Well it seems like everyone's doing a music-related piece lately... i'd like to say i've been planning to do this one for a couple weeks and didn't get around to it, but i guess that would sound like a lie....
My cousin Tommy always shows me all kinds of bands i've never heard of or didn't realize i'd never heard whenever i go to maryland to visit him and my aunt, uncle, and other cousin (Angie).... 2 times ago when i was down there for Angie's wedding, he had briefly exposed me to the band Rilo Kiley... and I really dug them immediately. And then he didn't really have time to make a compilation and i came back to michigan and promptly forgot them (mostly cause I couldn't remember the name)
The key members of the band are Jenny Lewis and Blake Soper. They were both child actors and in 1999 they formed this band. (Jenny Lewis played Kristin in Pleasantville (if you want a more recent acting appearance....))
Now, i was back in maryland this past october and Tommy reintroduced me to the band... since then I've really gotten into them a lot... something he said to me really stuck tho... he said, "If they get 4 or 5 more albums out, they could be the next Beatles." At first you may assume he meant that based on the way they sound, and occassionally you can hear a bit of a beatles influence in some of their songs (actually the one linked below has a very george harrison influenced guitar riff throughout) but, knowing him, i know this is not at all what he meant. What he was getting at was the way the beatles had taken a style of music that everyone was doing and made it into something completely unique that could be set apart as a genre all its own. As big as the rolling stones got you never really hear anyone say "hey, that's stonesesque!" Sure, they were a huge band and you know them when you hear them, and, of course, they have influenced bands, but the beatles seemed to bring about a way of thinking about music that runs throughout their entire career as a band.... the music has a life of its own, breathed into it by the writing and the chemistry of the performers as they played what was written that you can feel even when someone else plays them... The construction of the melodies and harmonies and all the little simple things they put in to every song to create something more than just a rock song... They would merge styles of music together, and weave them into something that you could only say is the beatles.
This is what Tommy meant when he said Rilo Kiley could be the next Beatles, I think... if you listen to an album's worth of their stuff (take a mixture of stuff from any of their albums), you can get a picture of what he was talking about, and the more I listen to them, I think i agree... we all know this alternative style that has so dominated and murdered the idea behind rock music... Sure there's a lot of good stuff, but so much garbage.. and, this is true of any genre, natch, but this particular style is lost within itself.
Rilo Kiley is like the beatles in that they have taken the style of music of this time and transformed it into something beautiful, a signature style that is like the kind of stuff we like, but different so that it always feels fresh... That's what the Beatles did for me, I mean i've been listening to them for as long as i can remember, and no matter how many times i listen to any given song, it still feels new to me... Rilo kiley feels the same... not necessarily always innovative, and not necessarily pushing any envelopes, not even necessarily revolutionizing anything in particular, but constantly renewing itself...
also, i love this chick's voice...
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5 comments:
i really like the song "portions for foxes". i haven't heard anything else. the song on the post is ok.
i've been listening to interpol lately. not too impressed. a lot of the songs sound the same, which is what i find with a lot of bands.
Like Austin, I sampled two songs. I REALLY liked this one you posted here, "Silver Lining". I watched another one on Youtube called "Moneymaker" that utilized a lot of porn stars for its video. That one, not so much.
Hey Brandon... throw this one on my next CD?
"Blacklight" is by far their worst album. Check out the other three, all of them, great, great great. Blacklight? Meh. I kinda feel like they rushed that one to the market, pressures of fame are getting to their music. Hopefully their next album will be a return to their previous work.
Chris
moneymaker is an excellent tune, but obviously the video is exploitative ... somehow... it's not the only song where the idea of "money for sex" shows up (i mean, i'm pretty sure that song's at least about strippers, if not prostitutes...)
"The Execution of All Things" i think is my favorite album, but their first EP is excellent and "more adventurous" also very great... but i couldn't find any of my favorite examples off of those that weren't crappy cell-phone captures... and as far as rushing the blacklight to the market, i don't know... in between albums, jenny lewis was off with Postal Service and doing a fantastic country-folk influenced solo album with the Watson Twins (not sure how that entirely counts as a solo album)... eh.. maybe they didn't spend as much time, but there are some solid tunes on "Under the Blacklight"... if you can hear it somewhere, I really dig Smoke Detector... i checked out one of those crappy cell-phone (probably not, but the quality did suck) videos and she's even got this little dance to go along with the feel of that song that cracks me up...
Dan, you were partially right. They do sound a lot like everything else out there, but to say that they transcend the genre is a bit generous. They blend right in. In the three tracks that I listened to... I liked the lyrics. But, it left me wanting something more on the edge. It reminded me a LOT of Amy Mann (particularly the Magnolia movie soundtrack).
Austin, Interpol is good. I hope you take time to listen to their older more interesting work. However, I do like the track "Evil" (a more recent one).
And while I'm at it, how come nobody is talking about the Arcade Fire? Hello! Neon Bible was probably one of the best albums of 2007.
Tom, you got it.
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