In addition to wearing their 80’s affection on the sleeves of their red Thriller jackets, there’s a section of “Amarillion” where Datarock shows off a few more songs they like.  About 3 minutes into the track, behind the vocals, there are lines sung from Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms,” David Bowie’s “Changes,” At the Drive-In’s “One Armed Scissor” and another track I can’t place.  (It sounds like a Ben Folds lyric to me.)

I don’t have the rest of Red, so I don’t know if the band gets into styles as diverse as what they reference in this track, but I suppose I don’t really much care.  As much as I can feel nostalgic for an era that I didn’t experience except for through movies, and one that I remember now through kitsch and comedy, on “Amarillion” Datarock makes it seem like being 16/17/18 in 1985 is something that I would have enjoyed.

Datarock – Amarillion (mp3) from Red

Looking through the new music that’s released each week, I’ve noticed that a lot of times, the music seems to trend to one genre or another.  This week, for example, there is a lot of angry sounding music, with albums being released with titles such as Neo-Satanic Supremacy (Troll), Starve for the Devil (Arsis), and Draw Down the Moon (Icarus Witch).

We don’t swing that way (if you couldn’t tell), so if you’re interested in the new Troll album, we’ll let you track it down on your own.  Other than that, we’ll tell you that we’re going to look into the Massive Attack, Hot Chip and Yeasayer albums.  It’s good that it’s a lighter week, because we’re still catching up from the past couple weeks.

As always, there’s a couple of tracks after the list to get you in the right headspace, and have an excellent week.

Dave Matthews Band – Live in Las Vegas
Fear Factory – Mechanize
Gui Boratto – Renaissance: Mix Collection [Import]
HIM – Screamworks: Love in Theory & Practice
Hot Chip – One Life Stand
Jaheim – Another Round
Jimi Hendrix – Valleys of Neptune [Vinyl 45]
Massive Attack – Heligoland
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
The Pretenders – Live In London
Sade – Soldier of Love
Yeasayer – Odd Blood

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp (mp3) from the forthcoming Odd Blood

Hot Chip – Over and Over (mp3) from The Warning

For those not in the U.S. and anyone else that may live under a rock, today is the Super Bowl. An overblown event that rarely lives up to the ridiculous two weeks of standalone hype, plus measureless previous hyping, the game is really an excuse for people to go buy big-screen television sets and eat food that is bad for you while getting drunk. I will likely engage in the two latter behaviors, and I will see Andy doing the same.

It’s funny that there is so much I hate about football, yet I tune-in week in and out to watch. I can’t stand football announcers nor the idiots on studio shows that say the word football in excess of five times per sentence. I hate the attitude professional athletes exude with their posturing and taunting, while they act as if they are doing something important and thus are very important themselves.

I also think the half-time shows are a gigantic waste of time, but there is a section of the viewing populace that is watching for purposes of commercial viewing and halftime show gawking alone. So with that, since The Who happen to be performing at this year’s game I’ve posted my favorite song from them. A song I purportedly enjoyed immensely as an infant when in conjunction with my mother dancing around with me to it. I like to imagine I thought ‘fuck Raffi, I want The Who.’

The Who – Baba O’Riley (mp3) from Who’s Next

When it comes to Psychobuildings, I have very little to go on as far as information is concerned.  What I can cull from various sources goes something like this:

Brooklyn via DC, Small Black’s record label, Talking Heads, limited run of 7″, All Hands Electric, New Wave, David Byrne, David Byrne, David Byrne

The aforementioned 7″ will be released through All Hands Electric shortly – and “Paradise” is the b-side of it.  In between the yelps and stream of consciousness lyrics sung over a chunky, looping beat, think of a New Wave dance-rock resurgence.  Then think about how much sense it makes, and how good it actually is, and how good it would have sounded blasting out of your boom box in 1980s NYC.  And then turn it up.

Psychobuildings – Paradise (mp3) from Birds of Prey/Paradise 7″

Here is my complete list to this point.

87. Doves – Pounding from The Last Broadcast (4:45) [Time Remaining: 642:30]

The words to describe just how I feel about this record – as well as about this band in general – are hard to come by. I’ve already included ‘There Goes The Fear’ from The Last Broadcast in my 1K, and a few other songs from it may eventually make their way into this list. The driving beat in this song will never grow old and the simple rhythm guitars are just wonderful in composing the melody of the tune. ‘Pounding’ is about fleeting moments, and making the most of the time you have. I can’t think of a better way to make the most of my time than by listening to music from this incredible band.

