The 2015 Music Thread

[thatshortguy]

The Great:

1. Death Cab for Cutie - Kintsugi

2. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Chasing Yesterday

The Good:

3. Punch Brothers - Phosphorescent Blues

4. The Decemberists - What A Beautiful World, What A Terrible World

5. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love

6. Fall Out Boy - American Beauty/American Psycho

7. Modest Mouse - Strangers to Ourselves

The Meh:

8. Marilyn Manson - Pale Emperor

9. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear

Not gonna lie: not a lot moving the needle this year. Still looking forward to tons more, though, so we'll see.

[Rafael]

There's still new Chance The Rapper coming. 2015 is great.

[Horus]

See You Again by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth is such a great song, it hits me on so many levels.

[Benji]

Half-way through Blur's new album, I'm digging it. Unsurprisingly sounds a lot like a mash up between Blur and Gorillaz.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

In my effort to find more recent stuff for bands I used to listen to, I found Hollywood Undead are still going, and their new album from a month or so a go is damn good if I do say so.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Laura Jane Grace, Miley Cyrus & Joan Jett perform The Replacements' "Androgynous"

[thatshortguy]

Ok, gonna admit it, Coal Chamber's "I O U Nothing" may have me thinking they're 2015's big metal surprise.

Then again, I liked a few tracks from "Dark Days", so I may not be the best source of this sort of thing.

[METALMAN]

New Libertines one:

Oh. Dear.

[Rafael]

It's a bit old, but Fort Minor is back.

 

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Big fan of Shinoda and all his work, really looking forward to more new stuff from him.

[New Damage]

Years & Years' Communion plopped onto my mat this morning, and I've completely forgotten I'd preordered it way back in March.

To be honest, as time has gone on, I've been less and less optimistic about the album. I'm only a few tracks in and it's pretty good so far, however.

[Moses Julep]

Beach House, Destroyer and Mac DeMarco leaking in one day? This must be what Christmas feels like.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The new Fall Out Boy album is really fun. I say "new", I know it was released back in January, but I'm just getting around to it. >_> Uma Thurman, Irresistible, Centuries, Immortal.. all good tunes.

[VerbalPuke]

I am way out of the loop with current music. But there is one band I really dig right now that are still active, they are the Builders and the Butchers. Not sure how to describe their music, sort of comparable to Murder By Death but I like them better than MBD. MBD is cool but sort of feels cheesy, cliche, and forced to me sometimes.

Anyway, yeah they're cool.

[Rafael]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh mannnnnn 

[METALMAN]

So, I can only imagine how often you have all been wondering about this: what has Metalman been listening to in 2015? How you must have pondered upon this during those endless, sleepless nights. How the mystery must have tortured you during those long solitary commutes to work, wrestling training or the cosplay store (delete as appropriate).

Well, wonder no more. I am here to tell you. For free!

But don't get too excited. For I am an old man, and my tastes, already dull and conservative, have become even more staid and beige. I am a middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow, middle-white, middle-ranking civil servant and I have the music taste to prove it. 

I know something's happening, but I don't know what it is.

And yes, I have listened to the new Bob Dylan and Neil Young albums. And yes, I did like them.

You know what you're getting with those guys.

You know what you're getting with Alabama Shakes too. Their second album Sound & Color is a bluesy guitar album, just like the albums from 1971 that I liked back when I was a kid. Just guitars. But they take the radical approach of letting a woman play one of them. Kids these days, eh. She's a helluva singer too. Don't Wanna Fight rocks like very little I've heard since Rod Stewart ripped the arse out of McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed in 1971. It's a darn good album in general. I could imagine kicking back in 1971, listening to this with a can of Vimto or whatever other crazy shit they drank in the 1971.

And then there's the aforementioned Neil Young. Young by name, old grumpy bastard by nature. The Monsanto Years is his Political Album (yes, another one). And it's not as bad as everyone says it is, you know. A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop is an endearing shambling romp with whistling. I can imagine the seven dwarfs listening to this. It's about GM food I think.

The new Laura Marling album deviates a bit from her last I dunno how many albums (they all blend into one) because she's picked up an electric guitar. This is nice because she needed to do something even a tiny little bit different because jeez I was getting a bit bored of her schtick but I kept getting her albums. Why did I do that? I never listened to any of them more than once. This new one Short Movie is a bit of an improvement because I have already listened to False Hope three times. It's a kind of late 70s post-punk thing with a New Yorkish vibe. I like it. The rest of the album is like her other albums.

