Quick Hits Vol. 141 (Death from Above 1979, Alison Krauss, Grandaddy, Lorde)

Death from Above 1979 - Outrage is Now.  These dudes came to ACL a few years ago, and I recall clowning on their name because there was some other band who was also at ACL that year that had a similarly weird name with a date in it.  Oh, wait, none of that was a true statement.  Even more funny, I went back to look and now I see that it was actually two other bands, Chain Gang of 1974 and Night Terrors of 1927, who came a few years ago and I've been mixing them all up ever since.  Such a weird thing to have random years thrust into your band name like that...  I'm going to name my band The Beatles of 1976 and see how quick I get sued.

Anyhoo, I like these guys and I like this album quite a bit.  Heavy rock and roll, kind of in the vein of Royal Blood, but with a little more instrumentation and danceyness.  And just two guys in the band.  The top song is surprisingly not the title track, which I think it my favorite, but it is one called "Freeze Me," which has 5.6 million streams.

Ugh, bodybuilders, man.  Like I said, they do some danceyness in their hard stuff.  Just because I want you to notice the other side of this, here is the title track, which is more straightforward thump.

Yeah.  That is the good stuff right there.  This album is not revelatory by any means, but I've enjoyed it.

Alison Krauss - Windy City.  I'm about 98% sure that I have never once spelled her name correctly the first time that I have tried to write it.  She's missing an "l" in her first name and has an extra "s" in the last name, but I can never keep those rules in my mind.  Either way, her voice is still one of the most gorgeous things in music.  Her album "Now That I've Found You," with the cover of "When You Say Nothing At All," and other top notch tracks like "I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby," "In the Palm of Your Hand," or the title track, is just some of the finest sounding things around.  
This album goes between a country sound and a jazz-standards tone, and while her voice is still damn fine, most of this is pretty boring.  I really like the Willie cover ("I Never Cared For You") but although I've generally enjoyed a few turns through this disc today, I'll stick to her classics and let this one go.  Here is the top song, the album opener, "Losing You," with 1.2 million streams.

That is some legit hair on the cover of this album.  Never let anyone say that Krauss didn't go for the real deal big hair look at one time.

Grandaddy - Last Place.  My sister sent me a recommendation for this band a decade or so ago, and they've maintained a little oddball corner of my music world since.  They aren't great, but something about their sound appeals to me anyway.  They fall in between the weirdo atmospherics of the Flaming Lips and the americana-ish-rock of the Jayhawks or Wilco.  Here is the top song from this album, "Way We Won't," with 2.0 million streams.

This album is pretty enjoyable, but I feel like a few listens was enough for me.

Lorde - Melodrama.  Like most other folks, I very much enjoyed her first album and the quirky, clever writing and her ability to take a trope to the shed and make something interesting out of it. I'm not so sure about her these days, after becoming part of Taylor Swift's squad and living the pop star life.  She has squeezed a few of these tracks out over time before the full release of this album, and while some friends thought "Green Light" was good, it sounds super derivative of a load of other pop stars right now, very uninteresting to me.  Really reminds me of that Jess Glynne song from a few years ago - disco-fied, brassy pop.  Not a fan.

Meanwhile, its got 182 million streams, so other people still like it.  I don't know, its like she used to be the opposite of the Katy Perry-type pop star, but then she just jumped right onto the wagon and embraced that sound instead of keeping the moody, clever outsider thing going.  Maybe it was working with the fun/Bleachers guy, but this seems much less appealing to me.  Bits of the rest of the album sound better, especially when you hear her still writing great lyrics, but the tunes themselves leave me wanting something else.  Like the other hit I've heard on the radio some, "Homemade Dynamite," which has some kind of cool couplets of lyrics: "Might get your friend to drive, but he can hardly see, We'll end up painted on the road, Red and chrome, All the broken glass sparkling, I guess we're partying," but the song itself is some generic pop pablum with her lame-sounding stuttered pronunciation of the song title.  Seems like an album that would be good to read, even if it isn't so great to hear.

Quick Hits, Vol. 140 (Big Boi, Nothing But Thieves, Foo Fighters, Prophets of Rage)

Big Boi - Boomiverse.  Man, why can't Outkast just keep doing their thing?  Andre 3000 said that he felt dirty doing their big reunion shows a few summers ago, but they freaking ruled.  Their show at ACL was amazing. My memory of how much my entire body vibrated during the bass in that show is still cool.  So Big Boi keeps making music, and bits of this are good, but its nothing like the killer duo was making back in the day.  Andre 3000 says he is likely done with rap, he just can't get interested about it anymore at 42 years old.  Too bad really, because he was the freaky weirdo that perfectly balanced out the rough Big Boi.  The second song on this album just jumped right of the speakers and grabbed me by the ears and started making out with my face.  It just so happens that my taste is good, since that is by far the most listened to track on the album (at 16.0 million streams). Here is "Kill Jill."

