DELTRON 3030 RECOMMENDED: Julian Casablancas – Phrazes for the Young
Quite often you’ll hear a band’s sound described as producing a combined effect greater than the sum of its separate parts This is usually a very sound and valid statement. I believe the office buzz word you are looking for here is “synergy”. Guns and Roses are a great example of a band’s synergy. I loved the hell out of classic G-N-R but I never ever wanted to listen to Slash’s Snake Pit or Izzy Stradlin and the JuJu Hounds….and I wasn’t alone. There was deep seeded logic for my disdain for these solo projects as
1) they were not good.
2) I’d always wonder what group efforts I was missing because of someone’s misguided solo work.
It would always come down to the relationship you had with the band. You almost felt as if you were cheating if you put your time, effort, and money behind their solo work. As a kid I can recall being crippled with fear thinking “Oh no, What if CC Deville’s solo album goes triple platinum!? We’ll never see Poison get back together!”. Young Del didn’t want to live in a world where Poison didn’t exist. Lucky for him CC Deville never did release a solo album. Instead he did lots and lots of cocaine. As i grew older and learned about relationship dynamics I realized that people need their alone time to grow and explore new facets of themselves. In the end it benefits everyone. No one more so then the members of The Strokes. I’ll gladly sign off on the end of the Strokes if that means I get awesome solo albums like “Phrazes for the Young”, “Yours to Keep”, & “Little Joy”. Left to his own devices on “Phrazes for the Young” Casablancas trades in his signature monotone garage rock strokes crooning sound in for a new monotone dance groove.
Baby steps.
Highlights: Left & Right in the Dark, 11th Dimension
DELTRON 3030′S TOP 10 OF 2009
Filter just released their top ten album list for 2009 and this is what it looks like
1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
2. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glassnote)
3. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest (Warp)
4. Miike Snow, Miike Snow (Downtown)
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz! (Interscope)
6. Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Elvis Perkins in Dearland (XL)
7. Cass McCombs, Catacombs (Domino)
8. Passion Pit, Manners (Frenchkiss)
9. The Antlers, Hospice (Frenchkiss)
10. White Rabbits, It’s Frightening (TBD)
While I agree with many of their selections I can’t get past two errors:
1) Not slotting The Antlers at number one. (OK it is official -They should go ahead and process that restraining order now.
2) Leaving off the XX.. The XX’s debut record is an amazing album that deserves a top ten slotting.
I don’t want to define this as a travesty against humanity because we should save that word for the abomination that is MTV’s Jersey Shore. Instead let us simply call this an oversight. Allow me to correct these mistakes now with my rushed top ten.
Del’s top ten of 2009
1 The Antlers – Hospice (more…)