{"id":5850,"date":"2017-08-01T20:44:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T00:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=5850"},"modified":"2017-08-01T20:46:26","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T00:46:26","slug":"music-update-july-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/01\/music-update-july-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Music update, July 2017."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going dark for a week, but I&#8217;ll tide you over with a new playlist, which you can <a href=\"spotify:user:keithlaw1:playlist:5QNRCI4en8MenQisUMLvcS\" target=\"_blank\">access directly in Spotify<\/a> or via the widget below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/user\/keithlaw1\/playlist\/5QNRCI4en8MenQisUMLvcS\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arcade Fire \u2013 Signs of Life<\/strong>. I&#8217;ve listened to their new album, <em>Everything Now<\/em>, and I can certainly understand why some people hate it. The lyrics are beyond pretentious; the too-clever-by-half songwriting we saw on <em>Reflektor<\/em> appears to be a feature rather than a bug. Social commentary and criticism by anecdote worked beautifully on <em>The Suburbs<\/em>, one of the best albums of the century so far, but their frontal attempt to ridicule their targets only leaves them looking ridiculous (&#8220;Infinite Content&#8221; comes to mind). But this song is good, &#8220;Creature Comforts&#8221; is solid, and the album&#8217;s title track is definitely the best thing ABBA has done in forty years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sl\u00f8tface \u2013 Pitted<\/strong>. This Norwegian punk-pop act, definitely among my favorite finds of the last year or so, does what Arcade Fire used to do &#8211; they tell fun stories that seem frivolous but abound with meaningful details, and every song they&#8217;ve released has had a catchy hook.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Atomic Tom \u2013 Burn the Witch<\/strong>. Atomic Tom covered my #1 song of 2016, and managed to make it newly sinister via a different arrangement and the introduction of a heavy guitar line in the second chorus. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Allie X \u2013 Vintage<\/strong>. Almost too poppy for my tastes, but the chorus and the keyboard riff both stuck in my head after one listen. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Hundred Waters \u2013 Blanket Me<\/strong>. Hundred Waters had my top album of 2015, and this single is very much in the same vein of experimental, airy, voice-as-instrument music. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Foster The People \u2013 Lotus Eater<\/strong>. Didn&#8217;t love their new album, which dispenses with the stuff that worked (for me) on <em>Supermodel<\/em>, but this track does recall that album&#8217;s more rock-oriented moments. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark \u2013 The Punishment of Luxury<\/strong>. I can&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s 2017 and I put an OMD track on a best new music playlist. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Dan Croll \u2013 Bad Boy<\/strong>. I wasn&#8217;t familiar with this English singer-songwriter, who just released his second album, <em>Emerging Adulthood<\/em>. This seems like it has a good chance to be a big crossover pop hit if US radio gives it a chance. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The War On Drugs \u2013 Strangest Thing<\/strong>. I wish their songs were shorter, and maybe that the singer would stop wth the Dylan impersonations, but they&#8217;ve reeled off a bunch of compelling songs in a row now. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Wolf Parade \u2013 Valley Boy<\/strong>. I didn&#8217;t think these guys were ever getting back together. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Little Cub \u2013 Too Much Love<\/strong>. I felt like some of the vocals on this London trio&#8217;s debut album, <em>Still Life<\/em>, are just too precious, but the soulful electronica behind the words is simultaneously sophisticated and rapturous. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Nine Inch Nails \u2013 Not Anymore<\/strong>. I didn&#8217;t think much of NIN&#8217;s new EP; this was the best track of the five. <\/p>\n<p><strong>YONAKA \u2013 Wouldn&#8217;t Wanna Be Ya<\/strong>. Strong riot grrrl vibe here with a perfect putdown in the hooky chorus. This is the kind of track Mister Wives keeps trying to make. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The Night Caf\u00e9 \u2013 Felicity<\/strong>. This Liverpudlian quartet is touring with Sundara Karma and sounds a lot like Sundara Karma. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Prong \u2013 Divide And Conquer<\/strong>. I&#8217;ve mentioned before how Prong&#8217;s <em>Beg to Differ<\/em> is both one of my favorite metal albums ever and a seminal record in defining my taste in music. New Prong kind of makes me sad, since they&#8217;ve long since morphed into  any-metal act with only occasional hints of their former glory, like on this track, still angry if overproduced. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Arch Enemy \u2013 The World Is Yours<\/strong>. I thought Arch Enemy&#8217;s last album, its first with the band&#8217;s new lead singer, was formulaic and cliched, a far cry from the band&#8217;s heights as one of the most important bands in the Gothenburg school of death metal. This song, from their upcoming album <em>Will to Power<\/em>, is easily better than anything from that last record. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going dark for a week, but I&#8217;ll tide you over with a new playlist, which you can access directly in Spotify or via the widget below. Arcade Fire \u2013 Signs of Life. I&#8217;ve listened to their new album, Everything Now, and I can certainly understand why some people hate it. The lyrics are beyond [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[913,359,757,852],"class_list":["post-5850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2017-in-music","tag-alternative","tag-metal","tag-music","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5850"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5856,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850\/revisions\/5856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}