TheMaker

I leaked AGIB to this board on 03-18-2004. It was released at the end of June. We're already overdue! (And no, I won't be leaking SBS when I get hold of it, with respect to VC changes regarding file-sharing that have been made in recent years.)

I see no reason to doubt this guy's claim. He's not a frequent poster, but he's also no Johnny-come-lately. The record's in the can, and I figure it'll leak around the time that Nonesuch or the guys in the band feed us some cover art.

Hey, I liked Prairie Wind. And WWT is my favourite of all Lu's albums. No foolin'. West is just lousy, end of story. It's been suggested that maybe you're being overly defensive. All I'm asking is that you take a step back and ask yourself, honestly, if you'd categorize the following set of lyrics as "homespun" or "fucking stupid": "I shudder to think What it would mean If the president wore pink Or if a prostitute was queen" "If dogs became kings And the pope chewed gum And hobos had wings And God was a bum" I mean, Jesus. To quote Greil Marcus, "What is this shit?"

Wow! That must've been an... odd show. That said, I hope dude stays clothed next time I see him.

Nuts to "No Cars Go," now here's a song we agree on. The rational part of my brain doesn't even want to believe that Lu wrote garbage like this and "Wrap My Head Around That." The most frustrating thing about this disc for me is that, at least superficially, it's great. Nice gauzy production, great band, solid vox, and so on, but the songs just aren't there. I've seldom heard a lazier album by an artist this talented.

A number of their songs have picked up in tempo since they've begun playing them live. That's par for the course with a lot of bands, so I would've been surprised if the newly recorded version hadn't been faster than the old EP one. I'll definitely agree to that. The Haiti performance from that set is also incredible. It's definitely a great song, but it's probably the low point of a very solid album for me, if only because it's a barely modified version of a four-year-old song that's been played to death over a similar number of years. Yeah, it's still great, but nowhere near as fre

I'm not so sure we're allowed to praise the Bennett. All discussions of him are to be relegated to the off-topic boards, where any mention of his name is to be met with guffaws and snide quotations from IATTBYH. If you substitute "Nels Cline" for "Jay Bennett," I think that would be better for all concerned parties, chronology be damned.

Seconded. It's a totally superfluous rendition (a new keyboard part is the only change I can discern), and I'd be a little bummed about its inclusion if it weren't of a piece with the record as a whole. It's a great song in any context, thankfully, which keeps it from being a skip track or a spot of frustration.

I had no idea these guys had developed such an international following 'til just recently. I remember seeing them at a little bar during a street festival maybe three summers ago and really enjoying their set. The singer almost strikes me as a kind of male Chan Marshall.

I wouldn't take that bet. It deserves a 9.8 in lieu of Funeral's 9.7 (and I'm just playing along, mind you, because such exact scores are really quite silly), but they'll be hopping on the backlash bandwagon, mark my words. Pitchfork loves to kick the shit out of any record that follows up a smash critical hit with a good ol' fashioned lukewarm review. You could just about set your watch by that sort of thing. Like AGIB, Neon Bible will score a 6-point-something. Five'll getcha ten.

3.5 is more than fair, sadly. West is the biggest pile of shit Lu's ever tried to pass off as a record. After Car Wheels, Essence and WWT, I honestly can't even begin to figure what she might have been thinking.

Actually, it's all Joss, baby. Whedon's also been writing one of Marvel's X-Men titles for the past two years and change.

Australia has to be the catchiest thing I've heard in forever. It's like The Smiths without any of the mope. I dig it the most.

I often wonder if the naysayers even buy into what they're saying. If I see the word "precious" juxtaposed with Sufjan one more time, I might just lose my shit for good. That one really went viral fast, didn't it? And besides, who cares if he brings a light touch to his stuff? Are you that frustrated with the guy's relative originality that you have to attempt to convince yourself that his entire approach to songwriting is a liability and not an asset? If you're that bothered by it, fine, just accept that his style of pop music isn't for you and get over it, already. Let me guess: you also thi

Jay Leno is a rightist douchebag, and everything about him is grating. And, if it's even possible, his bandleader is even more sycophantic than Dave's. Letterman's show has devolved into pure schtick, that's true, but at least he used to be funny. This SNL sounds like a lot of fun, though. Rainn Wilson and TAF are two of my favourite entities in the world of entertainment. Woo!

Amen. Anal-retentive format-babies are ruining music fandom on the internet. If you can honestly tell the difference between a FLAC audience recording and a lossy MP3 one, you probably need to get fucking laid. Quite badly.

Oh, fuck me. It ends with the two worst songs the band's ever written. That can't be a good sign.

We're voting for it in droves because it plods on and on and on. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk...

Ew. Yeah. No. Or it may not be. At all. Kinda reminds me of the divine "Fruits of My Labor," but with both balls chopped off. And bleeding to death.

Well, I'm probably only extra-bitchy because I have a rotten tooth in my jaw awaiting extraction. (Pain is not too cool for rational thought.) But yeah, I was definitely let down. I thought the stripped-down lyrics worked well on Essence, and the gauzy instrumentation on WWT made it possibly my favourite of LU's records, but West feels like a marriage of the least attractive qualities of those two records. Some of the songs seem really wishy washy ("What If"), and others just seem really petulant and not all that wise ("Come On"). And don't even get me started on the weirdly awkward poetry o

My biggest disappointment of the year so far, by far. Some of the songs border on drivel, and there are only three tunes out of ten that really feel worthy of Lu's brilliant talent. I felt like Greil Marcus the first time I finished listening to it: "What is this shit?"

Probably Blood on the Tracks.

Yes. Beautiful. But seriously, don't let anyone change your bag.

I'll second that. Hissing Fauna is all I've been listening to this year aside from the new Arcade Fire. It's taken them ten years to really hit their stride, but I'll be damned if they aren't one of the best bands making music today. (And I use the word "they" loosely, as I'm pretty sure Kevin Barnes is pretty well a one-man show.) Bonus points if you like '60s psych-rock.

I get an "old Phish" vibe over here.