The Song I Can't Get Out of My Head

Sohodolls - "I'm Not Cool"

Sohodolls are an indie-electro group from London and have had tour dates with groups like Ladytron and She Wants Revenge. Hugh Hefner even had the group play a set at a Playboy party Moscow, proving that Hef does indeed have good taste in many many many things.

The group's sound crosses the darker electro beats of groups like She Wants Revenge and The Faint with Gary Numan styled synth riffs and the sexiest female vocals ever heard. Lead singer Maya von Doll coos her ways over the lyrics like a dirty Debbie Harry. It's beautiful.

"I'm Not Cool" takes the sound of ragtime mixed brilliantly with girl pop ethos and the lyrics hot enough to melt lead. The thumping bass burrows into your skull and stays there for a long long time. The song comes off the group's debut full-length Ribbed Music for the Numb Generation which is chock-full of sexy electro-rock goodness.

Here's another bonus track:

Sohodolls - "Trash the Rental (Crystal Castles remix)"

Enjoy.

- Garrett Lyons

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Yes, we here at The Modern Age are well aware that technically St. Patrick's Day was moved to be outside of the last week of Lent. But any way, here's a nice little track for the Irish amongst us.

The group is called Eire Og and they are quite possibly the most radical Irish Republican group still making music today. They fall into the same genre of music as groups like Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys, but they do far far more than the usual drinking songs, covers and fist-pumping that sometimes mar the beauty of Celt-punk.

"Amhran na bhFiann" is a live acoustic performance of the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland. The lyrics are in Irish but a reasonable translation can be found on Wikipedia.

Eire Og - Amhran na bhFiann

Enjoy.

- Garrett Lyons

Mike Ersing's Music You Should Listen To: Pyotr Tchaikovsky

1840 - 1893

Violin Concerto

Tchaikovsky composed only one violin concerto. It is considered the most difficult violin concerto to have been written in the Romantic period. Leopold Auer "The God of Russian Violin" of the time refused to perform it. Leopold, in a letter to Tchaikovsky, wrote: "No, my dear man. Please bring the piece to me again when you have recomposed it for the violin. As it stands, it cannot be played." It premiered in Vienna, as written, on December 4th 1881. Dr. Eduard Hanslick, a respected and feared critic of the time called it "barbarically dreadful". He also misnamed the middle movement, as well as the principle violinist. The principle violinist's name was Adolphe Brodsky. He was considered the greatest virtuoso violinist of his time. He was young. Adolphe Brodsky toured throughout the known world performing the piece. It has been speculated he did this because he felt indebted to Tchaikovsky.

Dr. Eduard Hanslick, I would like to sink my teeth into your flesh tear off your face and smash through your skull with my fist, shove my hand through your brain and tear out your soul, like an animal. Just like an animal. I would show you what it means to be destructive.

Too bad you’re dead.

And nobody ever liked you.

If anybody says anything bad about this piece it is because they are too stupid to understand the intense emotional/virtuosic beauty permeating every microscopic dot of ‘Light infinance’ permeating its vast, thick vacuum waving, indefinitely splattering shells of grown over infant part of the White Brain. You know, reminder? Big Awake! Spontaneity! Lick! ‘Pure White Infinite Brains', Thick waving dimension. Opening and unfolding expanses of purple and red and orange and yellow subjective dimensions! Pierced. As if it were laser beam tractor beams from the USS Enterprise, spotting and illuminating the innards of my third eye. Pulling and sucking it. The innocence. Pure tear-wrenching wonder and other beautiful notions lost to any but God and me, in my brains. His feelings are our own, Once again. Reason to exist shows itself to the searching mind. Please, listen to this piece if you have any idea what I’m talking about.

See ya.

-- Mike Ersing

Jack Johnson- Sleep Through The Static

Brushfire Records 2008

9/10

Best Tracks:
Sleep Through The Static, Angel

Eighteen years ago a chill kid named Jack Johnson from the North Shore picked up a guitar and started playing. He proceeded to form a punk band with some of his friends. They called themselves The Limber Chickens. Music was always a love of his, but his first love was the ocean. Surfing continued to be the most important part of his young life and became a professional surfer at age 17. Just weeks after making a name for himself in the Pipeline Trials, he suffered a severe surfing accident and received 150 stitches.

This unfortunate accident had little effect on his love for surfing, but perhaps it would ultimately change the course of his life. During his recovery period, he became more in touch with his artistic nature. Music became an increasingly important component of the young man’s life.

