "Destroyed By Hippie Powers," "Connect the Dots," or even "Vincent" are more angst-fueled outward projections. This shift that Toledo makes throughout the album kept me interested in each song.
Overall, when I look at the album I see an album with great lyrics. The lyrics are the shining star of Teens of Denial. You can really see the struggle that Toledo (or the character that Toledo creates) is having with his life. Maybe things aren't okay, maybe he's just trying to find meaning in his everyday life.
I liked this album, and now I can't wait to see them at Pitchfork.
(04/23/16 11:02pm)
Remember 'Good Burger'? That movie is sort of still relevant today. If you don't remember 'Good Burger,' it was created in the beginning of when Nickelodeon started making movies. The movie is based off of a sketch of a show that you probably never watched with the stars Keenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell called All That (But they also had a show together called Keenan and Kel). The show came out before I was born, and the movie came out a month after I was born. I've seen the movie more times than I feel anyone should see it (About four times) but each time I ask myself the question "Does it Hold Up?"
Good burger is about Dexter (Played by Keenan) who crashes his parents car into his teacher's (Played by Sinbad) car because he was avoiding a strange man in the middle of the road. We then find out he doesn't have insurance so he gets a job at Good Burger to pay it off. He then meets a silly character named Ed (Played by Kel). The odd couple of Straight Man Dexter and Wise Guy Ed then have to save Good Burger from their rival Mondoplex.
Okay first things first, some of the plot doesn't make sense. Keenan is 15 right? He says so in like the beginning when he crashes into Sinbad's car. But at Good Burger, they decide to hire him as a delivery driver?!? I mean he actually is 20 when this movie came out but he literally says that he doesn't have a license, but they're like "No license? When can you start making deliveries?"
Then we get the classic kids movie thing, they basically list off the supporting characters and show exactly the one defining feature that they have. Spatch is a oaf with a spatula, Otis is the old guy (Played by Abe Vigoda. ABE! YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS!), Deedee is a vegetarian, Fizz is the white guy who looks like he has severe ADHD, Mr. Bailey(The Boss) is a mamma's boy, Monique is the love interest and Kurt is a prick.
So Kurt is part of the new restaurant across the street: Mondo Burger. They try to put Good Burger out of business by producing a bigger burger with a bigger restaurant.
So it's at this point where you think, "Okay, this is going to go how I think it's going to go. Dexter and Ed are going to get through this. overcoming some huge odds to defeat the system." and if you thought that, you're right. The thing is, there are some classic children movie things that the movie does to get to this point. And this movie has a surprisingly emotional subplot.
You then find out that the person who basically caused Dexter to crash his car was Ed, which causes Dexter to be mean for an extended period of time
The magical plot piece that causes Good Burger to be saved is a sauce that Ed creates to make every good burger (No matter how comparatively small) amazing. This cliche plot device of the least likely person becoming the hero is in way too many movies like Dudley from Harry Potter, Jeff from Jeff who lives at home, The little girl from Signs, sadness from inside out, Jack-Jack from the incredibles and others. Though using this trope is not original, the movie goes into a different direction with it. Even though this trope has been used many many times, this one is different because of Ed is taken advantage of by Dexter even though Ed just wants him to be his friend.
But eventually unsurprisingly Ed and Dexter join forces and destroy Mondoplex using Ed's good heart and raging stupidity and Dexter's relative uselessness. It includes cross-dressing, playing mini-golf like regular golf, a manufacturing plant for Mondoplex and Sinbad.
The learning points that come from this movie are actually profound for what it's worth, forgiving people even though they hurt you, never giving up in the face of adversity and Keenan Thompson is not the best actor.
Overall I know that this movie is pretty bad, but in the right circumstances I would watch it again. It doesn't hold up.
In all honesty the real moral of the story its not bigger is better, its about how you use it the sauce
If you want me to review anything else Movie/TV no matter how bad… Email to Benkessl@umail.iu.edu with the subject “Review”
(04/20/16 4:55pm)
Released 4/1/16
6/7 Stars
Next Thing is Frankie Cosmos, second widely released LP (according to Bandcamp this is her 51st release of any kind). Greta Kline, who performs under the name Frankie Cosmos, as I learned from trying to write this review, is pretty hard to fully describe. Other accomplishments are: former bassist of Porches, Actor in The Squid and the Whale and The Anniversary Party.
Interesting things about Kline aside, this album is pretty darn good. With every one of the 15 songs being short sweet vignettes of a length no more than 2:44. Each song has that classic indie rock/indie pop feel with a clean guitar and some pretty noticeably awesome bass riffs. Every song seems to take you in and keep you there until you sing the song over and over in your head. One gripe I do have about this album is that some of the songs (mostly the more up-beat songs) sound a little bit more similar than I would like. Other than that Kline really is able to mix up the pace of each song, even in the middle of the song.
