Corkus

Swap Adele with PJ Harvey please. Glad to see someone give decent credit to the My Morning Jacket album, though.

About damn time. :dance: I saw them earlier this year at a festival but they only played one new track.

It was a holiday festival so every band had to use that screen. Wasn't just Noel's.

Didn't get a chance to really digest Fallen Empires until recently. I think it starts weak and ends weak but everything from "The Weight of Love" through "Those Distant Bells" is highly enjoyable. It's hardly new territory after Eyes Open and AHMS, even with the little electronic tidbits, but those are mostly used wisely and mainly enhance their sound rather than drastically alter it like...*ahem*...other bands (although I hate the opening track, so luckily it picked up from there). So yeah, about the same quality as the previous 2 albums. Still waiting on Final Straw 2.0, but there's enough to keep me satisfied for another tour, at least.

Guess who saw Florence again TWICE this past weekend? :D AND got her drumstick that she used for "No Light, No Light"? :awesome: (It has the Florence and the Machine logo engraved on it and it's amazing.) Her performances are already quite different from the Lungs tour. She now has two permanent backing vocalists who hang off to the side. This really boosts "Cosmic Love" and "Rabbit Heart", both of which were calmer live than on record, but also makes newer stuff like "Spectrum" more varied (which was mindblowing, I might add). New songs sound very good, although I think "Seven Devils" might need a bit more fine-tuning live. Pic time (I took like 100 pics of her alone, so here's just a little sampling):

I saw The Black Keys the other night at KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, and of the 4 times I've seen them in the past year, this was BY FAR the best. For anyone who has any doubts, these guys are indeed arena-ready. The new songs are immense, although there is the remaining question of how the pre-Brothers material will fare in larger venues. Still, if they can pull that off, these guys will have successfully struck the balance between their roots and their newly found popularity. (Also, our group did the "Lonely Boy" dance during said song and we truly hope it catches on with everyone at future Keys gigs.) A few pics:

Saw The National for the 3rd time 2 weeks ago. I was up in San Francisco to visit my cousin and thought, why not, I'll catch these guys one last time this tour. The new songs weren't quite ready yet, but it was nice finally hearing "Secret Meeting", "Little Faith", and "Green Gloves". I settled for seats because I was with family (a rarity for me when attending gigs) but my pics still didn't come out too bad or anything. (Also, Local Natives and Wye Oak both kicked ass.)

Oh look, it's my first time logging into Coldplaying in 2 months. And all I'm doing is spamming you all with pics. Anyway, saw Noel Gallagher twice this past weekend as part of a holiday series. Was glad to see the legend in person at long last, although his set tended to drag a bit in parts. He has some good songs on the album, but not enough of them to keep people from begging for Oasis covers. I was in seats the second night, hence the difference in quality you'll see below:

Silly people, "worst" and "least favorite" don't actually mean anything different in this case. :P The former has a harsher connotation, but you would ultimately arrive at the same answer for each. ;)

After prematurely claiming my 2011 concert calendar was done a week ago, the holiday shows have begun rolling out and I'm suddenly busy again in the next couple months with Mates of State, Feist, Naked and Famous, The Airborne Toxic Event, Noel Gallagher, Florence and the Machine (3rd time!), and Death Cab for Cutie. And then probably KROQ ACX like I do every year, but that hasn't been announced yet. That's right, I'm finally seeing DCFC after contemplating every one of their shows over the last several years (they come through SoCal like 5 times a year) and deciding not to buy them every single time. :laugh3:

...which will probably only be European dates, especially if they're releasing the album in North America 2 months later. >.< I hope I'm proven wrong, obviously. :P

^ I think the one instance where that's probably true is Heartlines. It's a great song, but its sandwiched pretty closely between No Light, No Light and Spectrum, both of which accomplish the exact same thing except better. Either some track re-ordering (or, like I've repeatedly insisted, thrown out 1 or 2 tracks in favor of Bedroom Hymns) may have made for some better pacing. Also, Cosmic Love needs to continue to be played at every show. I think that and DDAO are pretty safe. I'd hate to see Blinding and Drumming Song go, however.

