/mu/ Essentials

/mu/core

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea 2021-09-15

You know, sometimes things are popular because they're really fucking good. Yeah, the Anne Frank fetishization combined with the personal reality of the lead singer gets creepier the more you think about it, but isn't that the point? You don't get anywhere by being average, and where else can we celebrate weirdness than in rock and roll? And, buddy, rock and motherfucking roll this is. If you listen to this album front-to-back and still think it's "overrated," or worse, "just a meme," slap yourself in the face because you are dead. Oh, it's loud? Then get up and fucking dance. You're not going to hear better brickwalling than this.

🔥 Fire. King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3, Holland, 1945, Ghost.

Radiohead - Kid A 2021-09-15

I get it. It's moody. There are parts that aren't moody, which its fans ignore. And it sounds electronic, ushering in the New Digital Era, as opposed to any other album. That's not why it's pretentious. The lyrics. No, you don't understand them either. And, look, I just don't like Thom Yorke's voice. He's bored and depressed, which is this album's target audience.

💣 Dud.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless 2021-09-15

Too obtuse to be human, too complex to be cathartic.

💣 Dud.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion 2021-09-15

The album art is an illusion where glancing at it causes its leaves to move. When you stare at it, the movement dissipates. Chilling beauty betrayed by wankery.

😐 Meh. My Girls, Summertime Clothes.

Talking Heads - Remain In Light 2021-09-15

Eclectic art pop. Historically important, apparently. I don't know, maybe you can dance to it.

💣 Dud.

Slint - Spiderland 2021-09-15

Boring riffs for sad males.

💣 Dud.

King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King 2021-09-15

Okay, so it's a really pretty album with a lot of instruments. The singing is soft. Is that all? No, there's a twelve minute ambient piece. Perfect for music theorists who take the fun out of it.

💣 Dud.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven 2021-09-15

Shouldn't it be "antennae"? Come on, it's asking for it. Four songs over 87 minutes - wait, each song is actually several songs. So why aren't those songs in the track list? Oh, they are. They just aren't numbered. Thank god there's no incomprehensible lyrics - just incomprehensible sound bites. I'd dock this for being pretentious, but it's kind of genius. At least a fourth of it.

✂️ Cut. Sleep.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 2021-09-15

The bars are stupid, except when they're smart. The features are wasteful, except when they're charismatic. And the production is anywhere from bloated decadence to minimalist sparseness, with the themes of each song either narcissitic or humanist, and each track ranging from an unimportant interlude to an impassioned epic. This album is as maddeningly inconsistent as its mastermind, even from within each track, and through its sine wave of good-and-bad, ying-and-yang runtime, it all evens out to an album just a little better than mediocre. Almost like a light six.

💯 Hundo. Gorgeous, Devil in a New Dress, Runaway, Blame Game.

Death Grips - The Money Store 2021-09-15

Every time I try to talk about this album, I come up blank. Yeah, I can read over the track list and recall the gist of each song, but nothing concrete. So I click on the first track to refresh my memory - and I'm trapped. I get got. Heed my warning: there is no such thing as a casual Death Grips listen. You will click on that funny music video and be transported to another dimension, only released in the aftermath once your ears stop ringing and your noided tendencies dissipate into normalcy. Any album where I am compelled to listen to the entire thing no matter my intentions has to be one of the greatest ever made. What the hell else do you listen to after this? Except more Death Grips?

🔥 Fire. Get Got, I've Seen Footage, Bitch Please.

American Football - American Football 2021-09-15

There is no song named "American Football" on "American Football" by "American Football". Not to be confused with their two other albums, "American Football" and "American Football". For emo rock, it's okay. At least they have the courtesy not to bitch.

✂️ Cut. Never Meant.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica 2021-09-15

Ersatz shit.

🤡 Clown.

Swans - Soundtracks For The Blind 2021-09-15

141 minutes long. And I listened to it twice. I want to believe there's something secretly smart about all this, some brilliant connection that makes all the prog and noise and weird sampling connect into one coherent jigsaw of disparate ideas. But what does it matter? Sure, it's art. Is it entertaining?

✂️ Cut. Volcano.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds 2021-09-15

You. Yes, you. 20-something young adult male on /mu/ making another post about how this is the best album ever. I'll give you Kid A and Loveless and all the other weird shit, but this is just obsolete. All the other albums at least have the balls to be interesting. What's next, going to make another Revolver shitpost? Shill for another collection of love songs in the most mainstream of mainstream sensibilities, as boring in melody as they are in lyrics and theme? Stick to sneedposting with the rest of the /tv/ tourists.

💣 Dud.

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico 2021-09-15

On just enough drugs for plausible deniability. Sure, it's vaguely political, but the subversion is smothered by the pop tracks shoved in there. So it's supposed to be art rock, but you're still commercial enough to rip off your contemporaries? I'm sure you would be blown away by this album fifty years ago. Except it's fifty years later. I'm not.

