Word: pop
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...their press and production, both Bright Eyes albums are really nothing more than lowest-common-denominator pop music. Oberst’s invocation of the American singer-songwriter tradition is particularly frustrating, as he exploits all of its rhetoric without achieving any of its art. His Nebraska never stank of cowdung, and his scrawny middle-class heartbreak is as trite as it is insincere. Fans of Bright Eyes should stop settling for less, ditch the poseur, and celebrate the genuinely talented songwriters this country has been producing for decades, from Woody Guthrie to Lou Barlow...
More renowned for putting out glitchy lap-pop like Daedalus and Dntel (Jimmy Tamborello of the Postal Service), Los Angeles-based Plug Research has somewhat paradoxically taken a chance with a far more conventional album, Mia Doi Todd’s Manzanita. Although Todd has flirted with the contemporary sound of her labelmates, notably in a series of inspired collaborations with Dntel and Adventure Time, among others, her solo work is solidly grounded in folksy American soil, and this, her fifth album, is no exception...
...European polyglot poppers Stereo Total seem to always summon the same images in American minds: trendy coffee bars, tightly-dressed Euro hipsters, neon lights against shadowy backgrounds. It’s certainly the style their album covers more or less convey, especially prominent on their new Sub Pop debut Do The Bambi, on whose cover a green deer logo and the album’s title illuminate the faces of the band from above...
...though, it's not quite freaky enough for “freak-folk.” For all his weirdness, Droste's instincts as a songwriter are a little too pop for the self-consciously offbeat genre/catchphrase every critic seemed to swoon over this past year. Just when Grizzly Bear’s aural molasses threatens to overwhelm, an endearingly lively instrumental break or jaunty Britpop bassline interrupts their hibernation dreams. “Fix It,” in particular, flirts with major keys at a non-somnolent pace, suggesting what these guys could do with a real studio...
...government and African and African American studies concentrator affiliated with Lowell House and a former president of Harvard’s Black Men’s Forum. In his column, “On The Real,” he will try to explore issues of race, class, politics, pop culture and Harvard life as an excuse to be in the paper without organizing actual events. Please be warned that he does not speak for all black people, but only because he doesn’t look as good in sunglasses as Bill Cosby. His column will appear on alternate...