Calm Down Dad - Helen Love Some times you just want a little bit of snark. And who can provide that better than British twenty-somethings raised on punk and bubblegum. This track lives in a strange place somewhere in between The Dead Milkmen, the Ramones, and Tullycraft. And while it's a bit of ironic fluff, you can't help but think that for all its silliness, it captures things far more deeply than a 'serious' take might. And I just can't get enough of the little bit of "White Riot" they drop at [...]
Maria - Blondie Aaron & Maria - American Analog Set Ave Maria - Johann Sebastian Bach So it's Sotomayor. I'm pretty happy about this. I won't claim to know anything about her, but the folks that I trust on this sort of thing seem to think she's about as good as we might expect - likely to be a modest push left from Souter. We're not getting back to the [...]
Dog Days are Over - Florence and the Machine Florence and the Machine (aka Florence Welch) raced around the blogs last year with her track "Kiss With a Fist" a full-throated Northern Soul throwback that hit you with as much force as the disturbing title suggests. It combined the beauty and elegance of a soul track with the grungy stomp of garage rock. The result was an enthusiastic romp through the travails of domestic violence. Anyways, as much as I loved that track, I never really followed up on it. [...]
Michael Scherer gives voice to something I've been wondering about for the past few weeks: Cheney rejected at face value the "recruitment-tool theory," which posits that information about harsh interrogation methods riles America's enemies and increases the danger abroad. (Final truthfulness note: Cheney and the Bush Administration have long echoed military leaders in arguing that the release of photos, like the abuses at Abu Ghraib, could harm U.S. military interests by rousing anti-American sentiment abroad.) How exactly can these arguments be squared? Are we really supposed to believe that potential insurgents [...]
Madame Shocking - The Silent Years My first instinct on listening to Let Go the new EP from The Silent Years is to reach out for the easy RIYLs: Arcade Fire (or Cloud Cult), Vampire Weekend, the Polyphonic Spree. And that's fair. If you like those bands, there's plenty here to whet your appetite. But I don't want to give the wrong impression. To really grasp what's going on with The Silent Years, you'd need to combine elements of those three but also toss in a few obscure [...]
Dear Corinne - Ferraby Lionheart Ferraby Lionheart has never quite done it for me. I just have a hard time getting into that easy-going style that he's got going on. And his voice just feels a little too Jens Lekman for me. I liked Catch the Brass Ring fine enough but I had a hard time believing that he'd ever make a song that blew me away. I was wrong. "Dear Corinne" is a revelation. It takes everything I thought I knew and reassembles it into a [...]
Stickshifts and Safetybelts - Cake Michelle Cottle makes this bizarre comment about seat belt laws: Yes. I'm well aware of the stats showing that mandatory seat belt laws save lives. I myself feel more secure wearing a seat belt--and did even before I bought a car with one of those migraine-inducing systems that beeps at me every single time I briefly unbuckle my belt at a stoplight to reach back and pick up whatever toy/book/juicebox my child has dropped on the floor. But if I chose not to wear a seat belt, it shouldn't [...]
Accidentally Like a Martyr - Warren Zevon I know it's not exactly uncharted territory to bash on Michael Steele, but I just can't resist. He apparently just said the following , as an 'argument' against gay marriage: Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for. So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money. So now [...]
Dollhouse - Omega Meh. It wasn't a bad episode, but for all the times over the course of the season when I said to myself "sure, this isn't a resolution yet, but presumably they're building to something" the finale was a bit of a let-down. A number of things remain unresolved, and quite a few more have been tied up, but in some of the least interesting or satisfying ways possible. Things I liked: * I loved the idea that what motivates Alpha is a desire to destroy the past. [...]
I wrote about six months ago that I didn't think it would be that terrible if Obama waited until 2010 to act on repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. I've changed my mind. It's a stupid, bigoted policy. It hurts real live people with no discernible benefits. It's going to go inevitably so why not now? I initially thought waiting a little bit might not be a disaster assuming that Obama was still committed to getting it done eventually. Given the various dissemblances on this issue lately, though, I don't feel as [...]