💣 Dud.

Sub-/mu/core A

Radiohead - OK Computer 2021-09-18

Kid A with worse production and without the funny Pitchfork review.

💣 Dud.

Radiohead - In Rainbows 2021-09-18

Moments of simplicity, much appreciated, ruined by complexity. Some of the songs here are almost - almost - good.

😐 Meh. Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi, Jigsaw Falling Into Place.

Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness 2021-09-18

Recorded through a laptop mic. Makes lo-fi kneel at its bathtub and pray. Too pussy to call itself shoegaze. Dark, not terribly ambient. Good for suicidal people whose conception of catharsis has long been muted. Bad for neurotypicals.

💣 Dud.

Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun 2021-09-18

Tom Scott did a video, "How Many Languages Are There?", where he suggested the Icelandic language may be endangered. Obsolescence among youth and dependence on globalization has dug the foundation for a linguistic cemetery. If you're not supported by iPhone, do you really exist?

🚫 Refused.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F Sharp A Sharp Infinity 2021-09-18

Country rock, air sirens, and bagpipes. Why the fuck not.

💣 Dud.

Talk Talk - Laughing Stock 2021-09-18

Always curious, those people who enjoy ambient. Does it follow that a genre designed to not be paid attention to has fans who listen intently? And when it bothers to do something worthy of attention, is it really ambient? Anyway, this album reminds me of video game music. Slapped together, kind of cheap, just ignorable enough that you can say it's underrated, and altogether inspires the same rousing emotions as the muzak at your bank. You know your jig is up when Spyro the Dragon is better.

💣 Dud.

Slowdive - Souvlaki 2021-09-18

So the thing about distorting your guitars and burying the vocals under a layer of pedals is that, surprise, every song is the same. I don't mean "sounds the same", although they do. It's the conception of each being so unoriginal that it's waste of studio time and the producers' life force. Oh, it's about a chick. Oh, I can't hear it being about a chick.

💣 Dud.

Bjork - Homogenic 2021-09-18

I'm concerned for those who pretend to like her.

🤡 Clown.

Nirvana - Nevermind 2021-09-18

Rich people sing badly over shit guitars.

💣 Dud.

Nirvana - In Utero 2021-09-18

Fun fact about this album. On the back of it, in Bauhaus type half an inch long, there's a title called "Rape Me". There's also abortion imagery, and by their forces combined, pissed off Walmart. So the band censored the fetus art, exclusively available at Walmart superstores near you, and renamed the song - wait for it - "Waif Me".

💣 Dud.

Elliot Smith - Either/Or 2021-09-18

Waxing lyrically about nothing in particular, these folksy ballads from a man dead from suspicious circumstances - always the ticket to indie fame - would appeal greatly to those under the age of 20, and less so for anyone out of high school. Emotionally or otherwise.

💣 Dud.

Jeff Buckley - Grace 2021-09-18

Pleasant, forgettable boomer rock. Leonard Cohen had more soul, but damn.

✂️ Cut. Hallelujah.

Sub-/mu/core B

The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream 2021-09-18

Bad. Really bad. They can't sing. They can't play. Grunge is a shit genre. The 90s were a mistake. If you like this you're stupid. I'm not elaborating.

🤡 Clown.

Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted 2021-09-18

I grew up too late for rockists pretending to like Pavement, before my generation pretended to like the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. Why? Because it's raw. Jesus, just look at that cover art. The production is stripped back, but will you really bitch about it? And that little laugh in the opening track might be the most human that indie rock has ever been. This album bleeds personality not because it's grandiose, but because it's unassuming. Ignore the butt rock and you'll find a vocal performance that reflects all of our teenage mediocrity - impotent rage, boiling over, sometimes genuine.

💯 Hundo. Summer Babe (Winter Version), Zurich Is Stained.

Grimes - Visions 2021-09-18

"By the way, I am actually a socialist." - Elon Musk.

🚫 Refused.

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin 2021-09-18

How the hell do you have a better intro than that? The drums fill up each channel in as much beauty as harshness allows. The juxtaposition with the strings lead into bittersweet optimism for the good of humanity. The idealistic vocals are so saccharine it's painful. And the rest of the album is the same, but there's only so much you can sustain one emotional palette over an hour, no matter how much auditory edge you sprinkle in the undercurrent. It's only psychedelic if you wake up from the trip.

💯 Hundo. Race For The Prize, The Spiderbite Song, Waiting' For A Superman.

Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West 2021-09-18

Opens with screaming as singing and untuned guitars. It's "ironic". They keep doing it. Also includes a hoedown about Jesus Christ's siblingdom.

💣 Dud.

Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica 2021-09-18

I was looking for this album on their YouTube page, and on their video tab, saw they uploaded songs from their newest album, "The Golden Casket". "Official Vizualizer", each one was tagged. Each visualizer is a GIF on a background, like one of those NFT things, with the same animation of a rainbow for each. For full disclosure, each rainbow has slightly different colours. Also, they use such iconography as: mushrooms, a tape cassette, an open door, and ice cream. So they're contrarian, but they're also lazy.

💣 Dud.

Weezer - Weezer 2021-09-18

Tweet on Fantano's "Let's Argue": "Weezer was never good we all just didn't like our parents at the time." Rebuttal from Fantano: "That is not true." Oh. "Rivers Cuomo is quite the talented songwriter." Okay. "He writes some very sweet and very catchy hooks." Uh-huh. "People do legitimately enjoy Weezer who do not hate their parents." You know what, Anthony? You're right. I hate my parents, I hate Weezer, and I'm not the target audience for this album. And maybe you're right about "Surf Wax America", which opens thusly: "The sea is foaming like a bottle of beer / The wave is coming, but I ain't got no fear / I'm waxing down, so that I'll go real fast / I'm waxing down, because it's really a blast."

🤡 Clown.

Weezer - Pinkerton 2021-09-18

Also from Fantano: "Here's the truth: if you hate yourself, you can't enjoy Weezer. Except Pinkerton. You can enjoy that album if you hate yourself."

💣 Dud.

Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral 2021-09-18

The synths are kind of cool. Honestly, David Bowie had cojones to tour with these guys. Respect.

✂️ Cut. Hurt.

Xiu Xiu - A Promise 2021-09-18

Ambiguous trauma neither interesting or special.

💣 Dud.

Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On 2021-09-18

When I think of indie rock, I think of pretention. Contrarian ideas executed badly, mediocrity as irony and singers whose emotional vulnerability extend insofar as it's commercially viable. What happened to the ideals of complex ideas too alienating for a normie audience, or instrumental constructions that are dead-on-arrival in a hook-chorus-hook hit-based manufactured popularity radio market? Here they are. Front-to-back brilliance with a delivery so emotional it makes all works in its genre obsolete. A person on /mu/ posted a thread with the album cover, writing >concludes indie rock. Damn straight.

🔥 Fire. I Would Hurt A Fly, Stop The Show, Velvet Waltz.

Les Ralizes Denudes - '77 Live 2021-09-18

Oh, it's a live album. That's alright, so were some Daft Punk and Underworld records - and jazz, if you're into that thing. Oh, there's no Wikipedia article. That's okay, some of the best albums ever made wouldn't belong on there. Oh, it's in Japanese, not French. And the Genius pages have five missing translations. And it was released in 1991. And it's noise rock.

🚫 Refused.

Sub-/mu/core C

Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One 2021-09-20

Never a good sign when you listen to a 68 minute album, twice, and can't recall a single song. I guess this is supposed to be the hi-fi answer to Pavement's lo-fi, but to be frank, it just isn't as fun as Pavement. And it's barely hi-fi, it's like mid-fi with a dash of easy listening. When I think of "indie rock", the first thing that comes to my mind is "easy listening". Do you believe that?

😐 Meh. Moby Octopad, Damage.

The Mangetic Fields - 69 Love Songs 2021-09-20

The worst opener to an album I have heard in my life. When I clicked on the YouTube playlist, my internet cut out. "Save yourself", I heard my desktop say through coil whine. "Don't go there", said my volition, protecting me from hubris. When U2 was making Achtung Baby, they wanted the first song to sound like your record player was broken. Should have known better. Ukulele. Fucking ukulele. And the most godawful high-pitched synth piercing each ear. The mix is shit and the singer is mumbling, and you're opening with a 95 second track? That repeats the chorus? Fuck this.

🚫 Refused.

Fugazi - Repeater 2021-09-20

Loud. Boring.

💣 Dud.

Cardiacs - Sing To God 2021-09-20

Opens with Chipmunk church choir, singing the following: "Plain we / make it / How we love plain and even / This is even / Things are fine odd / But we all like it even / This is even". Not today, Satan. Not today.

🚫 Refused.

Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill 2021-09-20

The thing about sadcore is how it's supposed to inspire, the uh, what is it? Sadness? I get the feeling these increasingly niche microgenres are unpaid therapy for the people producing it and the consumers listening to it. Dropping in on the shrink's session is only interesting if the subject is fucked up.

💣 Dud.

Codeine - Frigid Stars 2021-09-20

Come on. You people are human. Isn't there a point where you're bored? How many times can you listen to the same disjected vocals and phoned-in guitars and find genuine entertainment from this? Do you think you're experiencing the broad spectrum of human culture by wallowing in these terribly produced pity parties? Are you growing as a human being, discovering new emotional experiences, and finding yourself in a better place than you once were? This is music for sad, strange little men, and they have my pity.

💣 Dud.

Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space 2021-09-20

Starts strong, sounds like Damon Albarn. Too grandiose. The typical thing would be to strip it back, be airy, let the sound breath - seeing as space is empty and all. Doesn't mean you have to go the opposite direction, and for that matter, what's wrong with being typical? The opulence of the subject is conveyed by its simplicity. Human noise is not loud enough for infinity.

😐 Meh. Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, Stay With Me.

Low - I Could Live In Hope 2021-09-20

I don't know, you hear the same spaced-out vocals over the same distortion effects, and like, turn it off. I do that. I did that.

💣 Dud.

Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe 2021-09-20

Big-dick disclaimer: I like vaporwave. A lot. Guess which album introduced me to it? Yeah, it wasn't the first album in the genre, but it sure invented it. What would the internet be without the coked-out, 90s-incestuous skullfuck of neon lights and consumer culture parasitism? "But it takes zero effort to make". No, fuck you, you don't get a say in this. Plunderphonics, house music, hip-hop, chopped and screwed, whatever Siivagunner is, and any song that ever sampled a type-beat are all brilliant examples of the creativity of human culture and the ability to remix and recreate the efforts of our ancestors into artistic creations which we would have never heard without them. You know what takes effort? Making a whole fucking genre.

🔥 Fire. Lisa Frank 420 / Modern Computing, Library, Te.

Duster - Stratosphere 2021-09-20

Bad mix. Dull vocals. White bread.

💣 Dud.

Lisa Germano - Geek The Girl 2021-09-20

It's a fact of the world, commonly known, never acknowledged: women scare us. Imagine then Ms. Germano - who does almost all the instruments, and all the vocals, and the production - releasing an album about the portrait of a young girl, stuck in place, never growing. No toxic, vaguely-masculine individual would ever listen to this. And that's a shame, because this is honest, touching, and entertaining all the way through. It's dark without being intimidating and shocking without being edgy, and you can't just load up a song from this album because you want to listen to it all the way through. It's that good, guys. Put aside your balls and give it a chance.

🔥 Fire. My Secret Reason, Geek The Girl, Sexy Little Girl Princess, Cancer Of Everything.

Giles Corey - Giles Corey 2021-09-20

Suicidal tendencies recorded in a sewer.

💣 Dud.

Sub-/mu/core D

Royal Trux - Twin Infinitives 2021-09-21

There's something about tuneless screams over slapped-together high-pitched synth hits that doesn't make me want to listen. My mileau extends only to music.

🚫 Refused.

At The Drive In - Relationship of Command 2021-09-20

At every level of resolution, the exhausted vocals and squealing guitars are the same. Bonus points for cryptic song titles and occasional spoken word rant, amounting to nothing.

✂️ Cut. One Armed Scissor.

Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime 2021-09-21

Yeah, it's punk rock, alright. Oh, sorry, it's "post punk". Like it matters.

💣 Dud.

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You 2021-09-21

Potentially good ideas. More effort than most "post" albums, where we could replace "post" with "shit". Yeah, alienating your audience with obtuse constructions is hardcore. You know what else is hardcore? Having one.

💣 Dud.

Cap'n' Jazz - Analphabetapolothology 2021-09-21

Fuck you, person who talks about music with their friends. What was that album with the weird opener, with hard rock bookends and a kitty-kitty-cat lullaby in the middle? Anal-sigma something? Also: not jazz.

🤡 Clown.

Beck - Sea Change 2021-09-21

He was better on Futurama.

💣 Dud.

Jim O'Rouke - Eureka 2021-09-21

A collection of inoffensive commercial melodies that initially suggests simping over women to the degree that effeminate men do, the album grasps an insight into human ego with the third track. Then it slips. For 29 minutes.

✂️ Cut. Movie On The Way Down.

James Blake - James Blake 2021-09-21

The album equivalent of "look what I can do!", where production gimmicks are at the forefront and composition is buried under spectacle. Despite its self-sabotage, a little bit of soul seeps through. The album is more intelligent when it adheres to musical convention rather than breaking it for its own satisfaction. And for such a short album, there sure are some filler tracks. Want a vocoded, spoken-word non sequitur? Want a part 2?

😐 Meh. The Wilhelm Scream, Limit To Your Love, To Care (Like You).

The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency And I 2021-09-21

Kind of groovy. Kind of moody. Kind of symphonic. Kind of electronic. There are so many "kind ofs" to this album you wish they'd choose one. Then sing better.

💣 Dud.

Sweet Trip - Velocity : Design : Comfort 2021-09-21

Distill the following genres: electrotrash, glitch-hop, indie rock, and - why the hell not? - shoegaze. Combine them into one album. Oh, wait. You can't. Because that's insane. Sprinkle in in ethereal vocals, trying to salvage some humanity out of the clusterfuck of your own creation. Mix poorly, leave on the backburner wishing you were copying The Postal Service's recipe. Half-bake for 73 minutes. Enjoy the sweet trip until you get sick of it, which is soon. A strange parasitism of ideas better executed elsewhere in discrete parts. A tale against reckless ideation.