Filmmaking aspirations ultimately lead him to leave the North Shore and head for California. Santa Barbara became a place where dreams came true for this Hawaiian native and he earned a film degree and UC-Santa Barbara. His newly acquired skills, plus his past life as a professional surfer landed him cult status among surf-documentary junkies worldwide. A chance meeting with Ben Harper in 1999 was the catalyst that would eventually launch the young man into iconical music stardom.

Now, lets fast forward 9 years, 2 major surfing documentary films, his own record label and 5 full-length albums later, Jack Johnson has became a testament to what someone can do when they follow their dreams.

Johnson’s highly anticipated 5^th album, Sleep Through The Static was recorded entirely by solar power in Jack’s house/studio in California. Many long-time fans of Johnson’s tunes can expect a similar style of chill surf-rock that has been displayed on Johnson’s previous albums. Static displays a gentle, spaced-out ambience that Johnson fans have come to expect. Jack has become a master of the use of instrumentation and production. This has slowly led to an evolution in craftsmanship with each progressive album Jack has released.

Jack has continued to add more and more instruments as each new progressive album has arrived. The influence of piano is heavy on the new album. Jack even plugs in for a few tracks, rocking out on his electric axe. Well, that is as much as he can rock out.

Lyrically speaking, Jack has lost none of his prowess on the new disc. Tracks are seeped with vivid imagery and dreamy-thought provoking lyrics. Some minor differences in song writing style that can be seen in Jack’s quasi-protest songs like “Sleep Through The Static”, “All At Once” and “They Do, They Don’t.” These songs show a songwriter expanding his universe beyond the sun and surf of the North Shore. If you’re a diehard Johnson fan don’t worry. He hasn’t sold out and gone political. You can still find plenty of songs about the sun, the surf and new questions that give us provocations to think about our lives and the world we live in.

Over the years Jack Johnson has held many titles: professional surfer, filmmaker, environmentalist and musician. So I guess the obvious question here is, what can’t Jack Johnson do?

Jack Johnson - Sleep Through the Static

-- Matt Brooks

Goldfrapp – Seventh Tree

8 out of 10

Best Track – “Caravan Girl”

Worst Track – “Eat Yourself”

British electro-pop duo Goldfrapp have cut out all the glitz and glam that marked their previous release Supernature and gave us a stripped-down album in Seventh Tree. Instead of focusing on thumping beats and downright dirty lyrics, Goldfrapp puts on an air of sensuality and ambient techno with a warm loving feel.

Any person used to listening to Goldfrapp would be forgiven for thinking they were listening to the wrong band. Seventh Tree opens with the ambient acoustic “Clowns.” Singer Allison Goldfrapp channels her voice into a warm love song reminiscent of Janis Ian or even Joni Mitchell.

Despite the astounding the beauty of the vocals, the album lists and drones its way through a snooze-inducing trail of orchestral ambience. Every track has the same slow groove and the same listing string arrangements. It’s beautiful in an austere sense, but it gets redundant with “Eat Yourself” being the main culprit.

The songs pick up in tempo by the end of the album with lead single “A&E” giving a spectacular respite from the overbearing drone of the album. The true gem on the back part of the album is “Caravan Girl,” which blends the best parts of Fleetwood Mac with the dream pop of Annie Lennox.

That said there are no truly bad songs on the album. Seventh Tree drags at points, but most of the time it’s forgivable. Instead of being party time music, Goldfrapp switched gears and gave you the perfect comedown to the party rush in Seventh Tree.

--Garrett Lyons

The Raveonettes- Lust, Lust, Lust

7/10

Best: Lust

Worst: Aly, Walk With Me

Have you even wanted to feel what it’s like to lose your sense of hearing and get a searing migraine? Then step on up and blast the first track “Aly, Walk With Me” off of Denmark’s own Raveonettes’ latest album, Lust, Lust, Lust. For about two agonizing minutes, the stinging reverb would seem to make nails on a chalk board seem like a more desirable experience.

If you can get over the hump of the first track of Lust, you’re on your way to an enjoyable listening experience from the Danish duo’s fourth album. The album as a whole is deep and encompassing with a very involved sound that is surprising to hear coming from just two members. The band claims their greatest influences come from the Velvet Underground and 60s girl group The Ronettes (who partly inspired The Raveonette’s name), and both influences are apparent throughout the band’s past and present albums.