And then straight out of 2010 we have Marina and the Diamonds. Remember that album she did in 2010? That was a really good one. But then she went and stank the place out with her second album which was full of sub-Katy Perry nonsense. They should have banned that. But it doesn't matter because she has repented for that one and made a new album called Froot. The title track has about four choruses and is my favourite song of the year. Give it a listen maybe.

Who's that shuffling over? Oh, it's Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance by those old warhorses Belle & Sebastian! This album is okay. It's like when you check the heart monitor of someone in the hospital and you realise they're still alive. It's a bit of a relief because you can't be bothered planning a funeral but you're hardly going to party, are you? They have a song with Sylvia Plath in the title and I can't believe it has taken 20 years for Belle & Sebastian to get around to putting Sylvia Plath in one of their song titles. I hate Sylvia Plath.

Bob Dylan does old-timey tunes like Some Enchanted Evening on his 104th album (104th album!!!) Shadows in the Night. It's really quite lovely, and his voice is a little bit less phlegmy. It's a bit touching in a way to hear him sing laid-back songs like these after fifty years of raging against racist people, religious people, irreligious people, left-wing people, right-wing people and sometimes just people in general. It's also a relief to know that at the very least, the Tempest won't be the last album he ever does, because the Tempest is shit.

Sleater-Kinney ROCK OUT!! on their new one No Cities To Love. The title track is full of widdly guitar brilliance. It's odd that a band who released their debut in 1995 should  be doing a song like this. It sounds far more like 1994 to me.

Kendrick Lamar has done a new one called To Pimp a Butterfly. Yes, I guess it's good but nothing's grabbed me in the way a good few tunes on his last one did. Oh wait, These Walls have. I can imagine it featuring on the soundtrack of an early 2000s NBA game. A good thing.

So, Allison Moorer has gone and divorced Steve Earle because he hasn't done anything that good since Transcendental Blues. A wise decision, because her new one Down to Believing is much better than anything he can do these days. This might even be my favourite album of the year. It has an ace cover of Creedence's Have You Ever Seen the Rain. I can imagine Like It Used to Be featuring on the soundtrack of a twee indie comedy that probably also has Sufjan Stevens on it somewhere.

Speaking of contrived links, everyone says the new Sufjan Stevens is amazing. I've not really listened to it that much, so I can't really comment. I've been too busy listening to Michigan.

Just like everyone else, I loved Tame Impala's last one. The new one is similar in terms of feel and structure and the rest of it. But it has synths instead of guitars. Wow! Way to lose the ageing, hippy, beardy fan-base they rely upon because the kids don't buy records any longer. This album is really nice and tuneful, but it might not be enough to keep them in dope and patchouli.

The Cribs are one of my favourites. I grew up with them. I even like their rubbish first two albums because I heard them when I was vulnerable and impressionable. The new one is probably better but I don't really feel the same way about it. I still like it though.

Father John Misty was in Fleet Foxes or something. His new one is nice. It sounds a bit like Fleet Foxes but with only one of them. It's a bit like the Band in places. When You're Smiling and Astride Me is a lovely languid piece about  a day in the park, written from the point of view of a see-saw.

Jamie Xx was/is in the Xx. I hate/hated them. So miserable. But then he also did that amazing remix album with Gil Scott-Heron. I have no idea if GSH was even that heavily involved, but it's nice to think that he was, isn't it? Anyway, this is a nice album. I'm yet to properly get into it though. Also, I Know There's Gonna Be Good Times has been tagged with an explicit sticker on my iTunes when absolutely nothing else has. No idea why. But be mindful of the bad language if you listen to the song if you're offended by that sort of thing. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I also liked Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran, LA Love by Fergie and Pray to God by Calvin Harris BUT LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THAT

Edited August 3, 2015 by metalman

[Benji]

Eagles of Death Metal drops on Friday

[GA!]

Debut album by No Devotion is really good. @Rich Manning might like it, depends on how synthy he likes his emo.

[Hellraiser]

So Rage Against The Machine bassist Tim Commerford has outet himself as conspiracy-theorist-nutjob. He things IS was created by the government so that we can drop bombs on them:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/rage-against-the-machine-bassist-gives-band-update-talks-isis-trump-20151002?page=4

Fucking hell....

[RPS]

it has been a really great year for music. I've got a shortlist of like 7 albums or so that could end up being my favorite of the year. Sleater Kinney, Shamir, Hot Chip, Kendrick, Blur, Sufjan, the Thundercat EP... it has been a really great year for music.