🤡 Clown.

Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me 2021-09-21

My reaction to religious music is like a cat seeing a cucumber in the garden. Where it exists to gaslight you with faeries at the bottom, I exist somewhere else. Is anti-religious music more virtuous? How about half-assed internal torture, with strain over that which you believed in yet never existed? Linkin Park was less angsty.

✂️ Cut. Jesus Christ.

Portishead - Dummy 2021-09-21

Hip-hop without rhymes is worse than a dry cum.

💣 Dud.

Sub-/mu/core E

Death Grips - Exmilitary 2021-09-24

You release this album, and you're set. Already one of the greatest hip hop groups ever. They could have ended it there, but they didn't. And in retrospect, does it hold up as well? It's genius, but not consistently. Some songs are alien to the rest of their catalogue (Lord Of The Game), some are half-assed (Cut Throat, Thru The Walls), and what the hell is 5D? So it's not perfect, and this is where I pull the whole "influence a whole generation of artists before you bitch" spiel, but who is even copying this album? You get guys like Danny Brown and Peggy, but they ain't that level of satanic, suicidal, half-light-dimming batshit crazy that MC Ride is. The only rappers dick-riding Death Grips... is Death Grips.

💯 Hundo. Beware, Takyon (Death Yon), Known For It, I Want It I Need It (Death Heated).

Death Grips - No Love Deep Web 2021-09-24

The artist stands naked before the world. Less interesting, nonetheless captivating. Why is it less interesting, when it's a wall-to-wall barrage of free association insanity underlined with beats that would make Clipping trip up? There's something about the understated, discrete method of production which reminds me less that I'm glancing into a foreign universe of depraved violence and more that I'm sitting here at my PC listening to someone spit. And the mastering on the YouTube playlist is off; the sound levels between each song are all over the place. Death Grips does their shit, and it's a good album, but the magic is lost from The Money Store's all-encompassing soundscape. With this band's typical quality, "good" might as well be a failure.

💯 Hundo. No Love, Lock Your Doors, Artificial Death In The West.

Joanna Newsom - Ys 2021-09-24

The lady's fetish for antiquation, combined with the repetitive cadence of her voice, creates an album that was doomed to irrelevancy not only on release, but at every step of its conception. Folks into folk believe they are experiencing an honest expression of emotion absent conceits such as trendiness or timeliness. They are regurgitating what has long been digested in the cultural bowels, and frankly the cover art unnerves me. It is a faux representation of the symbolic style of Middle Ages portraiture, obviously modern due to its colouring style using pigments not available to the old masters, and respect of perspective and proportion which did not exist until the Renaissance. Anachronism betrayed by ignorance.

💣 Dud.

Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me 2021-09-24

Yeah, I don't get it. Bloated as hell (124 minutes!) and representative of an internal world that the singer is more than willing to express, but unable to do so in a coherent narrative. The instrumentation is supposed to be sparse, but it betrays this intention by being thrown together and unable to express a theme. Despite having such density of ideas and variety of instruments, each song is repetitive, both internally and within the album structure, so its ambitions aren't worth looking up to. I can't call it pretentious due to my lack of understanding, but remember: 124 minute folk album. The crime is staring me in the face.

✂️ Cut. Good Intentions Paving Company.

The Strokes - Is This It 2021-09-24

I listen to the album, and I'm like: "Hey, that's groovy stuff! Groovy, dude!" Then I forget about it. Maybe it's the garbage mix, or the compressed vocals, or flirting with garage rock while being cynically pop-centric, but this album's potential charisma is destroyed by its production. When did that Velvet Underground record come out? 1967? And we still haven't evolved our auditory quality past this point? You don't understand, it sounds like shit on purpose. I don't enjoy the album, also on purpose.

✂️ Cut. Someday.

Candy Claws - Ceres And Calypso In The Deep Time 2021-09-24

The rare particle collision of shoegaze and tweeness. Least honest album art since Amplifier Worship, and this one doesn't have a frog. Speaking of drone metal, this isn't that, but it has the same effect. A cluster of noise with unintelligible lyrics, whose musical ideas are absorbed by navel gazing.

💣 Dud.

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 2021-09-24

Released 2011. Drone shit caused by production tricks. "Hatred of Music" is apt.

💣 Dud.

The Microphones - The Glow, Pt. 2 2021-09-24

Likely the least shit album released on 9/11. The "Pt. 1" is an 11 minute song from their record before. This album is 66 minutes. There is little more hilariously indie than expanding your prior decadence, on an already hilariously indie album, into six times its length. You know what to expect. Folksy acoustic bullshit with mumbling vocals on obscure song titles with lyrics that - wait for it - are about a chick. These people get laid. Fuck me.