I swear, I just got goosebumps when that beat kicked in and Killer Mike started getting it.  "I'm repping that Zone Four though with a .44 on your bro though, Cause that dodo thought that he could rob a player for some dough though."  And then Big Boi's verse: "Usually I don't do this, dumb it down, go stupid, Since 17 been countin' M's, my bank account's on Goofy, They say Cosby gave 'em roofies, Now who know what the truth is (what?), Chicago's full of shooters, My garage is full of hoopties."  I love it.  The beat, the lyrics, even Jeezy can't ruin it.  Now, some of the tracks on here are pretty weak, going onto some techno/electro garbage or using Adam Levine (or other bad hook singers), so you can't just let the whole album play (in my opinion), so just bump the tracks with Killer Mike, the one with Pimp C ("In the South"), and the piano-heavy (reminds me of "Cash Machine") "All Night."

Nothing But Thieves - Broken Machine.  If you've followed my thoughts for a while, you can by now pretty well predict the kinds of things that I like.  And after finding this band last year for the first time when they were at ACL, I've been on board.  British alt-rock stuff, the music is in the neighborhood of Muse and Foals.  That original album was great, with some heartfelt anthems and then a bunch of high energy rockers.  You might remember one that was on the radio a ton - "Trip Switch."  This one is in the same neighborhood - they are best when they are jamming out.  I really like "I'm Not Made by Design" and "I Was Just a Kid," but I'll give you the most popular track so that you can get in with the rest of the world.  This is "Amsterdam," with 10.1 million streams.

Not the top song I would have chosen, but I enjoy the way that they bring a danceable beat to otherwise driving alternative rock sounds.  This is a good album that I'll keep around.

Foo Fighters - Concrete and Gold.  I can already taste the bile building up in my friend Joseph's throat as I prepare to write this entry.  It is energizing.  So yummy.  The thing is that I understand some of the criticism against the Foos, they frequently lapse into the realm of cheesy lyrics and tired tropes.  Their sound has been done before.  Dave Grohl seems self important.  Yo comprende.  But when I listen to the first song on this album, which is a cock-tease of epic proportions at only 1:22 long, I can't help but feel a primal need to raise my arms in the air to flex and crack the sky with my primal scream as the song goes from a short acoustic plucked ballad and then erupts into a Pink Floyd meets Queens of the Stone Age wall of sound riff factory turned up to 11 that still gives me goosebumps after listening to it about 40 times.

The portion from 1:00 to 1:14 is the absolute shit.  I need that to be the backing track for a 30 minute long song that I listen to until I die of a stroke from clenching my fists and forcing all of the blood in my body to my junk.  Death by rock boner.  But sadly, right when you think this is about to be an epic classic rock throw down, that ten seconds of bliss is over and the song is done.  I got my daughters to listen to this with me the other day, hoping they would feel the innate ROCK POWER slither into their veins.  Nope. This is way too high level for their puny brains.  The hit from the album is the less amazing "Run," which already has 20.2 million streams after less than a week on Spotify.  

Grampa fight!  And a Thriller-esque grampa dance scene at the end!  OK song, I'd like it better without the screaming bits, but the underlying track is good.  I can say the same about most of the other tracks on here, like "La Dee Da" or "Arrows," although I think I can do without "The Sky is a Neighborhood."  Overall, the album is fine, sounds pretty much like their other recent stuff - a classic rock-style record.  I'll keep listening.

Prophets of Rage - Prophets of Rage.  This is such a cool thing.  You get the majority of Rage Against the Machine (the whole band, just no De la Rocha), plus old school rap rabble-rouser Chuck D from Public Enemy, plus fellow classic rap alumni B-Real of Cypress Hill.  The sound is very similar to old Rage songs, with Tom Morello's signature guitar sound and the heavy groove from the bassist and drums, and honestly B-Real sounds a lot like Zach de la Rocha.  Most of it is overtly political, like Rage used to be as well, with them railing against racism and lying politicians and corporate greed and homelessness and government overreach/spying.  The top track is a good one, with a very Rage-esque guitar solo in the midst, called "Unfuck the World."

Man, that video is legit.  Go watch that.  And check out the crowds at those shows.  I bet I'd break both ankles nine times, but it'd be worth it to jump and holler out that chorus.  This si good stuff.  I like old Rage, and so this clicks into the same spot.  I think those older tracks were better, just because these are pretty derivative of that sound, but these are still good and it feels good to rail against the bullshit going on right now in the world.