Lust is filled with noise, noise of all sorts that form visuals in your imagination that allows you to float through the entire album, “Aly, Walk With Me” notwithstanding. “Lust” is a sexy/sleepy slow moving track that slinks along and provides the highlight of the album.

Many of the songs vary pace-wise within each track, with portions of the song sounding dopey and then in a snap chugs along with guitar work that isn’t stunning and is sometimes monotonous but is worth a listen nonetheless.

If you still have your hearing after two minutes in hell to start off the album, you’re ears will be healed with a deep ambient album that brings you back to memories of the best of 60s surf rock and The Velvet Underground.

-- Joe Kepler

Ray Davies – Working Man’s Café

9/10

Best Track – “No One Listen”

Worst Track – “Peace in Our Time”

Talk about a paradigm shift. The most English of all the British Invasion-era songwriters is singing about the plight of the American working class. Best part is Ray Davies is singing it better than any American has since Reagan was in office.

Ray Davies is the mastermind who led the pioneering British Invasion band The Kinks, which is technically still around since the band never officially broke up. Their song “Well-Respected Man” appeared on the Juno soundtrack. Now, The Kinks frontman has put out his second solo album Working Man’s Café.

Working Man’s Café follows the theme the album title lets on to with precision. The opening track “Vietnam Cowboys” puts together the best anti-globalization lyrics ever heard. The following track “You’re Asking Me” distances the role of a singer-songwriter from that of demigod with all the answers to that of a simple observer of world affairs. In these two tracks Davies cranks out more meaningful lyrics than most bands put into a whole album.

Davies’ wit and wisdom play a heavy role in the music and lyrics in Working Man’s Café. Sure some tracks like “Peace in Our Time” get a bit too preachy, but they’re well intended. Davies’ classic wit and penchant for imagery come to fruition in “The Morphine Song,” which is the happiest song about drug addiction since The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown.”

What makes the lyrics in Working Man’s Café truly stand out is the blues-influenced guitar artfully combined with The Kinks’ core sound and British sensibilities. The music glides out of the speakers with the true highlight of the album being “No One Listen.” “No One Listen” channels the sound and anger of late-era Kinks in a fantastic way to give the album a shot of adrenaline needed to carry it through.

Working Man’s Café is simply what an album by a classic singer-songwriter should sound like. Perfect lyricism combines with artful song construction in a way that the younger generation should pay attention to. This is how music should be done.

-- Garrett Lyons

Adele - 19

19

Rating: 8/10
Best Track: “Right As Rain”
Worst Track: “Tired”

Last year, a British crooner named Amy Winehouse crossed the Atlantic, and the United States’ collective jaw dropped. Unfortunately, despite the commercial and critical success of her album, Winehouse spent the majority of 2007 competing with Britney Spears for the title of Most Overexposed Train Wreck and is currently tucked away in some rehab facility.

Since then, it seems like at least two or three songbirds from the United Kingdom break through to the United States every month. Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Duffy – there’s apparently no end in sight to the queue of sassy-tongued, soulful she-crooners struggling to succeed. (My apologies for the tacky alliteration.)

Fortunately for Adele Adkins, she’s already managed to garner as much acclaim as her predecessors with her debut album, 19. Kanye West posted the 19-year-old’s music video for Adele’s lead single “Chasing Pavements” on his blog and followed it with the comment, “This s--- is dope!” Now that’s a solid endorsement. “Chasing Pavements” is easily the most powerful and heartfelt track on 19, with soaring strings and a deep vocal that drips with emotion. It also showcases Adele’s ability to write relatable lyrics that are not too simplified.

Most of the other songs on 19 are understated, yet beautiful. Adele tends to forgo the bombastic instrumentations of her British counterparts and focus on just one sound. “Melt My Heart To Stone” and “Daydreamer” are poignant acoustic guitar tracks, while “Right As Rain” features jazzy keyboards.

The biggest misstep on 19 is “Tired,” a track that would have experienced the same reception as the others. However, the sheer multitude of tempo, rhythm and instrumental changes would frustrate the listener. It feels out of place with the other, less complex songs. However, most of the tracks on this heartbreak-laden album are remarkable and easily accessible to all kinds of audiences.

With 19, Adele ensures that she stands out among thousands of other imported witty female singers. This hybrid of light and sincere lyrics and soulful vocals will leave you amazed at the talent level of someone who’s probably younger than you.

--Amanda Renko