Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – Walk it Off
The Loon was a bit of a minor masterpiece, albeit one which started to wobble a little and run out of steam in the latter third of the album.
Walk it Off is a disappointment really – more of the same, but without much of the urgency and drive that made The Loon so good. That is about all I can really add, to be honest. Y’know, it’s like Tapes ‘n’ Tapes but for the most part less good.
On something of a tangent, Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, like Beirut, were groups from 2006 that I absolutely loved, despite the fact that no-one around me had even heard of them. I started writing Song, by Toad around this time and suddenly it dawned on me that all this completely obscure music that I was listened to was a telltale signature of a very specific target market, many of whom are to be found in the blogosphere. Now, I am not ashamed or surprised to exhibit herd-like behaviour myself – lets face it, we all do it and as long as you’re being sincere then it’s nothing to be afraid of – but what I did wonder about was where I’d absorbed these influences from.
See, I never really read blogs until shortly before I was writing one, so it can’t have come from peer group influence of any sort, so how did I end up liking the exact same music as an army of bloggers, whilst living completely isolated from their influence? Presumably, and without wishing to state the obvious, social factors play a massive part in musical tastes. And perhaps those of us who grew up with Dylan and the Band on one side and Bowie and Depeche Mode on the other, are very likely to end up with a very specific set of tastes of our own.
But I was surprised at just how exactly my tastes seemed to mirror those of the blogosphere average, especially having developed in what I had assumed to be quite different conditions. Presumably not so different after all. Anyhow, erm, oh yes, don’t buy this album because it isn’t very good.
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – Hang Them All
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes – Time of Songs