Quick Hits, Vol. 139 (Snoop Dogg, Swet Shop Boys, Alt-J, Fleet Foxes)

Snoop Dogg - Neva Left.  Hot damn.  The beat on the opening track, which is also the title track, is enough for me to forgive Snoop for all of the dumb Snoop Lion crap (see "I'm Still Here," on this album) and the prior dips into garbage pop rap.  Just give this a taste.

Oh yeah.  That Wu Tang beat from CREAM is the good shit, and this new take on it still works wonders as far as I'm concerned.  Apparently this sample is from a song by the Charmels called "Long as I've Got You."  Hell yeah.  A lot of these tracks are kind of cheesy, just trying to prove how much weed Snoop smokes or otherwise repping his bonafides, and I hate Wiz Khalifa, but one of those semi-cheesy tracks is pretty cool - "Mount Kushmore," featuring Snoop, B-Real, Method Man, and Redman.  They all turn in verses that will make you grin.  And that track, like most of these, does the awesome West Coast G-Funk beat thing with the P-Funk sound that is so classic.  So good.  The overall album isn't great, but its good enough to keep around and keep bumping.

Swet Shop Boys - Sufi La.  I talked about these guys once before, they are a very interesting duo of rappers.  You've got an American-Indian rapper and an English-Pakistani MC (who was also in Star Wars: Rogue One, among other movie roles), using traditional sounds from their countries' south Asian musical heritage to make beats.  It sounds weird, but its actually damn entertaining.  I'll say that one of the tracks on here comes off more like a Lonely Island track, the "Birding," where they just say "bird song" over and over and then drop a million bird names in the rhymes.  Kind of funny for a sec, and then it is very old after that.  None of the tracks on this older EP are as popular as the tracks from their full-length that I previously reviewed, but the currently most popular is the title track, "Sufi La."

Pretty entertaining for a listen or two, but nothing really good enough to keep around on here.

Alt-J - Relaxer.  I've never really fully gotten behind the Alt-J movement.  I like them well enough, and I'll end up grooving to their tunes when they come on the radio or something, but I just haven't been excited to listen to this album.  The top hit from this album is another in the vein of their hits, groovy, bouncy, and very weird.  This is "In Cold Blood," which fires up 18.7 streams.

That video is amazing.  You think you're just going to see a story of mouse survival, and then you get dumped into a scene from a later episode of Breaking Bad or something. Good song, again its just weird though.  From what I can tell, its about killing someone in cold blood in your pool, but that may be the wrong read.  Have no clue what all the zeros and ones are about, unless it is a robotic pool killer.  Which it could be.  I use a robot in my pool, and my dog hates it with the fury of a million suns, so maybe he knows the robot is a murderer. The rest of the album is pretty forgettable.  I won't be keeping it around.

Fleet Foxes - Crack Up.  Another great album from these guys.  If you've never tried them out, then I suggest that you go back and start with the eponymous first album, which is a thing of beauty.  If you aren't into harmonies and lovely things, then this will not be your bag, but if you enjoy beauty, then come for a while and enjoy.  I just saw them come through on their tour, when they played two nights at the Moody here in Austin.  While the sound was problematic at the show, it still hit the spot. This album doesn't change much from the earlier albums, still the same sound, but from what I've read Robin Pecknold (the singer, golden voice) used a lot more literary references and made his lyrics befit his new Columbia education.  I don't know that I can tell the difference, but maybe you can. The current top track from the album is "If You Need To, Keep Time on Me," with 5.1 million streams.

Good stuff.  I honestly wish I could go see them play live again right now.  Keeping this album around for sure.

ACL 2017: Red Hot Chili Peppers Setlist Thoughts [EDIT]

Like the one I just did for Jay-Z, I have been curious to see if I can figure out what kind of show we'll be getting from the big headliners.  The last time the Chilis were here, I was personally disappointed in a set list that never once dove deeper that Blood Sugar Sex Magic, leaving out a bunch of the most fun shit that the Chilis had done on their first several albums.  I looked at their most recent shows, which were all at the end of July in Europe.  Maybe they'll give us different treatment than the Europeans, but I kind of doubt it.  What you'll see in this chart definitely surprised me.  The chart shows the three different shows, one show per column, sorted into alphabetical order and then a line given to each distinct song.

