It was indeed “A Decade Under The Influence.†But while Taking Back Sunday could string together a few solid hits drenched in a post-hardcore milieu and cut with pop sensibilities, chances are no one in the band could have predicted how influential emo would become in the aughts. The presence of the word in the … [Read more…]
The new year is almost here, and with it comes a maelstrom of “End of the Year Lists.†Here on Ex-Spectator, I’ll be rolling out a few “End of the Yearâ€/â€End of the Decade†lists. Today’s list: The Best Albums of 2009. As I’ve mentioned previously, there are a lot of pitfalls for “best of†… [Read more…]
When little kids get their first haircut, there’s usually crying involved. When Pete Wentz gets his hair cut (or shaven?), the crying apparently stops: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6-BE5XZIQ] Take to the messageboards, Facebook feeds, and Twitter tweets, you FOB fanatics out there! Wentz has proven to be something of an intelligent individual in music: his lyrics have the … [Read more…]
Finally scanned these babies. Facebook them. Twitter them. Love them.
This is why I cannot respect Andy Greenwald’s opinion on emo: Obviously, taste is taste. Opinion, opinion. But if this man is the guy who’s supposed to be the emo know-it-all (read: self-created title/Spin created title), I’m not buying it. The guy doesn’t seem to understand the impulse that emo acts have towards evolution, probably … [Read more…]
I wrote a little review of the forthcoming album from Brand New for The Boston Phoenix. It can be hard to write reviews in just 250 words or less, and Brand New’s album is no exception to that: I spent a large part of the time merely outlining the band’s history and why I felt … [Read more…]
Brand New placed a song off their upcoming album, Daisy, on Myspace within the last 12 hours. Here’s a YouTube link: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdalwKs7Puo]
A little email post for all y’all (ok, I won’t do that again). Brand New have released a set of tour dates in support of their forthcoming album, Daisy. If the album is anything like what The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me offers, it is sure to end up one of my favorite albums … [Read more…]
Guitar Hero, the popular musical-video game phenomenon is coming out with its fifth volume. And it might as well be called the “Emo Edition.” Or the Indie Edition… One fits with the other. While the new version of Guitar Hero (GH5) if you will, has the regular mainstream-rock fare, it’s jam packed with many an … [Read more…]
Continuum’s 33 1/3 series is by far the best collection of books on rock records… In fact, it’s pretty much the only one that continually publishes works on a strong range of albums. They’ve gotten a strong showing on numerous “best of” listings for 2008 for a number of books on records such as Black … [Read more…]