War on Drugs

Surely we aren't done talking about this album already?

Today I had this playing in the car while I was running errands around town and every stop took so long because I couldn't seem to leave the car before the end of whatever song was playing, so I'm, like, sitting in the Trader Joe's parking lot jamming "Disappearing" and just blissing out. It's that kinda album, I guess.

Chris Weingarten ‏@1000TimesYes Mar 17 -- The War on Drugs: In case you ever felt like you wanted a Bryan Adams song to never end.

lol whiney

i like that, whiney sort-of rides on the spirit and drive of War on Drugs' sound and takes his opinions to new worlds of wrongness. in fact I think he's discovered a new dimension of lousy opinions. i can imagine he returned to our world surrounded by an aura with eyes sparkling to deliver that one to us.

The thing about that joke is that there are quite a few other artists that still would have sold it without being completely wrong.

ease up. everything whiney does, he does it for you.

i dunno i feel like rock media is still addicted to this idea of the THE NEXT BIG ROCK REVOLUTION or thing that's going to change

rock is a mature art form at this time, you have to approach it like how ppl approach jazz - certain artists structure their music or have certain sonic qualities or ways of playing that you find appealing, nothing "big" is ever coming, and i don't care if it does. i think there will always be bands that understand how to be a band together, to play and write in ways that appeal to me, to find a sound or qualities that are worthwhile

i think war on drugs does this

but yeah like if you're looking for some revelation or w/e it's not it

rock is in the details

i mean, isn't all pop music, at this point, fairly mature and innovation/revelation is either "in the details" or in small incremental moves?

i think the media around this one is very much coming from the artist-matures school of journalism

ums maybe you are suggesting there is a little residue of dissonance around that idea, for rock audiences (or their media overlords)?

well i think (and i'm p verging on Ott territory) but yeah i think those grand narratives - elvis on ed sullivan! the beatles conquer the world! woodstock! nirvana kills hair metal! - still resonate w/ppl...and obviously there's still a lot of money/resources invested into building buzz around the next big thing...or like NME seems to need "rock is dead! rock is back!" shit every month still....

i think the media around this one is very much coming from the artist-matures school of journalism

this could be, i haven't read that much of it

basically if you're a dude like myself who was raised on 80s classic rock/mainstream radio and then went indie then went weirdo you'll probably be p happy w it. or if the idea of dire straits goes kraut appeals to you, this seems like a good version of that idea

like on the walking on a pretty daze thread lots of people said kurt vile is boring! and he kinda is boring! but i like it, i like sinking into that whole diffuse stoner vibe and letting the songs flow by, but i couldn't dispute that this album or that album could be boring to ppl

i'm amazed by a lot of pop and rock music still. i hear a lot of little innovations still. but i can't recall the last time i've heard something truly "revelatory."

it's true: i want a bryan adams song that never ends.

whenever the music industry wants to make rock seem like a viable force the Foo Fighters always end up involved in some way

ew!

foo fighters is one of those bands that feels like a backing band even when they're not jamming with some rock legends at an induction ceremony or awards show

two days a wrote a brief post about this album for application to some "death of rock" thread i found, but i didn't post it. the gist was that while listening to this album i became convinced it represents the last final ossification of rock, the last permutation after which rock has lost all cultural currency or relevance.

i didn't post it because 1) everyone here is more knowledgeable about music than i and 2) it's some bullshit even if it turns out correct.

rock music won't lose all cultural currency or relevance ever, because (a) "rock" is a very broad umbrella term, so there's lots of room for variation and (b) the audience is always changing, and new audience members are experiencing the genre for the first time (as they grow up).

rock and roll was just a fantasy anyway. how long can any dream last .... ?

life is just a fantasy ...