	Aeroplane
		Angeles
	Around the World
	Blood Sugar Sex Magik
By the Way	By the Way	By the Way
Californication	Californication	Californication
Can't Stop		Can't Stop
	Dani California
Dark Necessities	Dark Necessities	Dark Necessities
	Debaser
Don't Forget Me		Don't Forget Me
Give It Away	Give It Away	Give It Away
Go Robot	Go Robot	Go Robot
Goodbye Angels	Goodbye Angels	Goodbye Angels
Higher Ground		Higher Ground
		I Could Have Lied
		I Like Dirt
I Wanna Be Your Dog		I Wanna Be Your Dog
	Me & My Friends
		Mommy, Where's Daddy?
		Red Hot Mama
Right on Time		Right on Time
	Scar Tissue
	Sick Love
Snow ((Hey Oh))		Snow ((Hey Oh))
	Soul to Squeeze
	Suck My Kiss
Tell Me Baby
The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
The Getaway
		The Power of Equality
The Zephyr Song		The Zephyr Song
Under the Bridge
	Wet Sand
	What Is Soul?

Interesting, right?  "Under the Bridge," which is legitimately one of their biggest hits, only once? Only one play for Rain Dance Maggie, Aeroplane, Around the World, Tell Me Baby, Dani California, Can't Stop, and Scar Tissue?  That is kind of wild to me.  If I don't hear "Can't Stop" and "Tell Me Baby," I'm going to be sad.  
So, the tunes that get played every night are By the Way, Californication, Dark Necessities, Give it Away, Go Robot, and Goodbye Angels.  Three from the new album, one from Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and then the title tracks from two other albums.  I can't believe they don't do some of the other ones every night.  But, you know what else you do get? Sweet shit from the early albums, like Higher Ground (hell yes! I might break something when that one comes on) and Me & My Friends. Interesting.  
Honestly, I'd love for them to just play Blood Sugar Sex Magic from start to finish and then play Higher Ground and I could die happy.

They have another festival show in two days, so I'll go check that out and come revise this with more information.

EDIT: Now they've played five more shows since the three I looked at up above, and they have a pretty common theme.  One of the four strayed from that theme, but the rest pretty well go with these songs: Can't Stop, Snow (Hey Oh), The Zephyr Song, Dark Necessities, Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie, Stooges Cover (either I Wanna Be Your Dog or Seek and Destroy), Go Robot, Californication, Tell Me Baby, and then a handful of different things (The Getaway, Under the Bridge, Suck My Kiss, Higher Ground, Power of Equality, By the Way, etc.) before ending with Goodbye Angels and Give it Away.  Pretty much any of these would sate my desire, but I really hope it is the one that has Sir Psycho Sexy and the Power of Equality.  Pumped to see this live!

In case you want the full chart from the past few shows:

1. Intro Jam	1. Intro Jam	1. Intro Jam	1. Intro Jam	1. Intro Jam
2. Can't Stop	2. Can't Stop	2. Around the World	2. Can't Stop	2. Can't Stop
3. Snow ((Hey Oh))	3. Dani California	3. Snow ((Hey Oh))	3. Dani California	3. Snow ((Hey Oh))
4. The Zephyr Song	4. Scar Tissue	4. The Zephyr Song	4. Scar Tissue	4. The Zephyr Song
5. Dark Necessities	5. Dark Necessities	5. Dark Necessities	5. Dark Necessities	5. Dark Necessities
6. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie	6. I Wanna Be Your Dog	6. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie	6. Hey	6. Did I Let You Know
7. Me & My Friends	7. Right on Time	7. Search and Destroy	7. I Wanna Be Your Dog	7. I Wanna Be Your Dog
8. Go Robot	8. Go Robot	8. Parallel Universe	8. Right on Time	8. Right on Time
9. Californication	9. Californication	9. Go Robot	9. Blood Sugar Sex Magik	9. Go Robot
10. Tell Me Baby	10. What Is Soul?	10. Californication	10. Go Robot	10. Californication
11. The Getaway	11. Aeroplane	11. Tell Me Baby	11. Californication	11. Tell Me Baby
12. Suck My Kiss	12. Don't Forget Me	12. Dreams of a Samurai	12. Get on Top	12. Sir Psycho Sexy
13. Soul to Squeeze	13. Sick Love	13. Suck My Kiss	13. The Getaway	13. They're Red Hot
14. By the Way	14. Higher Ground	14. I Could Have Lied	14. Higher Ground	14. The Power of Equality
15. Goodbye Angels	15. Under the Bridge	15. By the Way	15. Soul to Squeeze	15. Under the Bridge
16. Give It Away	16. By the Way	16. Drum Solo	16. By the Way	16. By the Way
	17. Goodbye Angels	17. Goodbye Angels	17. This Is the Last Day of Our Acquaintance	17. Goodbye Angels
	18. Give It Away	18. Give It Away	18. Goodbye Angels	18. Give It Away
			19. Give It Away