88. The Roots – The Seed (2.0) Ft Cody Chesnutt from Phrenology (4:28) [Time Remaining: 638:02]

If somehow you find yourself unaware, this song is technically a cover. The man whose lovely voice you hear in the chorus and playing the pleasing guitars is Cody Chesnutt, the original author of this song. The Roots essentially reworked the song a bit and upped the tempo, but it is kept mostly intact from Chesnutt’s original. Delightfully seedy in lyrical content, this is just an immensely satisfying song.

I came across this song a while back and it caught my ear slightly. Upon hearing it again I enjoyed it a bit more the second go around. I’m sure some readers are far more acquainted with this band than I, but if not here’s your chance to start. The band is fairly prolific in that with their slated release of a new album this spring, which according to their Wikipedia page is tentatively titled American Ghetto, they will have released an album a year since 2006. Their stylings vary as I understand it, so delve deep if you must.

Portugal. The Man – Do You from The Satanic Satanist

I know there are many diverging opinions concerning Cold War Kids, not unlike those pertaining to Vampire Weekend. Put simply, I am a fan (of both really). Cold War Kids’ ‘Hospital Beds’ has been, is, and forever will be, one of my favorite songs and justly found its way into my 1000 Minutes. That said, I did not enjoy Loyalty to Loyalty. Something about the album was just off to me; a feeling lost from their first release. Upon listening to this EP I received a similar feeling as I did from Robbers and Cowards, and it pleased me. If I had to guess where LtL went wrong, I think it would be that I felt it to be an angrier record. The intonation of the lyrics and musical tone were a bit edgier. I think this EP finds the band in a calmer place, and it works better for me.

Cold War Kids – Santa Ana Winds from Behave Yourself EP

While I was letting my iPod shuffle through its contents the other day, a song popped up that I hadn’t listened to before.  That doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while I’ll come across something that’s new.  I suppose it’s part of consuming music in volume; there’s not enough time in the day for me to listen to everything I want, and the necessity to move the conversation along results in things being missed.

As it were, Winter Gloves finally reached out of the depths of the gigabytes and made me pay attention.  Their jagged post-garage, bolstered by a buzzy synth is entertaining; i listened to “Factories” about a half a dozen times, one after another, and when I got home, the track found itself another home on my running iPod.

And that’s all I need the Montreal, QC outfit for, really.  It doesn’t all need to be free jazz or art-rock.  Some tracks, some bands are good at face value – just as they are – and this is one of them.  Looking into them further, I found that they were more talked about early in 2009, but we weren’t a blog then, so I’m absolving us of a missed opportunity.  Their purported website is no longer functioning, but their MySpace has a few scattered dates listed, and bears the caption that they are “recording new songs !!!”  With their next release, I’ll make sure to be more on top of things.

Winter Gloves – Factories (mp3) from About a Girl

Winter Gloves – Let Me Drive (mp3) from About a Girl

I have a personal stigma when it comes to any band from Germany, imagining that all are in a vein similar to Rammstein – kind of angry, with intermittent use of the word “nein!” or “schnell!”  This kind of cultural ignorance is completely my own fault, as I’m not particularly in tune with the musical landscape of Germany and Austria.

But the electro-pop of the group Digitalism – at least contained on this song (which is the only one I’ve heard of theirs) – makes me think that Germans may just tend more toward the happy, drunken buffoonery of Oktoberfest.  What it boils down to is this: I can’t decide which unwarranted, overriding stereotype of mine is more correct based on this one song.  I guess, in reality, I’m content to assume it’s the second assumption, as long as the resulting musical output mirrors this.

Digitalism – Pogo (mp3) from Idealism

I’m not feeling particularly long-winded today, so let’s jump right in to the next installment of my 1000 Minutes Project, which, if you’re unfamiliar, can be recapped here.  If you’re up-to-speed, read on:

89. The Strokes – Someday (mp3) from Is This It (3:07) [Time Remaining: 581:41]

When The Strokes’ seminal Is This It was released, I was a bit of a latecomer.  That’s not to say that I hadn’t heard what they were doing; it was more that I simply didn’t find “Hard to Explain” and “Last Nite” all that gripping.  (Apparently I’m not easily impressed by hype.)  And then I heard “Someday” and caved instantly, purchasing the album as quickly as I could.  Looking back and listening now, all the songs seem to have ended up on fairly equal footing, but “Someday” still makes it onto party playlists because of my particular affinity for it.

90. The Walkmen – In the New Year (mp3) from You & Me (4:23) [Time Remaining: 577:18]

I’m not a big fan of The Walkmen; You & Me was my introduction to their music.  Despite my lack of familiarity with the rest of their catalog, “In the New Year” has stuck in my head since the first time I heard it.  The song is honest and hopeful about the process of getting older, falling in and out of love, and watching your friends experience the same.  In short, it’s honest about life for me lately, and it’s (surprisingly) not wholly uncomfortable.