The lyrics of this album are amazing. Themes of this album include: loneliness/heartbreak and struggle with identity. When Kline talks about these themes though, she doesn't really beat you over the head with it. She keeps every song simple, straight from the heart and about her own personal experience, and really, that's all you can ask for.
Overall I thought that this album was great. I would recommend this album to anyone interested in indie-rock and hoping to discover a fresh voice in the genre.
(03/08/16 6:13pm)
On March 3 I was browsing through Spotify when something caught my eye.
There is an album called 808's & Harpbreak. My first thought was "Oh I've heard of that album, its by Kanye West" looking closer the album is by a band called Netherfriends, a band that I've listened to before. I'm not the biggest Rap/Hip Hop guy (I say this as a precautionary tale) so I haven't really heard any of Kanye West's music, and I've only heard a little bit of Netherfriends. So with that being said I decided to compare the two albums track by track.
If you decide to listen to either album:
If you like Netherfriends listen to: Suckers, TV Girl, We Are Trees, Dent May, Toro Y Moi, Etc. (I am familiar with this sub-genre)
If you end up liking Kanye West go on the street and shout: "I LIKE KANYE WEST! WHO ELSE SHOULD I LISTEN TO?" and you will get an answer 1000% better than any answer I know.
(This is a subjective process so the fact that I am doing this is moot... YOU FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS)
I will just write small blurbs about each of the songs from each of the albums
https://play.spotify.com/track/6SpyIVK0cZfb0SjsqyqfTV
Say You Will: With repetitive lyrics this isn't that much of a thought provoking song, but the instrumentation that makes me feel like I'm in a Gothic church with a constant drum beat and beeping noise is actually okay. Otherwise.... Auto-tune.... Really?
https://play.spotify.com/track/4wreoOJRkLvJVjmyQ1PEKn
Welcome To Heartbreak (ft. Kid Cudi): At the beginning of Kid Cudi's relevancy (I actually went on google trends and searched Kid Cudi... Just so see when he was relevant, because lord knows after speeding bullet to heaven he should not be relevant for a long time this was a good feature and the melodies and buildup after they say the name of the song is pretty enjoyable... though what it seems to be building up to I have no idea.
https://play.spotify.com/track/5h9pB5af60LWJBrG1HCHsU
Heartless: JESUS when was the first time I heard this song. This is the first time I actually intentionally listened to this song. This song brings me back to 8th grade and bar mitzvahs... Listening to this song isn't just a poor flashback but listening closer just makes me realize how flat this feels. This song just feels like catchy poppy garbage that Kanye West looked at and said... Yeah good enough, everyone will like it even if all of the singing sounds like auto-tuned garbage and the only good part is the backing piano.
https://play.spotify.com/track/7tsgm8M8uO6W1HmBAmHFGv
Amazing: Looking at this from an outsider's perspective in 2016 I do not know the goal of this song. Is the goal to repeat the title of the song 25 times? Is the goal to be edgy? What are people supposed to do when they hear this song at a concert? At one of Jeezy's six peaks both the feature and the actual songs just seem like they are there to inflame ego. The grunts in the background makes this song what it is. The slow monotonous beat helps though it makes the instrumentation less muddled within the singing of the song. Almost needless to say: AUTO-TUNE
https://play.spotify.com/track/2UNedS0c7DmhV7q6CnwcmT
Love Lockdown: See "Heartless" I have the same opinion... if you showed me this song first I would have said the exact same thing
Okay its time for me to put something straight, this album is a victim of its time. I understand well that this album was ground breaking. These songs were some of the best of 2008... but this is indicative of the state of pop music of that era. Chris Brown's "Forever" was on the top of the charts at that time. If you listen to that song right now and you call that a piece of music excellence that will stand the test of time, I would call you insane. Music from that era does not age well, you can let Ne-Yo tell you that. I will admit something else, the lyrics though covered with this dated auto-tune are provocative and personal. The lyrics actually mean something and that is something that pop music form 2008 does not have in the slightest. The lyrics show a pain of going through life without substance, while everyone around you has their life developing into something meaningful. West is actually going through a meaningful quest to find love and his experience of all of the facets of love, especially heartbreak. Lyrically this album is great, but it is a victim of its time.
Enough about Kanye (a sentence often uttered) let's get to the new stuff.