This is my most conflicted song on the album. As someone who is very disappointed with the album as a whole aside from 3 tracks (CB, UATW, UWTB) and has tried my hardest to give everything multiple chances, this is the only song aside from those 3 that I haven't totally cast aside because I still can't tell if I like it or not. DLIBYH - crappy title aside - doesn't commit the sins that a ton of the other pop tracks on the album do. Because of that, parts of it are damn catchy. But it feels too noisy and unfocused. Almost unfinished, even. I feel like some additional development and maybe incorporating "A Hopeful Transmission" into the beginning more could have made this a much more appealing song that would have been better suited as a single release than what's already been chosen. That said, if any song actually does grow on me in the coming months (in spite of everyone telling me "the whole album grows on you!"), I can guarantee it will be this one.

Still sticking to my verdict of "2 or 3 really solid tracks, lacking elsewhere" (UWTB is the potential 3rd but it's really mood-dependent) DLIBYH is a track that I've pondered a lot more since first listen, because I'm actually sort of interested when I listen to it, but it's too much of a random and noisy mish-mash to really be enjoyable, which is a shame, because it could have proved an excellent pure pop number unlike several other tracks on the album. Indeed. Thought she was sorta cute several years ago. Hasn't been the same since.

no :dozey::P

There was a point very early in her career where Katy Perry looked like Zooey Deschanel. Katy's looks sure went downhill fast. :laugh3:

Back to Noel for a bit, I'm finally listening to the album for the first time right now. Got tickets to a holiday show next month and Noel is one of the artists playing, so I figured I should stop slacking and listen to it. It's a lot better than Beady Eye so far. :P

I am officially seeing Florence again in December in San Diego! (possibly twice if she plays the LA holiday show again) Got lucky and bagged a GA ticket. Can't wait to hear Ceremonials material live. :D

It was that way for me after the first listen, but as you know, first listens of any album are deceptive. So while some flaws have jumped out since then, I still place it slightly above Lungs, since I pointed out some problems with Lungs a few posts back. Ceremonials does flow a little better than Lungs, although the run of NLMG-BD-LTL is pretty flat without any momentum shift ("Lover to Lover" easily being the best of these 3, while I would have substituted the other 2 for "Strangeness and Charm" and "Bedroom Hymns" respectively). "Bedroom Hymns" might be my new favorite Florence B-side, and not just because I heard it get soundchecked the day it was written. :laugh3:

Track lead-in. It's an album flow trick. Done on lots of albums all the time. And in this case, it probably wasn't significant enough to separate into its own track like the other 3 instrumentals.

Drunk karaoke is the greatest, especially since karaoke is not something I'd actually attempt sober. Thankfully, I've never attempted a Flo song as far as I know. Just a drunken dance to Cosmic Love. :laugh3: DDAO isn't bad. Obviously way better songs on Lungs exist, but for the only single of hers to actually get airplay here in North America, it's surprisingly inoffensive. The only retarded thing people say here is that it's a cover of Glee. :facepalm:

The difference from Weezer is that Blue Album/Pinkerton were classic albums at the beginning of their career that they didn't play much from anymore in spite of being fan favorites. Weezer also had been facing critical ire for pretty much every album of theirs in the last decade, and many fans had begged them to revisit their roots. So things like this are usually reserved for nostalgia tours. Since MX has just released, something like that is not necessary, especially since songs that haven't yet been played live from it like UWTB or DLIBYH will likely be debuted live shortly in the future (probably once they can afford longer setlists when they stop the festivals and start the arenas/stadiums). And even then, playing the album in sequence from beginning to end probably won't happen. When they're washed up in wheelchairs 30 years from now, then we can talk. :P

As someone who has been otherwise notoriously bitter, I'm going to admit that the Chris/Will sequence on UATW is the best part of the entire album. Unlike "The Goldrush" where the two felt sloppy (though it was a B-side, so leeway is given), they work well together here. Personally, I think this is one area on the album where the studio version mixing benefits the song, as it tones Will down just enough that instead of having the two compete for the spotlight, he merely complements Chris's voice. Will has a nice voice, but Chris's is still better, so he's best used as support. That said, I think Will's voice should still be used sparingly if used on future material. They can afford to be a little looser live, of course, but should be cautious on record.

More igneous rock and less metamorphic rock!

Bahahaha, I had a good run, but you guys are right about one thing, and that's what started as entertaining trolling of fangirls on my part has basically become a nuisance, so I'm toning out down now that the horse is dead. The battle was fun but it doesn't have a point anymore, so time to withdraw. Well played, everyone. Apologies for any hurt feelings. So yeah, I'll still be vocal about my disappointment, but I've gotten it out of my system by this point, so the purposely provocative posts will now revert back to the old Corkus who pops out of his hole every now and then for a lousy joke or two. :P