A Slow, Dumb Show

fresh pots, imo This week's an interesting album to me, because I probably haven't listened to it in full since it came out almost 11 years ago. Even though I'm a fan of the Foo Fighters, I've always more or less skipped this album and most of the songs on it when I've wanted to listen to them. Obviously some of the singles still get airplay on rock radio, but I wasn't a huge fan of the album when it came out, and I've never had the desire to revisit it. This week gave me an opportunity to finally give the album another shake and compare it to the rest of the Foo Fighters' discography. I was very curious to see if I just never gave it a fair shot, and if time would be kinder to the album. Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (RCA Records, 2007) Genres: Hard rock, alternative rock, post-grunge Producer(s): Gil Norton Metacritic Rating: 71/100 RYM Rating: 3.10/5 (3,190 ratings, ranked 5/9 in band's catalog) Spu...

Via Brian Blauser/Mountain Stage Okay, nobody's paid attention to the fact that I haven't updated this blog in three weeks, right? Right. Good. Let's ignore that. (I'm gonna try to get the next post in by Friday but I have an admittedly hectic schedule coming up so I will not lie to you and say I will definitely have two posts up this week). We're getting back into the adult alternative singer-songwriter this week with KT Tunstall's sophomore effort. I'm not gonna do an overlong intro this time. Time to dive in. KT Tunstall - Drastic Fantastic (Relentless Records, 2007) Genres: pop rock, folk pop, singer-songwriter Producer(s):  Steve Osbourne Metacritic Rating: 68/100 RYM Rating: 3.24/5 (ranked 4/5 in artist's catalog) Sputnik Rating: 3.4/5 (ranked 4/4 in artist's catalog; Sputnik missing 2016's KIN ) Weeks at #1: One (week of October 6, 2007) Other Accomplishments: Certified Gold in the UK, decent chart success for sin...

Sorry for the delay in my writing this, I've been keeping myself busy with some other stuff (like this brief history of trap music  that went up on XXL last week!) and I haven't been able to devote too much time to this blog. That kinda sucks, because I don't have a ton to say about this particular release. But let's press on anyway! A few weeks ago, I wrote about Atreyu and the more-metalcore side of the "scene." Today's band is more along the lines of the punk/post-hardcore side of said scene. Let's dive into some Chiodos. Chiodos - Bone Palace Ballet  (Equal Vision Records, 2007) Genres:  post-hardcore, emo, progressive rock Producer(s) : Casey Bates RYM Rating: 2.77/5 (ranked 3/4 in band's catalog) Sputnik Rating: 3.1/5 (ranked 3/4 in band's catalog) Weeks at #1: One (week of September 22, 2007) I never really "got" Chiodos. I had plenty of friends who dug them. I went to high school in Saginaw, Michigan...

if anything Dan Jacobs has a cool lookin' guitar (via  Alterna2 on flickr ) Sorry for yet another delay in this series. Between the holiday and helping cover Michigan's Final Four run at GBM Wolverine I've been a little busy. I'm excited to get back into this, though this week's probably gonna be a bit shorter. Next week should be a pretty big week for content, though. I've got some stuff I want to get started on Monday. This week begins a two-week journey into the scene. In case you're not familiar with it, "scene" is essentially the subculture associated with Hot Topic, so a lot of more popular post-hardcore, pop punk, emo and metalcore bands tend to be lumped in with that subculture. Scene kids have gotten a lot of crap over the years because they dress differently and a significant amount of them are teenage girls (people HATE things that teenage girls enjoy). I used to make fun of the Damn Weird Emo Kids, but then I became friends wit...

Via Youtube user Euphemism for Magic Programming Note: Because my time and internet access was relatively scarce last week, I decided to skip last week's album, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynold's Live at Radio City. I didn't have a ton to say about it anyway. I was going to do some bonus content that week by reviewing some Top Alternative Songs along with the Dave Matthews album, but it just didn't work out. So I've decided to skip ahead a week in the charts to a topic with plenty of material. In only a handful of columns, I've already reviewed some absolutely rough albums. I've covered perhaps the lowest points of Sum 41, The Smashing Pumpkins and KoRn's careers. But none of those artists are as universally hated as the monster of a band that is being reviewed this week. This band is such a punching bag that it's almost hard to remember just how popular they were in the early-mid 2000's. So let's just do it. Let's talk about Nickelbac...

Thanks for clearing that up, Barry (via RollingStone.com) Programming Note: I already wasn't sure what to do with next week's album, a live album by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. I didn't know if I should count it as part of the Dave Matthews Band discography since they do both DMB and solo Dave material. I also don't really know how to approach reviewing a live album, and since I'll be in Florida for a week I don't have much time to do a deep dive into Matthews' catalog. So next week I will briefly touch on Live at Radio City , but the meat of the article will likely be something completely different that doesn't take as much depth. I haven't fully decided on what that might be, but we'll all find out in a few days! Also, apologies for the slight delay in releasing this, for anybody who might have been looking out for me to drop the article on Wednesday. This week's topic might be interesting because I think we're on the verge ...

Via Sum 41's "Fat Lip" video, Island Records Before we get into this week's topic, I'd like to note that I've launched a music podcast called Aux Words. You can find it here. This week we're tackling a genre that was a major part of the 2000s alternative scene. It might be the biggest rock subgenre of the decade, honestly (nu metal might be its closest competition but the genre mostly died down by the second half of the 00s). 2007 was an huge time for pop punk music. Emo's third wave was in full effect. Fall Out Boy's huge Infinity on High dominated the charts in the first half of the year. My Chemical Romance's epic The Black Parade  blew up just before that. Panic! at the Disco broke out a few years earlier. Meanwhile, one of the genre's more established acts were trying to figure out how to stand out as the new guard dominated the airwaves.... Sum 41 - Underclass Hero (Island Records, 2007) Genres: pop punk, alternative ro...