💣 Dud.

They Might Be Giants - Flood 2021-09-24

Musical theatre scares me. Quote Wikipedia; "They have also found success in children's music, and in theme music for several television programs and films." You know what? Good for them. Quote Christgau, on their album Here Comes Science: "Catchy facts marshaled to fortify innocents against Christianist anti-empiricism, and marred by progessivist didacticism as a result". Breeding the next generation of atheists is always a hundo. Wait, what album were we talking about? Who cares? Flood is some wacky bullshit and I admire it as a beacon of optimism in the omnipresently depressing indie rock scene. So I'm going to keep listening to it, right?

💣 Dud.

Tame Impala - Lonerism 2021-09-24

Dad found the reverb pedal.

✂️ Cut. Elephant.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois 2021-09-24

Isn't it "Illinoise"? Or is it "Come On Feel The Illinoise"? And why are we still waitin' for Superman? Wikipedia: "Illinois is Stevens' second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan and that Stevens has since acknowledged was a joke." That sentence has more emotional weight than any song on this album. I asked a friend why there was a goat on the album cover, who said, "he's just a little man." Oh, no, I forgot about the music! Guitars! Horns! All hail Chicago! All hail Illinois! E!

💣 Dud.

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz 2021-09-24

It's just kind of a mess and I don't like it.

💣 Dud.

Sub-/mu/core F

Sun Kil Moon - Benji 2021-10-08

I simply don't care a damn what happens in Ohio, no matter who writes about it.

💣 Dud.

Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die 2021-10-08

It takes courage to name your rock fit after a sea animal. Single joke aside, this is a pretty functional post-rock album with xylophones and synths, although it never reaches the manic emotional high achieved by its first track. The first track, by the way, is twenty one minutes long. The combined length of the other tracks? Twenty two.

✂️ Cut. Djed.

Arcade Fire - Funeral 2021-10-08

This album is beautiful, and you should listen to it. Its complexity of instrumentation is matched by its ideas about growing up in middle class hell, and it's not emo. It rocks. Most indie albums try to channel sadness by being sad. Big mistake. This one balances its emotions through an ironic contrast of orchestral pep, and it's all the more tragic for its self-inflicted ignorance. And by the way, this indie album? No filler. That's just awesome.

🔥 Fire. Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles), Wake Up, Haiti.

The Avalanches - Since I Left You 2021-10-08

This album is insane and nothing sounds like it. From the first track - an all-time classic - we get a plunderphonic symphony of ideas, transplanting us to paradise defined by sonic soul. The ideas from then on never run out, consistently providing a soundscape of endless samples, influences, and references trawling every genre from hip-hop to disco to house. Bits of dialogue hint to a better world, pop culture parasited for utopian purposes, resulting in eighteen tracks of actual, no bullshit dance music. If this sound was popular, the world would be a little bit happier, and a lot more funky.

🔥 Fire. Since I Left You, Two Hearts In 3/4 Time, A Different Feeling, Live At Dominoes.

Gorillaz - Demon Days 2021-10-08

When I was a teenager, Gorillaz was one of my favourite bands. The lore and visuals they set up for themselves, combined with the furl of hip-hop-pop-rock, fascinated me. When I was older, I thought they were overrated because they were pop stars, and their digital persona was a gimmick. I still exist, and I appreciate them again. Any way you slice it, pop star or alternative darling, this shit takes effort. An idiot can make a crossover hit, but try making a dozen of them while leashing a team of art directors. And not just crossing over genres - crossing over boundaries, making peace between hipsters and normies in an impossible union. Simple question for the unconvinced: if you had to live in the 2005 world dominated by Gorillaz, or the 2010 world with Black Eyed Peas, or the 2015 world with Imagine Dragons... well, I've lived through all of them. Gorillaz wins. And it's not even close.

🔥 Fire. O Green World, El Manana, All Alone, Demon Days.

Mac Demarco - Salad Days 2021-10-08

The less exciting album with "days" in the title. The lead guitar carries this thing harder than Atlas. That wacky squeal with the vibrato and modulation almost makes me forget there are lyrics. And what are the lyrics about? I dunno, all the pop things. I thought this was a case where the lead singer killed himself and that's why indie heads like him, but he's alive. He's also Canadian, which is the world's most stable country. Synonyms for stable: stagnant, unchanging, boring...

💣 Dud.

Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam 2021-10-08

According to YouTube, I stopped listening to this album halfway through the final track. (The final track is twenty minutes long). You know, shoegaze with intelligible lyrics is a sin. Still doesn't make it engaging.

💣 Dud.

Don Caballero - What Burns Never Returns 2021-10-08

A song is titled "In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of the Charging Bull." Really.

💣 Dud.

The Jesus Lizard - Goat 2021-10-08

The album art is honest advertising. Cheap, tasteless, and forgettable.