Potemkin City Limits - Propagandhi Supporting Caste - Propagandhi So I included an old Propagandhi song in the post I just did, and it occurred to me I might as well take the opportunity to write about the new Propagandhi album Supporting Caste . First some background. A few years ago I called the new Lawrence Arms record "the best punk record since London Calling ." I was wrong. Not that I don't think Oh! Calcutta is anything but amazing, but I forgot about the [...]
...And We Thought That Nation-States Were a Bad Idea - Propagandhi Peter at the Duck of Minerva discusses Stephen Walt's non-realist assessment of defense spending: Lets review: Realism assumes an anarchic world of rational state actors maximizing security, defined as sufficient military force to defend the integrity of a the state. In that anarchic environment, systemic pressures are the primary factor states rationally consider in security decisions. In other words, all states act the same, the only thing that differentiates them is their relative position [...]
There's a recent trend to get super-angry that Republicans would consider filibustering judicial appointments. "But you insisted that Bush's appointees shouldn't be filibustered!" they sputter. Well, yes. And Democrats claimed that they had every right to do so. Now the positions are reversed and - shockingly - opinions about the legitimacy of the question have flipped, too. Fancy that. I tend to believe that the filibuster should be an exceptional device - preserved for relatively rare occasions. In principle, I'd like to see that made the norm. But that's not the issue here. [...]
Just A Silhouette - Ex Lovers What an absolute wonder of a song! It's the sort of track that you have to listen to over and over because it just makes you feel so damn happy to hear that little guitar line. And don't even get me started on the interlude - which feels as unhurried and carefree as anything I've heard in years. This is every song from Sarah Records, filtered through the memories of every 80s band that should've made it big but no one ever knew about. Hearing something [...]
Pew has a neat presentation of the newest version of their "impressions" poll. You know, the one where they ask people what words they would use to describe a person. For Obama, the top three words these days are 'intelligent,' 'good,' and 'socialist.' It's the trifecta, really. But the really interesting thing is comparing results since last September. 'Socialist' is up 14 points (from 6 to 20). 'Inexperienced' is down FORTY-TWO points. Conversely, 'change' is down 26 points. 'Trying' now makes the top 10, while 'charismatic' has been knocked [...]
Tenuousness - Andrew Bird Unfolding Fans - Andrew Bird Andrew Bird is one of those artists that I always feel a bit disappointed in myself for not liking more. He does good (often excellent work). Every now and then one of his songs hits me just right and the brilliance that everyone else can see so easily shines through for me, too. But overall, it just doesn't quite do it for me. Part of the problem is that I generally have a hard time getting into [...]
Talking Points Memo links to this comment from GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway: Can you imagine any of Obama's nominees being treated the way that Sarah Palin and her family were treated by the media? It's "interesting," as they say in Washington. Gender and class ended up being a huge obstacle for one person, and they're likely to be a huge boost to this person that Barack Obama selects. I absolutely can imagine how a Supreme Court nominee would be treated if she said the following : COURIC: What other Supreme Court [...]
State of the Union - David Ford It won't have escaped your notice that posting around here is quite a bit less regular than it once was. The sheer number of posts hasn't changed much but they tend to come in bursts these days. It's largely a function of a grad-student week. Monday-Wednesday I'm sufficiently busy that I can't really justify to myself spending time writing stuff for the blog. Which leaves four days at best where I may or may not write stuff. That's not likely to change, but I figured [...]
Fred Kaplan (who I normally think is right on the money on pretty much everything) says a number of clearly wrong things in this Slate article on the best movies about international relations. He's referencing a couple of lists put together by Stephen Walt and Daniel Drezner on that subject. The column takes issue with a number of their choices. He begins by noting: A couple of his selections are no-brainers: Dr. Strangelove , the ultimate satire of the nuclear arms race and the Cold [...]
Dollhouse - Briar Rose I know this episode was supposed to be big and exciting and special. But honestly, I thought it was only so-so. It sort of embodies many of the things that initially made me skeptical about the show, and some of the worries I've had even after I decided that they knew what they were doing. Namely, it was a bunch of stuff happening that didn't make sense and had no rhyme or reason that the audience could determine. Why does Alpha want into the Dollhouse? [...]
Heartache with Hard Work
iamamiwhoami: kin - Teaser
Album Review: alt-J – An Awesome Wave
Azealia Banks – ’1991′ & ‘Van Vouge’
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
