On occasion, I’ve been tempted to post something I’ve seen on Stereogum. Thing is, I assume that we all read it. Is it redundant to post something from there, or are we not all Stereogum readers?
-fogues
At first listen, Asobi Seksu’s Hush, sort of squelched (gasp) my high anticipation of its release. I’ve been a big fan (with no shame of my enthusiasm) of their previous well-written albums with their grandly executed guitar idiosyncrasies, multi-layered structures, and of course, Yuki’s otherworldly vocals. Thus, I was a little surprised when I’d realize that each time I put on Hush, it would play by, mostly unnoticed, as I went about whatever I was doing.
Not wanting this album to fall in the dreaded category of ‘background lull,’ I decided to really give it a chance— to really listen.
What I found was an album, still inherent of their previous realms of excellence, but also with a gentler, more developed quality than its predecessors— an album that dips up and down through swirls of texture and tone that coalesce with refined confidence — a sumptuous oeuvre I can’t get enough of!
Once again, Asobi Seksu wins me over.*
Transparence from Hush, écoute!
*May elicit lowbrow giggling.
Posted by Brie
“Everyday” by Vetiver. This video is brilliant. It’s done in the style of a karaoke video with lyrics at the bottom (and obligatory typos) and cheesy playfullness.
Posted by Matt
I can’t get enough of this new Phonix song. The album drops in May, I think, but they are streaming the song on their website, as well as offering two mp3 downloads: one straight up recording, and another that is multi-track. Bad ass!
Posted by Matt
Virgil Griffith, popularly known for the Wikipedia Scanner that detects where the Wikipedia edits are coming from, maintains another very interesting project that maps musical tastes of college students with their intelligences levels (determined by their SAT score).
The x-axis represent the SAT score while the colored boxes indicate the music genre and the artist / composer.
Fans of Lil Wayne’s music scored the lowest in SAT while listeners of Beethoven’s work were among the highest scorers. The full chart is available at Music That Makes You Dumb.
To come up with this chart, Virgil used Facebook to determine the “Favorite music” at different colleges in US and then combined it with the average combined SAT scores of students from these colleges. He has done a similar exercise for books as well.
The musical taste vs SAT score chart maps the 133 most popular (out of 1,455) favorite music from 1,352 schools. In terms of music genres, it follows like this - Soca < Gospel < Jazz < Hip Hop < Pop < Oldies < Raggae < Alternative < Classical < R&B < Rap < Rock < Country < Classic Rock < Techno in increasing order of SAT scores.
I… this… I….
Wow.
This is pretty much the most incredible thing ever. EVAR.
That is all.
Love, David.
This song always depressed me when the reruns would come on at like 2 a.m. This version is even more melancholy.
Posted by Matt
Everything With You by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
Awesome band. Maybe not so awesome band name.
Posted by Josh
I’m totally on this band’s jock. Ever since David sent me this album (thanks, man!) it’s been in heavy rotation. You just can’t lose with catchy melodies, pedal steel, and the occasional Rhodes. So good.
Edit: If Kanye West and Napoleon Dynamite had a kid, it would be the singer.
Posted by Matt