💣 Dud.

The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium 2021-10-08

Stupid album obsessed with the technical proficiency of its performers. Why is it stupid? Wikipedia: "Based on a short story written by lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and sound manipulation artist Jeremy Michael Ward, the concept album is an hour-long tale of Cerpin Taxt, a man who enters a week-long coma after overdosing on a mixture of morphine and rat poison." Yeah, sure, if that's your jam.

💣 Dud.

Coil - The Ape of Naples 2021-10-08

It's like if They Might Be Giants were evil.

💣 Dud.

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver 2021-10-08

This is ridiculous. You come out with this album, fill it soulless, repetitive beats that anyone with a copy of FL Studio could make, slap on some spoken-word lyrics about random bullshit, throw some vague (really vague!) political themes in there for indie clout, and then produce these ideas in the most unexciting and functional fashion, getting perfect scores from all the music critics despite being obsoleted by Daft Punk a decade earlier. And in the midst of this pretentious, barely-functional dance album, is the two most beautiful, honest, and interesting songs that electronic music will ever hear, with both the depression and mania which all music producers have, back-to-back. What do you follow these tracks with? Cowbells. Fucking cowbells.

😐 Meh. Someone Great, All My Friends.

Sub-/mu/core G

Swans - The Seer 2021-10-15

Yeah, brilliant experimentation combined with soulful guitars that coalesce into a cathartic, dramatic, and musically coherent production which will delight listeners of all progressive rock persuasions with its unique blend of dark conceputalism and orchestral opulence, available on streaming services near you, is nice and all. But I don't wanna listen to two hours of this shit. I don't wanna!

🚫 Refused.

Swans - To Be Kind 2021-10-15

I listened to this when Fantano gave it a ten. I thought he was off-base seven years ago. Here I am in 2021. My opinion has completely changed, and I am now a Swans convert. I love 34 minute songs. Progressive rock is awesome! What do you mean they could be condensed to three minutes? Bad listener. This isn't just an album... this, this is an experience! It is extraordinary!

🚫 Refused.

Fishmans - Long Season 2021-10-15

That's a silly name. Fishmans. There have been sillier names before, and there will be sillier names after, but Fishmans, as a name, is very silly indeed.

🚫 Refused.

Boredoms - Vision Creation Newsun 2021-10-15

Here are the titles, in order, of each song on "Vision Creation Newsun". ◯. ☆. ♡. Ҩ. ～. ◎. ↑. Ω. ずっと. The limited edition, which comes on a second disc, has three songs. (The second song is 35 minutes long). They are as follows: ⊙, hourglass / Boretronix logo (Live Nov '98 (Osaka City Univ. Outdoor Free Concert)), ◌. Why is there no symbol for "hourglass / Boretronix logo (Live Nov '98 (Osaka City Univ. Outdoor Free Concert))"? Because it does not exist in Unicode. An enterprising Wikipedia editor recreated it, and embedded the symbol as an image. The image, I report, looks like an hourglass.

🚫 Refused.

Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights 2021-10-15

I don't mind it, but not minding it isn't the same as liking it. It's pretty much the sound you've come to expect from all the early-2000s alt rock bands. A little grungy, angry yet impotent, and not that fun.

💣 Dud.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes 2021-10-15

Folk rock slathered in reverb.

💣 Dud.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Let Love In 2021-10-15

Enigmatic and charismatic, but not to the point of inviting repeated listening. Some of the lyrical themes are boring yet expressed in a myopic manner. Some of the themes are insane. Maybe the megalomania is the point.

😐 Meh. Do You Love Me?, Ain't Gonna Rain Anymore

Dean Blunt - The Redeemer 2021-10-15

The top album result is in Hindi. I do not speak Hindi. Google tells me a synonym is "money saver". More like save your money and don't buy this album. Except it's on YouTube. Nobody buys albums, except for music reviewers. Wait a second.

💣 Dud.

The Antlers - Hospice 2021-10-15

Blatant emotional manipulation.

💣 Dud.

Kanye West - Yeezus 2021-10-15

Off his meds.

🤡 Clown.

The Olivia Tremor Control - Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume 1 2021-10-15

Yes, that is really the title. Wikipedia lists the album's genres as follows, and you will read them all. Neo-psychedelia. Indie rock. Noise music. Psychedelic pop. Ambient music. Avant-garde. Musique concrete. Experimental pop. Art rock. Sound collage. Translation: crazy shit. And you know? It's not that bad. The production on this thing is fantastic. It's no small feat to balance so many instruments from so many sources and keep the sound intelligible. If you're intimidated by the description, it's basically a Beatles album. Except good.

😐 Meh. A Peculiar Noise Called "Train Director", I Have Been Floated.