Netherfriends is a band who has this indie rock feel, but they decided to make this album called 808's & Harpbreaks which has more of a hip-hop-esque feel. If you have never heard of the band Netherfriends and would like to play at home, I would highly recommend listening to the song "Bret Easton Ellis Novel". I like that song.
https://play.spotify.com/track/6OY8y4MitJhMQQ4LcnguBU
Okay in a little less depth I will go over the first song and just tell you what the rest of the album is, then I will go to the conclusion. I'm only doing this for the sake of time and my sanity.
https://play.spotify.com/track/5bwzoTtaqlKBgsoC2mXDTa
On the contrast to most of the Kanye West songs with their slow and monotonous beats, "Dmt and Whiskey" is a song that does not have that type of beat. Instead this song goes into a a slow beat with the now overused form of a extremely quick beat that you now see in EVERY CURRENT HIP-HOP song. Its overused. The lyrics are as shallow as the beat, overall it just feels empty. As a saving grace though the harp is pretty cool.
Overall thoughts:
Both of these albums are products of their time, Harpbreak is this shallow piece of music with not so good lyrics and okay instrumental. Heartbreaks is an album with great lyrics but probably the most dated instrumentals and auto-tune. When I look over everything I see that Heartbreak was actually innovative and led the way into a new era, while Harpbreak just was a way to fit in with the Hip-Hop crowd and create another shallow piece of music that people will forget about probably by the end of this year, or maybe this month, maybe even this sentence. Overall I think although Heartbreaks feels bad at this time, maybe it will age well later (not now...), it does have substance after all.
Finally I acknowledge that there are albums like 808's & Dark Grapes I II or III By Main Attrakoinz and 808s & Love Make 2 By Aka Frank... But I started to listen to them and stopped about 20 seconds later. (to be honest after five songs of Kanye West it took a lot out of me and I wanted to stop I'm not a rap/hip hop guy and this really wore me out)
(03/01/16 6:33pm)
Before I introduce this amazing band I want you to listen to this song:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1acxWJD8twzOT4HvDxWO0w
Okay, now before looking it up I want you to ask yourself, "How many people are in this band"
If your answer was more than two, you would be wrong.
El Ten Eleven is a duo made up of (Guitarist/Bassist) Kristian Dunn and (Drummer) Tim Fogarty. The band is all instrumental with accompaniment from various looping pedals, and are one of the most technically impressive bands that is currently playing.
If you are interested to hang out and listen to some good music, come watch El Ten Eleven defy genres at The Bishop on March 1st.
Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
(02/19/16 12:36am)
When reviewing the new Dr. Dog album for music committee some strange feeling came over me. It was Déjà vu, I’ve heard this transition before. I revisited one of my most unpopular opinions that I’ve had about a band called Dr. Dog. “This sounds a lot like The Beatles, but in reverse!” I know that’s an oversimplification of the circumstances, but being raised on the Beatles, their new album that just came out over a week ago sounds a bit like the Beatles from 1967-1969.
Dr. Dog is a band that started in 1999 in Pennsylvania starting off with a very structured lo-fi sound. Their first full length album, Toothbrush, came out in 2003. Some of the songs in the album, such as:
“Jealous Man” sounds like the song off of the Abbey Road album that came out in 1969, “Oh! Darling”.
https://play.spotify.com/track/5ufHXQOYMIT08pdM7RGcb8
https://play.spotify.com/track/2mxByJWOajjiVsLWjNXvDJ
Dr. Dog made albums consistently from 2005-2016. Their discography includes: Easy Beat (2005) Takers and Leavers (2006) We All Belong (2007) Passed Away Vol. 1 (2008) Fate (2008) Shame, Shame (2010) Be the Void (2012) B-Room (2013) Live at the Flamingo Hotel (2015) and their newest album The Psychedelic Swamp (2016).
When I say Dr. Dog sounds a lot like The Beatles, I am not saying that as a bad thing. In fact I think that is a great thing. We now have a Beatles of our generation. But the thing is you can make stark comparisons between the two. Such as Live at the Flamingo Hotel being like a newer version of the rooftop concert, but not as important. Another comparison can be their album Fate sounding like a folky version of The Beatles album A Hard Day’s Night. But the final and albeit most important comparison, The Psychedelic Swamp sounds a little bit like Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine had a baby.
