Originally posted by Relaxer:
I really like the songs on Kanye's 2nd record but for some reason, have only listened to it twice maybe. Same thing happened with the first one. I like it in theory but am never moved to put it on.
Ah a bit like the Snow Patrol record last year for me... Maybe if I'm feeling inspired it will be a pick from yourmusic or get it really cheaped used a couple years down the road.
Personally several young bands especially some of the British ones released full lenghts albums that would have been better trimmed down to EPs. Kaiser Chiefs, Maximo Park, Dead 60s, and Magic Numbers all show real promise but need to more time to develop their sound and songwriting skills. Many young American bands appear to have developed the mall attitude of needing to come off as all the other bands around them.
In the past up and coming bands like the Beatles and Rolling Stones filled out early releases with covers. Nowadays you get instead of covers the cut and paste method of songwriting which results in songs that sort of sound like something from the past. i.e. There is a bassline on the Dead 60s that is directly lifted from "Oh Shit" by the Buzzcocks.
I doubt in the current crop of up and comers you'll see the same kind of intertwined band family trees that was found in the past, when the life span of one of the lucky groups was a single or two not an album. In the 70s a group like the Kaiser Chiefs would have been like Sweet working with specific hitmakers like Chapman and Chin. In this day and age of anything with a pulse being signed, would Led Zeppelin been signed as a band today? Page was already 24 and an established studio musician, by todays standards he might have been considered over the hill already.
Bottom line to much attention these days is focused on the Artists and not it's Repertoire, in part fueled by the constant search for the next big thing or something which can be pro-tooled to sound talented.
