TheMaker

False alarm! Just lengthy clips. Still, it's sounding pretty good.

This still hasn't leaked to my knowledge, but the band has apparently started streaming the record in full on their site without much fanfare. I just discovered it accidentally when I hit it up to check on the official release date. PUMPED to hear this!

I hate to get even more nitpicky about my tastes, but I think it comes down to the kind of self-awareness that each director's films tend to embody to me. Anderson's movies almost seem polemical, his characters often archetypes to be made an example of, which results in a somewhat cynical viewing experience. The Coens, on the other hand, simply seem driven, and thoroughly delighted, by whatever story they've decided to put to film, and their tics are most apparent in a given script's wonderful vernacular ("He's givin' me the high hat!", "I'll tell you what I am - I'm the damned pater familia

Because you're a self-important sightseer! Or maybe - gasp! - you just want real Japanese food.

This is a fantastic description, Beltmann! It's almost as if there's a nobility to Plainview's madness, when in reality, well, not so much.

Well, yeah, that stuff is true...

To each his own. I really like P.T. Anderson, honestly, but he's just so... pleased with himself, y'know? There's a very arch self-awareness to his films that prevents me from loving them without reservation. Maybe it's just me. With the Coens, I get the feeling that they really don't understand just how brilliant their talent is, which is probably what keeps them grounded enough to continue making films like Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There, et al. after more than 20 years in the industry. For the record, I think Juno is going to win. That'll be a real travesty, if i

The thing that irks me about both of these sites - and no, I'm not the kind of liberal who can't take a joke - is that they're perpetuating racial stereotypes that are inextricably linked to class. I often wonder if Americans realize that the country's race issues are really more about class than skin colour. Ehn, maybe I'd have a different slant on things if I lived there myself. Or if I could make rent without help most months. Etc. But I doubt it.

I'm not remotely offended by it, which is odd only because I sympathize entirely with whoever has written it. The site may think it's lampooning white people, but what it's actually lampooning is the upper middle-class. It's cool that I can actually mock and chuckle at the targets of the blog's ire.

I'm with Roger Ebert on There Will be Blood - I think it's a good movie, but I'm unconvinced that it deserves classic status. Its ambition is impressive, and so are the performances, but it didn't ever wallop me like the transcendent NCFOM did. I think Joel (and Ethan) Coen is America's greatest living director and screenwriter, a maelstrom of technical profiency and boundless creativity, and I think this is the year the Academy will be forced to stop overlooking those talents. (I'm still amazed that that piece of shit The English Patient trounced Fargo a decade ago. An epic farce!) It's b

Oh, shit, the Band is #1. In every sense, for me. No idea how I managed to overlook 'em...

1. Neil Young 2. Constantines 3. Broken Social Scene 4. Hayden 5. Gordon Lightfoot

Thanks! And thanks doubly for using a service other than Sendspace, which I've been attempting to ban by petition for over a year now. (Apparently some people enjoy waiting an hour for something when they could just as easily be getting it in two minutes or less.)

Apparently. I hate rich people more than anything, generally speaking, but I won't begrudge anybody with REAL talent - which these kids have in spades - their unfortunate upbringing. One of my top three '08 discs to date. Fun, innately listenable stuff. And I doubt I'd have even noticed the so-called "Africanness" of the music if it hadn't been pointed out to me in every single review of the band's music that I've ever laid eyes on. It's just airtight pop to my ears, with a not unremarkable "world music" edge. Big fuckin' deal!

Yeah, I'm lukewarm on most of those bands, and I actively hate a few of them (The Cure, The Fall, etc.) but I love Television, The Modern Lovers, and a bunch more. They're just as often labeled "punk" as not, though.

Dag! I missed last night's due to my horrible memory, but I'm for tonight. 7 p.m. EST, no?

I'm of two minds when it comes to Nels. Sometimes I think he turns every Wilco song into the same song, courtesy of the noodly outro, but then he plays something like Why Would You Wanna Live and makes me gape in awe. The guys just need to figure out that a skilled soloist doesn't need to overdo it all the time just because he can. I liked SBS, on which Nels was actually pretty reigned-in, and I think the next record will be even better.

Tell me about it! There is NO discernable (read: audible) difference between an MP3 and a WAV version of the same audience recording. I've gone over it and over it, and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding him/herself. Either that, or their stereo is fucking HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and they are Superman/boy/girl. With due respect to tapers, many of whom do amazing work, these aren't fucking mastered CDs suitable for public consumption. Not even fucking close. There's hiss, there's pop, there's fuzz, there's all kinds of shit in the mix that goes hand in hand with lo-fi recording. If

Raul has been promising a lot of changes, but apparently it's been business as usual for the last year and a half. It is the end of an era, though. My buddy's folks have been vacationing in Cuba for years, I'll tell 'em to give my love to Fidel if they see him hanging out in a resort town sometime.

Thanks a ton! My Dime account lapsed due to inactivity, but I've been eager to hear these. I'll grab the MP3s now, before the Lossy Police show up.

She and Him has been my soundtrack all day today, too. Absolutely the best '08 record I've heard yet. Some of the songs on here are just goddamned perfect.

Me too, me too! I'm FLABBERGASTED by how fun and happy this disc is. Spectoresque and jangly and just really beautiful. God knows I needed it tonight. And really, the songwriting is stunning. A lot of it sounds like Jeff 'n' Jay c. 1999 to me, quite honestly.

Absolutely. I love Shonna because she's the kinda gal I can talk to without turning completely red. Just a little red. Because, yeah. Never outgrew that shit. Alas. Stammer, stammer, etc.

I actually don't like this record at all. Ordinarily I'm on the same page as the critical community when it comes to indie-folk stuff, but I just don't see anything here that's even remotely remarkable, try as I might. Mangum's performances on the disc are unexceptional - there are lots of shrieky off-key vocals and there's nothing remarkable or terribly emotive in terms of the music, at least not to my ear. The songwriting has always seemed scattershot and maybe even adolescent to me; it seems to suggest depth where I can't see that any exists. I find it frustrating that so many artists and l

Shit, that was unexpected. RIP.