No-one Wants to Read a 3/5 Review, but There’s a Lot of 3/5 Music Out There…
The title of this post is something a very good friend of mine said to me a good few years ago now, when I was talking to him about what I do and don’t write about on this blog.
Most of the music I hear a buzz building about on the internet I tend to have a listen to, and end up shrugging and thinking, ‘well, s’alright, innit’. However, on this blog I am trying, in a sense, to document the actual process of listening to and enjoying music – to write out the inner monologue of a music fan, I guess.
Finding some of that music to be no better than alright is a part of the process I’ve never really know how to discuss properly, so I am going to give it a go here, with three mini-reviews of albums which I was extremely interested to hear, but which all kind of disappointed me in the end – you, on the other hand, might disagree and end up loving them.
The Beets – Stay Home
This album, to be entirely fair, is not just ‘alright’, it is pretty good if you ask me, but I still haven’t really, properly clicked with it yet, despite constantly feeling like I am on the cusp of doing so. It’s got a really nice, ramshackle, Phil & the Osophers feel to it, those lo-fi production values I tend to fall all over myself for, and a really loose feel to the playing.
I keep waiting for something to happen, though. For them to get loud, for them to turn a phrase which makes me double take, for them to write a killer riff I can’t stop humming… anything, really. It just doesn’t though. This album feels a bit like one with all the right ingredients, but something kind of missing in the recipe.
The Beets – Hens & Roosters
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Shilpa Ray & her Happy Hookers – Teenage and Torture
All the right elements are here again – a rough and ready version of rock ‘n’ roll, with plenty of fire and Shilpa Ray’s amazingly brilliant voice to drive it all home. So what’s not doing it for me? As per usual, you can rarely be entirely sure about these things.
Put simply, though, this could do with a dose of Grinderman, if you ask me. It needs to be more extreme – louder, rougher, dirtier both in recording and in bed, more threatening, more unhinged. Listen to it and you’d be well within your rights to wonder what the fuck I’m talking about. This has passion, right, just listen to Shilpa belting it out! It does have passion, I guess, but for some reason as far as I am concerned it fails to generate any.
Shilpa Ray & her Happy Hookers – Dames a Dime a Dozen
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Tennis – Cape Dory
Alright, I’ll be honest, never mind not quite clicking, this one I just plain don’t get at all. Fat Possum are one of the great independent record labels, but with this one I have to confess, I am just kind of baffled. It’s rubbish. Or, more to the point, boring.
It’s got a nice old-fashioned pop sense to it – like Elk City in a sense – but no discernible character, and no memorable melodies whatsoever. I don’t get it at all.
Tennis – Marathon
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