~lost in the dream~

cultural relevance is p overrated

i do like how this album makes me remember the 80s that don't seem to get remembered as much, not new order's 80s or the cure's 80s or afrika bambaataa's 80s or duran duran's 80s, but the 80s of terrible jeans and weird sweaters and bruce hornsby and late period steve winwood albums and pink floyd bedroom posters and eddie and the cruisers and those fake bands that played at party scenes in r-rated cable comedies etc

all that stuff, at least for me growing up near a farm town, was really the 80s as i experienced it..the other stuff seemed like little exotic things that you could maybe see a passing reference to in a hip gas-station purchased rolling stone in the front of the book

^^^ summer of 89

i welcome this millennium's glut of "nu" 80s band. viva la 80s.

white dudes with moustaches in fedoras playing saxophone

i saw some weird old tribute to soul thing on PBS the other night, billy preston was the bandleader, must've been 87 or 88, the whole band besides billy was these jobber white dudes with moustaches and fedoras and the bassist was some dude dressed up like a "punk rocker" from a police academy movie or someone who escaped from sigue sigue sputnik, they would have a bunch of classic soul dudes come out and do their one big song for a bunch of white ppl dressed for a fancy ball....percy sledge came out and killed it on "when a man loves a woman" and had on a tuxedo and a perfect Soul Glo afro that really shined in the lights, then sam (I think it was sam maybe it was dave) came out and did a song and pulled up some woman in a really terrible dress and they sexy danced really awkardly, it's like now THAT's the 80s i remember sorry interpol

ahh yeah the late'80s for me involved listening to too much "roll with it" era winwood

the '80s music I remember around chicago was like one long coda/homage to the blues brothers' "everybody needs somebody"

lots of the melodies on this remind me of "Highway 29" by off ghost of tom joad, esp some of the changes/vox in eyes to the wind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db8uxbYC5uU&feature=kp

xp -- basically, the eighties that led up to and includes Road House, and yet said movie transcends.

i feel like sam elliot could ride off into the sunset to one of the long outros on this album

Am I the only one who thinks about Spoon while listening to this record?

They kinda do to Springsteen what Spoon did to Billy Joel..

i think thee oh sees on major downers. there's even some distorted reverby john dwyer "woop!"s going on

kinda weird how this band name wasn't already taken when you think about it

Yeah it's a good name

It's a great name and when you google it you might learn something, too!

Amazing how they surpass Kurt Vile now.
They set the bar higher for his/their next record.

I alwats think about those two acts together..

Are they still friends?

Whenever I see the name my mind first goes to the Barenaked Ladies song of the same name, as opposed to the actual War on Drugs.

the first line in the AllMusic review does not persuade me to listen to this one (I heard the debut in '09, liked some, trashed it).

cmon alfred

soul search with us

generation next

if you can groove to the ache and poignance of "tunnel of love" you might appreciate this one

dunno if I can "do" poignance.

puff tuff alfred

smoke through brother

Just got my copy brb soul searching

i find that this album sounds a lot like kurt vile's stuff. the songs are pretty long, quite melodic in a sunny sort of way and there is a lot of repetition which in this case i like as it engraves the music slowly in my mind. like kurt vile there is definitely a kind of hypnotic flair to this. the computer drums suck big time, but that has been mentioned upthread. the singer by the way has a voice not too different from kurt vile's, it's not a great singing voice but the music is definitely not about singing. somehow this reminds me more of bruce hornsby than bruce springsteen, but even in the early 90s i tended to confuse those two.

Did I really hear an adult with a frontal lobe sing "Lost in the dream/just a silence of a moment/It's always hard to tell" and proceed to get tangled in harmonicas and echo-y guitars? He also sings "As I struggle with myself right now/As I let the darkness in" or some such thing in the next song, swathed in more echo. I don't hear Dylan or Petty or whoever in this crap -- I hear wooly-headed nonsense, sung by a guy who thinks he's R&H-era Bono fronting Wild Nothing.

Lyrics don't really matter w this IMO

I don't get the bono thing at all

why wasn't this new album on a new thread? anyways diving in right now. first song reminds me of Destroyer vocally and now playing the second song and this is Arcade Fire, almost to a T. this is going to be fun.

not everything needs a fucking new thread

true but i think bigger things should have it's own thread. i'm liking "Suffering" best so far.

fucking love this album