Tuesday, May 17, 2005
everything I've written about Bloc Party applies equally to Cowboy Troy
Bloc Party: "So Here We Are"
Bloc Party: "Blue Light"
Bloc Party: "This Modern Love"
Okay, so yes, they’ve been absolutely hyped to death, especially by the music-blogs. That should make all of us with good sense leery. And we don’t like crowding other folks’ bandwagons around here, but sometimes, as with the Futureheads, it becomes unavoidable. This is one of those situations. Bloc Party was omnipresent for a few weeks last winter, so I’m sure all of you have heard something by them. Knowing the way our three readers think, I imagine you all pretty much disliked them for various reasons. And that’s okay, I completely understand that. I wanted to hate the hell out of them, myself, and the first few songs I heard did nothing to change my mind. But now I am ready to defend them. Now I openly declare myself a Bloc Party fan. I’ve downloaded over half the record through various sites, and although a couple songs do nothing for me, at least five of them are, at the minimum, really great. A couple might be the best non-Clarkson songs I’ve heard this year. There are still five songs I haven’t heard off the album yet, but if they are anywhere near as good as “Blue Light”, or “This Modern Love”, or “So Here We Are”, then I could see Silent Alarm easily being one of my two or three favorite albums of the year. In a more perfect country these three songs would be required listening for every artsy, sensitive teenager today, a modern-day complement to the steady diet of Ian Curtis, Morrissey, and Robert Smith that eternally populates the playlists of teenaged punk romantics. More than anybody else in recent memory Bloc Party nails that sense of hopeful yearning felt by alienated but not angry suburban teens, and all those who believe they could be doing much more and much better than they currently are. That essence is best captured in “So Here We Are”, and the almost unnaturally beautiful wordless vocals that appear two and a half minutes in. Bloc Party could very well be the new U2, and despite my initial resistance I’ve been completely suckered in.
Bloc Party: "So Here We Are"
Bloc Party: "Blue Light"
Bloc Party: "This Modern Love"
Okay, so yes, they’ve been absolutely hyped to death, especially by the music-blogs. That should make all of us with good sense leery. And we don’t like crowding other folks’ bandwagons around here, but sometimes, as with the Futureheads, it becomes unavoidable. This is one of those situations. Bloc Party was omnipresent for a few weeks last winter, so I’m sure all of you have heard something by them. Knowing the way our three readers think, I imagine you all pretty much disliked them for various reasons. And that’s okay, I completely understand that. I wanted to hate the hell out of them, myself, and the first few songs I heard did nothing to change my mind. But now I am ready to defend them. Now I openly declare myself a Bloc Party fan. I’ve downloaded over half the record through various sites, and although a couple songs do nothing for me, at least five of them are, at the minimum, really great. A couple might be the best non-Clarkson songs I’ve heard this year. There are still five songs I haven’t heard off the album yet, but if they are anywhere near as good as “Blue Light”, or “This Modern Love”, or “So Here We Are”, then I could see Silent Alarm easily being one of my two or three favorite albums of the year. In a more perfect country these three songs would be required listening for every artsy, sensitive teenager today, a modern-day complement to the steady diet of Ian Curtis, Morrissey, and Robert Smith that eternally populates the playlists of teenaged punk romantics. More than anybody else in recent memory Bloc Party nails that sense of hopeful yearning felt by alienated but not angry suburban teens, and all those who believe they could be doing much more and much better than they currently are. That essence is best captured in “So Here We Are”, and the almost unnaturally beautiful wordless vocals that appear two and a half minutes in. Bloc Party could very well be the new U2, and despite my initial resistance I’ve been completely suckered in.
