Quick Hits, Vol. 88 (Ghost, Parquet Courts, Bonnie Raitt, Penguin Prison)

Ghost - If You Have Ghost.  This EP was produced by Dave Grohl, and for a band that just won the Metal Grammy, it is surprisingly un-metal.  These tunes, mostly covers, are played in a hard rock style, but nothing on here is screaming, quad-kick-drum, metal.  Instead, you've got covers of tunes by Roky Erickson, Abba, and Depeche Mode, that come off as pretty cool tracks.  I'd say the Abba tune ("I'm a Marionnette") is the weakest, just because its kind of repetitive and annoying, but overall this is a cool little collection of songs.  I'm starting to take a shine to Ghost.

The opening track ("If You Have Ghosts," the Roky Erickson track) has more than 2 million listens, but I like that Depeche Mode track ("Waiting for the Night") better.  These guys are coming to Lolla, so maybe we'll get them at ACL too?

Parquet Courts - Human Performance.  These guys remind me of the Strokes, in that they are critically acclaimed and loved for a lo-fi rock thing, and I just cannot get my ears around it.  I've listened to this whole album like 10 times now, and it just fails to resonate with me.  Reminds me of the Velvet Underground, another band that is repeatedly cited as ground-breakingly amazing, but I just don't much like the majority of their music.  Their 2014 album Sunbathing Animal was similar, critical darling, boring to me.  None of the tracks from this album has more than 500k listens, and the most is one called "Dust," which has 330k.

Not getting it, man.  I'll be happy to remove this one from my Q.  And then I read the Rolling Stone review to this yesterday, and they are all over this album.  I can't get my head around it.  Then again, RS never gives a bad review to anything except an Adam Sandler movie now, so maybe not surprising.

Bonnie Raitt - Dig in Deep.  Bonnie Raitt is a bad ass.  Loved her Grammy performance with Chris Stapleton this year, and I have fond memories of jamming Nick of Time back in the early 90's.  And "I Can't Make You Love Me" is still a brutally excellent tune the way that she plays it.  Somehow, this album finds her voice in the exact same whiskey-soaked, rugged but beautiful condition, and this album of mostly covers is surprisingly solid.  I loved me some INXS back in the day, and her cover of "Need You Tonight" is awesome.  The only other cover that seemed familiar to me was a song called "Undone," but then when I looked it up its by someone I've never heard of before (Bonnie Bishop).  And the original is not available on Spotify, so I can't even check out the original.  How can I live without every single song ever created at my fingertips?!?!  But that song is really nice.

Raitt would be a pretty cool elder statesman move by ACL - not a headliner, but good name recognition who would play an awesome set of well-known classics as well as some of this tight, soulful, muscular blues rock.  I kind of doubt it, but that could be tight.  I enjoyed this album, but if I'm being honest, I'm not going to add it to my rotation.

Penguin Prison - Lost in New York.  Terrible 80's soft-rock electro redux.  A friend from work went and saw this band the other night and was complimentary of the show.  I'm glad he had fun, but this music is not my thing.  Somehow, over 3 million people have wanted to hear this on Spotify, and another 151k have watched on YouTube.  Spambots?  Hall & Oates devotees?

No thanks.