Ween - The Mollusk 2021-10-15

It takes courage to name your album after a sea animal. I repeated this joke, but this album repeats it fourteen times. So it's a concept album about... sea shanties? What? And one of the songs is about an LSD trip? So we have the stupid concept, and the getting high song, and the stupid lyrics, and the penis song, and the stupid synths... this album is for jokers. And there's no "cut" rating, there's no Ocean Man shout-out, because that song is also for jokers. Although they inspired SpongeBob SquarePants, which is their greatest cultural contribution.

🤡 Clown.

Sub-/mu/core H

Panda Bear - Person Pitch 2021-10-26

Plunderphonics smothered in postprocessing. The folkier version of Animal Collective. Bizarre and captivating, yet obfuscates what, exactly, the point of it all is. So that's the album review. What about Bros? Phenomenal. One of the greatest songs ever. It embodies the whole of human existence in naturalistic fashion, portraying emotional breadth through sound and samples, with trauma the backdrop to primal joy. A twelve minute experience that's better than most artists entire discography. What more can you desire, if not this?

💯 Hundo. Bros, Good Girl / Carrots.

The Beach Boys - SMiLE 2021-10-26

The world's most famous unfinished album, so I learned, reading about it. There's a song with construction noises. One YouTube playlist is 139 songs long. I guess this is one of those boomer things where you're supposed to like it because it's an Event for it to be released at all, even though it's boring and thematically stale. Obsession with the past is why the future is dead.

💣 Dud.

Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister 2021-10-26

Acoustics and instrumentation. Not bad, just poppy without the requisite glee. I like the generational disconnect on the one good song. You can dance to it.

✂️ Cut. Me And The Major.

Animal Collective - Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished 2021-10-26

Protip: Don't cause me physical pain in the first song.

🚫 Refused.

Animal Collective - Sung Tongs 2021-10-26

Because their problem is they weren't experimental enough.

🚫 Refused.

Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam 2021-10-26

Four fucking albums.

🚫 Refused.

Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf 2021-10-26

More straightforward than Soundtracks For The Blind. The radio gimmick is cool, but it is a gimmick. A functional yet unchallenging Classic Rock (trademark) album for those who aren't concerned with the finer things in life. Such as, composition, creativity, creating an album for smarter people.

💣 Dud.

Stars Of The Lid - The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid 2021-10-26

My god. The first fractal album. It's the same at every level! At every song! Our finest mathematicians are on the scene to discover the source of this infinite regress. Dr. Possy, what's your take? Oh, wait, Dr. Possy is dead! The ambient drone was too sophisticated! Oh, the humanity!

💣 Dud.

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy 2021-10-26

I hate lo-fi. I hate it for what it is and what it represents. It's an excuse for new musicians to avoid aspiring for immaculate production in favour of a mediocre aesthetic, and for famous musicians to half-ass their next album and get clout on Pitchfork, making millions while appropriating the traditions of garage bands and broke high schoolers. It represents depressed teenagers listening with their $2 headphones robbing themselves of the beauty of earth-shattering hi-fi, convincing themselves the sound is good because they are incapable of conceiving anything greater. If the soundscape wasn't vacuous enough, the lyrics are the same old indie song and dance with the added clout of being gay. By the way, this is the re-recording. They had the opportunity to take their sound in whatever direction they wished, and decided to curl up into the womb and do the same shit they did in 2011. This album made me a more bitter human being and I didn't even learn anything. And they still can't fucking sing.

🤡 Clown.

Mr. Bungle - California 2021-10-26

Supposed to be released on the same day as Californication, the label pushed it back. The Red Hot Chili Peppers won the date war, yet they still kicked Mr. Bungle off a festival tour. Mr. Bungle then parodied The Peppers at a Halloween show. The Peppers kicked them off another festival. Mr. Bungle broke up. A butt rock band threw a shitfit over a release dispute with an indie band, won the shitfit, then used their opportunity to release garbage music. For 20 years. And I'm not saying California is an underrated masterpiece taken down by The Man, but I am saying it has a dozen different genres and is a dozen times more interesting than the boot which crushed them. I'm also not saying they did these genres well. They did them poorly. I am saying that.

💣 Dud.

Ride - Nowhere 2021-10-26

Rule of thumb: the quality of an album is inversely proportional to how many people remember listening to it in a car. Second rule of thumb: if the top YouTube comment on an album is about listening to it in a car, that album can be skipped without consequence. Third rule of thumb: shoegaze sucks.

💣 Dud.

Stereolab - Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements 2021-10-26

So here we are, and we have finally finished this whirlwind adventure. We had some good albums. We had some bad. Mostly bad. Also the good ones aren't that good. This chart kind of sucks, but that's not the point. We are finished. And as we end this journey of artistic abortions that makes you wish you never started, we finish off with the most satisfying ending you can come up with: a mediocre rock album. Thanks for tuning in to the Rick and Morty watchamarathon.

💣 Dud.