Now there is a style similarity between the two, the most striking of which I felt while listening to both discographies was the backing vocals. The thing that made The Beatles so iconic was their catchiness and their back-up “oooo’s and ahhs” (Ben Kessler 2016)
But if you look at Dr. Dog some of their songs have this exact quality:
Heart It Races by Dr. Dog was a song that I had stuck in my head for the entire month of March in 2015.
https://play.spotify.com/track/6L2Eoo8Dzx60hARXy7TCic
And the song From off of the album Fate has all of the backing vocals that give the feel that The Beatles did.
https://play.spotify.com/track/3kl9RU3aQj41YJ4xUVfXwr
The reason why the new Dr. Dog album is so important for them though is the fact that they are switching genres experimentally. Some people may forget, but The Beatles started off as a boy band. PEOPLE HATED THE BEATLES WHEN THEY FIRST STARTED OUT. But they adjusted to be part of the founding fathers of modern rock and roll, they adjusted and experimented and made very good music. The Beatles eventually switched from their Rock and Roll style to something more in the psychedelic genre, and I see this happening to Dr. Dog. Dr. Dog is one of the hardest working bands that is currently in the Indie Rock scene. The Beatles will stand the test of time. I’m happy that Dr. Dog is continuing this legacy, I just hope no Yoko Ono comes in to ruin the fun.
https://play.spotify.com/track/59tFyoYPD75crzJ8p1fyRg
The world may never know sounds like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
https://play.spotify.com/track/1gFNm7cXfG1vSMcxPpSxec
https://play.spotify.com/track/3jPMFS8DflvvRk3jhGnQoN
(02/16/16 1:34am)
First of all did anyone know that Scooby’s real name was Scoobert? Ok now that we got that out of the way Scooby-Doo 2 is a movie that actually came out… and I saw it Feb. 5 2016. I am super proud of that. This movie was released the same month as Frankie Muniz spat out his long awaited sequel to Agent Cody Banks. And I only say that this is a close second to the xi sequel because that movie has Anthony Anderson (Dre From Black-ish) in it and he is actually a funny person when you get down to bare bones. While watching the movie I realize there is no one in the entire cast with a redeeming quality whatsoever, but I guess that’s the problem. The movie’s most famous actor happens to be…Seth Green.
The movie is riddled with poor CGI. I mean the monsters in this movie are just awful, with uncanny valley feelings
The movie also contains attempts at scaring you with small ineffective jump scares. When this movie tries to go out of its genre, into anything but what it is it becomes one of the worst movies of all time. When it tries action… It fails. When it tries romance… It fails. When it tries “horror”… it fails. Needless to say the movie fails at almost everything it tries to do.
The movie is only funny when it is not explicitly trying to be funny. Dialogue seems to be written by a seven year old that was shut in a room watching pop culture references, who then grew up to be a mediocre writer with no conventions of actual personalities or conversations just odd tropes that he can have his characters follow to death. We get it, Velma is a nerd who shies away from conflict and potential love interests (Seth Green for some reason). We get it, Fred’s a giant tool (they call him a leader but we all know he’s just a tool). Daphne is a girly girl who follows every stereotype (The movie makes a huge self-aware joke about this one, basically calling her a useless stereotype, unapologetically). Shaggy is a stoner. Scoobert is a dog a silly, silly dog.
Yet the movie seems to be self-aware about its humor, this movie knows exactly what it’s doing, and it does it well. The background gags, though heavy handed, are actually pretty funny. The movie plays like an odd slapstick humor with the awful CGI playing a big part within. This movie is over the top, but in a way that it’s so bad that it’s good. When you think they’re going to make an awful joke they make the awful joke. THERE IS ACTUALLY A POINT WHERE A GHOST KNIGHT GETS KICKED IN THE BALLS AND SAYS “OOOOO RIGHT IN THE ROUND TABLES” I CAN’T MAKE THIS UP!!! When you think Scooby is going to say something stupid, you become 100% correct. But that’s what makes this movie great its predictability leaves no surprises. Your enjoyment of this movie only comes with your attitude and your willingness to enjoy this movie. That being said, I enjoyed this movie immensely… more than I thought was possible.
The ending is farfetched… but what’s new. Just prepare for some masks to be torn off and someone saying “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids and that damn dog!”.
Okay… What did I expect? I just saw a kids movie from 2004 and I’m 18 years old the movie came out when I was six years old. Do I regret my decision? Absolutely not! By the way, I forgot to mention that the plot of this movie is very cliché (a group of heroes become shunned for some reason until an evil comes back and they have to save the city). Despite all of the bad, the redeeming factors show a faint light. I would recommend it, prepare to laugh, but not for all of the right reasons.
Post Script…
One day after writing this I decided to watch the first Scooby-Doo movie. The movie is very similar except for the plot is that everyone in the gang quits because of how much of a tool Fred is. Then the gang gets back together after Mr. Bean invites each member to a place called Spooky Island to solve a mystery. The thing about the first movie compared to the second is that the characters are more like their tropes than ever. The movie actually is more obvious than the second one… and I didn’t know that was even possible. There are less famous people because Seth Green is not there, but he was replaced by Mr. Bean. Just rinse and repeat when it comes to Scooby-Doo movies I guess.
If you want me to review anything else Movie/TV no matter how bad... Email to Benkessl@umail.iu.edu with the subject "Review"